A lot of people hate Michael Pachter. I'm not one of those people. A lot of times, during his appearances on GameTrailers, he says a lot of pro-"hardcore" things. But just like G4, I believe it is because he understands the audience of that show and wants to appease them.
However, unlike G4, it is rare that Pachter betrays the Wii market (perceived as anything-but-harcore) by insulting them. This indicates that he is intelligent enough to harbor some respect for the Wii audience.
Well, from Michael's mouth, here's our proof:
"I continue to believe that the Wii audience will buy good games, and think that third parties have done a poor job of making them for the Wii. There are a handful of exceptions (my favorite is Zack and Wiki), but most third party Wii games just plain suck. The third parties don't appear to be giving the Wii owner what he/she wants, which is an approachable, high quality game. The bulk of titles are shovelware, and once a Wii owner has a bad experience with a poorly crafted title from a third party, they are even more likely to return to buying only Nintendo products. This is most definitely NOT Nintendo's fault; they can hardly be blamed for making consistently good games. It's the fault of studios that think it's OK to make a lousy game and put the word 'party' in the title."
I'm not saying I agree 100%, but let's face it, compared to the way Wii gamers usually get kicked around, it's pretty nice to get a shred of credit from one of the more vocal gaming pundits.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
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3 comments:
I'd like to say that I don't even think it's shovelware, but the mindset of what "core" means. Does that mean the vulgar, and profane, the elements seen in No More Heroes and even more so Madworld? Does it mean a shooter, which includes Red Steel, The Conduit, and the like?
If we were to look at the "Nintendo equivalents" of all these genres, from shooters to racers, it's all quality.
"Core" does not mean quality. It means "mainstream." If third parties want our attention, they need to think more outside of the box like Nintendo has.
True, true, true - try not to focus on on that one word in the rest of the quote =P
It's a good one this time!
I think "blame" is a strong word, but Nintendo is partially responsible for third-parties' attitudes toward the Wii. Nintendo made a conscious effort to create a system that is cheaply manufactured and sell it to "casuals" or "non-gamers" or whatever silly term you choose to use. Their marketing is aimed at people who either rarely play videogames or have never played videogames, and as a result, third-party "hardcore" or "core" or "gamer" games do not perform as well on Wii as on other systems. Does this mean they should flood it with low quality games? No, but it does mean most of them are indifferent about the Wii and therefore use their third- and fourth-string development teams with low budgets for Wii products.
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