Peoww News

Satoru Iwata has openly admitted that Wii didn’t reach the hardcore gamers that previously made up the core of Nintendo’s audience.

I quote Nintendo’s Iwata Asks news trumpet:

“…shortly after the Wii console was released, people in the gaming media and game enthusiasts started recognising the Wii console as a casual machine aimed toward families, and placed game consoles by Microsoft and Sony in a very similar light with each other, saying these are machines aimed towards those who passionately play games.

It was a categorisation between games that were aimed towards core, and casual. I’ve been having a sense of disagreement as I personally think the definition of a core gamer is much wider, namely, someone who has a much wider range of interests, someone who enthusiastically plays many types of games that challenge different creative directions.

On the other hand, I certainly do not think that Wii was able to cater to every gamer’s needs, so that’s also something I wanted to resolve.“

Speaking as a lapsed Nintendo enthusiast (NES, Gameboy, SNES, GB Pocket, N64, GB Color, GBA, Gamecube, DS, DS lite, Wii, DSi [gotta catch ’em all!]), I can certainly attest to Wii not really doing it for me. 

Flawed launch title Zelda: Twilight Princess didn’t help matters. The non-HD output and (officially at least) inability to connect to a VGA monitor didn’t either.  Maybe it was the lack of achievements. The Wii-mote and proliferation of controllers (balance board, classic controller, motionplus etc.) were contributory factors. It certainly wasn’t later games as I was back on Mario Galaxy at the weekend.  

Either way, if Wii-U can capture some of the delights that the Gamecube gave us, wanky controller or not, it’s to be applauded. Ian