Droughts and Why I'm Thirsty for Some Games, Nintendo

Nintendo is infamous for their droughts. Since the Nintendo 64, they've essentially had to depend on their own content as third parties just won't compete. It's not a question that they can't compete, they just don't bother. Then they complain they can't compete with the quality of Nintendo's games when they develop such tripe like Red Steel (the game that was supposed to show that FPS games could work on the Wii), the Imagine line, EA's All-Play series of sports games, and et cetera. Thus, they complain about sales. It's a vicious cycle and b.s.

Nintendo console owners are ubiquitous with waiting long periods of time for good content. Let's take a look at this month, shall we? For Wii we have the Conduit 2 to look forward to by a former (and some would argue still) bad game-making developer. That's pretty much it for the Nintendo faithful. One could pass the thought that if it was on any other platform it wouldn't be getting a second look. I agree with this line of thought. For the DS there's a mountain of licensed games and not much else. For the newest handheld from Nintendo, the 3DS, there's lots of unimpressive titles in the pipeline like the botched Ubisoft port of Splinter Cell.

Hope you like generic shooters because
that's all Wii owners get in April.

In Japan the situation isn't as bad. The 3DS is getting some games, but it's being beat by a five year old system in the PSP. That's not surprising considering the support the PSP is still getting. Unlike the rest of the world, people still play their PSPs in Japan and regularly purchase software for it. How can the 3DS compete when the tech is nearly the same, and lazy third parties (the ones Nintendo was trying to give an edge to) produce ports and crappy titles for the launch? Are third parties just asshurt over Nintendo or something? The Wii is in a much worse position, however, constantly being outsold by the PlayStation 3 and selling in the 10,000 range each week. To shed some light on this, the PS3 is selling three times that with little in the way of games.

So what does the Nintendo faithful do? Waiting until E3 is just maddening. There's no excuse why more content cannot be on Nintendo's platforms. There's a bevy of titles that Nintendo of Japan is sitting on that haven't been localized in North America. That slicing game where you take down giant monsters with the MotionPlus accessory, Xenoblade, the Last Story, Soma Bringer-- the list goes on and on. Instead we have a drought on the best-selling console this generation. That's just pathetic. Shame on Nintendo for not having the foresight to plan ahead and create enough content for the Nintendo faithful. I'm not saying it's all Nintendo's fault. Third parties since the beginning have pretty much been worthless when it comes to the Wii releasing dumbed down games and other tripe. At least the 3DS has titles announced for it that seem worthwhile such as the remake of the Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 64 3D, Kid Icarus, Mario Kart, and more.

Xenoblade has been confirmed for Europe,
so how about North America?

My case in point is simple: it's going to be a long two months for Wii, DS, and 3DS owners... a very long two months.