Nintendo, Wither third party? Wither Hardcore?

valleyoftheunos

Was reading another thread about best Wii games and decided that for me it has to be Mario Galaxy, form start to end it excels in every way, I just love it. Mario Kart is close too. I've really got a lot out of the Wii, am 30+ hours on Wii Sports and Wii Fit simply because they are great packages that work really well at what they are intended to do. And then I realised that they are all first party games, Pretty much everything that makes a wii worth having (with some notable exceptions) is from Nintendo.

When it comes to third party stuff however, the more "Mature" or Hardcore games dont seem to be there. I've realised since getting a PS3 recently that a lot of those games simply cant compare on the Wii. the Wii isn't capable of carrying many of the features of games like Uncharted and Fallout 3 because of certain limitations of the system. Some of these limitations cant be changed, horse power, graphical out-puts etc but some of them are design and policy choices made by Nintendo that they could change tomorrow if they wanted to, Lack of an online profile, lack of DLC functionality for disc games, lack of decent online, there are others.

I realise that Nintendo said from the outset that they were going their own way with Wii and that they didn't see themselves as competing with Microsoft and Sony and thats fine but but so often I find myself wondering about how fantastic a game on Wii could have been if I had the option to play in HD or with surround sound or chat to a friend while we played with a controller that wasn't entirely gimped. Why exclude these things? It would be great to have had the option.

Again I love my Wii, I still play it all the time, I bought it because I love the games that Nintendo make and that hasn't changed but I realised that for deeper, more challenging experiences like those in InFamous or Bioshock I was going to have to go properly current gen, hence the PS3.

So I suppose my question is will Nintendo ever return to the "hardcore" gamer and will the "Hardcore" gamer return to Nintendo? Despite what many people are saying I don't see a replacement for the Wii arriving before 2013 and even then who will it be aimed at? There are so many unused Wiis out there will anyone buy it at all? By stepping out of the console wars and disconnecting themselves form the traditional gaming audience have they burnt their bridges?

EDIT: This is only my own rambling thoughts, not a WUM, please feel free to disagree or set me straight on any of the above.

Retr0gamer

There'sa few mature games on the system. Resi 4, House of the Dead: Overkill, the resi shooters and No More Heroes and it's sequel all being great games. There's plenty of hardcore games as well. As long as you aren't an ignoramous and can get over cartoon visuals there's some stunning games on the Wii like Muramasa and a Boy and his Blob, two of the best looking games ever. There's also Punchout, Zak and Wiki, Opoona, De Blob, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Little Kings Story, Okami. Some excellent wii ware games like World of Goo, Contra Rebirth, Gradius Rebirth, Castlevania Rebirth and the two Lost Winds games.

The problem here is that you probably haven't heard of most of those games. The Wii has some amazng games but you have to put some effort into looking for them and checking reviews because they aren't advertised.

I don't think Nintendo will change their stupid friends codes online system this gen unfortunately. I also doubt they will be bringing out uch more than their family orientated games since they are making the big money which is a real shame.

Azhrei

I of course have bought my Wii for Nintendo's own games, but I have a healthy amount of third party games on my system. Muramasa - The Demon Blade, The Beatles - Rock Band, Dead Space - Extraction (I can't believe this game didn't sell, it's fantastic), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - The Crystal Bearers are games I've been enjoying recently, and that's without going near Nintendo's stuff, or anything on Wiiware.

Third party games I'm looking forward to this year include Fragile - Farewell Ruins of the Moon, Arc Rise Fantasia, No More Heroes 2 - Desperate Struggle, Epic Mickey, Sin & Punishment 2 and Trauma Team. Again without going near Nintendo's own stuff, and they've got a good list of games worth anticipating. It seems to me that there's a fair number of "hardcore" games in there.

The apparent lack of them on the Wii doesn't bother me though as I have a pc for the games that I either don't want to play on the Wii (such as the Call of Duty games), or the Wii cannot play at all (such as the Total War series). Wii60 is a really good combination, and I'm happy with my Wii/PC combo. You have both a Wii and a PS3 - why the complaints, then? Both machines do certain types of games that the other can't do as well, or not at all. There's enough "hardcore" games on the PS3 without worrying about the Wii.

Xluna

It is true that most of the top quality Wii games are from Nintendo but there's plenty of violent games on the Wii. Mad World must be the most violent game I've played and House of the dead overkill was one of the best experiences I had gaming wise recently.

I don't think Nintendo will ever return to their roots as a hardcore gaming company. Why should they? I mean they're making a fortune with their own franchises and innovative/life style games on the Wii and DS.
If they had'nt gone this root I think they would have been in danger of ending up like Sega. For me it all went wrong with the N64 and the sh!t really hit the fan with the Gamecube. Final Fantasy and Street Fighter were two of the biggest third party franchises on the Snes and were synonymous with the system. But they lost the rights to FF VII to sony and with that the support of RPG fans like myself.
The decision to use catridges over C.D.s was a made mistake. People and companies were lured to sony as making games was cheaper and would sell more. Who would have thought SSF2,released on the Snes in 1995 would be the last SF game on a Nintendo console until Capcom vs Tatsunoko this year?While the Saturn and P.S.1 had Virtua fighter,Tekken,Toshinden,street fighter alpha, Dead or Alive ect the N64 only had Fighters Destiny,a poor MK trilogy port and the broken Killer Instinct 2. Next gen sequels to Snes favourites such as Secret of Mana,Chrono trigger,Terranigma ect never appeared.

With that Nintendo lost their hardcore audience. They also lost out on the growing casual gamer market which was being exploited by Sony with Wipeout ect. Things got worse with the Gamecube. By their own high standards Mario Sunshine and Mario Kart G.P. are the weak links in the series...you could possibly add Wind Waker to that list. The new Starwing game was'nt a proper Starwing title. Metroid was perhaps the best sucess of the Gamecube.

I must admit I find it difficult to imagine what Nintendos next console will be like. They've pulled a master stroke this generation with the innovative Wii but the element of surprise is gone now. So long as Miyamoto keeps their core first party titles fresh and numerous they'll always have a chance though.