Well, it's been a while since my last post. After watching the E3 press conference for Nintendo, I simply have one question, what the heck is a Nintendo fanboy because I'm really not sure anymore. I know that I used to be. I used to play every Nintendo game. I have had every single Nintendo console so far. I mean, up until this generation, I didn't even have a non-Nintendo console. I broke that streak when I bought an XBox 360.

If Nintendo released a new game from one of its major IPs (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, ...) I would buy it in on launch. Does this still make me a fanboy? At the E3 news conference, no Mario games were discussed. No Metroid games were discussed. No Zelda games were discussed. Unfortunately, it does not look like Nintendo will even make any games such as these for at least the next year. So if I don't buy any Nintendo games, does that make me a former-fanboy or something?

Nintendo seems to care less about anyone other than casual gamers. With the releases of Wii Music, Wii Fit, and another Wii Sports game, this couldn't be more clear. So what happens if a person is a rabid fan of these games. Does the make them a casual hardcore fanboy? Can you even be a hardcore casual game fan?

Just thought I'd get some other people's thoughts on this dilemma.

P.S. At least we get a Wii remake of Samba de Amigo and a new pokemon game. Oh wait who the hell cares. Seriously, how many of you bought a Wii for remakes of old Sega games. No, we bought the damn system for Nintendo's classic IP's. Mario, Kirby(ok, we did get an announcement about a remake of Kirby Super Stars), Zelda, Star Fox, Metroid and many more.

A topic recently came up in the gamespot wii forum about third party support on the system. Apparently, there's someone out there who actually buys a Nintendo system and plans to play something other than Nintendo games. I can't understand it. People don't seem to understand that no 3rd party company will ever make a quality game for the system because almost all the 3rd parties care about is making money. On the PS3 and the XBOX360, 3rd parties will be okay because there really arent all that many first party games from sony and microsoft that people even care about (heck, Halo's the only true microsoft franchise that most even bat an eye at). On Nintendo however, Nintendo is a video game maker, not just a hardware and software giant like microsoft and sony. They make great games that have lasted for generations. 3rd parties realize this and for that reason, they don't even attempt to compete with Nintendo on the system. While Nintendo puts time and effort into making tremendous games, the 3rd party companies really just care about putting together some hacked up motion controls and releasing an old game. These companies realize that even though so many people buy the Wii, most of these people really just want the Nintendo games.

And to anyone who actually buys a Wii for something other than the Nintendo games, why would you torture yourself like that. In computer terms, its the equivalent of buying a Mac and then installing Windows on the thing. Don't get me wrong, its okay to buy the occasional third party game just like its ok to install things like MS Office on your Mac. But seriously, no matter what 3rd party game your getting, theres always a nintendo game thats better.

EA is the devil of third party software. It's official. They are more concerned with making money than making games. Considering most of there money is made from taking the same sports games and releasing them every year with a few small updates, you'd think that I would say something like my topic sooner. But no, as of 2 years ago, I was perfectly ok with what EA was doing. I remember when they signed their deal with the NFL to be the only game to makefootball games but around that time I was ok with it. I remember buying my Xbox around that time and playing Madden 06 as much as possible. Despite being the only football game that year, they had one huge feature on the xbox game, online play. I thought that even with the lack of competition, EA would still put a few improvements into the game every year. Over the course of time between Madden 06 and Madden 07, I bought a 360 and looked forward to having a madden game for it since the system was not BC with madden 06 for xbox. When I bought Madden 07 I was even happier. And then I played it and to my surprise, the game had less features than 06. How could a game actually take a giant step backwards in terms of features and expect to make money. Then I realized that it was because people had no choice. They couldnt buy Blitz(the real one with NFL teams, not playmakers video game), they couldnt buy a game from the 2k series. So we had no choice. This began my thoughts that they were evil. But hey, at least they still had online play and you could still play your friends from across the country. Boy was I wrong, apparently, now not only are they gonna start releasing the same game every year and hoping youll buy it again, but theyre going to make you buy it if you still want to play online.

Well, if anyone hasn't heard the news, EA is pulling the plug on a good number of their online games as of September I believe. Most of the games are their '06 sports titles like madden and tiger woods '06. However, some of their games aren't even a year old and while most of the games have new iterations, Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox and PS2 do not. I have fight night round 3 for the 360 so this does not effect me but I can understand how this would piss me off. This whole thing is a ploy to get more money. I can't believe they would do something like this. Like I said, I have a 360 and I also have xbox live, how can they tell me that I have a game which is supposed to have online play but doesnt even though I pay 50 a year for that exact reason. Now they will try and force me and everyone else to buy the new versions of their games even though they put no effort into improving them.

I say we as gamers need to act and not buy EA games anymore until they realize they are being complete idiots. I know at least I won't ever buy madden again and can not wait for the return of the NFL 2k series (the real one with actual teams and players, I could really care less about playing as OJ Simpson and the assassins).