Has Nintendo Officially Abandoned The HardCore Gamer? A Counter-Point

By Rich Knight: 2007-06-09 14:26:50

Has Nintendo Officially Abandoned The HardCore Gamer? A Counter-Point

As a Nintendo fanboy, I obviously shouldn’t have a say in all this as I’m biased. But as a lifelong gamer, I have a voice and I plan to use it. Has Nintendo abandoned the hardcore gamer, yes, yes they have, but mostly not by choice. Nintendo has always been for the hardcore gamer, and heck, practically created it (Though, the Master System and Genesis did chime in with its own special offerings. Kid Chameleon anyone?)

But knowing that the end was nigh if they continued on the same path they were heading on, Nintendo leaned more towards the casual side mostly for its own survival’s sake. After the two hit combo debacle that was Nintendo 64 and Gamecube, Nintendo learned the hard way that it had to straighten up and fly casual or face hardware extinction like Sega. In many ways, I think Nintendo learned a lot by seeing its most formidable foe fall to pieces at the feet of the next generation and found that if it was going to release just one more console, it had to be the biggest gamble of them all, hence, a revolution was needed and the Wii was born.

And while this article isn’t really disagreeing with Will’s opinion, it’s offering an explanation as to why Nintendo had a need to transfer over to a system that even your grandmother could play.

Remember N64? Of course you do. That was the system that still used cartridges even though the world had already decided that CD’s were the way too go. Look where staying hardcore and true to the roots got Nintendo—In second place, right above Sega. And while that may have been just fine in the past, the market had changed from being a two company battle to a three, and later four, making it impossible for Nintendo’s obsolete out-the-gate-system to keep up.

And Gamecube wasn’t much better, either. Almost sticking entirely to first party games (with few and far between excellent second party titles, as well. Most notably Eternal Darkness), staying true to Nintendo fans just wouldn’t work.

But the Wii does, and it’s because it’s not trying to be something only for specific gamers, but rather, something for ALL gamers, even though the hardcore may balk at how few and far between games for them are actually released (Last was Zelda, next is?...). Releasing a console that even my girlfriend would want to play was an extremely smart move on Nintendo’s part and also what may have saved them from going the way of the Sega. So is Nintendo hardcore anymore? Heck no! But that’s a small price to pay to continue seeing Mario hopping on turtle shells and goombas.

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