Nintendo pwns notion Wii was only for casual gaming The Nintendo Wii is often associated with family entertainment and the softcore games market, but the firm's boss insists it wasn't the company's intentions to focus on casual gaming. In a Q&A with investors, Satoru Iwata insisted Nintendo would "keep pursuing 'gaming population expansion' as our fundamental goal for the …
"Apparently, casual gamers were never the company's focus when it launched the Wii console."
I can believe that. A lot of Nintendo's efforts are misses or half-attempts (I mean, why no "DVD Channel" - purchasable or not - for the Wii? Homebrewers did it) so I can quite believe that they stumbled into the casual market completely by accident.
Question-mark-Paris icon because they should have asked her, she might have had more of a clue.
How many "hardcore" games has Nintendo actually released for the Wii?
In the West at least, from the minute it left the gate it has been predominantly casual titles and Nintendo led that charge. Wii Fitness, Wii Sports, Mario etc. There are a few hardcore titles on the Wii but not enough.
Various 3rd parties have also commented on how badly the hardcore stuff sold suggesting the people who bought a Wii weren't interested in it and Nintendo isn't doing enough to attract those sorts of gamers. I doubt the endemic piracy helped either. An undiscerning audience and piracy explain why the platform is mostly casual titles with many of them being shovelware.
so you put mario in the same bag as wii sports? you might be confusing "hardcore" with "make me feel manly" games. the Super Mario Galaxy are not casual. they're colorful, feature characters that appeal to children, but are hardcore platforming games. seriously, this "hardcore games = shooters" mentality annoys the hell out of me.
Stupid name, worse graphics than competitor from previous generation (e.g. the original XBox.) Bought in mass because was cheap and had entertaining gimmick.
Imprecise motion control and piss-poor game interfaces dulled the shine.
Wii Fit put some sparkle back but games remained sub-par and irritating.
Now adorns lofts and cupboards across the world.
... Nintendo dominated the console sales market, outselling all the others added together and then some, for several years. Made a profit from day 1 on the hardware. And to top it off they did it by accident?
I'm more inclined to read the article almost as a "Look what we can do when we don't try" brag.
"Look what we can occasionally do by accident when we're actually trying to do something else." For the Wii, that accident happened to be in their favour, but a look at their current financials and things like the mess of the 3DS it's pretty clear that's not always the case.
I have a Wii and an XBox 360, and the Wii still gets alot of use. I would not be classed as a casual gamer. The games on the Wii I have played and enjoyed the most are Metroid, Zelda, Mario (New SMB, Mario All Stars and Mario Kart Wii), Golden Eye, No More Heroes 2, Sonic Colours, Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, Donkey Kong country Returns, and others that I can't think of off the top of my head.
It does have a lot of shovelware (consoles with large install bases do), and it does also have a lot of games for casual gamers, which is great. Like all consoles, it has it's advantages and disadvantages, good games and not so good games.
I find it complements the XBox nicely to give me a really good choice of games, and I believe that those who dismiss it because they think the Wii remote is a gimick, or because they think the console is not aimed at hardcore gamers are missing out.
They marketted the thing from the get go as a casual platform, they licensed mostly casual titles (with the notable exceptions of their own lines like Zelda and Metroid), they specced far below what most non-Nintendo hardcore games require... and now they say they weren't targetting casual gamers? Who do they think they're fooling?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
