20,000 races online? By my math, if each race takes about 4 minutes or so, that amounts to nearly two months of gaming, non-stop. And that doesn’t even count sleep, eating, or bathroom breaks. If true, that is a level of dedication that I could never even touch. And if it’s true, I’d believe your Wii is hardly ever off. :)

And I never said that all players are “pixel counters” or that gameplay doesn’t matter — of course it does. Problem is, as I said, that the games that were the biggest hits on Wii were actually ones with poor play. Mario Kart Wii was probably the highest quality game among its double-digit sellers, and even that wasn’t as good as the Mario Kart GameCube iteration, in my opinion.

Thanks!

-Jeff

Rob — Hey hey hey, I’m the only “fat ass” among the friends I mention. :) I was using my friends as a jumping off point to discuss how casual gamers seem to have bought the system, a few big titles (one I didn’t mention: Mario Kart) and that was it. I’m sure there are hardcore gamers like yourself who still play the system all the time. But, no offense, you weren’t who Nintendo wanted to rope in. They were aiming squarely at a new audience. They succeeded in garnering that audience, but that audience, I feel, didn’t benefit the system in the long run.

Nick — Dreamcast! Awesomely old school, man! :)

Truth – The perspective of international players is indeed valuable and under-represented in my column, though I can’t help but feel that the name-calling kinda undermines your point. I’m not even an “ex-box” player — I own a Wii and PS3, myself. As for third parties “abandoning” the Wii, I dunno, I’ve seen a ton of the major third parties continue to put out titles for the system — but games that feel like weaker ports of console and PC titles, all designed to be more shallow titles that appeal to the “motion control” gimmick. If that’s an example of them “abandoning” the system, you have a point. But I think it’s more an example of developers following where the money went.

Dr. Corndog – I didn’t say that the N64 was less powerful than the Playstation, or that the GameCube was less powerful than the PS2. What I said was that Nintendo made some questionable hardware choices (cartridges?) and that every Nintendo console seemed to lag behind its competitors in terms of graphics. The Nintendo consoles may have been more powerful, but on a game-by-game basis its visuals sure didn’t seem to be far ahead to the average consumer.

Raindog469 – Nice! I was one of many who hoped that the Wii’s success would lead more people to gaming. Sadly it felt like many gamers weren’t won over past the Wii’s initial success, which is what inspired this column.

Eric – An excellent point comparing the two consoles’ top tier gaming sales. I wasn’t trying to claim that Mario and Zelda sold poorly, just how ridiculously huge the gap was between the poor non-games which sold so incredibly well and the quality titles. You’re right that the Wii did have plenty of games which sold very well. But the transcendent hits, the ones which came to define the system for many, were not great quality titles, really, which seemed to lead developers away from that kind of product. That was what I was trying to convey with that stat. And nowadays, the Wii’s games are rather anemic on the charts — admittedly in the end of its life cycle, but most other consoles in history continued to sell games right up to the end.

Great discussion, everyone!

By the numbers the top selling PS3 games are:
Gran Turismo 5 (7.43 million)[131]
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (5.34 million)[131]
God of War III (5.2 million)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

So when the author implies Mario Galaxy and Zelda sold poorly (9 and 6 million), its actually more than the best selling PS3 games. Its just software sales for Wii are insane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Wii

My girl is more of an Xbox 360 fan, but before the Wii she was all keyboard-and-mouse, all the way. So the Wii was a gateway device in more ways than one.

Also, it seems that Nintendo’s recent strategy of releasing less powerful consoles has clouded people’s memory with regard to their earlier systems. This isn’t the first time I’ve read someone claiming the N64 was less powerful than the Playstation (it wasn’t), or that the Gamecube was third in processing power (it was more powerful than the PS2).

Thanks for the comment and compliment. Indeed, the Wii was an impressive piece of hardware, really, and did have more than a few top shelf games. It’s just that they were overrun and ignored in the marketplace, by and large. I really hope Nintendo can recapture the passion they instilled in their fanbase while not succumbing to the easy buck this time around.