destructoid.com — Recently, casual games have been getting more and more popular. I mean, that's been the key to the Wii's success, and a big part of the DS' as well. Games like Wario Ware, Hotel Dusk, and Big Brain Academy have all been huge successes recently for consoles (not to mention stuff like Bejeweled on PCs).
Jun 11, 2007 View in Crawl 4
detritusJun 12, 2007
The reason developers are focusing on the Wii is because it is selling so well, that doesn't mean that all of those games are going to be "casual". Manhunt 2 is a Wii exclusive because a) The Wii is selling so well, b) The Wii controllers make the killing moves more visceral, and c) It is slightly cheaper to develop for the Wii than the PS3 and 360. I don't think there is any reason to be alarmed at all, a lot of the developers working on the casual games are entirely different studios from the ones making the "hardcore" titles. The worse that will happen is advertising dollars might be redirected by the publisher to pimp casual games a little harder, but that won't effect hardcore gamers who are already reading the enthusiast press that pimp the hardcore games for free. I also disagree with Coheed's Nikon example, they continue to make insanely higher and higher mega-pixel cameras for the pro; which drives the technology.
slovenian6474Jun 12, 2007
@CoheedI see what you mean with the Nikon analogy, but you're comparing one company to a whole market. The kind of behavior you're describing is something that can happen to a single company with limited resources. A whole market such as the game developer market may start focusing on the casual gamers, but as long as there's a demand for hard-core games, there will be developers making those games. At the extreme, if there's one developer left making hard-core games, whatever they make is virtually guaranteed to sell.
kravexJun 12, 2007
@ DetritusManhunt 2 is out on PS2 and PSP, the control method is a Wii exclusive but the game isn't. It's the control method on the Wii that keeps making the news and it will be the best version due to it.