I recall a recent chat with the good people at Maxsoft (Nintendo’s official distributor) over the direction Nintendo’s been taking while checking to see if there’s anything interesting out for the Wii and DS. Our conversation soon moved into the realm of defining casual games and why is it that the Wii has been plagued by asinine kiddie-grade titles. Why aren’t there enough games that interest REAL gamers and not your average 6-year old or overgrown non-gamer adults? The lack of AAA titles, no high-definition, and seriously gimmicky peripherals have been the lament of Wii users for the longest time.

But, isn’t Monster Hunter 3 (MH3) exclusive for the Wii? Yes, it is. I also remember a certain piece of news floating around where Capcom believed that AAA titles will soon flood the Wii. This was back in June 2008 and today, most people can still only name MH3. Sure, MH3 was announced during Nintendo’s Fall 2007 Conference and had its public showing at the recent Tokyo Game Show 08. One of the Wii’s few hardcore titles, Nintendo fans were surely happy to have the game onboard, but Capcom’s reasoning wasn’t all too encouraging for fans of the franchise itself. Instead of the innovation of the Wii platform or even its global penetration, a Thomson Financial report on Forbes.com quoted Capcom managing corporate officer Katsuhiko Ichii saying that they switched development platforms from the PS3 to the Wii due to “high development costs”.

Now, we’re already in 2009. Where’s that flood of AAA titles for the Wii? I understand that there are multi-platform games out on the Wii like Guitar Hero: World Tour, but I’m talking about core titles. While Microsoft made a stir last year with JRPG crossovers for the Xbox 360 and Sony showed that the PS3 can be cute and serious with LittleBigPlanet and Resistance 2, things have been surprisingly quiet on the Nintendo front. What did the Wii have to show for itself? Cooking Mama: World Kitchen, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, and Wii Music; more casual games.

Go into any store to look for Wii and DS titles and you’re bound to be staring at a wall of third-rate casual games that most hardcore gamers would look down on. Then I came to a realization and I dare you to consider a different viewpoint. Instead of asking why there aren’t any good games on the Wii, the questions should instead be “What is a serious gamer?” and “Have casual games really changed or did we just grow out of them?”

Consider this.

Every hardcore gamer today that grew up with Nintendo consoles and handhelds (Game & Watch, Famicom/NES, Super NES) grew up on casual games not unlike what is available today on the Wii and DS. I mean come on, Mario is a shroom munching plumber, Donkey Kong had you jumping barrels and Frogger had you guiding a frog across a street. What has changed? Nothing much really. It may be a lot harder to create another cultural icon today, but look at the staple of Wii titles again and you will see the exact same pattern Nintendo has been taking since the 80s.

And clearly, the formula is still working. The latest NPD Group report for November 2008 US videogame hardware sales showed that Nintendo dominated with record sales of 2.04 million Wii and 1.57 million DS units in the month alone. 3rd spot was the Microsoft Xbox 360 with only 836,000 units, while the Sony PSP trailed at 421,000 units and the PS3 at 378,000 units.

For software sales, Gears of War 2 for the X360 was the top selling game in the US for November, but five Wii titles were in the top ten, four of which are published by Nintendo. Wii Play was at 3rd spot, Wii Fit at 4th, Mario Kart Wii at 5th, and Wii Music at 10th. Surprisingly Guitar Hero: World Tour made it into the list for the Wii in 7th spot, while it only came in 15th for the X360. Animal Crossing: City Folk just missed the top ten, but it was 11th in the list.

Many gamers think Nintendo needs to bring in AAA titles to make the Wii more attractive, but I strongly believe that the real issue Nintendo needs to work on is to introduce HD graphics by their next hardware refresh. As far as the casual vs hardcore discussion goes, who’s the real minority here?

Zachary Chan,
Editor, GameAxis