Wii Keep the Pace

I haven't had much to say this week: I've been on a Mass Effect 2 binge - brought about by obtaining all the DLC available and getting access to a High-Def TV.

Anyway, I recently heard that Nintendo's profits have taken a turn for the worse. Yep, the company that wrote the rulebook on gaming, traveled with many gamers from childhood and beyond is now in a rather uncomfortable position - the type of which is quite surprising considering the near untouchable nature Nintendo has enjoyed.

Sure the Wii has sold well and done a lot to introduce people to games, but what Nintendo do now is indeed a good question. With regards to the Wii, Xbox and Playstation have now embraced Motion Controllers, the console itself is being outclassed by it's technological superior rivals, first-party games like Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess have yet to drop in price, many of the 'hardcore' crowd are unimpressed and defecting to Microsoft and Sony, and one potential ace-in-the-hole, I am of course referring to the Virtual Console, seems to have been abandoned.

I do admire that Nintendo were trying to come up with new ways to play games than compete in the technological race. I give credit to the efforts Nintendo put in to grab attention of people who don't normally play games. However these two feats may have ended up working against Nintendo. The problem I find with Motion controls is that it essentially removes the connection between player and console. People play games as a leisure activity - you know, to relax - and incorporating motion controls takes that away through demanding the player to be off their seat and active.
Also, whilst I despise the distinction between the 'casual' and 'hardcore' gaming, I must grudgingly admit that it's inescapable with the Wii. Sure it may have tied up the casual crowd nicely, it has however lost a lot of the hardcore crowd to the PS3 and Xbox 360 - many of whom would've been weaned on the NES, SNES and N64.

Another problem with the Wii is the Virtual Console. One of it's major selling points, I myself was one of many sold over, it now seems to have been abandoned by Nintendo. No updates have appeared in a while and many longed-for titles have yet to show their face. I myself have championed the Virtual Console for the longest time and felt it was a real advantage for Nintendo. It's just a shame the idea wasn't taken to it's full extent. I would like to see more previously exclusive titles appear on the Virtual Console (Chrono Trigger for example) and more from obsolete consoles (I can think of more than a few Sega Saturn titles I would like to see dusted off). Come on Nintendo, it's not too late to turn around!

At the end of the day, the Wii may have managed to keep Nintendo financially stable, but ultimately, I'm not willing to deem it a successful console. Call it a combination of ideas not pushed to their full extent, ideas that just didn't work and being outpaced by Nintendo's rivals.
So what can Nintendo do from here? Company survival may well be the order of the day. Whilst Nintendo may have been unstoppable in the past, in recent years things have taken a rather uneasy turn. Indeed, one too many wrong moves can prove fatal in this business - just ask Sega. Of course, now Nintendo are investing a lot into the DS and it's successor - does this mean they're giving up on the home console business altogether? Abandoning what they've built a business around?

But, as history has a tendency to repeat itself, one would think that Nintendo may do what Sega did all those years ago: Introduce a new console thus inspiring a new generation just to remain ahead.