While small publishers may have problems making mass market games (and I would argue this simply isn't true, based on Majesco's success), none of his arguments explain in any capacity why companies like EA and Ubisoft completely fail at targeting "casuals" on the Wii. Activision has had success with GH3, but I think they were simply benefitting from MTV/Harmonix' indifference to the platform.

I beg to differ. 50% of crap and marshmallows is 100% crappy marshmallows.

@Espiox: I'm pretty sure that once someone accepts the monitoring, Nintendo gets their full play history. It's not like it isn't there on the console. Or are you suggesting that the Nintendo Channel hasn't been out long enough in Europe for enough people to start using it?

As for 3rd parties consistently failing, there are numerous examples of 3rd parties doing well (RE4, GH3), even with new IPs (Red Steel, Carnival Games, arguably Raving Rabbids). The reason 3rd parties fail is because of marketing. Not necessarily that they didn't spend enough on the marketing, but Boom Blox certainly didn't connect with its audience. The fact that there are people that refuse to buy it based on the name and box art alone is proof of this failure. I didn't hear about anyone not-buying Okami based on the box art, but if that's all I had to go by, I would have left it on the shelf too.

I was going to suggest thumbs (not like you haven't thought of them), but then I realised you're actually not very shy about saying whether you liked something or not. So they're probably superfluous. Anyway, the reviews are nice, but I feel occasionally that they're a bit too subjective to be of much value (the "no accounting for personal taste" issue). I don't hold it against you guys and girls, though, since I'm pretty sure an objective metric doesn't exist. To be honest, I mostly use gameplay videos to figure out what I should buy.

What Nintendo has done is create products that appeal to a demographic that previously had no interest in games. Nothing is going to make Final Fantasy or Gears of War interesting to my mom. Nothing. However, Nintendo are growing the industry by making products that people like my mom are willing to buy (and hopefully use). The reason Crecente's mom forgot about the DS is because she hasn't seen any software for it that she wants. What that means is that there needs to be more of these kinds of "games" that gamers hate.

Is it ruining gaming? Only if its success causes companies to stop making games for "gamers". As someone who spends most of his (gaming) time playing niche games, I've got plenty of crocodile tears for all you gamers, if that ever happens.

I don't think the trick is to try to lure people that don't like games into gaming via software like Wii Fit. I think if they want that market, they're going to have to write software that these people want to consume. Two of these products are Brain Age and Wii Fit; we don't need more games like that, but certainly if Nintendo wants to sell to these groups, they will need more of it.

And to be fair, I don't think that the average gym membership gets any more use than your mom's DS, Crecente.

Yes, I understand the problem is that I grew up in Hawaii. I can tell Japanese from Chinese from Korean, but all Europeans look the same to me.

Just asked a friend of mine what she thought Ms. Kreuk's ethnicity was and she said "Japanese and haole", so maybe she's "asian enough".