Some Wii purchasers never got past the initial experience of Wii Sports or, possibly, Wii Play, and others belonged to families who vacuumed up motion-control-enhanced shovelware, such as Carnival Games, or simplified motion-enhanced Nintendo titles like Mario Kart Wii. It was two different consoles for two vastly different audiences, oftentimes choosing to please the casual audience while, occasionally, throwing a proverbial bone to its hardcore backers. This contradiction is an endemic part of what made the Wii the Wii. While, at first, the Wii was more of a cultural phenomenon than a traditional game console, as it matured, it developed into something a system that, as Kotaku’s Steven Totilo put it “ somehow managed to be popular while remaining niche.” It reached new, extremely casual, audiences with games like Wii Sports while, simultaneously, developing some of the greatest niche experiences ever with late-releasing gems like Xenoblade Chronicles and the Hironobu Sakaguchi-directed The Last Story. The truth, however, lies somewhere in the middle of these two unsubstantiated opinions. the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64) or the highest point of the company’s cultural relevance since the days of the NES. Depending on who one asks, the Nintendo Wii was either the lowest point in Nintendo’s strategy of ignoring third parties, coordinating their strategy among casuals, and embracing the “kiddie” image that Sony had branded them with during the fifth generation of consoles (e.g.
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