Forget Beginning...
Forget beginning... It's already upon us!
Remember when I posted that Wii games are starting to pick up speed and caliber? All the typical internet kiddies who think they know how the world works have been whining constantly about how terrible the selection of Wii games has been, and how Nintendo should have learned from the GameCube, and how they're going to fail again. (While, I might add, they don't even consider selling their Wii console... Got some double-standards there, whining and complaining about the lack of games and how worthless the console is, when it's still sold out nearly an entire year later, and you could see the thing on eBay and make all your money back.)
I would like to point you all to an article at Joystiq. Whiners and fans alike... This list of games being released or both the Wii and the DS should give you heart! Mind you, this is only a list of games being released between right now and March 2008. That leaves the rest of 2008 to keep propelling Nintendo to the clear and obvious winners of this chapter of the console war. And this, I might add, fits into what I've been projecting this entire time.
Let me break it down for you all once again:
GameCube considered a failure, despite the fact that Nintendo always, always, always made a profit off of every sale. Marketshare was low, perhaps, but they clearly won the race when it came to money. People conveniently ignore that, predicting the withdraw of Nintendo from future races.
Nintendo announces the Wii with the motion sensitive remote control that Sony shamelessly copies after denouncing it as a gimmick along with the rest of the internet. Honestly, how could something that stupid ever win against the sheer graphical power and popularity of the Playstation and Xbox console lines? Clearly, the winner was going to be Sony, if the PS2 was any indication.
Publishers and developers shy away from the Wii after hearing everyone's negative press. Some are still enlightened and smart enough to realize the ultimate potential of the Wii, but not a whole lot, and most continue to focus on the Xbox 360, after learning that the PS3 isn't really all it's cracked up to be.
Wii and PS3 are released more or less at the same time and the Wii lurches ahead, carrying the title of fastest selling console in the history of video games. Publishers and developers who were afraid of developing for the Wii suddenly wake up to their terrible mistake and rush to make SOMETHING for it. Anything! Just get a game out there on what's clearly the most popular console! They're losing money... Hurry, hurry, hurry!
This results in some pretty boring, hastily released games by third parties. Consumers are irate at this fact and declare that Nintendo is doomed to follow in the footsteps of their former glory, overhyping the console and failing to deliver. Some threaten to sell their Wii and spread the word of its failure, but none ultimately seems to sell it in the end.
One year rolls around, the amount of time that new console games start rearing their heads. The start of the amount of time it takes to make a game actually worth playing. Behold, a whole parcel of games by Nintendo is scheduled for release during the holidays. The masses rejoice, for finally, Nintendo has learned from their mistakes! (Actually, the masses just can't see the larger picture.) But sadly, some people are upset that there are no major third party games coming out.
No, see, this is because Nintendo clearly knew ahead of time that they would be making games for their own console, and started making games earlier than the third party developers. The third party developers jumped on the bandwagon only after it was such a hit, and thusly, they're still not quite finished. Happily, they're beginning to announce the new games and they're nearing completion, and the anti-Nintendo sentiment is slowly fading as people do complete 180-degree turns and conveniently forget that they were anti-Nintendo in the first place.
And all this time, we've had an example of exactly what the Wii would become in front of us. The Nintendo DS. Take a look at the Joystiq list again. The DS list of games is clearly longer than the list of Wii games. In the same time frame. The DS got started exactly the same way the Wii did, and nobody in their right mind can say the DS is a failure, can they?
If you want to know how the DS got started, just re-read the recap and replaced "Wii" with "DS" and "PS3" with "PSP" and drop references to the Xbox wherever they may be. Seriously. The DS was stamped as a gimmick because of the touch screen, and the PSP was heralded as the end-all handheld and nobody jumped on the DS bandwagon until AFTER it became popular. Now look at it!
Anyway, there you have it. The list of games scheduled for release for both platforms between now and March 2008, which I must stress does NOT include the REST of 2008. That makes the list of games they have right now HUGE. I can't wait to see what the rest of 2008 has to offer, if not only to use as ammo against the Nintendo haters who just can't seem to come to terms with the fact that the company that created the modern gaming industry is back on top and shows no signs of defeat.