By Furious Francis, editor-in-chief
Nintendo has always had a massive fan base, who loves their games like Mario, Metroid, and Zelda. Leagues of fans lined up to get the Wii and Wii U on their respective launch days, but one thing is clear. There is a wildly different perception of Nintendo, from the consumers who purchase their products and the media who cover them . If you went off the media's perception of Nintendo and the Wii U, one would think they are the worst company ever. Many major media sites have been insanely critical of the Wii U because it doesn't fit their perceptions of how a console should be. Before you read the rest of the article. Take a look at the latest episode of the Annoyed Gamer on Gametrailers.com. This type of attitude toward Nintendo is widespread in the gaming industry. You can even check out my interview with Craig from Screwattack. He called the system trash before it was even released. Please comment and let us know what you think.
10°
40°
40°
40°
Ad 
30°
I'm a 'hardcore' gamer. Like you I was playing hardcore games on the NES as they were way more hardcore than on my Apple II or Atari 2600, etc.
But I also like Nintendo games. Even though I didn't get a Wii, I saw the value in people getting one. The Wii U has what I want, and I want some Nintendo games and hopefully some good ports.
Doesn't mean it needs to, my PC is more powerful than what the 720 or PS4 will be. Didn't matter, I still wanted a Wii U. Will still get the others as well.
It's funny that it's not 'hardcore' gamers that hate the systems. It's people who ONLY like 'hardcore' games that due to their past perceptions (aka a guess by them) that don't like the system. They are in their own little bubble. Because you CAN be like millions of other gamers who like 'hardcore' games and yet still like what Nintendo offers, and realizes that no....Nintendo doesn't automatically mean 'kiddie'. Only fools think like that. To them, they must think 'don't spend a penny all in one place' still holds true....because things never change according to them.
both of you are using the term "hardcore" to describe the games rather than the practice of playing games.
That is where there is a disconnect between older and younger gamers. older gamers understand the connotation of such a term like casual or hardcore as it relates to the amount of dedication one put into playing games. It wasnt the "type" of game at all.
The younger generation of gamers (as eluded to by triggytrolls) at some point took those designations and made them fit more to the type of game they played.
for example, by today's classification a game like tetris is a casual game by nature. yet there can be some pretty hardcore tetris players out there. In my phrasing, the term hardcore describes the amount of effort into playing a game of tetris as someone playing on a more regular/consistent basis than someone else.
Simply put, pretty much every gamer can be classified as both hardcore AND casual depending on how much time they put into a game. I myself am a casual halo player but have been a hardcore mario kart player now and then. It is by the addictive nature of a game that can make the term go either way.
When i was younger, you earned the right to be called a hardcore gamer because you pretty much played games all the time. It didnt matter what game just so long as the addictive nature of the game sucked you in more than the next guy.
on a side note...what triggytroll said has some merit. Most younger gamers dont know what it was like to progress from the days of pong up through the 2600 on to today. therefore there is no appreciation of where gaming came from and with that there is a lack of respect to the pioneers of the hobby.
I do believe with age comes wisdom and at some point these younger players will be older and having similar conversations with younger gamers about how things were different in their early years as well.
Which is the point here really. Generational favoritism swings just as quickly in the core gamer market than it does in the mainstream market, its just theres paid trolls like GT who rely on core gamers for ad profit.
None of this matters anyway, you see its app gaming thats incurring on traditional gaming media, not the opposite.
Nintendo was not this case not only Nintendo survived their treason but in long therm period they flourished.
Sony and M$ success is completely dependent on their good will.
Nintendo survived EVEN without them or rather despite of them, so they try with bad ports and slander.
Here we have a company in Nintendo that does things differently, focusses on games, and hasn't resorted to the nickel and diming that is annoying gamers all over the place - on disc DLC, online passes, micro transactions that offer little value, etc. They offer different experiences to the typical FPS/3rd person action titles that are barely different from each other which gamers claim to be getting sick of.
Gamers claim to be sick of bug ridden games being released and having to wait for the inevitable patch to fix it, yet that's so rare with Nintendo games that when a potentially game breaking bug was pointed out in Skyward Sword, it made a fair bit of news.
In short, the attitude of some gamers and media outlets to Nintendo is nothing short of bewildering to me considering the amount of complaining going on regarding the so-called main players in the industry. Are Nintendo perfect? Of course not, no company is. But why people are so hostile towards them while giving the industry stagnating likes of Sony and Microsoft a free pass is utterly beyond me.
They've delivered a fantastic console with the Wii U, and yet many are so dead set against giving them any time at all to prove the credentials of the machine and what it's capable of with it's innovative features. It's being written off based on the launch games, there's constant whining about the specs from people that don't even know what the specs actually mean or what's to come from the likes of Sony and MS...it's truly bizarre to see.
Nintendo's demise has been predicted since the N64, and each time they have proved the doubters wrong. Even so-called flops like the Gamecube were still profitable exercises and featured some excellent games.
The next time that gamers complain about a publisher screwing them over with DLC, or Sony and MS doing something with their hardware that they don't like, I'll simply shrug my shoulders and point out that they made their own beds by being so willing to accept it while bashing a genuine alternative option which was largely free of such troubles.
Nintendo doesn't nickle and dime since their online is lacking and the install base (wii) is filled with 7-12 yo kids. They can't.
Where were you in 2006-2009? I can assure you you were not on this site. You would never imply that PS3/Sony gets a free pass on stuff had you been here.
Good lord Insomnium give it a rest already. How long will you play this 2006/09 card? It's going on 6 years now! GET OVER IT!!
Every console or device gets the doom and gloom treatment here, it does not matter if you were in the PS3, 360 or Wii articles.
And Prino is spot on, there have been numerous patches and downloads for both 360 and PS3 that took way over a half hour but now that the WiiU has ONE uh oh watch out BAAAAAD SYSTEM!
How quickly we forgive the other systems over time but damn one system out the gate for some of the same flaws.
The Wii U is in the same boat as the Vita, early on in its lifecycle & 'sales' not as one expected they would be...BAM!!! Doom & Gloom. Gaming media these days are so quick to make judgement on something & care more for 'traffic ie: hits' to their site than actually doing respectful journalism.
The Wii U is gonna be fine so ignore these so called 'professionals'. The same people that believed the PS3 was 'dead', who believed the Wii was 'trash', who believed the XB360 didn't have a chance against the PS3, who believe the 3DS & now the Vita are dead.
it is like listening to a broken record.
Nintendo has seen hate(actual hate, disregarding any legitamate criticism) Since the 64. Sony recieved NOTHING but praise, adolation and butt kissing until after the ps3 launched(not a second before) and then recieved nothing but apologists and yearly "year of the playstation 3" articles for 6 years. All while Wii was being blasted for its success.
Then the 3ds releases, does decently out the gate and... is treated as a faikure. Still is in some pockets around here. The Vita? Yes, it had some negative stories... but unlike the 3ds trash articles they were always strongly discredited and rebutted by a lot of people. All while more apologist articles kept cropping up. It never recieved the level of one sided blasting 3ds has despite having always performed far worse than 3ds ever did.(which may have helped 3ds grow stronger while keeping vita weak, ironically)
Now, look at the hottest stories. There is an article blasting wiiu, approved by the biggest anti nintendo higher ups and trolls of this site from a webpage opened ONLY for that article and the first commentors are... singing its praises. That scream Deliberate, premeditated and calculated use of this site to slander the WiiU. Have you ever seen ANYTHING like that for anyone else? Because I haven't.
I do remember the slack that Nintendo received with the N64 & Gamecube specifically the N64. Nintendo's denial to move to a new format (CD) made the company lose a lot of 3rd party support.
This gen the gaming media did not have as high expectations for Nintendo after the poor showings of the N64 & Gamecube so the Wii flew under the radar for many gaming sites. However since the Wii targeted a different audience it wasn't taken seriously as the other 2.
With the Wii U, Nintendo have been boasting about massive 3rd party support & moving into the HD era. Now there are expectations & the gaming media is taking them seriously now cause Nintendo is being so vocal about it.
I look at it as the same as the PS3 release, after the success of the PS2 Sony was very vocal about how wonderful the PS3 is, how it was the future, etc. Nintendo is doing almost the same thing. With the Wii's success Nintendo is boasting about new way of gaming & all that PR stuff. Sony paid for their boasting & it has taken 7 years for them to climb out of that hole....hopefully Nintendo takes a step back & ease off the PR.
Also Not all the media is bias against Nintendo. Kotaku really like the Wii U.
9 out of 10 hate articles are by some no name writer, from some no name site, talking BS they don't even fully understand (usually with poor grammar and spelling), then feeding it to the trolls and hate mongers here at N4G.
1 guy at IGN + 2 guys at GameTrailers + 100 hater fanboys with a video game blog =/= Major gaming media. Forget that noise. The Wii U is a great little console, doing things that no other console has done yet, and doing things done in the past, better.
Thats why some pseudo-journalist hate on the wii u even 99% of them never had played one before. They can make some few cents with that.
They could write not bieased articles, with fair reviews, evaluating the good and bad points before call it a disgrace, but that doesnt help calling ppl attention.
"3DS is DOOMED" articles were the most prestigious thing to write around 1 year ago, before 3DS just crush all the DS records and shut this retards out. Now they will do all they can, to make some noise, so when the wii u releases a pikmin, metroid and zelda and start selling like hot cakes they already got all the hits they need and can pretend nothing happened.
Pathetic