Nintendo set to bring a new generation of fun
If you’re a child of the 80s or 90s then growing up Nintendo meant a lot to you. Nintendo for many years was synonymous with video games. When my grandmother asked if I was playing video games, she would call it Nintendo.
During the late 90s Sony’s PlayStation took that throne a bit away, but to this day Nintendo is a brand that carries with it an air of nostalgia and innovation that gamers and also the rival companies in the gaming industry hold in high regard. Next week launches Nintendo’s next-gen system — the Wii U. This generation Nintendo did incredibly well with the original Wii. Sure, it was basically a super powered GameCube but Nintendo managed to sell the thing on the sheer novelty of the Wii controller. To put it blunty: It was fun.
That was Nintendo’s gimmick. And while it racked up trucks of money.It also managed to become the home to some of the most enjoyable games that anyone could play. Hell, we have 76 year old grandparents throwing it down in Mario Party and having a blast.
I’m not even going to go on a diatribe about hardcore and casual gaming; I’ll leave that for another time. The Wii U does seem to be a middle point for Nintendo. A sort of compromise of sorts, trying to woo back some of the core gamers it lost this generation and still usher in the more casual crowd it discovered with the Wii. The Wii U isn’t a technical beast and you can bet that Sony and Microsoft’s next-gen systems that are right around the corner are going to handedly put the Wii U in a position where it’s once again the weakest of all three next-gen consoles; but will it really matter? Nintendo has always found a way with their IPs to bridge the age gap with one unifier — games that are fun for just about anyone. Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and even the more mature Metroid franchise have managed to go beyond the core and casual labels to become experiences that for lot of gamers of any age are always enjoyable. HD graphics or not. The new shiny HD graphics of a next-gen Zelda is pretty damn mouth watering though!
