Iwata: Wii Music, Animal Crossing disappointing

@ CorruptGamerGX Don't you mean Reggie Fils-Amie?

Casual games get casual sales. Hardcore gamers *may* pick these up for the heck of it. Casual gamers are going to think they're "neato" but they're casual gamers; they don't *get* excited about games. I bought AC:CF and thought it was vaguely fun, but now I'm bored with it. Nintendo, we need moar depth in games.

I have to say Wii Music is a good game. Try it! The only down side to it is the lack of good songs to try to play. But other than that It isn't a bad game by all means!

I agree with slothboyadvance. I have no interest in WiiMusic I want another Zelda and another Metroid . Where's Wii Fire Emblem and the next Mario Party?

I say, the hipe about the wii is definitely fading out... I think only the wiimotion plus, in addiction to some new killer apps (monster hunter 3, madworld, and so on) can revitalize wii sales... It's just an opinion, but i think the console is starting his decline... tho i'm sad about this, but Wii needs more third house support and R E A L games (de blob.. O_O lol)

Here's a suggestion to Nintendo: Make real games. I'm saying that as a hardcore Nintendo fan. I understand that Wii Music and Animal Crossing are wanted by a certain demographic, but I still want the games that made Nintendo what it is today. I want a new Kid Icarus, the new Punch-Out, another F-Zero, and a new Star Fox (which hopefully brings the series back to it's roots). I'm not saying that Nintendo shouldn't release games like Wii Music. I think they'd be better off releasing a multitude of games rather than a couple games that appeal to one audience.

Wait... you mean that two chintzy games that were panned by critics didn't sell well?? That's really odd. Seriously though, why is Nintendo surprised? Mario Kart was fun. It sold boat loads. These weren't fun (and didn't have familiar Nintendo mascots like Mario) and didn't sell. Get over yourself Nintendo--believe it or not, not everyone's lining up to buy every single piece of shovelware you spit out.

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@tidyspidey exactly!!! sum 1 who understands my problem with nintendo these days.... they achieved ultimate mega super stardom and forgot where they came from. nintendo WAT ABOUT YOUR REAL FANS?!!!!

I say lets be patient Nintendo yes they are not your friends they want your precious money they did say a new mario is coming our way as is a new zelda how will they trump twlight princess and mario galaxy remains a mystery but we can agree it will be great. Causual gaming is here to stay we can not deny this however we can embrace this. look at cooking navi a cook book at your finger tips etc etc etc.

Nintendo have shown their true colours and this just shows you that they are just as bad as Sony or Microsoft and all they want to do is sell and they don't care about the fans so none of the actual fans of Nintendo that supported them for 20 years are going to get any thanks from them because don't care

Why don't Nintendo release a new 2D Metroid game or get Sega working on a follow up to F-Zero, or an actual Donkey Kong adventure game but thats never going to happen so I don't see a point in even hopeing for it because its never going to happen. Instead all you get are boring casual games and Mario and Zelda games that don't even give you a challenge. Oh and one more thing why can Nintendo releasing their products worldwide at a decent time instead of waiting 2 months if your lucky after its released in Japan (if your lucky)

@FoxExecutive - like it, "game enthusiast". Much better than "hardcore gamer". I have to use mouthwash just saying it! ha ha Correct on graphics too - graphics don't make a great game. Sure, they help immerse you, but they're not the be-all and end-all.... anyway - there are plenty of Wii games with fantastic graphics. Mario Galaxy is stunning, and although Wario Ware is 2D and simple for the most part, it is presented in such a pleasing way, I think it would actually be unfitting for it to be any more photo-realistic as seems to be the staple requirement of many a MS & Sony fanboy *rolls eyes* ha ha I have to say - this is about the first time i've come across so many well weighted comments with a news thread - it's normally "my console has a bigger johnson than your console..." etc etc....

@tidyspidey - Agree with you completely. I have been a long time Nintendo fan and I must say that a true fan of Nintendo will not just completely accept Nintendo for what it is and always demand more from the company we support. At least from this page, I see a lot of comments that are actual reasonable thoughts and not mindless defensive spiels about how the other console sucks for such and such reason and how Nintendo's console is just the greatest thing, which can certainly be found on other threads for other systems. In a way I don't think 3rd part developers do understand the Wii. I think this can be said about games that are made with pure gimmicks or just outright being ignored. The one argument I hate however is, "Oh that game wouldn't work on the Wii because the Wii couldn't handle the graphics!" That's an invalid argument. Toning down the graphics does not make it a bad game unless it is filled with glitches and bugs. In many cases this does happen, however that shows lack of effort on the developers part and not on the spirit of the game itself. I prefer the term "game enthusiast" because it doesn't paint the term of someone who sits at a computer or game console for 15 hours a day playing video games.

What nintendo needs to understand is that casual gamers are just that,casual. They don`t really care about the industry, E3 or other trade shows, and don`t scan the internet for info, screenshots, and videos for up coming games they wait for months and years for. they will eventually move on to somthing else and nintendo will be a stick in the mud. I am a huge nintendo fan but the passed year except for SSBB this has been the most disappointing year for me with them, not to mention that embarrassment at E3 08. They better bounce back and do a complete 180 at E3 09.

Squirrel, what are you tslking about with dead space coming out for the wii in 09. I like my wii but the system couldn`t handle one texture map from the dead space I know.

@gameking5000 - I agree that the casual crowd represents a much larger number of people than the 'core crowd, but again, to say that a game/several games are good based on their sales figures alone is misleading. I use the same example as before - the music industry. There are all manner of terrible, terrible "bands" out there that take up probably the top 20 slots in the charts around 90% of the time, and anyone with a real understanding of music will all agree that most of that music is just dross. And it is. The same applies to the Wii - just because a game sells well doesn't make it a good game. Case in point - Wii music selling 3.2 mil copies whilst a title like Dead Rising sells 1.5 mil or so? How wrong is that!? I'm not putting the Wii down completely as many do, infact I love my Wii as I've said many times before on here. But that doesn't mean I don't see problems when they're staring me in the face. The Wii is taking a route into gaming that is dumbing down the content of many games and making it easy for a developer to spend two minutes on a game to make big profits. I would never want to see all of these fun, content low games disappear, but for the same token, I don't want hundreds of the damn things clogging up the charts when Nintendo are capable of so much more. You only have to look at their tiny number of really great Wii games to see this.

@tidyspidey I can that most of us being hardcore gamers is nor true. A much greater amount of people across a broader age group buy these games. Any game that sells well is a good game. After all they want it to SELL. In my opinion the Wii does have potential, BIG potential. But the games already released aren't bad.

This is in response to cube-gage who said: "The Wii has nothing that anyone in the right mind would buy it for. " You obviously do not have siblings oe any kids of your own cube-gage because if you did, you would know that he wii has SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE. Even if it's 1 game! The fact that people can pick it up and play so easily makes the thing sell itself. the fact that it is a nintendo product makes parents/adults feel safe about buying it for their kids/siblings, hell or even trying it out for themselves. And what's wrong with that? As much as i love shooters, sports and action titles, there will ALWAYS be space for a nintendo system in my home! Simple as that, so if you don't like what's out go play your xbox and stop hatin.

Before I start again in this section, let me just say that I do love my Wii - especially Wii sports and Mario Galaxy, both of which unite my family and in-laws like no other game system has ever done before it.... However - I have criticised Nintendo in this thread already and still have more to say. Specifically - those who defend Nintendo by basically using the monetary success of the Wii (and DS) to assume that this means that their console is pretty much infallable. Wrong. It's the assumption that monetary success and sales figures = great games. That couldn't be further from the truth. Think about it - think about other industries where you can run some parallels... the music industry. Many (not all, I might add...) of the most successful artists out there who have massive sales figures are all those damn talentless boy and girl bands that anyone with a real sense of musical ability finds abhorrent - so does that mean that because these "bands" are successful that they're automatically the best and make the best music? No. The same applies to Nintendo. I hate to use a phrase as crass as "hardcore gamer", but the name fits the situation here.... many of us "hardcore gamers" (I can't say that without cringing, but anyway....) as well as industry insiders all see the same problem with the Wii. Generic games that take 2 minutes to make, but because the vast majority of Wii owners don't know what they're buying, these games sell by the bucket load and clog up the charts with misleading figures.... again - I hasten to point out, sales figures don't mean they're good games..... There are exceptions, yes - but a handful (literally, a handful!) of titles like Mario Galaxy, Zelda, Paper Mario etc just isn't enough. Nintendo are sacrificing potentially amazing games for their Wii in place of easily made profits. Money will come and go for Nintendo, but if they continue to ignore the 'core crowd, they'll learn a hard lesson.... probably not this console generation, but soon. Their DS leads a much better example of a range of fantastic games - they need to look at that more closely I think. The potential for the Wii is astounding, but all we're seeing is a huge number of uninspired games/wiimakes/new control schemes etc. I just hope that we see a turn around for the Wii in the next 12 months....

"Their lack of quality 3rd party support is what's going to kill Wii in the end." This drives me stark-raving mad, because, since the final days of the N64, Nintendo has promised, again and again, greater cooperation with and effort towards 3rd party development. They really have yet to truly deliver on this. I recall news stories from last year's Lepzig (or E3, can't remember which) in which Nintendo debuted the upgraded motion sensor add-on, which Nintendo had already created an in-house dev kit for it, to which third party developers at the show responded with "this is the first we've seen or heard of it." Why is Nintendo not pushing their new tech???

I know nothing of the new Nintendo hardware, but since I got a Wii I have renewed faith.

Where is the SHENMUE REDUX? I still havent even played on a Wii. Apart from Zelda and Mario kart there is nothing I would want to play. Metroid is a horrible series IMO. Ypur always alone and backtracking, whats wrong with somehting like Halo or Half life 2 where you are always going forward, yeh it maybe on rails but Metroid bores the hell out of me. Mario sunshine was ok but still to many side quests that end up taking you away from the game. Galaxy I dunno what that is like, ssmb is fun but not much different to melee. The Wii has nothing that anyone in the right mind would buy it for. Especially at £180!

Everytime I read something someone on here wrote about Nintendo, their is always some idiot who criticizes the GameCube. Why? I don't get it...I have 2 of them and use them STILL to this day (one of 'em anyway). I do not know what some of you people expected the Cube to put out, but it produced what I needed/wanted pretty much and the graphics for many of its games were very good if not excellent on some titles! So stop hatin already, damn! If you wanna hate..hate on the fact that MS put out a defective hardware product for years and didn't give a s--t! They damn sure didn't care about how the consumer who works their ass off would feel about wasting their money on a defective piece of crap!

This is what happens when you take the money, run and don't look back. So much untapped potential. Really such a waste. Their lack of quality 3rd party support is what's going to kill Wii in the end.

Not according to Reggie Kong. He thinks "3rd parties don't get the Wii" when it's Nintendo themselves who don't the picture and insist that tacked-on controls is the future of gaming. It also sucks that he denied Disaster: Day of Crisis and Fatal Frame IV over garbage like the two tiles mentioned in ths article.

I think the wii when the wrong way when they made gay games like that. Come on Disney Princess. Just give her a FPS or a RPG.

I forgot to mention, I do still use my Wii on a daily basis; to play, well, I say play, I mean use My Fitness Coach with my fiancee and so my 4 year old daughter can play Disney Princess. Says it all really doesn't it? lol. When I actually want to play video games I switch on my PS3 instead.

Kavadias is right. I haven't played my Wii system in almost 9 months now, since I finished off SSBB. There hasn't been a single item that would bring me to play the Wii. Granted I could go back and beat the handful of great games that I've already played... but I've instead committed my time and money to my other two systems and their excellent, new offerings.

Even blind men can see without their eyes and yet here we are with a lot of users more blind than man without eyes. I am referring these blind people as the ones who believe Nintendo abandoned them as a core gamer. I am referring these blind people to the ones that claim Wii has little to no good games. I am referring these blind people who say that the Wii's visuals are only equivalent to all the last gen consoles (GCN, XBOX, and PS2). I'd laugh at these blind people but it would be oh so wrong to make fun of the blind- the handicapped. It's rather sad really.

"Other disappointments for Nintendo included Animal Crossing: City Folk and the reception it and Wii Music received in Japan." Well, release some more games that us core gamers will like, dammit! I want Zelda back!

@santiagochile: I couldn't agree with you more. I was surprised by the amount of depth that wii music presented- and it's challenging as well to some extent. I'll admit $50 was a bit much for the content, but it's a blast to play. Criminally under-rated.

The DSi is an attempt to slow piracy, it's as simple as that. Nintendo won't tell you that, and it's poor market strategy to eliminate previous hardware in favor of hardware that would otherwise be exactly the same, so the DSi has these extra features like a camera and the music player. Really anyone with a decent cellphone would already have a camera handy, and who in the DS market demographic doesn't already own a portable music player of some sort? The DSi exists to boost software sales.

There isn't enough changing in the DSi for me to get one. Camera, music player, already got 'em. The screen's size isn't increasing by that much, so what's the point?

Nintendo!? Ha, I have turned my face away from it. It can do its business the way it wants, just like I am entitled to my opinion. I will not look at it anymore if this is all Wii's gonna be.

how is selling 3.2 mil a failure, i think thats good or at least decent...

I think that Nintendo has gambled here, and lost. I'm not saying that they aren't killing the other two consoles in sales, but what Nintendo has done is court the casual gaming populace, and that is coming back to bite them. Simply put, the group of core gamers, in the midst of a financial crisis, will continue to put money down on games as an outlet for enjoyment. Console sales projections for the Wii are down, and for the rest of the casual population, we begin to see that in times of financial difficulties, money is spent on other avenues.

If nintendo released wii music with more music for conductor mode and about 100 more musics for me and my friends to jam longer .... Its boring to jam with zelda and mario theme music again and again ...

Some great comments here - you're quite right LordelX, Ninty only seem to really care about launch line ups. I know that there are still some decent titles on all of their systems, but the fact that you can count the really great games in the palm of just one hand shows that they have a lot of work to do when it comes to winning over the 'core and the casual crowd. As much as they are a business like any other, they need to remember that profits aren't everything.... profits can come and go in short bursts but true longevity comes from making sure the crowds are kept happy over a long period of time. The fact that the Wii is such a monetary success weighed against all the negativity industry insiders throw at it should have their ears ringing. They are more than capable at catering for everyone and they should remember this whilst they've got $$ signs in their eyes.... their banked money from the Wii and DS won't last forever. I have to say, I can only really say this about the Wii.... the depth and quality titles on the DS really outshines the Wii at the moment. Lets hope they can take a leaf out of the DSs book and quick.

Ninty sold its soul when it forgot about its core fans to cater for people who will buy utter dross for their kids. I cry at some of the games my sister buys for her sons. Where is the quality control? Crap released at retail and utter crap on the VC

Nintendo shoots themselves in the foot with a terrible year every generation...for the Gamecube it was when their line-up in 2003 was terrible, Mariokart: Double Dash, F-Zero GX and Kirby Air Ride...good games but your SOL if you want to do anything other than race....in 1997 it was similar with the N64, only Diddy Kong Racing being the major holiday release...when are they going to realize that launch is not the only time to offer variety...it has to be them doing it every holiday season because they don't have the third party support to fill in the gaps with meaningful exclusives. Wii Music was a glorified tech demo, not on par with Wii Sports and Wii Fit as far as innovation goes, and Animal Crossing is starting to run out of juice...the game was great on the N64, the Gamecube port was forgivable and the DS version had the missing features from the previous iterations, including portabilty.... Who wants more of the same on the Wii? Wasn't that supposed to be the warcry of this system? Even casual gamers are getting bored.

Hopefully this sends a messages to Nintendo to remember the core crowd.

Animal Crossing deserved to be a failure for Nintendo. I can't believe that a company that can create games like Super Mario Galaxy can be so shockingly lazy. There is nothing admirable about only slightly polishing (admittedly bad) graphics, adding one gimmick, and then releasing the game for full price.

Love my Wii, but god AC and Wii music are baaaaaaad games..... and I won't be paying for a DSi anytime soon either. I'm happy with my DS lite and the Guitar Hero games thank-you Nintendo....

AC was the biggest dissapointment for me. It was the one game I was looking forward on the Wii as I love the DS version. I have played it once since I got it at Christmas. It was just the same version as the DS but didnt handle aswell and the concept even though it did start on the Gamecube doesnt seem to work well on a console that is not hand held. I fear the Wii is trying to recoup a few expences with the release of more mature games in the future to try and grab a more mature audience. The DSi unless it shows better potential I think will fall flat on its face if they release with it say £200 price tag.

Wii music & Animal Crossing Wii *rehash material* are failures that Iwata is in denial abt ..so he's just using time as an excuse... "Currently, I think that the appeal of Wii Music has not yet been fully conveyed and accepted by those who could be interested. We do not like to think that we failed with Wii Music nor that we should abandon sales support." Brain Training is different because its actually quite educational & helps you improve your memory, what does Wii music or Wii Animal Crossing provide? Wii line-up for 2009 is looking good *luckily* thanx to 3rd party pick-up, what are we getting from Nintendo? oh GC wiimakes ... but this isn't talking abt 2009 its talking abt Iwata's 2008 pet project which fail.

@ santiagochile the problem with wii music is that the content doesn't justify the price. it's a casual and not very stimulating game. cheaper price and it will sell.

@ xdeiri the wii is not by any means a revolution in gaming. rather seems to be a revolution in game presentation. the only things changed are the inputs of gaming. the outputs are still largely the same outdated games of Nintendo with outdated visuals. It is simply the introduction of games to newcomers. but that said it is a good move. because the game industry will benefit from newcomers. as they continue to play the friendly casual games, they will naturally begin to desire other more hardcore genres. so yes the industry has a lot to thank Nintendo for.

-Squirrel- couldn't agree more, don't you admire nintednos honesty? can you find a company saying that there multi millions selling games sucks. i think there is a lot to learn form nintendo, i hate to say that too but i am a hard core gamer my self, but know that originality of nintendo, and bashing them like this by misleaded fan boys only make them greater, you have to understand nintendo never gave up on gamers but rather vice versa,not to mentions gaming industry is thriving now just because of nintendos white consoles (wii, ds) every company can screw up things so often, but saying wii is a kid fade is pure fanboyzem, it is the only true next gen system, it is a complete revolution in every term ,a genius move by nintendo in a bad economy, and for the games, great games are available for every one and new hits are coming, because developers are realizing the true appeal of the wii, plus developers are not used to the new approach in gaming and some are just confused about this momentum creativity, but they will follow soon, it has never been done before so have some Patience, nintendo WII appreciate all unforgettable memories and great nonviolence fun you gave us through ages.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what is wrong with Wii Music. It's a fun game and is amazingly deep. Playing the same song with different instruments and adding them together is a blast. Plus, getting the notes on the exact rhythm is challenging. It's a great game, and it will continue to sell millions! Hit the thumbs down all you want you microflop fanboys!