So the hardcore games debate on Wii has gone on since the system was released, but now with all these game announcements coming out for Wii and a lot of hardcore titles I can't see how people can feel justified saying the games aren't there or aren't coming? Just recently the amount of games being disclosed should make hardcore players happy but all I hear is many people complain

We have Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Madworld, The Conduit, Castlevania Judgement, Sonic and the Black Knight, FFCC: Echoes Of Time, No More Heroes, Desperate Struggle, Disaster: Day Of Crisis, Punch-Out!, Sin & Punishment 2, Monster Hunter 3, Fatal Frame 4, Pikmin 3, Red Steel 2 and those are just some of the exclusives, then we have updated and upgraded ports like Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, and Rygar, and now they are even re-releasing GameCube games like Resident Evil 0&1, Pikmin 1&2, etc.

I can't see how these so-called Hardcore players feel ignored, all I can say is if these people stopped complaining for 5 minutes and did a little research they would see these games coming and if they went out and bought them these companies would keep making more. So I ask is it me, or are a lot of peoples minds clouded by poor judgment.

- Anthony

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Personally, I think we've gone from famine to feast with the recent glut of great news out of Nintendo. The weeks before and after E3 and leading up to the summit were probably some of the most boring there could be for Nintendo fans out there. Things were so dull, even we couldn't find much to do or report on. Even though we've got all of this good stuff, there are still people complaining. I think Reggie was partly right when he said the hardcore types are insatiable. I truly feel that unless Nintendo announces a new Zelda game, and it's exactly the type of game we want to see, we won't be happy. Yes, we got one two years ago, but we want another one. Now.

I am very happy with Nintendo's upcoming lineup, and now that WiiWare is starting to pick up steam, I think the Wii is looking good. I finally blew the dust off of my Wii to have Mega Man 9 kick my ass, and then some great VC games like Super Mario RPG really helped me appreciate owning a Wii again. I just wish Nintendo gave us some of that stuff during the dead period so we'd have more time to play everything that's going to hit all at once.

A great game lineup was show at the Nintendo Japanese press conference. Why didn't Nintendo show any of these "core" titles a few months ago at E3? They had to realize that it would hurt their PR, which it did.

- ShyGuy

E3 is the time of the year when everyone in the mainstream media focuses their attention on the video game industry. The products Nintendo showed at E3 were targeted at the largest audience possible. If you think of it that way, what Nintendo did show didn't hurt for public relations matters at all. We all know what the new Nintendo message is, and it's doing great for business no matter what we think of it.

However, I did find it insulting that Nintendo didn't throw us anything at E3. They should know that we all see E3 as our show, where we expect big news to happen. Everything Nintendo did and said during the event made it feel like we weren't important to them. Even if they said that games for us were coming in a few months, we would have been okay with it and let the blue ocean crowd have their day. But we got nothing. The one game Nintendo insisted was for us was Wario Land: Shake It!, but we weren't buying it. We decide what games are for us, not Nintendo.

Thankfully, games we've been demanding for the longest time, specifically Punch-Out! and Sin & Punishment 2, are coming to Wii. I'm pretty sure we can agree that those kinds of games are for us.

What is Nintendo's actual target market? And how does Nintendo feature the marketing mix (price, product, place and promotion) in their marketing strategy?

- abby

Australia

Nintendo's target market is everyone. Literally. It's targeting everyone, from young to old, male and female, and gaming newbie to gaming veteran. Seems a broad-reaching statement, especially in marketing terms, but with the Wii and Nintendo DS, Nintendo is actually following through on that. Nintendo really and truly wants everyone in the world to play its video games. The reason why it's been so wildly successful in doing this is that the Wii and DS were designed with this idea in mind.

Where as all previous game systems have been designed as powerful systems designed for gamers first, and then picking up the casuals later, Nintendo cracked the nut by looking to appeal to the casuals right out of the gate and have the hardcore set just come along for the ride. Nintendo knew they would eat whatever they fed them anyway, so it's not as if all of them were really going to abandon the Wii entirely. Although myself and a lot of people on staff here have gotten Xbox 360s or PlayStation 3s, we all still have Wiis and are all still putting money in them. Probably not as much money as previous generations, but Nintendo is more than making up for it with all of their blue ocean customers. Besides, how could you skip Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and the rest when the complete system only costs $250? More than anything, the price was right.

That's what's really remarkable about the run of successes Nintendo has been finding in the past three or four years. Nintendo is selling products to everyone in every demographic. There's no end in sight, either. This is the third holiday for the Wii, and Nintendo still can't comfortably meet demand. Whatever Nintendo's marketing plan is, it's working.

Now that Nintendo said you can play Wii Virtual Console games off SD card and DSi has SD card slot, is it safe to assume Nintendo will allow this? Currently people use a DS card that allows an SD card to be plugged into do piracy on the DS. Having the SD card will only make it easier. If you can't defeat them, join them I say. I'm not a shady person so I don't play emulators on my DS, however I would GLADLY enjoy playing my Virtual Console games on my DS which I have paid for. In theory I would love to play Mario RPG on a plane, save it on my DSi and than plug it back into my Wii when I get home and finish where I saved last on my DSi. This would give me a real reason to buy a DSi. Do you guys think Nintendo will allow this?

- Mr. Adolph Vega

This is a very interesting question, and one that I'm sure the homebrew community is licking their chops over. (Let's keep this conversation in the legal realm.) Wii hackers eventually figured out how to load program code through the SD slot on the Wii, so of course it will just be a matter of time before it's done on the DSi. I honestly can't wait what sort of cool stuff people will be able to create for the thing, what with its two cameras and all of its other new goodies.

Unfortunately, I don't see transferable Virtual Console games as a possibility. Although I'm sure with the new DS Shop service you're going to need to link your DSi to some sort of central account to keep track of Nintendo Points, the fact that Nintendo is saying the points are non-transferable between a Wii and a DSi would indicate to me that there is no way to definitely link the two systems together. That would make the transfer of any VC purchase impossible, since there would be no way to guarantee that a VC game from one Wii is being put on to a DSi that is truly owned by the same person.

If this feature was somehow possible, I would get a DSi without batting an eyelash. I'm sticking with my original DS until there's really a feature on the DSi that I have to have. I haven't seen one that I need at this point.

I've been going to your website for years, and in the last six months I've noticed a disturbing trend. The mailbag doesn't get done as often. There are few, if any articles or reviews of Wii games. Most articles are about DS games or Virtual Console/WiiWare games. E3 was the clincher. There was nothing exciting on the horizon for Wii owners. People bagged the selection of games for GameCube, but I had over 30 games. I only have 11 Wii games (including Wii Play and Wii Sports!) and the well already seems to have dried up. There are only two games I'm psyched about buying in the coming months: Starcraft 2 (a PC game) and Resident Evil 5, which isn't coming to Wii at all! So my question is twofold:

1) Are there any exciting games coming out for Wii in the coming twelve months? (Note that Wii Sports 2 does not count as an exciting game)

2) When I found out that Resident Evil 5 was only being released on XBox 360 and PS3, I immediately started looking at them more seriously. If I was to buy a second console, what would you recommend? XBox 360 seems to have a way better selection of games at the moment, but I've heard that the controller is hard to use. (Note that DVD playback is a non-issue, I'm only buying it to play games). Thanks for your time

- NXR

Melbourne, Australia

On your first points, see the list provided by Anthony in the first question and my response. It was pretty bad in the middle part of the year wasn't it? All of a sudden, it seems, games for you and me are starting to appear left and right, as if a lot of game companies (including Nintendo!) have realized that although the blue ocean is vast and profitable, we buy a lot of games over here on the mainland, too.

As for your second question, I can honestly say at this point that strictly from a gaming standpoint, excluding all other factors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are on level terms. Since almost all major third party games are coming out on both platforms, and an exclusive on one has a similar exclusive on the other (Halo vs. Resistance, Banjo vs. Ratchet, Forza/PGR vs. Gran Turismo, etc.), it really boils down to personal preference of the particulars of those exclusives. If you're going to press me for a suggestion, here's one factor that you should strongly consider: Get the console that all (or most) of your mates have. If everyone you know has a PlayStation 3 and you get an Xbox 360, you'll never be able to play against them online.

Okay, fine. If you must get an answer out of me, I'd say go PlayStation 3. But that's only because I want Wipeout HD, and eventually Gran Turismo 5, so bad I would sell my internal organs to get them. Too bad I can't afford one right now!

Does Nintendo have any plans to release another Pokemon game on the Wii console?

- Daniel

Doncaster, UK

Pokemon is designed to work when you have access to multiple people to play it with, so it lends itself to the portable format. It's easy to take it out and find other people with the game to trade and do battles with. If the experience were to come to Wii, it would be difficult to replicate that experience unless a lot of people were online. Last we heard from Nintendo, less than half of Wii owners ever bothered to go online with their consoles, which Nintendo felt is nowhere near good enough. I think releasing a full-fledged online Pokemon game now or any time soon will defeat the purpose.

If Nintendo can continue to increase its online penetration rate to something as high as 75%, Nintendo may then be ready to unleash it. It will instantly cement what online userbase it has and maybe even get more to go online past that. We all know what Pokemon has done for the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo DS. Imagine what it could do for the Wii and Wii online.

After Nintendo's recent showing, I'm quite impressed. However, I'm still a bit confused about a few details. Is there any confirmation over whether or not the new DS Shop is going to be exclusive to the DSi? Granted, the current DS models don't have the internal memory for it, but they do support the Memory Expansion Pak (from the DS Web Browser) via the GBA slot. How about the other new DSi features, can we hope to expect a separate camera peripheral, or an SD card adapter for the GBA slot? As long as they offer firmware updates for current DSes I don't see why these wouldn't be possible, yet I haven't read mention of such. Seeing how the DS is already turning four years old, a successor seems fairly certain to be on the horizon, so I'm not sure I can justify the purchase of a DSi knowing that a DS2 is probably just around the corner. Can we expect future announcements of add-ons for current DSes or is Nintendo giving current DS owners the shaft?

P.S. I couldn't help but notice a repeated error in the Mega Man 9 review. The character the review refers to as "Axle", is actually called "Auto". I think someone was confusing his name with that of Axl from the Mega Man X series.

- Bman87301

Youngstown, Ohio

DS Shop will not be coming to older DS models. It's built in to the DSi and can only be supported by the DSi thanks to its on-board storage and SD card slot. The DSi also has a built-in Opera web browser, which is what I'm sure will be necessary for DSi owners to browse through DS Shop. (The Wii uses the Wii Opera browser to access the Wii Shop Channel.) Basically, if you want all the goodies and the stuff that will be in the new shop, you're going to need to upgrade the hardware to access it.

Which brings up the obvious question, one that you just so happened to ask: What about all of those DS Phats and DS Lites out there? A lot of people didn't get an original DS because they knew Nintendo was going to upgrade anyway, and sure enough they bought what eventually came to be known as the DS Lite. But now that the DSi is out, what now? Do Lite owners bite the bullet and pay more for an upgrade? Do original DS owners? Or do we all hang around for the DS2, which is surely coming? Or is this the DS2? DS1.5? Too many questions here.

My gut feeling tells me that the Nintendo DSi is not the right handheld at the right time, at least for territories outside of Japan. I can understand Nintendo needed to make an early move there seeing as that eventually everyone in Japan would own a DS and they needed to come up with something new for even more people to buy it and to pressure other people into an upgrade, which is what it essentially is. Our own Michael Cole, who is actually spending a year in Japan as of right now, suggested to me that the DSi is sort of like a gap bridger, akin to the Game Boy Color before the Game Boy Advance. It could be that the DSi will turn into the ultimate version of the DS, have the spotlight for a year or two, and then Nintendo will come out swinging with a new handheld. Or, the DSi will keep the DS train rolling for three (or even more?) years ahead while Nintendo just sits back and lets it print money.

I'm sure the DSi will blow up in Japan, but I want to see what it does in North America and Europe before I attempt to answer any of the questions I have about it.