Has Nintendo Abandoned the Hardcore Gamer?

This is one of the hot potatoes of the gaming realm. Is Nintendo to focused on the casual gamer to make games for the hardcore gamer?

(If you don't want to read all this just watch the video at the bottom, and yes, the video is my video so it's still my original work)

Nintendo, savior of the gaming world once, Giant in gaming revolution, advocate to the casual, abandoned-er of their supporters. I've heard Nintendo called all of these things and more in recent times. While these conclusions are partially true that Nintendo has shifted to towards the casual market they haven't abandoned the hardcore gamer all together.

How can I say this? Have I seen the Wii market? Yes. Yes I have. I completely realize that something like 85-90% of the Wii market is casual games/mini-games, but is that really Nintendo's fault? No. Nintendo doesn't make all of these mini-game games that are on their system, they just allow them to be there. And why not? Nintendo makes a percentage of all of the game's sold for it's system so why not let developers develop and sell these games, it doesn't cost Nintendo money.

So why do we only really see casual games/mini-games on the Wii? Good question. It's really a very simple answer. Hardware. From a technical standpoint the Wii is inferior to the Xbox 360 and PS3. It doesn't have the hardware to play games like Killzone, Halo, inFamous, or Fallout. This really started back with the N64 but became apparent during the Gamecube age. The N64 had good hardware but was limited in one major aspect. It used cartridges instead of discs. That's why games like Final Fantasy jumped ship and went to the PSone, they could fit more higher quality material on a disc than a cartridge. The Gamecube really expanded that gap when they released hardware that was inferior (When I say hardware I mean the internals) to the PS2 and the newly released Xbox. Developers really started to move away from Nintendo's system because they couldn't make their games with it's hardware. While some games looked absolutely beautiful on the Gamecube (Metal Gear Solid, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4), most developers decided not to work with it, when they could get better on another console. That gap became a huge divide when the Wii was released. Nintendo wanted to keep their console at an affordable price and so they had to sacrifice their hardware to do that. The hardcore developers, Bethesda, Guerrilla Games, Bungie, Infinity ward, saw this and said (I imagine) "Why would we waste our time trying to make a game on that when we could make a better game on these other consoles" And their absolutely right. Why should they? And more importantly why would you want them to? Imagine I present you with two cars, One's a BMW, and one's a Buick. They cost the same, but the BMW has leather interior, power steering, air conditioning, satellite radio, and free maintenance for life. The Buick has has fabric interior with coffee stains, no power steering, no air conditioning, no limited radio, and limited maintenance. Which would you choose? I think the choice is obvious. That's kind of the way it is with the Wii and Xbox or PS3.

But there are some Hardcore games on the Wii, how do you explain those? Simple. Some developers saw potential for what they could do on the Wii and went with it. But let's look at some of these hardcore games; Deadspace extraction, I'm sorry to say, I really am because I really enjoyed this game, that it did not sell way. In fact it could almost be considered a flop. Madworld, same thing as Deadspace, it just couldn't find a market on the Wii. The second type of hardcore games on the Wii are Nintendo owned games. Legend of Zelda, Mario, Metriod (either owned or first party). All three of these were actually made or owned by Nintendo, and you know what, they were all fun. Could they be considered hardcore? More or less.

The hardcore developers have moved away from the Wii for two major reasons. 1st. The lack of hardware, and 2nd. They have a hard time finding a market on the Wii.

So did Nintendo really abandon the Hardcore gamer in favor of the casual gamer? Yes and No. Nintendo made a choice to make their console more affordable and in doing so they sacrificed hardware. The developers moved away from Nintendo because of the lack of hardware. The lack of hardcore developers meant the lack of hardcore games. The lack of hardcore games meant the lack of hardcore gamers. That left it open for the casual gamers and casual developers to move in.

So again I ask, did Nintendo abandon the hardcore gamer. Not exactly, did they set up the situation that led to the loss of their hardcore crowd? Absolutely.