The Great Hardcore Lie Exposed: Wii Did Not Lose Core Gamers

If you tell a lie enough times, people eventually come to believe it's actually true. Lots of "hardcore gamers" and industry professionals said that Nintendo left behind core games and core players with Wii, but if you take a look at the actual data, it's clear that's a big fat falsehood.

[legendoflex]

This may be the first time someone's talked about Wii's relationship to "core" Nintendo gamers that actually involves data. Hardcore gamers beware.

[admiralvic]

It has some good data and is fairly well done when compared to most other articles, but I wouldn't say it's completely accurate either.

Like there is absolutely nothing core about Animal Crossing, plus at least 3 (closer to 6) of the Wii offerings (that's a whole 10% or 20% if you count the full 6) were simply ports of previous titles. You can bump this up to 4+ if you don't count Animal Crossing, 5+ if you don't count Jungle Blast, though I would personally also count Excitebots and Excite Truck from "core" titles, so that would be 10 (or 30%) "core" Wii games I simply don't consider to be valid.

I would also say the larger install base says more about the Wii sales, than anything else. You can also make a strong case that the sales also went up, since many "core" gamers supported Nintendo do to weak third party offerings.

The whole "myth" or "lie" comes from the new direction Nintendo is taking their consoles. When I think of the Wii and Wii U, I think of a gimmick, just like I do with the DS and 3DS. I don't think that makes any of them bad, nor makes Sony / M$ better (Move / Kinect). The simple fact that most of the "best" third party titles don't exist on the Wii or Wii U, is still better proof than any sort of listing / sales figures for first party content (the only thing Nintendo has pretty much done without fail).

[StraightPath]

A True hardcore gamer owns all consoles. Why? A true hardcore gamer wants to play each and every exclusives offered by each console and also have the flexibility to choose multiplatform games based on its own merits on a particular console. A true hardcore gamer owns new and old hunting down missed gems and underlooked titles in retro and current consoles.

The folks at N4G are not really true gamers who actually hold the misconception that wii lost its core.PS3 or xbox owners who do not own a wii missed out so much that they are considered average casual gamers. Vice versa

[Alos88]

A well researched piece, even if the slight distain for hardcore gamers on the part of the author soured the article a little for me.

[MasterCornholio]

I think that the main issue with the Wii is that it brought so many casuals into gaming that the majority of people thought it was a console for said group of gamers. While the Wii had many casual titles it had its fair share of core titles as well but the PS3 and the 360 had more hardcore games than the Wii.

IMO

[3-4-5]

I've played games since 1988. Nintendo ALWAYS will find a way to pump out good games.

Nearly every system didn't have a ton of good games until year 2-4 for Nintendo.

N64 had 2 games at launch...but more classics followed.

while it didn't sell like the PS1 it is responsible in many ways for some of the ideas within games now that people really like.

People have gotten away from the pure fun aspect of Nintendo and people get tricked into thinking Nintendo isn't cool anymore because all their "cool" mma loving COD "hardcore gamers " who only play one type of game tell them it is so.

Ignorance is spreading in the gaming community or has I should say, but people are starting to wake up and realize the type of games we've been missing.

Can only take so many mediocre FPS games.

At this point, unless you are pushing boundries and giving us something actually new, making a FPS is beyond lazy and smells of no creativity within the studio or at least at the head of the studio.

anyways.....Nintendo will be fine.

* 3D Mario, Mario Kart U, Zelda U, WW HD, Super Smash Brothers, Pikmin 3, Yoshi's Yarn, + a few others will start tilting things back in Nintendo's favor.

[Jek_Porkins]

Before this generation and the Wii, I never heard the term casual gamer or hardcore gamer. It kind of makes you think, I believe if you were a big fan of either Microsoft of Sony, you needed to do some damage control because the Wii was so underpowered, so people starting saying it was all casuals, which wasn't the truth, most gamer's I know own a Wii as well as other consoles.

I think the Wii was just able to appeal to every, and the big Nintendo first party games are anything but casual in my opinion. Mostly I think people use the casual argument when it suits them, I really believe there is far too much emphasis put in on what's what, and changing the definition to suit an argument just makes people look ignorant and rash.

Hopefully this wont be as big an issue next generation since all three consoles will have a mix of everything, core, casual, family, social ect...

[DigitalRaptor]

You've never heard that term before, but it existed and those consumers still existed in the same sense on other platforms and devices such as mobile. I never experienced a "console war" before this generation, but that doesn't mean the same hasn't happened before either.

The truth is, like you said, Nintendo brought in a new type of consumer which we call the casual consumer. That translates to casual gamer. Those are the people that bought the Wii from its marketing strengths, things they've personally never seen before and because Oprah said it's god's gift to soccer moms. The people that either barely touched it and left it to gather dust until the next Mario or Wii Sports game came out, or used it for fitness simulators that brainwash silly people into thinking it can make them thin.

There is absolutely no denying there are core games on Wii. There are plenty, but what is troubling is Nintendo's pandering to these types of new consumer that made the Wii the highest selling console of this generation, but statistically and consistently, the least played console of this gen, when compared to Xbox 360 and PS3.

Those consumers moved on to Kinect because MS are smart and know how to jump on emerging trends. That is why Wii U will not sell so strongly this coming gen, and will most definitely remain behind PS4 and Nextbox.

[Jek_Porkins]

You cant really gauge the Wii U and how it's doing now, to how it'll eventually do. To say it's slow sales right now are because of things that went on with the Wii would be a bit of a mistake in my opinion.

The Wii U has no games, people like it, I know people who want one, but they want some games for it. They don't want to buy one and have nothing to play on it.

I don't really go in for "surveys" that go on about who plays what, I've had to clean dust off all my consoles over their lives, the Wii was no different for me, I spend weeks at a time playing Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess and No More Hero's on Wii, I have had times where I spent weeks on 360 games and same with PS3, it all depends on my mood and what games are out.

[ifritAlkhemyst]

Why do people insist on insulting the hardcore gamer by pretending we care what you play. The real hardcore gamer plays games, enjoys discussing games, would love to make games, etc.

The Casual/Hardcore dichotomy arose because of the Wii's inordinate fondness for shovelware that so many non-gamer's bought en masse. When people that have been gaming for years and would consider it a hobby (the hardcore) started telling the shovelware players (casuals) about all the other awesome stuff out there, it was as if the casuals became offended of their ignorance and labeled the rest of us hardcores.

Then all the idiots came and things got out of hand.

[L0YD]

It did

[legendoflex]

Proof? The data says it didn't.