Nintendo is Smarter than I am

Let me first say that this entire atricle was written while a little drunk, so its possible that it may read rather disjointedly. Perhaps when I am once again able to think for myself I will try to rewrite this (assuming that when I do reread it, it sounds like a drunk person trying to make intelligent thoughts)



Ok it’s not that often that I admit that I’m wrong…that is because I am rarely wrong. However, when I am wrong, I will admit it. About 6 months ago…hell…about 1 month ago (wow was E-3 really one month ago) I was wrong. You might be wondering what I was wrong about. Well I was wrong about the need for a strong Wii launch lineup. It was my belief that in order to gain popularity in this next-gen market (even though Nintendo does not consider Wii to be next-gen) Nintendo would have to line up a KILLER launch, full of games that span every genre, so as to grab as many different types of buyers as possible. This line of thinking went along very nicely with everything Nintendo was touting. Nintendo has said from the beginning that the Wii would be for everyone. Mom. Dad. Boy.Girl. Young. Old. Doesn’t matter.

However, I do believe, that I was wrong. I realized this after hearing Nintendo’s latest press conference that stated that Nintendo would be releasing their three biggest hitters (Zelda, Mario and Metroid) all within the first 6 months of Wii being released. Last month I would have said, that is too long of a wait, Nintendo can’t afford to wait that long to release at least 2 of their heavy hitters. But it is my belief that they do not need to do this.

Unfortunately, I can’t see Wii being an over night success. People are afraid of change. As such, they are going to be more reluctant to purchase it without any indication of its utility. Xbox and PS3 did not/will not have this problem. Those two are offering the EXACT same thing as before, but with better graphics. There aren’t really any new features that jump out as being blindingly different. Xbox 360 is a better Xbox. PS3 is going to just be a better PS2 just like PS 2 was just a better PS1. Wii, however, is not just a better Gamecube. Granted, after having played it, I do believe it is indeed better THAN the gamecube, it is not a replica.

That said, Nintendo needs to have a Muhammad Ali approach to this new market, NOT a Mike Tyson approach. The difference here is that Mike Tyson came out guns blazing would try to cripple your from the moment the first bell rings. Whereas Muhammad Ali could hit hard, but he spread his hits out over the course of an entire match, never letting you really get too much of a break. I think that with this new controller, Nintendo needs to introduce it to the industry with their heavy hitters spread out.

If Nintendo were to release Mario, Zelda and Metroid very close to one another, they would be just fighting against themselves. Sure the Wii would be more than sold out everywhere, but eventually the Wii would start to lose steam as people finish up with these three games and find there is not much else on deck for the next few months. This is exactly what Nintendo does NOT need. It is my belief that success of the Wii will come from gradual bludgeoning of the competition.

Every system has some. Nintendo has the most. You know them as games that WILL outsell everything else out on the market. Playstation has mainly Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto (soon to have God of War as a franchise). Xbox has well…Halo. Nintendo has Mario, Link and Metroid. All of these are games that are not only powerhouses but they are strong enough franchises to push sales of consoles alone. Zelda will be released with the Wii. This, alone, will lead to a sell out of Wii systems. Unfortunately for the Wii it is also being released for Gamecube, which means that the ‘need for a system to play Zelda on’ will die rather quickly. Only the true fans of Zelda will demand to play it on the Wii (who would be so picky?....). So although Zelda is a great way to start, it just won’t have enough gas to keep the Wii engine moving by itself. Sure other games will come out for it, but most of those games will be the games that are bought secondary to Zelda or because the person who has the Wii just wants to play different types of games with the new controller (which is completely understandable).

Thus, in order to keep Wii sales high, early in its life, they must continue to drop bombs. That is where Mario (the platform version and Smash Bros) and Metroid come into play. Both of those series are strong enough to warrant a new flood of Wii purchases. My guess is that one of those games will drop right after Christmas (maybe mid January). This will give the next wave of people a ‘reason’ to try to get a Wii. After the two Mario games come out and Metroid, the system should have enough hype to warrant a cool down from 1st party games.

Of course, this entire theory is based on the fact that the games produced for the Wii receive rave reviews because that is what I believe Nintendo is banking on by not releasing a lot of their heavy hitters all at once.