Once in a while we here the ye olde emotional 3rd party argument...

'They can't make it on Wii, they cannot compete, their good games do not sell well....'

Yeah, whatever.

Fact is very few game on any system sell very well. FACT

Fact is most of the blockbuster games come from the top 10 biggest publishers FACT

Fact is the biggest, most critically acclaimed, and most creative big dog who aint afraid of the big risks, is Nintendo FACT

SO it is no surprise that week in and week out, Nintendo is an 800 pound gorrilla that tears the arms off of 360/PS3 software sales.....hell they have earned it. 30 years of making great games and never taking a dump on fans with game quality will do that. 30 years of breaking new ground, making hugely influential blueprint games, and solving gameplay problem will do that. 30 years of fine tuning arcade bread and beans gaming will do that for you.

Nintendo = quality and fun, FACT. If that changes, well then you have something to complain about - But WHY are people surprised and dismayed that the best and biggest game maker dominates the industry?

Don't. buy. the. anti-hype.

Can we retire the "Fact is [opinion]. FACT" format already? It's getting old.

Adam, make a list of the top 25 best selling games of last year, and tell me how many unique publishers you find in that list, and how many publishers have mulitple games....if you want to argue facts, step up to the line and put the biscut in the basket.

If you want to claim facts then provide links to back them up.

I'm not arguing the facts or the biscuits, just talking about the format of the post, but on the subject of facts, "facts" like "Nintendo = Fun" aren't facts. They're opinions. A good opinion, but still an opinion.

Still, while I'll wait until E3 to decide if their dominance is good for them or not (I don't really think it will be, but who knows what they'll show), but there are plenty good enough third party games coming out this year that I don't see reason to complain. Nintendo is even letting third parties launch Motion Plus, and third parties also have WiiWare and VC which Nintendo hasn't touched much lately with their own games. Whether third parties do well or not, I don't know or really care. I don't work for a third party publisher.

The Wii's success has hinged entirely on a motion control gimmick that gamers have long accepted is inadequate for anything more precise than "waggle to execute a triple backflip whilst playing the guitar solo from 'Paradise City'", yet it keeps selling. I personally find that surprising - not that it keeps selling, because it's a fashionable toy, but that it's taken this long for sales to finally slow down when the INNOVATIVE, IMMERSIVE CONTROL SCHEME has long since been proven to be bupkis.

To say Nintendo is dominating the market is a bit of a misnomer, too - they might be making the largest profit, and I don't deny that the Wii represents a sort of paradigm shift that has allowed peripheral-heavy games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band to succeed, but the software itself isn't breaking any real boundaries or innovating in any real way. Nintendo software is dominating Wii sales charts because, to be perfectly honest, if you don't watch the hardcore blogs/news aggregates regularly you wouldn't know anything of quality was even being released. How many people do you think were burned by Red Steel, for example? People turn to proven names like Mario and Zelda because they know the usual Nintendo production values will be at play and to me that's the big issue: Nintendo's production values haven't necessarily improved in tandem with the increase in sales. Their current dominance is essentially a fluke - an extremely calculated fluke, but a fluke nonetheless.

Inevitably, though, does it really matter? Why do people have to try and associate credibility with something before they can allow themselves to like it? Accept that the Wii is, in the grand scheme of things, a toy, and move on with your lives.

No Moai Head, I do believe you are quite mistaken on several points. The control scheme is far more than waggle backflips, I know, you may be a person who tends to talk in general extremes, but we cannot let you take our silence for compliance with your ideas. IR pointing, in particualar has added much to games, from FPS like Metroid, to platforming apllications ala Galaxy, to mouse like control ala World of Goo. Those are just a few example to counteract you bupkis argument.

As far as motion, they range from tight tilt control for a range of titles -, including Bit Trip Beat, Mario Kart, Excite Truck, select activites from Galaxy, again, to name just a few - to supplemental, thematic, intuitive motion for several tiles such as spin based acticvities for Mario to perform, reloading a gun or throwing a greande in Onslaught, and doing tricks in Maio Kart. Those are just a few example to counteract you bupkis argument.

Interesting that you choose Mario and Zelda for an example of high production values, but then you perhaps have your head in the sand when it comes to their true innovative juggernauts of this generation - Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and co? Very innovative games, their success is not a fluke, but a positive market response away from cinematic literalist games in favor of arcade nuts and bolts gaming. It is a reformation as much as anything.

But go on believeing Wii is a fluke toy, and the consoles that you must consider 'tools' (and I do like the word tool) are going down the right path - which is essentialy 'same old, same old'. Tie another number round the old sequel tree.....

Everything in life is a matter of taste.

And videogames are not only toys.
Whith (proper/quality) videogames you have gameplay, a soundtrack, a scenario, interactivity, and you get bonded with characters!
The movies come 2nd to videogames as a form of art.

IR pointing has nothing to do with motion controls whatsoever and adds nothing to gameplay that couldn't be achieved more accurately with a mouse. There is nothing innovative about moving a cursor within a 2D space.

The examples of motion control you gave just to to show what I'm saying. Remember those ads from the Wii launch for stuff like Wii Sports, Red Steel, etc that pushed the whole "Wow, we're IN the game!" angle and purported that you'd be in for some realistic, physically immersive experience? Remember actually playing Wii Sports and realising that the velocity and angle of your shots in tennis were calculated by nothing but timing, or that the motion sensors could barely detect anything short of random flailing in boxing? As for Galaxy, what does shaking the Wiimote have to do with anything that's going on screen? The idea was, and still is, that the motions you make will physically manifest themselves on-screen, not be simple re-maps for button presses. Nintendo themselves have acknowledged as much with the launch of the MotionPlus expansion which will ostensibly allow for the kind of gameplay that was suggested three years ago now.

There is nothing innovative about either Wii Sports or Wii Fit in terms of the products themselves - they represent a paradigm shift, a changing public attitude and perception of what constitutes a "video game" - but from a gameplay perspective they're as shallow as they come. Fun? Yes. Worth replaying? Yes. Innovative? No. The production values aren't particularly high either, so I don't know why you're even comparing those games with the games I mentioned earlier.

Where in my post did I say anything about other consoles being "tools"? Also, you can't seriously comment negatively about sequels and pass it off as a defense of Nintendo - a substantial amount of Nintendo's own Wii software is either a sequel, a remake or a port.

I have 5 Nintendo, and 7 third-party (disc) games for my Wii, so there you go.

In fact, I reckon by the end of the year, I'll have more Sega games than Nintendo games

I followed SEGA all my life and only changed to Gamecube after Sony killed off the Sega Dreamcast (which to this day has been my alltime favourite console), the gamecube with pretty good and then I moved onto the wii. But I have to say Im glad SEGA has supported the wii so much and I have a serious chunk of Sega games in my wii (disc) collection, but at my last count I had over 40 wii (disc) games so I had them from multiple third party companies.

....damn, ive just had a quick count up and I atually have nearly 60 wii games filling my shelf. Time for a clear out I gues. lol I pretty much play only 10 of those regularly and four of them are SEGA games.

Where in my post did I say anything about other consoles being "tools"? Also, you can't seriously comment negatively about sequels and pass it off as a defense of Nintendo - a substantial amount of Nintendo's own Wii software is either a sequel, a remake or a port. -M.Head

Not the ones I am championing here - bull crap! Let see Rockstar make a game that surpasses GTA in terms of impact. Nintendo has done that with SEVERAL games out side of Mario, Zelda and company....

Also IR IS a form of motion sensing......

Wii Sports was/is very innovative. Mii support, the way they did it WAS innovative. The control is very innovative. Name a game that came before that is any way comprable.....fail.

Games do not become phenominal system sellers like that by accident or fluke....

Nintendo is also much, much bigger than them. It's unfair to compare a first-party publisher that encompasses many development studios to a third-party that really needs to make its name on one or two main franchises to stay afloat without hardware sales to back them up as they spend on experimental games. Their Table Tennis game was really good on the 360. Wii version less so. Red Dead Redemption looks awesome. I hate GTA in all its forms, but their other games are surprisingly not so bad.

How did Nintendo grow so big, Adam?

Rockstar can spend their GTA dev on any game they should choose.....

By putting out good hardware at a time when consoles were in the decline. Which of course has nothing to do with Rock Star, so it's again not really accurate to compare.

Rock Star can spend their development time on any game, yes, but GTA is a guaranteed success and a recipe they are familiar enough with to know how to work with and improve on without spending as much developing it. The amount of risks they take on games like Table Tennis and Redemption seems appropriate to the size of the company.

eugenewrayburn: winner of bad metaphors 2009.

Bah consoles are simply electronics - they are nothing. NOTHING!

Nintendo got big by making great inconclastic games. That peopl repsonded to, because they were very high quality, and FUN!

How many game devs are famous for being credited with developing only ONE hit game/ or franchise? I could name several.

But look at Miyamoto, he does not sit still, does he?

For DK to Mario to Link to Star Fox to PIkmin to Nintendogs, etc, etc......

He is of course Nintendos most FAMOUS employee, but look at the body of work for the entire company......they do not rest on their laurels.....

Eugene, Nintendo saved the video game industry back in the 1980s. That is MUCH BIGGER then what Rockstar has ever done.

Saved it from what?

If they had not done what they had done, someone else would have. NES was a hit because of its software, hands down. Nintendo supplyed the lionsshare of the best games of that console and that era. Just like they always do......

If they were ROckstar, perhaps they would simple have released the same 'proven' game over and over until it wore out with interest.....

They have done that. But they've also released other games. As Rock Star also has done: Table Tennis, Bully, Redemption, Manhunt, Midnight Club, Max Payne, Smuggler's Run, and a lot of other games. If you're concerned with milking a franchise, count all the games starring Mario and get back to me. Rock Star is far, far from my favorite developer, but they have a lot of different games and series, not just GTA.