In a move that surprised some people more than others, Nintendo has decided to wage war on its loyal fanbase this week. First up for the "Ninten-douche" award is Laurent Fischer, PR executive of Nintendo of Europe, who had the following response when asked about the growing problem with Wii storage running out for some users: "Only geeks and otaku want this issue addressed."
O RLY? >,<
Well... who's been putting food on your table for the last...oh, I don't know... 10 years or so? Certainly not the fickle casual market, who will buy a console one day and forget they have it the next. Sure, Nintendo may be riding high now, but the worst thing one can do is insult your most loyal fanbase. A lot of those "geeks and otaku" are the ones buying lots of WiiWare and Virtual Console games. You think the casuals give a rats arse about stuff like Sin and Punishment? I sure don't.
Fischer later apologized for his comment, but as far as I'm concerned the damage is already done. Yes, geeks and otaku like the Wii...I happen to be both. However, I guess I'm a bit more insulted at the trivializing of people like me. People who have money and want to spend it on lots and lots of video games --- versus the casual market who picks up a Wii, gets WiiFit, and then lets it collect dust for months. Sick. Just sick. Expect a rant on how junk Wii software may (or may not, depending on how Nintendo handles the next couple of years and their casual fanbase) set off the next video game "crash"...
The second "Ninten-douche" award goes to the Wii firmware update team, who decided to not only plug the Twilight Hack exploit allowing homebrew applications to be played (makes sense, for piracy reasons), but they also unnecessarily cut off support for Datel's Freeloader, thus re-implementing the impassable region locking present in the console at launch. Though it screws people like me who own a Freeloader to play Japanese games, I believe the real motive on plugging this exploit was to block European and Australian users from importing US games at reduced prices... Super Smash Bros. Brawl STILL hasn't launched in Europe, and many a UK and AU gamer picked up a Freeloader for that very reason. Nintendo's localization departments are slow. This is strictly regional sales protection (especially given the strong Euro), nothing more.
As such, expect no more updates from me until Datel finds another way for me to get my JP game fix. And since Nintendo requires the latest firmware to go on the Wii Shop Channel, they get no more WiiWare or Virtual Console money from me. And I hope others follow my lead in avoiding the dreaded 3.3 update.
If you have any desire whatsoever to play foreign games, even a passing interest, DO NOT UPDATE YOUR WII. YOU WILL RUIN YOUR CHANCE.
And for those with a Freeloader already, the disc does contain a mode to bypass "required updates" which Nintendo will no doubt be printing on all its future first party games. So now I will have to use the Freeloader to load any first-party game I get - to make sure the update doesn't bork my Wii and render my 4 Japanese games unplayable. Nintendo, you fail this week. Big time. T_T
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