Features: Nintendo: What's in store for 2009? Something for the hardcore?

[HEXUS]

A great year for Nintendo in 2008, but what's in store for 2009?

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[Stewart]

Couple of points -

The most exciting gamecube game being redone with Wii controls, by far, (well, along with Metroid Prime) is Pikmin... you neglected to mention it.

Secondly though, the whole thing about catering to hardcore gamers on the Wii... the Wii isn't a hardcore machine.

It's that whole jack of all trades, master on none thing.

I've got a Wii, I use it, pretty much, to play Mario, Zelda, Metroid. Both the new Wii games, and the older ones. With the Gamcube games working on the Wii, and the Virtual Console service, you can play pretty much the whole Mario series (cept Mario World 2), Zelda (cept Majoras Mask) and Metroid.

So mostly older games, or the latest games in a long running series. Gameplay over graphics.

So that might show me to be an old school gamer.

Still, come Feb 20th, I'll have my £150 TE Fightstick, Street Fighter 4 running on my HDTV, all the Xs.

This is how it has to be done - you want slightly deeper, more crafted, old school, platform jumping gameplay - get a Wii. You want flashy HD graphics, and games where you punch Ninjas in the face - get one of the HD capable consoles.

This is, I think, the only way you can have you cake an eat it. I want to play Super Mario Galaxy and Pikmin - I also want to play the GTA4 DLC and Street Fighter 4.

And for that you need 2 consoles, running according to the outlook of 2 different companies.

The Wii trying to be hardcore is as pointless as Microsoft trying to out mascot Nintendo.

Continuing to do what they clearly do best is the way forward for the various companies, not trying to do what one of the others already does better.

If you want hardcore, get a 360 or a PS3. If you want gameplay over graphics, get Wii. If you want a bit of both, get one of each.

[Steven W]

I agree that it's not meant for the hardcore gamers, but there's plenty of them out there with a Wii and it's part of the Wii audience that hasn't really been catered for. Like MS will continue to target the casual audience since they saw how successful it is with Nintendo, so Nintendo and 3rd party devs will look at which part of their audience is not catered for.

I'm looking forward to playing these type off games with Wii and with Motion Plus I can imagine targeting and shooters in general are going to get a whole lot better.

[Stewart]

Yeah, but no matter how good those shooters are, there will be better shooters on Xbox and PS3, so why play the Wii shooters?

Play each console to its strengths.

Play your platform and party games on Wii, and your driving, shooting games on 360 \ PS3.

Of course Nintendo will try to grab a slice of every market they can, as will everyone else, but at the end of the day, by doing what the console does better than the competition, and doing it well, you will create a platform that people find attractive, want to own and will spend money on.

[digit]

Interesting games but still only one game there makes me want to get a wii and thats house of the dead overkill. The rest I think are an odd choice for the console and could I think be done far better on the others.

I think the wii ought to see far more arcade titles. I'd like to see Namco and Sega release a lot more of there arcade shooters on the wii.

Point Black, Time Crisis, Crisis Zone are games from Namco that would well on the wii. Sega could make sequels to its shooters from yesteryear, Confidental Mission is one such example. Virtual Cop 4 is out in arcade's now, don't think a port would be to difficult for that?

Konami could port is GBA game (that was miles better then Mario Kart) Konami Crazy Karts. Nintendo could also greatly expand the track count in Mario Kart, downloadable content of the old tracks I'm sure people would go crazy for.

[blaineca]

Quite frankly I don't think Nintendo releases all that many Casual titles on the Wii... perhaps I missed them... I mean there's Wii Fit and Wii Play... Wii Music I wouldn't really consider casual... it's just its own thing, and it's not god awful at all... it's the only "Wii **" title that I will continue to play for a long time. Of course there's also Endless Ocean but isn't that just a remake of a PS2 game, in fact? Regardless, most of the Wii games in my collection are simply a continuation of their series from the other consoles... Brawl, Kart, Strikers, Twilight Princess, Corruption, Galaxy, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem... I really like all of those games.

Conduit may be good... we'll have to wait and see... it's VERY hard to make an FPS that is worth it's salt. Very large studios have tried and failed... I'm not sure what makes the Conduit so special... other than the fact that it has an engine that other devs can use. As to MadWorld... I might like that game, but I don't see it necessarily as a good trend. The ex-Clover guys have specifically stated that they are trying to appeal to the West with this game. I wish, instead, that they could somehow promote Japanese style games... although this one may be very good in fact and they may be using the violence just to break into the market. We shall see.

I'm looking forward to Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter... but I'll be presently surprised if Conduit and Madworld really are excellent.

[Eagle]

Yeah, but no matter how good those shooters are, there will be better shooters on Xbox and PS3, so why play the Wii shooters?

or do you think that maybe the game that will change your mind just hasn't been made yet cause theres been nothing quite like the wii controls yet...

[boxrick]

Bring on Mario Toilet Cleaning or something else begginging with m which mimics the same sort of actions as plumbing

The countless rereleases or garbage seen on the wii i mean take the few months releases in the future:

( taken from eurogamer )

nuary 2009
23rd My Fitness Coach Wii Ubisoft
23rd Neopets Puzzle Adventure Wii Capcom
February 2009
6th New Play Control! Pikmin HOT Wii Nintendo
13th Deadly Creatures Wii THQ
13th Mushroom Men Wii Gamecock Media Group
13th The House of Dead: Overkill HOT Wii SEGA
27th Castlevania: Judgment Wii Konami
27th Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop Wii Capcom
27th Family Ski & Snowboard Wii Atari
27th OneChanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers Wii D3Publisher of Europe
27th Ultimate Band Wii Disney Interactive Studios
- Bolt Wii Disney Interactive
- NASCAR Kart Racing Wii Electronic Arts
- Project Zero 4

Omg another house of the dead. or even family ski and snowboard or chop till you drop? What is with all this bloatware rubbish.

I purchased my wii... played a few games and got bored now it just sits below my television and rots... unless i want to play another remake of some rubbish mario game or some stupid wii music game which is probably the worst released game in the last few years it will stay practically unused.

Im far from a hardcore gamer... if anything im a *casual* gamer i play games every now and then... the wii is *not* what i look for. It has gimicky controls and just wish it would let me use the gamecube controller half the time, it doesn't even have a digital way i can connect it to my amp.

So in my personal opinion wiis are overrated, gimicky and poor consoles crowded with poor 3rd party releases and even worse first party re re re releases.

A few games have some potential in the coming months but majority is more rubbish.

Think the best game for the wii is world of goo... and thats a pc port :/