Hey everybody, I'm finally getting around to writing my first post. I just wanted to get out my thoughts on the direction of Nintendo. Please keep in mind that I am a life long Nintendo fanboy and I realize this probably gives me rose colored glasses on them. I got my NES when I was 8 years old and in subsequent years received a Gameboy, SNES , and N64 at launch. In college my girlfriend (now my wife) brought the first non-Nintendo console into my life, a PSX. I then kind of fell out of gaming for the GameCube/PS2 generation. When I first heard about the Wii I got a hankering to get back into gaming. I have only ever owned a single home console from each generation at a time other than the N64/PSX. We now own two DS Lites in addition to our Wii. Since I only can afford to own a single home console I stuck with Nintendo as most of my beloved franchises are featured on there. I read and hear all this talk of Nintendo abandoning the core gamer and while I see that they have obviously changed their target market I still feel like the Nintendo I grew up with is still there. All the games I loved playing as I grew up are still being made and improving with each new title. I think that the core gamer's focus has shifted over the same time period and this has led to the perception of Nintendo abandoning the hardcore. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. were once considered titles for the hardcore gamer, but now the core gamer is into FPS and third person shooters. I don't feel betrayed by Nintendo, but feel that they just want to make their games regardless of what the popular genre currently is. It is great to have choice and the current gen consolse give us this. Of course I would like to see these titles on the Wii and we slowly are, but just because the gaming community has changed what the preferred genre is doesn't mean that Nintendo has given up on them. Every title from their core franchises has been released this generation and has turned out pretty good, they just don't tak the risk of going for the new popular genre when they sell their classic franhcises so well. I wish I could be able to own an Xbox or PS3 so I can have the chance to play some of the great games on those systems, but I can't see not being able to play Mario, Metroid, or Zelda. Sorry if this seems incoherent or missing something, but after all it is the first blog post I've ever written.