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Comment by Irregardless | Hacker News Reader

Please, please let this be a lesson to Microsoft that gamers aren't interested in gimmicks, and that the casuals who do want gimmicks are far more fickle.

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The "lesson" is that the WiiU was sold out and on sale for less than two weeks. It's noncomparable data for any conclusion other than "the WiiU found its price point for the consumers who find it interesting."

That's right, REAL gamers only want ascii characters and play games that have development trees that stretch 10-30 years back!

Oh wait, you meant something else, didn't you?

Get off my lawn, kid!

(I own a Wii and a bunch of games for it, it's much nicer to play with the family, although Dwarf Fortress with my son sometimes happens.)

The did all right with there casual gimmick - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12697975

I think that remains to be seen. It sold extremely well, but it was also the only console hardware released in several years and came in several bundles. Not to mention the hacking/non-gaming uses many people bought it for.

Besides, how many Kinect games are in the top 50 for Xbox 360? Zero. And how many of your gamer friends play Kinect games? I'm betting it's close to zero.

What gimmicks are you talking about? They offered a deal on xbox 360 and people found it good enough to buy.

I'm referring to the Wii motion control and the Wii U GamePad. Traditional gamers don't find those appealing, yet it seems to be where Nintendo has focused a significant portion of their development and marketing attention.

"Traditional gamers" are an increasingly small market when compared to "casual gamers", though.

But traditional gamers often spend more money than casual gamers over a longer period of time. Casual gamers are more inclined towards single experiences (Wii Fit) whereas traditional gamers often prefer to try many, many games, often at launch price.

Zynga begs to differ. "Traditional gamers" are here to stay. The same can't be said for casual gamers.

The categories themselves are pretty polarizing. I consider myself "casual" when it comes to the time investment and active engagement required for MMOs and certain big budget titles, but "traditional" to "hardcore" when it comes to the indie games I buy off Steam.

Just curious, why wouldn't traditional gamers like the game pad? I can understand the disdain for motion controls, but personally I quite like the idea of the game pad.

It's somewhat awkward/clumsy and makes controlling standard games more difficult. Sure, in "Super Swipe Dart Throwing!" you'll have better control because of the touch screen, but no one would ever choose it over a PS3/360 controller for something like Call of Duty.

Well, coming from a PC background (CS, Q3 etc), playing FPS games is already extremely awkward on the PS3/360 controllers, so I don't really think that's a great example. Actually, I'd rather use the touch screen like a giant track pad to aim in an FPS (if I can move and fire with the other hand). I also think it adds a lot to managing inventory, switching weapons etc. I haven't tried it though, so could be more awkward than it looks.

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