A lot of debating (see bickering) has been going on around the interwebs these past months in regards to Nintendo's new console the Wii U, Im not about to "debate" whether or not their new console is next gen, but I will say that it is inarguably Nintendo's next generation console, if you get my meaning.
A great many gamers believe Nintendo to be in trouble and feel that they are inevitably doomed to obscurity if they are to continue down their current course, these people also feel that the only reasonable course of action is for Nintendo to take a more mainstream approach, and apply a more hardcore friendly business model similar to that of Microsoft and Sony, there is however one or two rather large if not gaping wholes in this way of thinking, Nintendo have never really been "hardcore" it's not their area and if they where to attempt it they would most likely be eaten alive by those who have already set up foundation and acheived great success for themsleves in the mainstream market, Sony and Microsoft.
Nintendo, in order to change their current business model and appeal to the hardcore market would need to take their current game franchises, rework them, alter their core gameplay, make them more accessible and appealing to hardcore gamers of today, the Legend of Zelda franchise would need to appear more mature and take on a more epic scale, imitating games such as God of war and Darksiders, Mario is not popular amongst hardcore gamers so he would no doubt fall into obscurity only making small cameos in popular games and being used as DLC character skins before being dropped completely, the Metroid franchise would most likely be turned into to some sort of scifi COD imitator with a heavy focus on Online multiplayer and coop, this just wouldn't work it's not Nintendo, they could try it but they would inevitably fail.
Even arguing that Nintendo could keep their 1st party games the way they are and just roll out a more powerful console (apart from the fact that's just not viable let alone sensible to do right now) that would allow them to acquire more 3rd party support, we've had two home consoles already that offered multiplat 3rd party games, do we really need three home consoles all offering the same 3rd party multiplat titles with only minor variations in graphics and gameplay? Even if that where to happen since most hardcore gamers dislike Nintendo's 1st party titles there would be no reason for them to choose Nintendo over Sony or Microsoft, it happened with the Ganecube.
Now Im not bashing Nintendo, not at all, but thinking about it Nintendo has founded the majority of their success on not even attempting to appeal to the mainstream or hardcore market (mostly because there technically wasn't a hardcore market in the past) but just producing/publishing fun and enjoyable games, gaming after all was widely regarded as immature, juvenile, childish even, especially back during the days of the NES, gamers at the time would have been playing Mario, Zelda and/or Metroid, and funnily enough enduring ridicule from the "cool kids" of the day for doing so (some things never change it seems) So then skip forwards about 10 years and we have our first official console for the mainstream in the form of the "Sony Playstation" (I won't go into detail regarding how Nintendo shot themselves in the foot when they asked Sony to produce a disc based console only to pull out last minuet leaving Sony with little choice but to launch the console themselves pretty much leading to the creation of what we now call the hardcore market, I won't mention that at all)
The Playstation brought a whole new breed of gamers to the games industry and offered them gaming experiences Nintendo wasn't, and that was fine Nintendo was doing their own thing appealing to their fans, why would they need to appeal to another fanbase that's already covered by another home console? The same goes for today, Nintendo is just doing their own thing like they have always done, Sony and Microsoft are taking care of the hardcore gamers, not only would it be completely unnecessary for Nintendo to attempt to compete, but it would mean financial suicide to drop their current fanbase and enter the mainstream market when they are clearly not equipped to appeal to hardcore gamers, I would rather Nintendo do what they do best than copy the success of another company only to fail.
The Wii's success during the last console generation can and should be attributed greatly to the casual market Nintendo themselves had a big hand in creating, they chose to grab the attention of an up and coming market because Nintendo know they are not equipped to appeal to the hardcore market, the vast majority of gamers suggesting that Nintendo should stop what they are doing and appeal to them are forgetting that Nintendo already have a large and very loyal fanbase, it may not be quite as large as Sony's or Microsoft but it's large enough to support them, Nintendo have also allowed a great many smaller gaming studios to develop IP's they simply could not have released on any other console for it just not being financially profitable and or the publishers weren't interested for lack of appeal from the mainstream, Xenoblade chronicles, The Last Story, the up and coming Bayonetta 2, Pandora's tower, those games that have been released in this list are great games, but simply would not find much of an audience anywhere else but on a Nintendo system.
We honestly don't need Nintendo to enter the mainstream, they have their place and they are doing just fine, all the articles and talk about the Wii U being "doomed" are missing the fact that no console sells well during January and/or Febuary, just look at at the PS Vita that's still selling poorly even with games like Assasins creed, Killzone and Ghost Recon.
The Wii U will most likely start picking up speed and selling better later on in the year, especially when Nintendo put their big guns out such as Zelda U, Metroid U, Pickmin U, Mario U and Monolith Soft's X, these may not appeal to many hardcore gamers but to Nintendo fans these are definitive console sellers.
Well I guess that's all I've got on this, I hope I made some good points or at least a bit of sense, I know Im bound to have a lot of gamers disagree with me but honestly, if you're happy with Sony or Microsoft then what do you need Nintendo for? If you're not already a fan of them then you probably never where or will be.
Anyway, thanks for reading my blog and please feel free to leave a comment but let's keep it clean, thanks.
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