WiiMad

Oh yes the Wii, WiiFit’s upcoming release to the masses of casual gamers to which Nintendo has so successfully seduced -- all this casual and non-traditional trends in videogames as of late have been quite a harbinger of the how the publishers and developers might shift to a new set of consumers entirely brushing off the core market which practically and statistically speaking is the source of all those billions and billions of revenues.

Uhh, Not quite.


Nintendo has been smart enough to develop the casual market for the first two years and still partially support the hardcore audience, although a rarity in their consistency -- they’re betting on third party developers to fill in the gaps of those first party releases. Now that they’ve proven to be the number one in terms of volume of videogame systems sold, publishers would start to see the immense opportunity to capture these over 20 million Wii owners.

The Wii has acquired a ballooning consumer base in a matter of less than 2 years -- less than what Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and PS3 have achieved over their current shelf lifetimes.

And the filler of the gap for the core? MadWorld - being developed by Platinum, the same talents and creative geniuses of Resident Evil, Okami, and Viewtiful Joe. Slated for a release round Jan to March of 2009 and to be published by the legendary money loosing hardware turned software company, SEGA.

So far, based on the screenshots, it’s creative and fresh in terms of aesthetics and violence. Not only is the method of rendering images on screen using a black and white unique, the system for which SEGA is targeting to exclusively develop for is quite surprising. The Wii consumers have proven to be reluctant to be repeat buyers, content with WiiSports and whatever Nintendo bundled their system with...

SEGA is betting on a hungry core audience who purchased their Wiis to snatch up this game to satiate their desire for testosterone and blood thirsty gameplay. And inject no holds barred humor - you’ve got a title that can captivate the demographic that as gamers cry out, Nintendo betrayed.

SEGA hopes that that would be the case. Although there could be a possible risk that Wii’s consumers, as Microsoft predicts, would have ‘matured’ and moved on to either an Xbox 360 or PS3 - as defined by MS, a deeper and more compelling gaming experience.

As the launch of this game draws near for each passing week/month, how the casual market would react to this type of hardcore focused title remains to be seen.