(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); This is something I've been pondering. Something I've been wondering about and something that in retrospect has confused me all the more. Nintendo is one of the oldest companies in the gaming world, they know what they're doing but somehow they seem to have lost people in all the confusion of casual vs. hardcore gaming. This is my 10 steps for regaining the hardcore gaming market for Nintendo.

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STEP 1

Announce the localisation of Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower for the Nintendo Wii in a big press release. Say how the fans tireless efforts in making Nintendo aware of the market for these games has led them to reconsider the localisations and how they hope the passion for these games continues. During this same press conference also announce the localisation of Fatal Frame 4, Disaster: Day Of Crisis and Tales Of Graces stating that the trend of releasing games in Japan-only will stop...

...when everyone stops chearing, then announce. "Which is why we're also releasing the following game for the Nintendo 3DS. 'Mother: Complete Collection' all three Mother games, or Earthbound for those who remember the SNES, on one game cart. As well as this, to commemorate this return to involved RPGS, we'll be releasing three additional games for the 3DS. The Square SNES collection, with Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6 and Secret Of Mana. The Quintet SNES collection, with Soul Blazer, Illusion Of Gaia and Terranigma and the Golden Sun collection, featuring Golden Sun 1 & 2 for the GBA. All with added 3D."

I guarentee, that single announcement would make the fans happy and sell the 3DS very quickly. Failure to do the first part of this step will likely lose Nintendo the support of hardcore gamers entirely who will, disenfranchised, probably not bother buying the Wii U as they will expect half the games will never leave Japan.

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STEP 2

Create a deal with Capcom for re-release of some of their last gen games for the Wii U. Revamp the graphics slightly and release them as the Capcom Classics line at a starting price of $25 (£15) on release. This provides two major things. First it give the Wii U a suddenly large list of decently made games that hardcore gamers will enjoy (most of them being old PS2 or Xbox games) and it gives Capcom a clear presence on the Wii U as a strong developer. Capcom has always been Nintendo's strongest card as a third party developer.

Games I would suggest putting in the Capcom Classics line - Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter, Chaos Legion, Dino Stalker, Darkwatch, Killer7, and Shadow Of Rome.

Then get Capcom to release some of it's best known series as collectors discs at full price. I'd have - Devil May Cry Collection (1, 2 and 3), The Onimusha Collection (1, 2 and 3) and finally the Resident Evil Classic Collection, containing Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, Code Veronica and Zero (using the Gamecube remakes). This is released to coincide with the release of Resident Evil 6 in order to build on hype as well as the Announcement that Capcom will be bringing Resident Evil 5 to the Wii U.

In fact, you get Capcom to re-release not just Resident Evil 5, but Devil May Cry 4 and Dark Void too...

Now, even if you don't like those games. That's 3 high end HD games, 6 decent last-gen budget games and 3 multi-game collections, all of which are not avaliable on Nintendo systems at the moment except the Resident Evil games, which are on Gamecube.

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STEP 3

Make Nintendo DS games playable on the Wii U using the new Wii U controller as the second screen. Immediately these games become much more valuable as games because you don't need a DS to play them. As most people already have a DS this won't damage DS sales, and as most people already have DS games it may improve Wii U sales as people may buy the console in order to play DS games on the big screen.

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STEP 4

Licence certain games from Activision for re-release on the Wii U, especially as they have new games coming out next year that are likely to be major sellers. The most important franchises to licence are Prototype and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare. Releasing the first Prototype and the first two Modern Warfare games at budget price will also give casual gamers cheap games to buy which may get them involved in third person action games, and first person shooters.

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STEP 5

Remake 'Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask' for the 3DS. With the incredible sales of the Ocarina Of Time remake, this is such an obvious move that I'll be shocked if they don't do this. It's already being asked for on their facebook page and twitter. It will sell millions, because it's Zelda, and Zelda sell millions.

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STEP 6

Announce the inclusion of the Gameboy Advance's library as downloadable on the Virtual Console for the Wii and Wii U. This is a major gap in the Virtual Consoles library and one that many fans have been asking to be filled for a long time. The GBA has some incredible games such as Metroid Zero Mission/Fusion, Golden Sun 1 & 2, Mario Kart Super Circuit, Ninja 5-0 and more, I guarentee this would make many sales.

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STEP 7

Try to get as many of the older current gen third person action games, FPS games and RPG's re-released onto the Wii U as budget titles. Again, it's the budget titles idea I know, but it's a good way to get the casual gamers involved in hardcore games and honestly the Wii U could stand a good chance of converting casual gamers into hardcore gamers with this method. Basically these are all the games that didn't come out on the Wii because it wasn't powerful enough to do so.

Good games to try for would include - Dante's Inferno, Dragon Age: Origins, Armored Core 4, Splatterhouse, Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow, Doom 3, Bioshock, Metro 2033, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption, Darksiders and Just Cause 2.

Sure, you're probably thinking, "The hell, everyone's already played all these games", but the thing is they haven't. Wii owners and general Nintendo gamers have had very few games like these and as such having all these games show up for $25 (£15) on their new Wii console, with the ability to play them all handheld with that swanky new controller... and on the same console as the new Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc. Hell yes, this will sell well.

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STEP 8

Make the next Pokémon game for the Wii U. Make it entirely self contained (ie. include ALL the pokémon in the one game), make it a fully three dimensional world, but keep the combat the same as it is in the DS games... then include multiplayer. This game will sell faster than any other game Nintendo could even dream of making. If Nintendo have also made DS games compatible with the Wii U like I suggested in Step 3, this game should be compatable with Pokemon Black & White on the DS.

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STEP 9

Expand the size of Ganbarion and Monolith Soft, two subsiduary companies of Nintendo responsible for Pandora's Tower (and the One Piece series) and Xenoblade Chronicals (and the Xenosaga series), and get them to work on new original IPs. Nintendo is well known for it's own game series, Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong etc. but it has few peices of Intellectual Property that isn't Metroid that actually appeals to hardcore gamers. These games should probably be action RPGs in order to reasonable take advantage of the Wii U controller.

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STEP 10

Bridge the gap between casual and hardcore gamers and finally make the FPS genre worth something in Japan. At the moment, Japanes people just don't buy FPS's, they're just really unpopular. Easy way to fix this. Super Mario Paintball.


And those are my 10 steps to make Nintendo worthwhile to hardcore gamers again. I should so be their CEO.

For Pokemon, go back to the good old days of 64 where the games were great. The Pokemon for GC sucked.

And invest more in obtaining gaming companies instead of concentrating on your portfolio and stockholders. Gotta buy to expand beyond the usual blockbuster games.