I think that the current situation with the video game market has Nintendo in a very unique position that if they play things right could have them dominating not only this generation but the next as well. Currently, Nintendo is the only hardware and software developer that hasn't laid off any workers and both the Wii and the DS have a huge install base. With so many development houses looking to cut cost in whatever way they can, many will be looking towards the Wii because of its low development cost. Now this is what could be a doubled-edged sword for Nintendo. At present, the Wii has the stigma that only first-party games will sale on the system and any third-party game that will be a money maker has to be a collection of mini-games. If those are the only games that developers are looking to put out on the Wii, that would be disastrous for Nintendo as it would drive owners to other systems that have much more in-depth games. Casual gamers have been Nintendo's bread and butter, so for much of 2008 that has been where their main focus has been. I think that last year's E3 was kind of a wakeup call for Nintendo that they have largely ignored core gamers. Now they have taken a series of steps to address this, but there is much more they can do.
The Wii has a slew of new core games coming out this year the quite honestly they have not given a lot of support to. The Conduit has to be the biggest game for the Wii this year. This game shows off the power of the Wii unlike any game before. Incredible graphics, awesome controls, 16 players online, Wii Speak compatible. The game is slated to be a huge success and represent core games on the Wii in a big way. But Nintendo sadly has given the title very little support. I remember reading about how at E3 that people were walking past the Conduit booth thinking it was an Xbox 360 game and were shocked to learn that it was actually a Wii game. It was the perfect opportunity for Nintendo to say, "For all those who says there are no core games for the Wii, take a look at this". When you think about core games that are coming in the next few months like Deadly Creatures, HoD: Overkill, Mad World; these games haven't gotten a lot of support from Nintendo. Third-party developers will be watching these games very closely to see just how well these core games do. The better these games do, the more willing developers will be in bringing over new and current core IPs. Nintendo is really only shooting themselves in the foot but not giving more support to the few core IP's on the Wii.
In an effort to attract more developers t o the Wii, Nintendo lowered the standards it had in place for games on its past systems. Unfortunately, this lead to many games on the Wii that looked like they were first generation PS2 games. Developers took a really lazy approach towards Wii games in that they would take a game that they might have been developing for the PS2 and just slap Wii controls on it. Games that were multiplatform would have teams of 50-100 people working on the PS3/360 versions. The Wii/PS2 version would have a team of 25 or less. The results were Wii games that were serious substandard compared to other versions. Take the Wii version of Rock Band for instant. Compared to the PS3 and 360 versions, the Wii edition wasn't even a third of the game of its big brothers. What was even stranger is the fact that the game was released some 6 months after the PS2 version and both are nearly identical. With the Wii having such a large piece of the video game market, it's only natural that developers will be towards it to potential release their games on. Nintendo is in the position to insist on certain standards be observed for games developed on the Wii and reduce the amount of shovelware. Namely, no graphics that appear to be last-gen for a start.
Anyway those are just a few of my thoughts. What do you think?
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