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There is a collective unrest amongst the core gaming audience these days. You can see it scrawled on message boards all across the Internet. It seems as if everyone is crying out, "We're tired of the same games, why don't you give us something new?" The complaint is not without merit. The gaming industry has been notoriously bad over the last generation of foisting derivative sports title after World War II clone on their loyal customers.

One company, Nintendo, has staked their future on this unrest. From the buzz surrounding the Wii to the constantly sold out DS, it would seem as if it was a smart move. However, things may not always be as they seem.

What do we really want

The message boards may say change is needed, but fanboy ramblings are hardly quantifiable proof that a paradigm shift is at hand. There's a good reason why publishers push out so many WWII shooters, people buy them. Next-gen.biz recently put out a list of the top 100 selling titles of 2006. Of the 100 games on the list, 25 were sports titles (not including racers) and 23 were based on licensed IPs, not exactly a rousing call for something different. It gets worse. Of the remaining 52 games on the list, over half were sequels. On top of that, most of the remaining "original" games like Resistance and Gears of War sat firmly in established shooter genres.

For all its innovation factor, the Wii's top selling game was Twilight Princess, a port of a last gen installment of a 20 year old franchise. And the top seller for Nintendo's other innovative platform? New Super Mario Bros., which is surprisingly more like the original 1983 game than any sequel since.

The most powerful method for gamers to communicate to publishers what we want is through our spending. If we really want innovation, why do we keep shelling out $60 at a time for the latest roster update for Madden? It's not as if innovative games aren't available as alternatives. Brain Age was probably one of the most innovative games of 2006, so different it can hardly be called a game at all. It made it to the list at number 19, overshadowed by such standouts as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red & Blue and Cars.

The DS's other big innovation was Nintendogs. One version of the title, Dalmation & Friends, makes it in at #43, right behind Tomb Raider: Legend and only 180,000 sales units behind Sonic Riders. Even with the massive install base of the PS2, Okami sits in dead last place accompanied by the quote "Beautiful, charismatic, engadging, and one of the most original games you'll play anytime soon." Of course, this says nothing of the numerous original games that didn't even sell enough to break into the top 100.

This trend is nothing new. From Oddworld to Gitarroo Man to Pikmin to Darwinia, the list goes on and on and on. Truly great and original games are routinely passed up for the latest in professional sports, movie licenses, and flavor of the month GTA clones. It's easy to dismiss these figures as sales to "casual gamers", but that's exactly who Nintendo is trying to court with the DS and the Wii.

So what is Nintendo really giving us

Gamers have taken it at face value that Nintendo's courting of the masses and Nintendo's innovation go hand in hand. The sales numbers tell a different story though. The masses want anything but innovative original titles. They want derivative Disney platformers and watered down ports. If Nintendo is going to lure the masses with what they want, then what is Nintendo giving the "hardcore" base?

Nintendo is giving us marketing, plain and simple. The control schemes may be new, but the software is the same, in many cases it's a giant leap backwards. Of the 32 Wii titles available in the US "launch window", only Elebits and Wii Sports were original IPs. Of the 17 DS titles to have sold over 1 million copies, only Nintendogs and Brain Age are original IPs. Nintendo is giving the "casual gamers" the licensed games that they want and appeasing their base with new controls and calling it innovation.

This is not to detract from the innovations that Nintendo has brought. There will be games that will genuinely take advantage of the Wii remote to do new and innovative things. However, if the DS is any guideline, they will likely be few and far between and there is no evidence to suggest that the masses will embrace them anymore than they have embraced innovative titles in the past.

The smoke has not yet settled from the launch of the Wii. Only time will tell if the Wii will be the breakout success that the DS was. If it is, it could be a bad sign indeed for those of us who enjoyed gaming for what it already was, and those who wanted something different may find that change isn't always for the better.