Marc Franklin, director of public relations at Nintendo, tells GamePro that "core gamers" will be interested in what the company has in store for E3. Although Franklin mentions Mario Super Sluggers (we can sense Europe going into fever pitch!), he gives very little detail on what else the company has planned.

There's been plenty of speculation about what Nintendo may reveal, but Franklin's comments come as Nintendo's more casual oriented Wii Fit storms the sales charts and a certain executive takes a jab at the Nintendo faithful. Franklin concludes that third-party publishers are rolling out more titles as they realize the "Wii is the current platform of choice in this generation." True, but these rollouts don't always equal payoffs. We're looking at you, Boom Blox.

After lauding its casual market domination with Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, Sega of America President Simon Jeffrey decided to switch gears, discussing with GameDaily the merits of hardcore gaming on the Wii. In short, Jeffrey feels that Western publishers are making a mistake by ignoring the hardcore gamers who own a Wii.

Unfortunately, other than providing a tantalizing and hypothetical (i.e. not happening) assertion that Condemned would have been great to play with the Wii remote, Jeffrey made no clear commitments to release titles appealing to the hardcore crowd, instead saying, "There's no reason why [hardcore gamers] should be excluded or excommunicated from the Nintendo world," Jeffrey said. Our only hope is that "hardcore" to Sega doesn't mean "let's make a darker Sonic and give him a gun."

No More Heroes creator Suda 51 wants to clarify a few comments. In a post on Grasshopper Manufacturer's website (click on "What's New"), the developer points out what he considers is a "misquote" in an interview with CVG. In response to a question concerning the sales of No More Heroes in Japan, Suda 51 said, "Whilst the sales weren't as high as I hoped, other titles for Wii aren't selling so well either. Only Nintendo titles are doing well," adding that this is the case outside of Japan, too.

The clarification posted asserts that "unlike a lot of Nintendo Wii titles currently available, [NMH] is the kind of product which will attract a different kind of consumer to the hardware, i.e. gamers who are looking for a different genre to the products which have been successful on this platform thus far." That "different kind of consumer" we're guessing is a more hardcore gamer, given comments earlier in the CVG interview where he said, "I wasn't expecting that Wii would be a console targeted only at non-gamers. I expected more games for hardcore gamers." Obviously, he doesn't want to comment on the sales of other third-party titles, but do you think he might have a point?

For those looking for a reportedly more hardcore Wii experience, No More Heroes comes out today in North America.

It's a long weekend in the States, it's time to take it down a notch. Earlier this week we got an email from reader Herlich Aguiluz, who told us the story of how his wife woke him up Wednesday morning concerned that their seven-year-old son was awake while "it was still dark." When Aguiluz spoke to his son in the morning it turned out the kid woke up at 1AM and was playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption all night until his mother came down to fix breakfast. Aguiluz says, "I realized that while my wife was mad at what happened, I was proud and envious at the same time. Proud because I see my gamer-self in him, and envious because it used to be me who stayed up for a new game."

This blogger can remember waking up more than one time at 3AM as a kid to find his mother playing Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV) in the living room -- later on the same thing happened with Final Fantasy III. It's very strange to wake up to the sound of Final Fantasy battle music, walk into the living room and be asked, "What are you doing up?" When that question was obviously a two-way street.

So, let's open it up. Anybody else have those unexpected gamer moments with a family member?

An important aspect game publishers need to consider is their market. How many people are out there that buy games and of them, what are their buying habits? Jupiter Research, a market research company, has some answers.

Ultra gamers, as Jupiter calls them, make up 22% of the game buying population. The ultra gamers are gamers that spend more than 5 hours per week playing games and more than $50 in the last six months buying them. This means the other 78% is the casual market.

The ultra gamer tag (that would be most of the folks reading this) is certainly odd. We find $50 in six months to be a strangely low number, given the number of games many of us play in the course of a year; even the more economical GameFly subscription would run $132 in that period. Maybe the hardcore segment is a small portion of the ultra gamer segment.

Ready for some overpriced clothing that'll let the world know you're a gamer? Of course you are! The self-proclaimed "King of Games" in Japan has some threads for you. These suckers are roughly $50 a pop, and feature some really bizarre artwork. Check out the series dedicated to Nintendo's Game & Watch handhelds.

It looks like their "Sweat Parka" hoodie has a pocket made just for your DS, but since we can't read Japanese, and their English site is "beta only" right now, we don't know. The Zelda designs on it are pretty nifty though. Our favorite shirt is the "80s Videogamer" model. Simple with a message.

Although right now if forced to choose between a new Wii game and the shirt, we gotta go with the game.

[Thanks, Jeff]

It's always been extremely convenient to categorize the wide spectrum of gamers into the two distinct, warring camps of "hardcore" and "casual" (especially for journalists, who love condensing difficult ideas into single words) . But that dichotomy isn't too useful for accurately describing most gamers, who fall somewhere in between the guys from Penny Arcade and your grandpa who played Tetris that one time.

Enter Parks Associates, a market research firm that recently issued a report on online gamers that divides them into six distinct groups based on their time and motivational commitments. Parks' categories include:

• "Power gamers" who spend the most money on games.
• "Social gamers" who use games mainly to socialize (duh!)
• "Leisure gamers" who spend lots of time playing mainly challenging, casual titles.
• "Dormant gamers" who like playing games but just don't have the time.
• "Incidental gamers" who play games because there's nothing better to do.
• "Occasional gamers," who will occasionally play a puzzle, word, or board game.
  

This division isn't perfect (where's the space for people who buy one game and play it exclusively for months?) but it's definitely an interesting new way to think about and discuss the incredibly wide array of people who play. What kind of gamer are you?

Sigil Games Online, developers of upcoming MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, announced today that they'd be co-publishing the game with Sony Online Entertainment after "it became clear that [Microsoft Games Studios] and Sigil had varying visions and direction for the title's development," according to Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games Online, as quoted in a company press release on the break-up.

It's rare that a game in beta switches publishers. We have no inside information, but a little digging makes it clear that something's not quite right fresh in Denmark. At least one high-profile game designer recently quit, and Sigil's CEO has been defending the game from legions of WoW Fanboys doubters that have been questioning whether it'll ever be commercially viable.

The surest sign that the game may be in choppy waters is the fact that McQuaid's now doing business with SOE after his high-profile departure from the same company in the fall of 2001. According to MMOG-community gossip circulating at the time, this departure was also the result of diverging creative visions between McQuaid and Sony on the evolution of Everquest, the successful MMORPG that McQuaid co-founded and designed.

Smart observers suggest that the culprit behind all of the churn und drama is the tremendous success of World of Warcraft. To wit: how will Vanguard fare against WoW and the other bajillion MMOGs slated for release? For reaction to this announcement from MMORPG insiders, check the FoH forums, where the unruly mob is being characteristically brutal. Even the President of Sony Online Entertainment is trolled into doing some damage control.

It's that time of month again -- the Carnival of Gamers has made its fourteenth stop, coincidentally marking its first anniversary (there were two last June). This regular collection of game writing from around the blogosphere is a delightful way to get some alternate opinions aired and always seems to be worth the reading time.

This month's edition covers casual vs hardcore gaming; the Wii; violence and politics; modern MMO issues; and a few other juicy topics from co-op gaming to the ESRB. There's plenty of thought-provoking material in true Carnival style.

See also:
Carnival of Gamers gets n3rfed
Carnival of Gamers rolls on to Virgin Worlds
Carnival of Gamers gathers under Slashdot's tent