Well, Nintendo is in an interesting, unfair position. We're seeing a lot of the industry pointing fingers, saying things about how the Wii is underpowered, that games don't sell well, that games that aren't Nintendo's don't sell well, that it's only for casual players, and more. As time moves on, and more games are released, we're seeing this isn't true, but the industry claims it, either way.
Your issue about Nintendo reducing it's courtship of the core game is something to thing about. Do we need to be courted? I know of and own most of the first part Nintendo games, including those for everyone and those for traditional gamers, and I likely would regardless of advertising or marketing for these games. Take Battalion Wars 2, for example. As far as I can tell, most traditional Nintendo gamers looked into this game, and Nintendo's marketing was about as poor as possible for a Nintendo game. I believe, though I'm not certain, that is sold only decently, because Nintendo didn't attempt to market the game to anyone besides the traditional audience.
Now then, Nintendo has approached their games made for all gamers in a different way. They address the issue that most of these people don't follow Nintendo daily, weekly, or even monthly by giving this type of game a TV spot or a bigger push. These games likely don't cost as much to make as games for the traditional gamer, but they balance it out by taking care of advertising.
Here's the tough part: Nintendo isn't courting traditional gamers that aren't their traditional gamers. There's no effort to even catch the eye of that Xbox fan, and no call for the guy with the PS3. I sometimes wonder if Nintendo believes that these people are already included in their traditional gamers--make no mistake, they are not. Some traditional gamers do see Mario as a child's game. They look at Metroid Prime, and rather than see a First Person Adventure, they see a Bioshock knock off. There's several people in these categories that would love Nintendo's traditional games, if they were to approach them with the open mind we do.
I'm beginning to feel that Nintendo's apathy for this type of gamer is leading to the same in some of the major third parties, too. That we're not seeing major sequels or creative ideas for this reason. We're only seeing PS2 ports, rather than unique content because these publishers and developers are afraid. And I can't blame them for all of this. Despite Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition's successes, Devil May Cry 4 has already done better. Sure, it cost more, but since it sold more, isn't it worth the cost?
Regardless, Nintendo's traditional gamers have to be happy--we're getting much more support this time around than last gen. We're not in the back seat, I know that, we're just not always the driver. I think the most important thing is to find a way to express our voice to Nintendo and third parties. We need more links between the gaming groups and Nintendo. We need to show them what we want, what we need, and what we fear, because I'm not sure if they know. I'm not worried that Nintendo has forgotten us, we've got several great games on the way with us in the focus. However, I'm worried about how they're going to relate to us to keep us in the third parties' focus, too. I want everyone to be able to drive their own cars. I want everyone to be in the front seat, and as it stands now, things aren't that way.
Topic: Welcome To The Backseat Core Gamers (Read 6035 times)
