When I first saw Wii, coming off of the massive disappointment that was the Gamecube, my reaction was "I hope this thing bombs, and Nintendo has to start making games on PS3, Xbox 360, and PS3 instead." Well, wouldn't you know it, the Wii ended up becoming the highest selling console this generation by far, and now it's looking less likely than ever that they'll stop making consoles.
And that puts us in a very unfortunate position, sadly-- since Nintendo makes their own systems, their own games tend to be the system's biggest sellers. And since the Wii's target audience has shown that they are perfectly content with mediocre junk like Wii Music, Wii Play, and Wii Sports, Nintendo is hardly motivated to cater to the hard core crowd. If anything, the better Wii sells, the further Nintendo is going to move away from the core gamer. Nintendo sees the hardcore game as an obsolete business model, and they've been doing their best to phase it out without immediately alienating the core gamer.
As Nintendo becomes more and more cozy with its new mistress (the casual / non gamer), it's kind of inevitable that classic series like the Legend of Zelda, Metroid, etc. will be retooled to be more attractive to them. In Nintendo's eyes, the hardcore gamer has not been pulling their weight in terms of buying power, and as a result, Nintendo has deemed that we are not worth specifically developing titles for. Why bother making a big budget hardcore game that sells 4 million copies, when they can make an inexpensive casual game that sells 7 million copies?
And that, is why I do not own a Wii.
