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55 games purchases later, 60 downloads later, 3 console and handheld purchases later, it finally happened: I'm turning against Nintendo.
Despite the high amount of good news and announcements from E3 2011, there was something bugging me about Nintendo's presentation and announcements: no news for The Last Story, Xenoblades, and Pandora's Tower.
For the uninitiated, Xenoblades is a new action RPG from the creators of Xenogears and Xenosaga. The Last Story is a RPG from Mistwalker that contains the emotionally driven stories Hironobu Sakaguchi has made with previous Final Fantasy games, but now it comes with a much faster battle engine. Pandora's Tower is a hack and slash action game. While they probably aren't the greatest games for their genres, they are something that Wii lacks: titles with hardcore appeal and solid games that could bolster the Wii's software lineup until Wii U is finally unveiled.
And Nintendo gave the few Wii owners in the Americas who are genuinely interested in purchasing those games nothing. Nothing about a cancelation, release date, just plain nothing. It's very possible that there still could be something down the line. However, during their spiel about WiiU bringing the hardcore back and keeping the casuals interested, part of me felt they are just giving up on the Wii. Sure, Zelda, Kirby, and Rhythm Heaven is coming, but three great Nintendo titles is not how you close out the system's lifespan.
The fact they have not announced anything about those others games has just led me to believe they are turning their backs on the promises they made about the Wii and its owners-I have NOA to blame for that.
Before I go Nintendo bashing, let me make it clear: Nintendo itself is a fine company and one of the best development houses in the world. The fact they can crank and work on a staggering amount of content is always worth of praise and loyalty. And with the Wii, they showed that if you make gaming simpler by having non-intimidating hardware you can bring the masses in. I like Nintendo, I like their games, I like the Wii-Nintendo of America deserves my hate.
While the Wii has been successful by having the cheapest console on the market, they have had some great software. Hardcore titles like Mario, Smash Bros, Zelda, and Donkey Kong have sold well, as well as the casual stuff like Just Dance, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit. Now looking back on it, that's all NOA pushed, marketing wise. 'Give the hardcore the franchise they'll automatically buy and give their parents A trivia game!' There have also been some success stories in the middle, but it seems NOA has been stuck on this divide after the Wii became successful.
A divide they created. There have been tons of hardcore and niche games released on the Wii and were actually good games. I never understood why NOA refused to take the critics head on and show off what was actually available and just believed that owners will be happy with franchises and casual games because that's been their success. Now, with the un-acknowledgement of The Last Story, Xenoblades, and Pandora's Tower (these are just the main examples, NOA hasn't done squat for a bunch of other games) coming to North America, it seems clear that NOA's marketing strategy has always been Franchises and Casual Titles.
Nintendo of America didn't bother with two decent games, which were Fatal Frame IV and Disaster: Day of Report. Whether or not the quality of both games were worth the retail space is beyond the point, Nintendo of America didn't bring them over because they might not sell. Can't say for sure if that's the thought process for bringing other games to America. And maybe they have a point: why bother localizing critically acclaimed games that won't be a major hit? Why not spend their money on making sure the Wii owners know about Mario Sports Mix and…Mystery Case Files? (I swear to you, they promoted this. Look at their Twitter page). Maybe Nintendo of America doesn't want to take a chance on just critical darlings, especially ones that only garnered decent sales in Japan and have a distinct Eastern art style and gameplay sensibilities.
Here's the problem with all that: Nintendo published those same titles in Japan. they financed and marketed these 'bombs' in their native country and they were rewarded with decent sales. In a market as confusing as Japan's, any game that sells 100,000 copies its opening week is anything but a bomb. Nintendo has published a good number of titles that had hardcore appeal, including Zangeki no Reginliev, which had to come with its own red case to show how hardcore it was. They might have felt that these games filled a niche in the Wii's software lineup that Nintendo couldn't fill with their own developmental teams. If Nintendo Company Limited felt that these games were good enough to publish with their own money, then I have no idea why NOA thinks that they will bomb.
Not publishing these games isn't keeping the Wii afloat. While I never thought the Wii losing the monthly sales race to Xbox 360 was a big deal, it will be if Nintendo waits till November to release Skyward Sword. Especially since the last published title from Nintendo was Mario Sports Mix and the last high profile title on the Wii was the Conduit 2. So from February (or April, if you really loved Conduit 2) to November, Nintendo of America is giving up over 4 months of software sales to Sony, Microsoft, and Apple. Even if you just buy Zelda, that's too much time to go without quality software to promote.
First off, quality software will sell to the right audience. 3D Dot Game Heroes is not what you will call a blockbuster, but it was successful due to decent reviews, word of mouth marketing and a publisher willing to lower sales expectations for a game that has niche appeal. The same could be said for Demon's Souls. A brutal but fair difficulty, an old school design: this game had no business being a best seller but it did due to great reviews, great enthusiasm for that type of game, and great price point. Even Sony admitted they screwed up by not publishing their own game because they thought it wouldn't work in America. Truth is, gaming has expanded to accommodate all taste and genres. They are audience for each style of gameplay and art and mechanics. This whole thinking about what appeals to a certain audience is utter rubbish if you decide to freeze out one audience. Maybe JRPGs are not the cash cow they used to be but it doesn't mean people won't buy them or play them.
What makes this worse is the fact that when the Wii was just hype and it wasn't even named Wii, Nintendo believed that their system could attract developers who may not have 20 million dollars to spare on one title. Just a good idea and a team committed to seeing a vision come true on the console. The Wii could accommodate those needs. I believed that you don't need that much money to be a good game. Just a good vision and the will to see it through. That isn't to say that there isn't trash on the console, shovelware is rampant. Probably the only way to turn that tide is to, I dunno, release quality software. And with the lull on good software for months, now is when the Wii would do well with it.
Now, The Last Story, Xenoblades, and Pandora's Tower may turn out to be utterly boring and partly rubbish, but at least allow me to make that discovery on my own. NOA would rather I'd just buy Zelda games over and over becuase that's all they want to bother with: the easy sale. They'd rather sale my Wii than give me a reason to keep playing it. It's a real shame too because the Wii does have some rather great content, like No More Heroes, NBA Jam, Lost In Shadow, Monster Hunter 3, Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, and Muramasa. Your mileage may vary on those games, but I enjoyed those games immensely. I'd like to enjoy others. Which is why I joined Operation Rainfall.
This was not only a campaign to get those games localized for America, but I saw it as a bunch of Wii owners who are sick of NOA's policy of dividing the Wii market into two audiences only and freezing out gamers who want to support good software when it exists. This lead to Nintendo's Facebook, Twitter and Customer Support lines being filled with requests for these games and Monado: The Beginning of The World (Xenoblades's NA title) being pushed to number one in preorders at Amazon. It might be a silly thing to chart since no money was actually exchanged and won't be until the game is released, but the amount of preorders outsold people buying Ocarina of Time 3D, LA Noire, and each of the consoles. This might not prove that the market for buying these games still exist and can be very lucrative for Nintendo, but then again, Nintendo based the pricing on the 3DS on how well it 'resonated' with the crowd at E3 2010-Nintendo has made money on silly factors.
Now, maybe in the future, Nintendo of America will come out say and these titles are on the way or may be available in time for the WiiU launch. That's not going to undo the damage NOA has done keeping this divide going. No gamer should and will realistically wait until Skyward Sword comes out to get some mileage out of their system. They wouldn't have to worry about the hardcore coming back with the WiiU if they didn't outright abandon them with the Wii. NOA has no one to blame for that, not the press who kept the mantra going, not Sony and Microsoft who actually has content I bought for the their consoles in the past 4 months, not Apple for lowering the entry bar for smaller developers and not gamers who go to where the content is. Nintendo of America made gamers lose out on some decent content. And I don't want a new Sin & Punishment situation where gamers had to wait 8 years for a game that was already finished. These games are ready to be embraced by an audience with money to spare for these games.