Ren of Heavens

Wow, this is better than getting Final Fantasy 13 exclusive! DQ8 sold 4 million i Japan alone, FF12 only 2 million. With DQ9 out in spring 09, I'm expecting a release in 2011.

Disappointing? LOL GTA IV, Persona 4, LittleBigPlanet, Gears of War 2, Smash Bros. Brawl, Wow: Lich King, Fallout 3, MGS4, World of Goo, Braid, Chrono Trigger DS, Rock Band 2... The best year in gaming since 1998. (Mirror's Edge was shit though)

Woah, this guy is behind so many great games. Rez, Space Channel 5, Sega Rally 2, Lumines... I hope it's something like Rez. That would be cool.

I don't like when franchises switch developers, especially to an unknown developer. But we'll see how this turns out...

LittleBigPlanet Fallout 3 Braid Rock Band 2 Left 4 Dead Actually really happy about the quiet Wii line-up...

Never heard of it before, but it got 40/40 in the latest Famitsu: The story, set in Tokyo's Shibuya, follows a young man, a virus researcher, a detective, a freelance writer and a cat mascot character as they brought together by strange events of global proportions. The visual novel uses photographs to tell the story. Famitsu seemed most impressed with the game's story, the story's ending and the title's sound design.

The common perception is that Nintendo has dropped the ball with the Wii in 2008, especially during the holiday season. Some have even gone on to claim this to be the worst first-party year that Nintendo has ever had - a bold claim given the lean Nintendo 64 and GameCube years. Where does the truth lie? As usual, things are neither as bad as they seem, nor as good as would be hoped, but somewhere in the middle. First, let's take a look at Nintendo-published GameCube titles by year of their US release. Bolded titles were published in the fouth quarter of that year. 2001 (4) * Luigi's Mansion * Wave Race: Blue Storm * Pikmin * Super Smash Bros. Melee 2002 (8) * Animal Crossing * Super Mario Sunshine * Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem * Mario Party 4 * Metroid Prime * Star Fox Adventures * NBA Courtside 2002 * Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse 2003 (12) * The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest * The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker * Mario Kart: Double-Dash * The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition * 1080 Avalanche * Pac-Man Vs. * F-Zero GX * Kirby Air Ride * Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour * Mario Party 5 * Pokemon Channel * Wario World 2004 (12) * Pokemon Box: Ruby & Sapphire * The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures * Pikmin 2 * Custom Robo * Donkey Konga * Mario Party 6 * Mario Power Tennis * Metroid Prime 2: Echoes * Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door * Pokemon Colosseum * WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$ * Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles 2005 (11) * Battalion Wars * Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix * Donkey Konga 2 * Donkey Kong Jungle Beat * Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance * Geist * Mario Party 7 * Mario Superstar Baseball * Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness * Star Fox: Assault * Super Mario Strikers 2006 (4) * Baten Kaitos Origins * Chibi-Robo! * Odama * The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess The GameCube launch started off relatively strong with three top-tier titles released before Christmas. 2002 was a bit of a slow follow-up, with only 8 games released all year, and only Mario Party 4 accompanying the critically-acclaimed Metroid Prime. 2003 saw an increase in first-party games, though the number of quality titles barely increased and in November and December Pacman Vs. was the only notable game released. 2004 and 2005 were both similar in quality and quantity to 2003, though with more titles slotted into the critical November-December time period. Now let's take a look at Nintendo-published Wii games by year in the US: 2006 (3) * Wii Sports * Excite Truck * The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 2007 (13) * Wii Play * WarioWare: Smooth Moves * Super Paper Mario * Mario Party 8 * Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree * Pokemon Battle Revolution * Mario Strikers Charged * Metroid Prime 3: Corruption * Donkey Kong Barrel Blast * Battalion Wars II * Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn * Super Mario Galaxy * Link's Crossbow Training 2008 (8) * Endless Ocean * Super Smash Bros. Brawl * Mario Kart Wii * Wii Fit * Mario Super Sluggers * Wario Land: Shake It! * Wii Music * Animal Crossing: City Folk Initially, this comparison looks weaker for the Wii, as 2001 had 3 strong titles at launch for GameCube, compared to 2 for Wii. 2007, however, had a huge number of first-party titles for Wii compared to 2002 for GameCube, including three high-quality Wii holiday titles compared to GameCube's single one. This has resulted in a deficiency in 2008 for Wii compared to 2003 for GameCube, especially in the holiday season, though GameCube's biggest holiday titles released in October. It shouldn't be a surprise that a large number of Nintendo titles in 2007 has lead to a dearth of them in 2008 - after all games usually take at least two years to make, especially the quality titles. It is therefore of interest to note that through the first 3 years, both GameCube and Wii had exactly 24 Nintendo-published games on the system. Of course, the comparison gets a little silly when we look at the plethora of downloadable Nintendo titles available on the Wii: First, Virtual Console games published by Nintendo by year in the US: 2006 (13: 10 NES, 2 SNES, 1 N64) * Donkey Kong (NES) * The Legend of Zelda (NES) * Mario Bros. (NES) * Pinball (NES) * Soccer (NES) * Wario's Woods (NES) * Donkey Kong Jr. (NES) * Ice Hockey (NES) * Tennis (NES) * Super Mario Bros. (NES) * F-Zero (SNES) * SimCity (SNES) * Super Mario 64 (N64) 2007 (38: 20 NES, 9 SNES, 9 N64) * Baseball (NES) * Urban Champion (NES) * Ice Climber (NES) * Kid Icarus (NES) * Kirby's Adventure (NES) * Excitebike (NES) * Punch-Out!! (NES) * Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) * NES Open Tournament Golf (NES) * Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) * Mach Rider (NES) * Yoshi (NES) * Balloon Fight (NES) * Metroid (NES) * Donkey Kong Jr. Math (NES) * NES Play Action Football (NES) * Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (NES) * Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) * Volleyball (NES) * Wrecking Crew (NES) * The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) * Super Mario World (SNES) * Donkey Kong Country (SNES) * Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest (SNES) * Kirby's Dream Course (SNES) * Super Metroid (SNES) * Kirby's Avalanche (SNES) * Vegas Stakes (SNES) * Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (SNES) * Mario Kart 64 (N64) * The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) * Star Fox 64 (N64) * F-Zero X (N64) * Paper Mario (N64) * Wave Race 64 (N64) * Yoshi's Story (N64) * Sin & Punishment (N64) * Pokemon Snap (N64) 2008 (10: 4 NES, 1 SNES, 5 N64) * StarTropics (NES) * Yoshi's Cookie (NES) * Donkey Kong 3 (NES) * Clu Clu Land (NES) * Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES) * 1080 Snowboarding (N64) * Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64) * Cruis'n USA (N64) * Pokemon Puzzle League (N64) * Mario Golf (N64) 61 total Virtual Console games published by Nintendo, though granted these ones don't really eat up much in terms of development resources. Holiday 2008 is not yet over, of course, so there may be more in there, but for the most part Nintendo put out a lot of Virtual Console games in 2006-2007 and then let the third-party games (and WiiWare) take over in 2008. Speaking of WiiWare, let's look quickly at the Nintendo-published WiiWare games by year (US): 2008 (6) * Art Style: Cubello * Art Style: Orbient * Art Style: Rotohex * Dr. Mario Online Rx * Magnetica Twist * My Pokemon Ranch That makes 67 total downloadable games through the first 3 years. Seems to me like for the most part, Nintendo has kept the same number of games flowing, but moved up some titles from 2008 into 2007 in order to cover for a lack of third-party support, and also let out a flood of Virtual Console games in 2007 at the same time, with far fewer downloadable games released in 2008. Based on an average development time of 2-3 years, we should see a lot out of Nintendo in 2009 and 2010, and given Nintendo's recent strategy of only announcing games within 6 months of release, we probably don't even yet know what will be available for 2009's holiday season. What does this mean for 2008? Yes, there does seem to be a bit of a gap in Nintendo's first-party development, particularly in this holiday season - early 2008 actually wasn't too bad. For the most part, the gap can be attributed to Nintendo covering for weak third-party support in 2007, and perhaps Nintendo was either hoping the third parties would step up in 2008, or merely allowing them the opportunity to do so. Either way, that quality third-party support has by and large failed to materialize so far. You have to wonder if the third-party companies have missed a crucial opportunity to really see a lot of commercial success on the Wii platform this holiday season, or if that window will still be open in early 2009, because the Nintendo first-party machine is still churning away and third-party publishers that haven't caught on by now probably never will. As for this holiday season, you can expect that the millions of new Wii owners will be picking up games released in the first half of 2008, or even earlier - particularly Wii Play, Wii Fit, and Mario Kart Wii, in addition to first-party core champions Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, and even The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Overall software sales will probably still be high, as these new owners will be buying something to play. How about the Wii owners who purchased their system in 2006 or 2007, and have already purchased these titles? There are a handful of new quality games out there, but for the most part you'd have to think they'd be stuck buying and playing older games, playing on another system altogether, or just not playing anything at all, and that could be a problem in getting these early adopters to maintain enough interest in the Wii to pay attention to 2009's software lineup next year. I don't want to be too negative here, because for most people the number of games already released is enough to keep us busy and happy (myself included). To conclude on a high note, here's a small sample of what potential quality titles we already know are on the way for the Wii through spring 2009: * Rock Band 2 (just before Christmas 2008) * Deadly Creatures (possibly late 2008) * The Conduit * MadWorld * Little King's Story * Rune Factory Frontier * House of the Dead: Overkill * Tenchu 4: Art of the Ninja * Sonic & the Black Knight * Punch-Out * Wii Sports Resort * Sin & Punishment 2 (could be late 2009)

Ironically I've always seen Nintendo as a unique developer by bridging the gap between core and casual. Target audience = Everyone. Most Mario and Zelda games are perfect examples of this. Very accessible, yet very deap. I find it impossible to regard games such as Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii and Super Mario Galaxy as either casual or core. They're being loved equally by both camps.

Although the Q4 line-up is a bit disappointing Nintendo have given us a new Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Kart and Metroid. Arguably they're also the best in those series. Plus all the casual stuff such as Wii Sports. And that's within first 18 months. Just to put it into perspective... We used to have 9 months droughts between the classics on Gamecube as well (and just as much complaining on this very forum), but then there was always some quality third party title you could play in the meantime. But I wouldn't just blame this on third parties being lazy... The worst thing about Wii being underpowered isn't the lack of HD or fancy graphics, but the difficulty porting quality multiplatform games for it. On Gamecube you had good multiplatform games such as Soul Calibur 2, SSX3, Prince of Persia, Timesplitters 2 and all the EA Sports games. Now, we're getting spin-offs and lastgen-ports of the same franchises...

No really good games since Smash Bros. Brawl and Okami in June. Cod: World At War, deBlob and Tiger Woods 09 are decent.

The problem is that non-casual games don't sell.

Call of Duty is number 16 on the Wii-specific list, behind titles such as Big Beach Sports og All Star Cheerleader while Banjo 3 on X360 fails to chart top 40. LittleBigPlanet didn't do to well either. In other words, developers should stop making hardcore titles for the Wii and casual titles for PS3/X360.

Wow, so this game is actually pretty good!? http://wii.ign.com/articles/931/931583p1.html As good as City Folk and better than ToS2...

Well, there's two ways of seeing it. Judging it as a standalone product by 2008 standards or as a lazy remake with nothing new to offer for fans of the series.

Eurogamer: "In broadening Animal Crossing's borders, Nintendo has done nothing to add to its depth, and as such this is arguably still the best cutesy Japanese life-sim on the market and a solid buy for newcomers, but for series fans it's in no way a life worth reliving." 6/10 http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=307152

7.5 is actually a pretty good score. More than I expected.

Good score in latest EDGE:

One of the better lists I've seen actually. A bit too many sports games for my liking, but great to see people haven't forgotten about old, low-profile games such as Skies of Arcadia. Shenmue II at number 10 and Chrono Trigger at 2 was a positive surprise .

I just bought a X360 Pro 60 GB. I've been a Nintendo fan for 20 years, but I now have a non-Nintendo console for the first time. And wow, the online system is a lot better than Wii. Sure you have to pay a subscription, but I feel free demos alone are worth the money. And the games... Fallout 3 and Mirror's Edge alone are better than the whole Q4 Wii line-up.

I think it's been a strange year with the really big titles such as Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit and Smash Brawl being released in spring/summer. So although the Nintendo fall line-up is a bit lacklustre (especially compared to MS and Sony) 2008 ha been quite good. Third party support on the other hand...

I'll say this is the final nail in the coffin for a Wii version...

Found one: "Disaster: Day of Crisis is the latest game that falls into this category, offering gameplay that would have felt dated at the beginning of this decade, visuals that bring back memories of 32-Bit gaming and more cheese than a straight to DVD action movie." 5/10 http://www.videogamer.com/wii/disaster_day_of_crisis/review.html

No reviews yet? So, how good/crap is this?

They should've done a Mega Man 9 and kept the classic graphics:

Exactly. Mario Galaxy and Smash Brawl are perfect examples of bringing together core and casual. When looking at the Wii's first two years I would say Nintendo has done an excellent job with balancing the line-up between casual and core gamer: Wii Play Wii Sports Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess WarioWare: Smooth Moves Excite Truck Mario Strikers Charged Mario Party 8 Big Brain Academy for Wii Super Paper Mario Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Endless Ocean Super Mario Galaxy Pokemon Battle Revolution Link's Crossbow Training Wii Chess Donkey Kong Jet Race Battalion Wars 2 Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Mario Kart Wii Wii Fit Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wario Land: The Shake Dimension Disaster: Day of Crisis Wii Music Animal Crossing: City Folk