The Wii was never intended to be a “casual” console

Wii Lifestyle

The Wii is notorious for its wide appeal to non-traditional gamers, which has skewed its public perception to that of a casual console. However, at the last investors’ Q&A session, Iwata revealed that this perception was the result of a “misunderstanding” and a widespread misconception that “no or few core users [play] Nintendo platforms.”

[We] do not think that developing video games for casual or light users is the only way to expand the gaming population. There was a misunderstanding that Nintendo was dedicated to such games at some stage of the lifespans of the Wii and the Nintendo DS.

Iwata went on to clarify that their ultimate goal is to continue expanding the gaming population with “software that can be accepted by a wide variety of consumers, irrespective of age, gender or past gaming experience”. What may excite some of you is his admission that Nintendo could not do it alone and “would like to achieve [their] goal in cooperation with various developers.”

In a nutshell, Nintendo are aware of where they went wrong with marketing the Wii and have promised to do better with the Wii U as well as the 3DS. That’s the gist of it, but the original transcript is still a good read as Iwata went into much deeper detail than what I’ve summarized here.

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Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. xemnas

    if the 3rd party companies put more hardcore games on the wii people wouldn’t say the wii is a casual console

    • THE I

      +1 for you!

    • xemnas

      i mean look at the games Nintendo made for the wii. well there are some good 3rd party games but at the same time there is quite a bit of lazy crap put on it

  2. Lene

    This all comes from a single and well known problem: people are stupid. There is not a single reason for the Wii to be focused on “casual gamers” (the name itself doesn’t even make sense).

  3. Tails the Foxhound

    The idea was supposed to be that people who were new to games wouldn’t be too intimidated to play. Instead it was perverted into this system only has ‘Petz’ games on it. When it came to DS the publishers actually stepped up and disproved that. On the Wii, they just said fuck it and let the shovelware pile up.

  4. Andy

    If certain 3rd parties *coughUbisoftcough* would stop it with all the crappy shovel ware, the Wii wouldn’t even have that problem.

    • crackkat

      i wouldnt blame ubisoft. they did both core and casual games eg red steel 2 and they also made casuals. i say blame other developers who didnt touch the system with hard cores

  5. tittat

    disruption not casual theres no such thing as a casual console ,and since when was twin sticks aim assist and auto-aim core lol wink wink

    casual was just another kiddy/fad/doomed nonsense…

  6. I remember when Nintendo said something to this effect that back after about a year of the launch of the Wii. They never meant for it to be the third-developer’s beat seat to easy money. It was meant to do what the Wii U is proposed to do–unite many kind of gamers with an inclusive nature with a rather universal control concept, and surely, it had potential. But I think the problem was the Wii Remote not coming out with MotionPlus from the start, the graphical capability (for many people), and lazy, cheap developers who found they could make an easy dollar.

    But I think as a concept–that conventional is not the only way to success (a controller convention that largely Nintendo themselves established almost single-handedly to start with)–that the Wii was a success, and even in its technological inferiority, it STILL made Microsoft and Sony sweat, forcing BOTH of them to emulate their success (and a bit too late, at that–who really cares about PS Move and Kinect? Most PS3 and 360 owners don’t.).

    I think we’ll see that legacy–and the hard-learned lessons–continue on in the Wii U, and this with the success they were seeking with the Wii. But that’s only going to happen if third-party developers would stop being so stuck on the past and considering the Wii U with so much doubt. They are the success of the Wii U if they’d just step up!

  7. tittat

    quick scope = casual aiming via a mouse = core i love the crap the industry brainwashed ps3/x360 teens into thinking was real if i own this machine im core if i own the other im a homo ,lol @ that nonsense