The Wii’s ratio of hardcore games to casual titles is low. SEGA doesn’t see that as a bad thing, but rather, an opportunity.

SEGA Europe’s Alan Pritchard explains cites the success of both Resident Evil 4 and Red Steel on the Wii. “But since then, many publishers have migrated towards the more mass-market family titles,” says Pritchard, “so perhaps there hasn’t been the array or depth of hardcore titles on Wii. So there is definitely opportunity here.”

The publisher hopes the upcoming MadWorld will capitalise on that opportunity. Quick, time for a show of hands: Who’s picking up MadWorld on the Wii?

Sega targets hardcore Wii gamers [MCVUK]

This comes minutes after Molyneux explains to me why he asked reviewers to get casual gamers to check out Fable II before writing their review.

I point that out to Molyneux and then say that I agree with him about the dangers of separating the “core” games from the “casual.” It’s the Wii effect, I say. I don’t say this to attack the Wii, but it was from Nintendo that I first started receiving requests to have “casual” gamers check out their games and not hardcore gamers. It was Nintendo that, I think, was first to argue that hardcore gamers didn’t “get” their Wii games.

Molyneux seems to agree.

“I wandered around the show floor yesterday and I kind of realised it was like walking back in time a little bit,” he said. “I’m sure I saw that ten years ago, that approach to little groups of people, not worrying so much about the animation, but worrying about the mechanics.

“It’s a big shock. It’s a big worry for me as a designer. I think this industry needs to move forward and make these opuses for a much broader audience not just the casual audience.”

Instead Molyneux sees traditionally hardcore games adding things to appease to the casual gamer, something he doesn’t think Fable II is doing, exactly.

“Here was the design problem,” he said. “You sit down with Fable and there are an awful lot of influences you have. Your publisher is saying one thing, your audience is saying one thing, your team is saying one thing and all of those sort of come together in the mixing pot.

“The thing we realised, we could build that combat function and say that foundation we laid down in Fable one was right or we could ask ourselves what we could do with combat. What we chose to do is to make it much deeper and while making it much deeper, make it much simpler as well.”

Instead of making Fable II more casual, Molyneux hopes the Lionhead game expands the genre in a way that doesn’t hurt it.

“I think the pigeon hole of RPG is not doing Fable any favors,” he said. “We have to persuade people it’s not an RPG, this is an experience. Ultimately i think we are hoping to broaden (the genre). I think the way i happens is to get people playing the game.

“The whole of the coop mechanic is actually because we want to get more people to play the game. My theory is you or I are playing Fable and our partners or friends walk in and we have to turn the game off. Wouldn’t it be brilliant to just give them the controller and say give it a try. And that, I think, is probably going to do more for than casual audience than anything else.”

The battle is far from over, and Sony have more up their sleeve right now than Microsoft appear to be able to muster, but by stealing hardcore loyalty from their market rivals, Microsoft has gained an edge that could allow them to give Sony a seriously bloody nose this time around. But if it came to 360 versus Wii in a battle for the mass market, Microsoft should save their warchest and call it quits – it may be the hardcore gamer’s ideal machine right now, but even in a dream scenario the 360’s installed base is probably going to top out at about 40 million (not coincidentally, roughly the size of the installed base of Sony’s hardcore-friendly PSP handheld).

The Wii might not have the legs to beat Sony’s 140 million PS2’s, since that was the consequence of a convergence between gamer hobbyist and mass market support which doesn’t exist now that the console manufacturers have torn the market dynamic into two very different halves, but with a good tailwind it could match or exceed the 75 million DS handhelds Nintendo have sold. I suspect it will outsell the 360 by 2:1, perhaps 3:1.

And the PS3? It’s final unit sales may depend more on the uptake of the Blu-ray format than anything else, so at least it will help Sony with the promotion of their media format, even while it teaches the multinational the lesson the N64 taught Nintendo: you still have to be nice to people when you get to the top, as it’s a long way down…

I’m still irritated with Sony for a variety of reasons, most tied to the lead up to the PS3 release, but Bateman points out some PS3 features that may broaden its mass market appeal (e.g., Blu-ray). I’m am so not looking forward to whatever these companies have to dish out the next ‘next-gen’ release time around, which hopefully won’t be for a while. In any case, the essay is worth a read — an interesting analysis of what is and what may be happening.

The Battle for the Hardcore [Only a Game]

Most of the findings in this regard are trivial. Hardcore gamers rated themselves higher for the importance of all the emotions we inquired about (and all these findings were highly statistically significant) – which is to say, Hardcore gamers were more emotionally invested in their play, or at least more likely to rate the importance of any emotional factor in their play higher. Hardcore gamers also rated themselves higher on every aspect of game literacy or player skills in the survey (and these results were even more statistically significant). Finally, Hardcore gamers were more interested in games of challenge, structured play (Caillois’ ludus) and games of escapism (acting out in a virtual world) – all of which broadly validated the findings from the earlier DGD1 survey.

But these results obscure something interesting about the players who self-identified as Casual. Firstly, Casual players still play games very often. 81% of those who self-identified as Hardcore said they played videogames everyday, but 49% of Casual players also said they played everyday. Hardcore players gave themselves high marks in game literacy (more than 95% of Hardcore respondents claiming the top two marks, and about three quarters the very top mark), but Casual players didn’t exactly rate themselves low on this (around 85% of Casual respondents claimed the top two marks, and roughly half the very top mark). So while some of these Casual players might be mass market players, many of them are highly game literate players who play videogames every day. (Incidentally, those who were unable to choose between Hardcore and Casual looked remarkably similar to those who self-identified as Casual).

He goes on to say there is a gap between ‘casual games’ and the so-called ‘casual player‘; he ends by asking if there’s anyway to redefine our terminology in a way that is useful and usable. I think an ‘either/or’ split is here to stay, at least for a good long while, if for no other reason than people like clear divides — even if they don’t correlate to reality.

Redefining Hardcore & Casual [Only A Game]

Well, it reads like an essay, but this piece by David Hayward is actually a transcript of a talk given at the “Under The Mask, Perspectives on the Gamer” event a few days ago (slides included!). It’s a brilliant and somewhat lengthy piece on culture-with-a-small-c, as it relates to gaming (as, in Hayward’s appraisal, just about everyone is a gamer these days by some definition or another). Games, despite coming off as a niche subculture at times, are worming their way into all aspects of society:

There are still people who fail to understand games and fear them, but with the publication of books like Grand Theft Childhood, dust is beginning to settle on the paranoid scare mongering so often stirred up by the anti-videogame lobby. Everyone is surrounded by increasing amounts of technology, and interacts with it more each passing month. People are primed to play games, and videogames are now going to keep spreading and adapting to new markets ….

I think our industry is progressing marvellously. I’m proud to be a gamer, I’m proud to work with games, and I can’t wait to see where else they go this century.

Definitely worth a read – it’s long, but interesting and has some great points within.

Under The Mask: Games Culture [Functional Autonomy via GameSetWatch]

What does hardcore gaming mean? Do we have a similar term for books? Do people say, “He’s a hardcore reader”? I guess they’d say so-and-so is a bookworm. But “hardcore”? It’s such a severe term. If games are going to be a truly dominate form of entertainment, they need to be approachable. Approachable doesn’t mean a lesser game experience in any way, but rather, a streamlined one. That should actually help gaming!

I think what people are worried about is dumbed down gaming. Like that casual players will need some pandering. If developers are smart, they’ll make things more intuitive, rather than dumber. That way they can appease new and experienced players.

Blah, blah, blah. That’s my nickel and dime opinion. What’s yours? Hit us up in the comments section. That’s what it’s there for, you know.

Casual Vs. Hardcore [Go Nintendo]

Microsoft’s Alan Bowman has been out beating that well-worn drum, saying:

A key strategy for us is to give broad choice for people. You need to provide content which broadens your base of users from core gamers to different age groups.

How’s Microsoft planning on doing that? Aside from shameless Buzz clone Scene It? With cartoon-based titles for the kids, and word-puzzle games for the grown-ups, he says.

Well…best of luck with that. On the bright side, things can only get better!

Microsoft to make more ‘family focused’ games [Develop]

It’s important to know that we’re not ignoring the hardcore gamer. They’re still very important to us… And Christmas alone we have already catered on the Wii with Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy, and on DS with the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

Nintendo hasn’t forgotten you, Joe Q. Gamer. It just wants patience, because good things come to those who wait. Well, eventually. We hope.
We’re not ignoring you [Pro-G via Infendo]