Note: This
blog was originally going to be posted a few weeks ago up at Gamespot but my
computer died and I’m just starting to get all back up and running (thank God I
backed at least some of this stuff up) so here it is in all
its glory and fashionably late!
I, like so many others, was
disappointed by Nintendo’s performance at this year’s E3.It was bad, painfully bad.I couldn’t even finish watching it was so
bad, I had to go to external sources to get my information.What adds a bit to this disappointment is
that the first Saturday this July, (Which when I first wrote this blog was
about a week ago.) I got a Wii.Now you
may ask ‘why now’.My response is - why
not now?There may not be that many
great games coming out for it on the near horizon.But that does nothing to diminish the
awesomeness of the games that are already out for it - Super Mario Galaxy, Super
Smash Bros., Brawl, Super Paper Mario, Resident Evil 4, No More Heroes, Metroid
Prime 3, and others.Plus since, for the
time being, I still live at home I decided to be slightly less selfish than I
normally am and pick the console that my entire family could enjoy…and help me
pay for, I’m not made of money you know.
Nintendo really needs to improve these things
Now, like I said, I was disappointed
by Nintendo’s E3 conference this year, ButI’m
amazed at how quickly people have turned against Nintendo and the Wii.People, who just six months ago would have
killed you if you so much as dissed the Wii and were hailing Super Smash Bros.
Brawl as the coming of the new Messiah, are now saying that Nintendo has
betrayed them and that the Wii is and always has been a disappointment and a
huge failure.Now sure, Nintendo has had
two consecutively poor E3 conferences, and yeah, I’m pretty disappointed that
there aren’t that many stellar games coming out this year for the Wii too.I just think people are taking this a little
too far.
One thing we need to remember
is that Nintendo hasn’t really had a lot of good third party support this
generation.If they want to have a good
game, they usually have to make it themselves.Now, part of this is their own fault, but part of it is that since they’ve
taken a bold and somewhat risky new step with the Wii, a lot of developers
simply weren’t willing to take the risk and invest their time and money and
maybe even their reputations into making Wii games.But getting back to the point, if Nintendo
wants to make a good game they usually have to do it themselves, and there is
only so much they can do.They have to
appeal to both their hardcore fans as well as all the casual newcomers who are
probably on pins and neddles are the Wii Sports sequel was announced.While it is important for Nintendo to focus
some of their attention on this new casual crowd, it is even more important
that they start focusing more of their attention on their loyal fans which they
are desperately close to losing.Chances
are, most of the casual crowd will stick with Nintendo whether they make a lot
of games for them or not, hence the fact that they are casual.Hardcore Nintendo Fans, they want a new
Mario, a new Zelda, a new Metroid, a new Pikmin, and maybe even some more good third party
games.
These are the types of games Nintendo fans want
All that being said, as gamers when we complain
about the lack of quality titles for the Wii, I think we’re being a little
unfair.Consider this, at the end of the
GameCube’s life there was ONE 3D Mario platformer, ONE Paper Mario, TWO Metroid
Prime games, TWO Pikimin games, and TWO Zelda games, with only a handful of
good third party games. Now,
not even two years into the Wii’s life we have ONE 3D Mario platformer, ONE
Paper Mario, ONE Zelda game, ONE Metroid game, a few good exclusive third party
games and at least one Pikimin game in the making. We can’t compare the GameCube or N64’s library
at the end of their lives to a console that’s just starting to get on it’s
feet. I guess in the end the point of this blog is
to say that, yeah, I was let down by Nintendo at this years E3, but they’ll
come around, they always do.In the
meantime there is still some great gaming to be had on the Wii while we wait
and wonder what Nintendo could possibly think up next.