Confirmed: most Wii games released so far this year have been a bit crap

Aswe reported yesterday, 2011 is turning into a financial nightmare for Nintendo. One of the reasons its bank account is taking a battering, Nintendo says, is because sales of Wii titles have been poor. And that's understandable because, let's face it, the vast majority of Wii titles released so far this year have been poor themselves. But just how bad has it been for Wii gamers?

A quick look on Metacritic confirms that it's been nothing less than AWFUL. The highest scoringWii game in the last 90 daysis Cars 2: The Videogame. It has a Metascore of 75. Seriously. Three months of games and a Pixar movie tie-in is the best Wii has to offer? Nothing against Cars 2 (and 75 isn't a bad score) but that's incredibly depressing.

A search ofWii game releases by score for the whole of 2011is just as spirit-crushingly gloomy, with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters being the best of the bunch with a Metascore of 85. Again, nothing against the Tiger, but that is also incredibly depressing. It's beyond depressing. Just to reiterate, here's a picture:

In total, 34 Wii games released in 2011 are listed by Metacritic. Of those 34, only three of them score over 80. Only six score 70 or over. And the remaining 25 Wii games on that list all score less than 70. That can only be described as terrible. I'm so ensaddened by this utterly piss-poor showing that I'm compelled to make a graph. This is it:

And of those 34 games there is only one - ONE! - that I feel I really should play. That's WiiWare's Bit.Trip Flux. I fully intend to rectify this omission from my life as soon as possible.

There are still *some*releases coming for Wii in 2011, but if I'm being brutally honest the only one I can get properly excited about is Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Which admittedly does look extremely bloody good and is probably the game I'm looking forward to the most on any console. But beyond that... it's utterly desolate.

So then, in conclusion - yes we all knew that Wii was having a quiet year, but a closer look shows that it's been nothing less than awful. Never mind the industry dream of 10-year console life cycles, Nintendo has barely managed to keep Wii gamers served with triple-A games for four. Hopefully the financial slap-in-the-face resulting from this barren patch will be a wake-up call for the big friendly Japanese giant and it won't make the same mistakes with its next console, the scheduled-to-be-released-sometime-in-2012 Wii U.

Are you still playing Wii? What's the last genuinely triple-A game that you bought for it? Or do you think Wii is dead already? Go ahead and spill your filthy opinions in the comments.

July 29, 2011