The "big news" from this year's E3 wasn't the announcement of any new exciting game. It wasn't the first sightings of any new, up-and-coming console. It was the news that Nintendo, or more specifically, Nintendo of America, had completely failed to show anything for their core audience. Sure, Wario Land: Shake It was at E3 08, tucked away in a corner somewhere, but that game had been announced months prior to the event.
The only newly announced Wii games from Nintendo were the decidedly softcore Wii Sports: Resort, the beyond-casual Wii Music, and the "close but no cigar" pseudo-core title Animal Crossing: City Folk, all games best suited for fans of "new" Nintendo.E3 08 offered nothing on the rumored-to-be-in-development Kid Icarus Wii, nothing on the rumored Punch-Out Wii, and nothing on the potential localization of Disaster: Day of Crisis, Fatal Frame IV, or Captain Rainbow. Where was anything for the gamers who been playing Nintendo games since the days of the NES, or even the N64?
To be fair, Nintendo has already released nearly as many "core" titles on the Wii as it did in the entire lifespan of the GameCube. The fact that Metroid Prime 3, Super Paper Mario, LoZ: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl have all seen release in the span of two short years is something of a miracle by Nintendo standards. No, Wii-owning Nintendo veterans aren't disheartened with NoA because of the the lack of core games on the Wii. It's NoA's new attitude towards their longtime fans: an attitude of severe disinterest. That's what has their core fans worried. E3 08 was just the culmination of a long-brewing fear amongst the Nintendo faithful that NoA has dropped them like a bag of trash in favor of a larger, richer, soccer mom-ier segment of the Western population.
If NoA followed my simple five-step plan, they could appease their core market and make some decent money at the same time, and all in a matter of months. Hit the jump for this plan in detail (and no, sticking Wario in an amusement park and making the stars do NoA's bidding are not part of it.)
Step Number 1: Super Smash Bros. Brawl Special Edition
I feel a little foolish even including this entry, because anybody with a marginal level of knowledge about Nintendo and its fanbase could have come up with it. Still, it's worth noting that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is by far Nintendo's most globally successful "core" Wii game, and that more Smash Bros. releases could only work to make that "core" more happy with Nintendo.
Specifically, what the "core" is currently looking for is more online Smash Bros., as Super Smash Bros. Brawl only half-delivered on its promise of online play. For whatever reason, the amount of lag in the average Brawl match is horrendous, much worse than in Nintendo's other big online game, Mario Kart Wii. A lack of lag isn't the only thing Mario Kart Wii has over Brawl. Its superior online interface (which shows the names, Miis, and countries of all its online opponents) and special monthly tournaments (some of which include new tracks and even new bosses) make Brawl look sadly outdated in comparision, and Mario Kart Wii was released only a few months after Brawl. The simple inclusion of all of Mario Kart Wii's online services alone would make a Super Smash Bros. Brawl special edition worth the price for many a hardcore Smash Bros. fan.
To round out the package, the disc would need just a few more additions. First, it should include Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee, with both games bolstered with all the new online options that would be given to Brawl. Second, Brawl would need to get some alternate character models for its existing roster. As huge as Brawl's playable character list may be, it's still too small by the standards of many Smash Bros. fanatics. A simple way to fix this would be give each existing Brawl character a different set of polygons based on a "similarly shaped" Nintendo icon.
For instance, one of the least popular characters in Brawl is King Dedede, a Kirby boss who was most likely included in the game just because he was created by Smash Bros. producer Masahiro Sakurai. Now if Nintendo were to take King Dedede exactly as he's programmed, but give the player the option to swap out his character model for one based on Tom Nook (armed with the golden shovel instead of a hammer, and with Timmy and Tommy Nook replacing the King Dedede's Waddle Dee and Waddle Doo special attacks), they'd have themselves a "new" Smash Bros. character with minimal effort, and in this case it's a character who already has millions of fans. Do the same thing with Chibi Robo and R.O.B., the Pokemon Diamond/Pearl starters for the Pokemon Red/Blue starters, Claus for Lucas, Mewtwo for Lucario, and before you know it, you have the inclusion of nearly 35 "new characters" in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, all without much in increased spending or altering the game's delicate power balance.
Throw in Mega Man as a new playable fighter, and you've got something that would please hardcore fans enough to make them forget all about E3, not to mention shell out another $50 for a game they already own. And if Nintendo really wanted to sweeten the deal, they could also make DLC for this Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Special Edition, though that would probably require more storage space than the Wii is currently capable of. That brings us to step 2...
Step Number 2: Allow outside hardware developers to make Wii hard drives
Do I think the Wii really needs a hard drive? Absolutely not. As a member of the gaming press, I still haven't even come close to filling up my 2 GB SD card. If I did, I'd just buy another one for the paltry sum of $25, half the price of the lesser equipped 512 MB memory unit for the Xbox 360.
No, the Wii doesn't need a hard drive, but that doesn't mean Wii owners don't deserve one. It's a matter of pride for Wii owners to know that if they wanted to, they could store just as much random crap on their system as PS3 and 360 owners can. With a hard drive, Wii owners could potentially download bigger WiiWare games, game demos, Virtual Console games from past disc-based consoles, and generally do all the online things the other guys are doing (porn) on their lesser powered console.
Why hasn't this happened already? Maybe Nintendo doesn't want to run the risk of the Wii hard drive becoming a financial failure. The console is certainly selling well without the option for more storage space, and there is no way to be sure a Wii hard drive would even sell. Thing is, the risk wouldn't have to be NoA's to take. All they would have to do is develop a simple firmware upgrade allowing some external hard drive developers to make their own Wii-compatible hardware, take a percentage of their profits, and move on. Just like that, the Wii would be one step closer to being universally superior to its competitors, all at little to no cost to NoA.
It's highly unlikely that NoA will ever allow for a Wii-friendly external hard drive because of all the fun that videogame pirates and homebrew hackers would have with it. What NoA must not realize is that videogame pirates are already having a field day with modded Wiis and SD card-friendly Wii mod programs. As for the homebrew guys, they are mostly just trying to do two things: make their own Wii games and play imported games on their Western region consoles. Which begs the question, "Why on God's green Earth in the year 2008 would anyone need to do anything special to make their console play import games?" and brings us to step number 3...
Step Number 3: Allow Captain Rainbow to be localized
If you've been playing Nintendo games since the NES era, it's safe to say that you are over 20 years old, and are therefore "mature" enough to handle a videogame wirh some vibrating dildos and/or gentle ball-scratching humor. It's also safe to say that at your age, if you still remember who Birdo or Little Mac is, you are something of a hardcore Nintendo-phile. This is exactly why Captain Rainbow, currently only released in Japan, may be the premier comedy game of the 2000s for those of us looking for a parody/tribute of the Nintendo of yesteryear. Captain Rainbow is a game made specifically to appeal to people whose sense of humor and sense of awareness of the world has grown up right along Nintendo -- namely, Nintendo's "core" audience.
A prime example of this "mature" take on a classic Nintendo icon is the game's inclusion of Little Mac. Captain Rainbow shows how the ex-boxing champ has gotten fat and depressed since his Mike Tyson's Punch-Out days in a way that may not make sense to most kids, but that the average adult will definitely be able to relate to. It also shows what would happen if someone/something like the gender-confused Super Mario Bros. 2 mid-boss Birdo was caught in a women's bathroom. Now, Birdo has always been gender-confused; it says so right in the manual for Super Mario Bros. 2. That's not the "mature" part of all this. What makes Captain Rainbow special is that it shows what would happen to someone like Birdo in the real world -- namely, ridicule, xenophobia, and even imprisonment. That's weird, funny, and sad stuff, the kind of stuff that longtime Nintendo fans thrive off of (see also Tingle).
It's not the first time that developer Skip, creator of Captain Rainbow, has taken mature themes and integrated them into a lighthearted comedy game. At the center of their 2006 GameCube title Chibi Robo is the potential divorce of Chibi Robo's owners, a action figure-loving computer programmer and a Martha Stewart-esque American housewife. In the game, Chibi Robo must work hard to make these two people happy, and eventually save their marriage. It's a theme that could in no way influence a child to commit acts of violence or other deviant behaviors, but one that, in its own right, was still very risky. Captain Rainbow's themes are the same. Finding Birdo's censored vibrator could never harm or really disturb a child (if they even knew what it was), but at the same time, its inclusion in the game is "mature" in its own particular way.
Captain Rainbow might raise a few eyebrows with the mainstream, but the game is hardly shocking in this modern day of killing hookers in GTA IV. It's certainly nothing compared to the swear-filled, urine- and blood-soaked Conker's Bad Fur Day, developed by then-Nintendo subsidiary Rare and published on the N64 with NoA's blessing. Taking that kind of risk with the release of a controversial but harmless game is exactly what NoA needs right now to work against their increasingly vanilla image. They need to get back to being known as the game company that's run by actual game developers and game artists, and not a bunch of overly cautious businessmen who only see gaming as a way to make money.
Speaking of risks and artists, let's talk about step 4...
Step 4: Support Starmen.net and bring their translation of Mother 3 to WiiWare
Have you heard of Mother 3? Starmen.net? If so, chances are you've been a fan of Nintendo for more than a few years, and that your fandom runs deep. You also probably don't have to read this step any further, as you already know exactly why it would do NoA a world of good, both finacially and politically, to...
1) give Starmen.net a little money,
2) take their already nearly complete translation patch for Mother 3,
3) call it EarthBound 2 and
4) put it on WiiWare.
A little background for the uninitiated: the Mother series is the brainchild of famous Japanese essayist Shigesato Itoi. All three games in the series both mock and pay tribute to Western culture, with Mother 3, the last game in the series, being the most narratively rich and brazenly critical. All the games in the series utilize both absurdist, South Park-style humor and intermittent moments of true drama -- of both the nail-biting and tear-jerking varieties -- in order to communicate their messages.
Only one game in the series was ever brought outside Japan. Mother 2 was localized in the US and Europe in the mid-1990s under the name EarthBound. In the US, NoA used the line "This game stinks" to attempt to sell this $80 turn-based RPG. Sadly, this seemingly purposefully bad advertising scheme didn't work all that well, and the game failed to become a hit, though it did develop a dedicated cult following. The best and brightest of this cult following, stil thousands strong, can be found at Starmen.net.
What's so bright about Starmen.net, you ask? Well, beyond the fact that they have regularly posted Mother-related comics, fan art, fan fiction, music, and videos for literally years, they have also taken it upon themselves to do everything they can to get NoA to give their beloved franchise another chance in the States. They do call-ins, write-ins, and email-ins to NoA on a regular basis, which may have a lot to do with why Mother 1 and EarthBound entered the top five in Nintendo Power's monthly poll for most wanted Virtual Console game for each and every month the poll was run. Starmen.net even made a 250-page book filled with evidence of their love of the Mother series that was sent out to various Nintendo administrative types and members of the press.
The thing that will really make Starmen.net famous is their translation hack of Mother 3. They've been working on it for over a year, and from what I've seen of it so far, it's as good -- if not better than -- any of the excellent work done by NoA's professional development team.
This brings me back to NoA, and a question that sits at the very core of this entire piece. Why exactly does the company exist if not to find people that are truly passionate about Nintendo games and help them to tell the rest of the world about how wonderful they are? That's clearly not what NoA is trying to do, for if they were, the entire Starmen.net team would have full-time NoA jobs by now.
In the same way the sandwich chain Subway took one of their most dedicated customers and made him into their spokesman, NoA could do the same for Starmen.net. To do so would once and for all prove that NoA is concerned with more than just riding the coattails of NoJ: letting their PR firm do all their advertising for them, and just waiting for the money to pour in. It would show that they are willing to actually bond with their core audience in a way that's both validating and empowering. Wait a minute, that gives me an idea for step 5...
Step 5: Make some goddamn videogames
OK, so "make" is a pretty vague term. Perhaps "publish," "fund," or "develop" would have been better, but you get the point. NoA needs to find some Western developers who can make games that connect with the West's hardcore gaming audience, and they need to do it today. Sure, NoA published three Metroid games with Western developer Retro Studios over the past six years, and have also published the occasional Western-developed Mario, Metroid or Star Fox spinoff here and there, but for the most part, NoA publishes nothing but NoJ games. They don't publish new IPs from Western developers, and they don't publish anything from Western developers unless NoJ is calling all the shots.
It doesn't have to be this way. There is no shortage of quality Western developers dying to make games for the Wii and the DS, developers that are without any publishers. Take The Conduit, for instance, a Wii game that truly speaks to the West's hardcore gamers in a way that no NoJ game has thus far. It's a competitive FPS with sci-fi elements, the kind of game that sells millions of copies in America within a few days of release. And yet, The Conduit still has no publisher.
Why on Earth wouldn't NoA want to publish this game?
Or take Castle Crashers, a game that would have been right at home with the old-school gamers who bought the Wii in large part for its Virtual Console service. NoA could have funded The Behemoth to make Castle Crashers a Wii exclusive, or even now could fund any of the literally thousands of talented game development studios that want to make the next Castle Crashers-style game, but haven't the funding to do so. Or what about the thousands of developers who want to make the next GTA on the Wii, but also don't have the help from a major publisher to make it happen? Why isn't NoA looking into these developers?
When Nintendo launched the Wii, it was under the banner of their new "Blue Ocean" philosophy. Every kind of game was supposed to be made available for the console, from the most casual to the most hardcore. For the most part, they've made good on their promise; just about every kind of game imaginable, from surgery simulation to 70-hour action/RPG epic, has been available on the Wii since the start. The two exceptions to the Wii's otherwise amazing library of genres are the two types of games currently most popular in the Western world, competitive online games and violent sandbox games (e.g., Halo and GTA).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if NoA wanted to win back the love of hardcore gamers, they'd look into getting an answer to those two series ready on the Wii, and they'd start looking quickly.
In conclusion:
The situation with Nintendo right now is a lot like when Kiss went disco. They look like they've sacrificed their creative souls in order to make a quick buck, and the people who supported them through the tough times (read: GameCube) feel betrayed. That has caused a intrinsic sense of disconnection between the hardcore Nintendo fan and NoA. Without that connection, Nintendo home consoles in the West will not survive past the Wii.
While it's fantastic that a new group of people feel connected with gaming in way that they never did before through games like Wii Sports and Animal Crossing, that doesn't mean that Nintendo can discard the connection they had with their previous fans. Everyone can be happy with Nintendo; the company doesn't have to be casual or hardcore.
Moms and kids still want to own DVD players, even though they can play movies like Hostel and Scarface. Born-again Christians and pacifists still go on the Internet, even though it's packed with porn and videos of people being punched in the balls. However, if DVD players couldn't play Scarface or Hostel, or if the Internet wasn't a portal to so much in the way of sex and ball-punching, would either be so popular? I don't think so.
So it's pretty simple, Nintendo: in the future, don't leave anybody out. More specifically, if you want to continue to be successful in the West, don't leave Western gamers out. Make Super Smash Bros. Brawl into an online game that meets online gamers' expectations. Allow for a hard drive to be made for your home console. Respect your longtime fans by localizing games that were made specifically for them, and help those trying to bring hardcore games on your consoles to do so.
Is that really so much to ask?
Contest:
12:02 AM on 09.17.2008
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seriously when was the last time Nintendo created something new that wasn't a sequel or a collection of minigames?
Cheers for wanting NoA to stop being followers and start leading in their locale.
Also, if anyone wants to hear a little bit more about the Starmen / Mother 3 issue, Aaron Linde wrote a pretty great piece on it a few months back. Find it on his c-blog.
NoA has failed on so many occasions to prove that they are trying to appease Americans that it almost makes me mad, but then I think of NoE and figure its not all that bad.
The guys over there have been doing an incredible job,and they most likely wouldn't have a problem donating their completed project if it were used by Nintendo. I'm afraid of mentioning the translation though, because if anything NoA would probably try to completely shut it down.
And to add to the list, I don't think anyone would have a problem with a sequel to Mario Galaxy. I know Nintendo hasn't really done multiple Mario games in one generation since the old days, but Mario Galaxy was so good, I'd love to see another one. Out of every game last year that was the game I had the most fun playing.
Sorry, long comment is long...
Nintendo should make more games.
Yup, that's pretty much how I felt. I think I had somewhere between 40-50 GC games, so I feel like I definitely supported them. After E3 I was sorta mad, but I realized that as much as I want them to be my friend, they're just a company, and they're doing pretty damn well for themselves right now.
I figure it'll all come around eventually.
Actually they do, and will announce it pretty soon.
I want Metal Gear Solid on Wii.
I want GTA on Wii.
I want Saints Row 2 on Wii.
I want Far Cry 2 on Wii.
I want an equivalent of Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo on Wii
I want an equal experience as Xbox 360/PS3 cross-platform gamers are getting.
That includes graphics.
But Wii owners can't, because multiplatform games won't work on Wii because of how stingy and cheap Nintendo is.
Nintendo is dead to me as far as I'm corcerned.
Nintendo Wii can't compete in FPS/TPS/Sandbox/Hack N Slash/Racing or any other genre I care about.
GAmes on Wii will always be watered down compared to their 360/PS3 counterparts.
Nintendo dropped the ball with the Wii's hardware.
It's a lastgen system less powerful than the 2001 Xbox. It's an insult to gamers everywhere.
If Nintendo had games that made PS3/360 owners jealous than I would give a shit.
More clones? Yeah, that's exactly what Brawl needed, more clones. Heck, let's just have a ton of clones of Fox, since that's what the fans really want.
They have by far more third party support than last 2 generations. "core" games will be produced.
@lime,
72 characters to much?
Nintendos library of characters is huge, it would be a nice thing.
I actually started to refute your points one by one, but then I remembered not to feed trolls.
I take offense of that. I express the opinion of millions of PS1, PS2, PS3, Xbox and Xbox 360 owners.
There should no reason why the Wii shouldn't be getting the major games that Microsoft and Sony have enjoyed for the past 3 generations, unless it's somehow Nintendo's fault.
Are you saying it's a good thing Wii owners will never get a Metal Gear Solid, GTA, or Resident Evil 5?
It's not. It didn't have to be this way, but because of Nintnedo's insistence that the best games on a Nintendo console be Nintendo's own games, it has become so.
I think there's something wrong when developers have to develop PS3/360/PC versions of games and Wii/PS2/PSP versions of games.
That shouldn't have to be the case.
Not the best example but Harry potters new game is being developed for the Wii first and later on is going to ported and optimized for the 360/Ps3.
Maybe some games aren't possible on the Wii because they need more power, do keep in mind that thanks to the Wii not all projects require high budgets. And is actually saving lots of the developers who didn't had big budgets for the 360 and PS3.
It sucks that Wii owners will miss out lots of those games you mentioned, but who says all Wii owners only own a wii?
The problem is that I feel the Wii is a missed opportunity for Nintendo and its fans.
The Wii made $50 at launch at $250 while the PS3/360 lost hundreds.
If the Wii would have been $250 and be just as powerful as the 360 then there would have been no contest.
Imagine:
Mario
Link
Metroid
Call of Duty
Grand Theft Auto
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 5
Devil May Cry
All on a Nintendo console.
I mean Microsoft has sold less than Nintendo, yet the 360 is now cheaper than the Wii at $199 and about 20 times more powerful. There's no reason Nintenod couldn't have competed at the #250 price point.
I seriously want my damn hard drive already
In the first year of the console, you could never sell the console with high specs for 250. Else it will be harder to win all that money back you put in research and development.
You will loose more money than you will gain.
And lets be honest, even if Nintendo had the specs, people would still bash it. People would be more than sceptical about the Wii-mote. (OMG COD4 NOT GONNA PLAY IT WITH A DILDO LOLOLOLO <--- if you get what I mean).
Nintendo just took it save, but at the same time risky.
Their console, if it was priced higher, the chance of the mass considering to buy it would less ( the fun factor needs to be proven first).
But even with these specs Wii could have bombed totally due the controller.
They missed out this generation for the heavier games, but for some reason I see the Wii as a NES and eventually they release a SNES(a Wii with much higher specs...I see no reason why they will slightly upgrade now the Wii-mote has been proven to be full of potential)
Nintendo have proved that they know how to market a game to the general public, and they also know that whatever harcore-aimed game(s) they release on the machine are going to sell like hotcakes because long-time Nintendo fans will buy them. It's not like you can get Mario or Zelda anywhere else, and despite all their complaints and threats, Nintendo fanboys will still bend over and take it when Miyamoto squeezes out another cash-in.
And frankly, a phrase like "Without that connection [between the hardcore Nintendo fan and NoA], Nintendo home consoles in the West will not survive past the Wii" displays a staggering amount of self-importance. Nintendo is doing extremely well by any PR, financial or sales metric you care to mention, and there's no indication they're going to fuck up any time soon.
For the record, I thought Nintendo's E3 showing was kick ass, and could care less about a GTA or Halo style game ever ending up on the console. I also game Wii Fit and 8.5. If the Wii 2 ends up being exactly like the Wii except with shiner graphics and some new form of waggle, I'll be a happy man.
But will anyone else be happy? I doubt it.
Gamers, "core" gamers, will never be happy about Nintendo.
Since E3 people went from whiny to Dramatic. The games they are asking for from Nintendo are coming its just silly to assume they aren't making them.
E3 wasn't that great as a whole anyway xD.
Well technically the Conduit does have a publisher, but they just haven't announced it yet. Which HVS said they are announcing it within 2 weeks to a month, and that was from a week ago. So put 2+2 together, and it doesn't take much to figure out that Nintendo has its Fall Media Summit coming up in early October. Could it just be a coincidence, or could Nintendo be actually publishing the Conduit? Maybe it is just a coincidence, and HVS will announce someone else, but either way the Conduit is just fine. Its going to come out!
And I don't really see how Tom Nook is a suitable alternate costume for Dedede. It would make more sense to have someone like K. Rool from Donkey Kong.
I still think it's jumping the gun to accuse Nintendo of ignoring its fanbase just ebcause their E3 showing was a little light on the classics; just because the new Zelda wasn't ready to be shown doesn't mean they're not making one.
The problem with the "hardcore" is that they don't want to be catered for, they want to be pandered to. They want Nintendo's every move to satisfy the fanboy's slightest whim, rather than patiently waiting for the next Mario game. Which, let's face it, we all know is coming and which will be a massive success.
As for the potential followup to Wii... The Wii managed to capture the casuals' attention span primarily because of its new way of doing things. It's hard to say if more of the same will be as successful, although at the same time I've got no doubt that the general public will be more than happy to fork over cash for the same old thing they've done before. How many [Adjective] Movies have there been now?
Or not.
Uh, I actually love Dedede. He, along with the other Kirby characters may have gotten an unfair amount of attention because they're Sakurai's creations (especially in the SSE...), but they're still fun to play with.
That being said, I would give my left kidney to play as Tom Nook. :D
I definitely agree with the rest of your article though. Being a lifelong Nintendo fan, I've been pretty disappointed with their lack of interest in their audience's demands. And I demand an American localization of Captain Rainbow.
Capcom or Namco would be good choices. And if they wanted to go outside video games, they could do Nintendo Vs. Marvel or something.
Completely agree, I dunno if Tom Nook should get dedede's moveset though, that'd be kinda awkward.
The hard drive is important though. The SD approach would be fine if they allowed you to store games on them, but they don't. With games like LostWinds and SBGFACP coming out in episodic format and bigger games like My Life as King, the inability to store games that were rightfully paid for is a very valid complaint. Unfortunately I think you hit the nail on the head about why they haven't released one yet, and since DRM is still going strong I'm not sure that Nintendo will see any reason to cede some of their control over to the consumers.
Localization and more development is key. If NoA can handle a game like MadWorld there should be no reason that they cannot release a game like Captain Rainbow. Granted American Soccer Moms seem to hate sex more than anything else on the face of the earth, but there is definitely a market for more mature games on the Wii. Meanwhile games like Conduit and MadWorld have us all foaming at the mouth and there will only be more development teams looking at the Wii as this generation moves on, so long as they can find a partner willing to accommodate them. It should be noted though, that this one is also on us. Sure, as a college student, I don't have that much money (that's part of why I bought a Wii in the first place) and I know a lot of people in the same boat. However, when good games like Zack and Wiki, No More Heroes, and even Metroid Prime 3 don't sell all that well you can't keep bitching about how they don't put out good games for the system because we are all sending the message that we aren't interested. There comes a point were you have to vote with your wallet.
All that said, I was very satisfied with Nintendo's E3 showing. Getting 1:1 is very exciting news, and a new Pikmin game sounds just lovely. Meanwhile third party support is starting to pick up and there are still some great WiiWare games to look forward to. It seems to me that the horizon is not nearly as bleak as some are claiming it to be.
To me, it feels like Nintendo just stopped caring. They found a gimmick that made them millions and decided to just ride it in to the ground. I think they lost touch with their original American market years ago and just decided to create a new one. Which is waggle and casual. Good for them, and some people love it. Its not for me though.
Glad I have my DS. For me, it gets more great games then the Wii ever will.