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August 28, 2007
Metroid Prime 3 For Casual Gamers?
It's been a while, but a major all-star first-party Nintendo game for hardcore players has arrived in North America in the form of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. At last, a Nintendo game that doesn't stress training our brains or working on our faces or raising puppies or practicing yoga. This one's for the die-hard Nintendo fans from the days of yore, and not a single mini-game or party mode is to be found within. What say you about this, Nintendo?
Metroid Prime 3 has a revolutionary control style that makes it easy for anyone to immediately jump into the action," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Now, an entirely new audience can experience this amazing first-person adventure.
Ah, so the company is pitching this one towards the inexperienced casual gaming crowd. Stephen Munn at Aeropause has picked up on this as well, theorizing that since Metroid Prime and its sequel didn't do ultra-phenomenal sales on the GameCube, the company is trying to draw a larger audience for this latest iteration in the franchise. Yep, I can see that. On the other hand, no way would I expect Nintendo to shy away from hyping Metroid Prime 3 to the casuals. Of course the company will try to draw as many people as it can to the game. Moreover, this could be Nintendo's attempt at turning some of their newfound casual gaming fans into a more traditional customer. The casual gamers took the bait by swinging at tennis balls, and now it's time to hook them with a little Samus Aran goodness. Come for the party games, stay for the Space Pirates.
Posted by MattG on August 28, 2007 at 12:03 PM in Nintendo | Permalink
Comments
I'm a bit dissapointed with the way Nintendo have handled Prime.
They seem almost embarresed by it. They still cater to a large number of less casual gamers. Bring on Timesplitters Wii, I say!
Posted by: Duncan | Aug 28, 2007 3:10:59 PM
I think they're handling things as well as they can, people go on about how the hype doesn't compare to games like Halo 3 and what not, but Nintendo doesn't have the same marketting resources as Microsoft don't forget. They've obviously spent a mint on the whole Wii want to play campaign and it's totally paying off and they're sticking with it, I can't criticise them. Remember, we all casual gamers until we played our first Zelda game or Metroid. You have to consider that the reason half as many people bought Echoes is because they bought Prime because of the hype and just didn't like that sort of game, but the faithfull returned for a second dipping. This time they've got a shitload more systems out there in peoples homes and new people looking for something to play, so, go Nintendo.
Posted by: Rico Ricardo | Aug 28, 2007 7:59:26 PM
Remember, they were doing the same schtick with Mario Kart Wii a couple of weeks ago. I don't think anyone should be worrying about dumbed-down versions of either game; I'm betting it's ultimately going to mean more control options available to players - standard stuff for traditional gamers, maybe a simplified option available for the casual gamers. Or for that matter, maybe it's just another opportunity for them to assert that the Wii Remote is just a more intuitive controller in general. So what's the harm, eh?
Posted by: | Aug 28, 2007 8:53:47 PM
I think that this conversaion idea is pure genius(yet again). Depending on how well Nintendo works with this idea they can pretty much turns these non gamers into Nintendo only gamers. Sweet.
Posted by: Daniel Primed | Aug 29, 2007 10:47:00 AM
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