Wii Warm Up: Drought or growing pains?

You'd expect any new system to have a lull at some point. Also, there's the fact that many companies overlooked the Wii and are now scrambling to play catch-up and get some titles released.

I got my Wii back in January, and Ive been very disapointed by the amount of games available (and types of games-so many miniparty) However, Nintendo sorta overcame this by using the virtual console. I bought about 8 games on it, and was fairly happy. Now things are looking bright. Ive been playing The Godfather for about a month. And now Spiderman 3, Scarface and others are starting to roll out.

I think it's a little of both. Now, there will be tons of fanboys crying that there is no drought.. cause of great games... that for some reason, have made high-60% and low 70% rated games "AAA titles" (Sonic/SSX).

But it is natural, not just for new systems, but also for all consoles to hit a drought in the Spring and Summer. I mean, Even the great Xbox 360 and PS2 aren't comming out with many huge titles at this point in time. Everything is usually heald off till fall.

And i'm sorry, Movie licenced games are, and should never count as a high point of a console game list. Looking forward to "Godfather, Spiderman 3, and Scarface" is actually depressing.

I think the wii has done a fairly good job overall; I got mine on launch and watched people then pay ridiculously prices on ebay for the next couple of months but since then things should have eased up a little in the supply department. The system doesn't have cutting edge graphical components and nothing that should be too difficult from a manufacturing standpoint.
As far as third party support goes, it has always been the problem for nintendo. Games have started to become available but the non-port, made for wii games are going to be hard to come but until third parties start deciding it's worth taking on the mario franchise.

I think for the first six months to a year, 3rd party titles are going to be an issue for the Wii. As Phil says, Nintendo has historically been weak here because they had a smaller market share than the leading consoles of the last generations... but I think that 3rd party support for Nintendo will not be an issue in a little while. Wii is clearly going to have a significant presence, and the 3rd parties will come... we'll probably see the flood gates open for 3rd parties sometime in the next year or so.

I don't think there's a particularly bad drought, though we certainly could do with a bit more, er, moisture...

Personally I am getting a bit sick of cheapo mini-game collections and lazy ports and since finishing the mighty Twilight Princess have yearned for another big, meaty, epic adventure to get stuck into.

I've never played Paper Mario before but decided to pick up Super Paper Mario and I've been absolutely thrilled with it. From the 4-5 hours I've played so far, I feel like the game might even be underrated. It's full of charm, wit, and old-fashioned fun. My wife loves it so much, she won't let me play it unless she's home to watch. So I'd heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a relaxing and enjoyable fix to tide you over until the big releases later in the year.

I hate the term AAA. That comes from blockbuster budgets for movies. I'm OK with B movies so why wouldn't I like B budgeted games? Hollywood sent out a glut of AAA movies and most couldn't recoup the losses. Many games are being hyped as AAA and don't deliver; gamers always talking about the next AAA game. Forget that and just play games.

Yes I would call it a drought if your tired of seeing Mario/Zelda and minigames.

So yes! There is a drought. Its called a new franchise drought.

no drought for me (the last nintendo product I owned was the snes) so I've got some cool gc games to catch up on and I'm almost done with zelda...add another voice to the chorus lamenting these minigame collections, I just don't get their appeal

I guess I don't see it. But, then I don't buy a lot of games. How many great games do you need a year? I have Zelda, Mario, Excite Truck, Sports, and Play. I'm pretty happy with all of them. I've played Godfather and it's a really good game. We're expecting:

Mario Galaxy
Metroid Prime 3
Super Smash Bros
Resident Evil: UC
Nights
My Sims
Mario Strikers
Guitar Hero 3
Battalion Wars 2
Treasure Island Z
Pokemon

All this year. Plus some other games I'm somewhat interested in: Mario Party, Dewys Adventure, Big Brain Academy, and Boogie -- not to mention titles without a release date like No More Heroes, Disaster, and Project Hammer.

Then, Nintendo themselved are working on 45 titles for the Wii.

It's hard for me to call this a drought. I own 5 games and want to own a few others (Wario, Tiger Woods, Godfather) and I'm looking forward to about 10 announced games (many of which will hit by this year).

It's nowhere near as bad as the 64 days. I think that might have been the biggest and longest lasting drought in my videogame history.

A big thing about the Wii is pulling in the non-gamers, right? The grannies and stuff.

Those people aren't going to be buying games anyway, aside from at Christmas, perhaps, or on a birthday. I don't think the vast majority of Wii owners will see a drought because they aren't shopping for games in the first place.

And by the time the holidays roll around, the Wii should have plenty of games. Right?

I think it's perfectly fair to apply both terms to the current situation -- I think somebody produced a graph showing that the Wii has about as many post-launch titles as the "average" system, but saying that it happens to everybody doesn't make it suck less. It took me a while to admit it to myself, but I bought my Wii so I could play Zelda. When I beat that, I toyed with Excite Truck (part of my Costco bundle; wouldn't have bought it otherwise) and even talked myself into believing I'd like Rayman. Since about 2 weeks after I bought Rayman, the console has been gathering dust, save a brief stint running the GC version of Four Swords, during my "must play every Zelda game ever made" phase. Super Paper Mario made me positively *hum* with anticipation, and while it's not compelling me to lose sleep, it's a damn fine title with plenty to keep you interested. After that runs out of steam, though, I don't expect to be playing anything until well into the summertime. Wait, they're releasing RE4 Wii Edition pretty soon, right? OK, I'll probably get that, THEN the drought will pick back up. Hrm, I guess if a system holds my interest for ~9 out of the first 12 months of its life, that's not so bad, is it?

I hate the summer drought. Why give me a game drought when I'm finally out of school?

I anticipated this. I knew that post launch, the Wii was going to have a slight drought. It's not that bad of a drought, I've seen worse (N64, Gamecube). And there are still games I want to try.

I do wish they'd hurry up with the big solo adventure games (already beat Zelda). Give me Metroid, dammit.

As a non-gamer that has been desperatly seeking a Wii of my very own, there is only one drought that means anything to me. I would be willing to play the lamest game around if I only had a Wii.

The Wii is doing pretty well for a new console in my opinion, not as bad as 360 ps3 thats for sure.

In my opinion, the Wii really needs to see a tennis, golf, and/or baseball game, by Xmas, with tight, intuitive controls.

Because I think that sports games on the Wii are what could really revolutionize video games, if titles like that don't exist by the end of the year, then to /me/ it'll be a failure (obviously still a success generally.)

You guys don't even mention that the two biggest games rolled out for the Wii so far is Zelda and Paper Mario. These are games that were announced and developed for the GameCube !!! But held for the Wii. Not to mention that Super Smash Brothers, Mario Galaxy and Metroid 3 were ALL promised within six months of launch. Plus Mario Party 8 was scheduled for early March, and it was delayed till late May. I've always been a HUGE Nintendo fan, but they are lazy and deceptive to their fan base.