Editor's Note: This article is posted by a reader of Edge and does not necesarily reflect the opinions of Edge's editorial team.

----------
It's a subject that has been brought up time and time again.

Has Nintendo abandoned the core gamer? Don't they have any new franchises in development? Have they lost their ability to innovate beyond simple, stripped-down games? Or are they -- in their quest to court moms and girls -- deliberately ignoring the pleas for games that cater to the core gamer?

The answer, of course, is "none of the above." 

However, that hasn't stopped the so-called "specialist press" from taking matters into their own hands and deliberately trying to make it seem like their unreasonable hatred for the company is justified. Obviously, none of these individuals will come out and admit the fact that, they too, have been swayed by the glorious "console wars" and the normal mapping in Gears of War 2. Oh no, they're totally unbiased. They just address Nintendo in that cynical fashion because the company "doesn't make real games anymore."

While I won't call out specific journalists who are guilty of taking their positions for granted and outright ignoring their responsibilities to the games industry, I will point out the establishments that employ these people. 1UP, Gamespot -- I'm looking at you. And many, many others, too, of course.

Regarding the "real games" argument -- do any of these people even know what a "real" game is? And besides; who are they to judge anyway? They're a tiny fraction of the game-purchasing audience. And if games like Cooking Mama and Girls Mode happen to be the "in" thing at the moment, guess what? You've got to cover them with an open mind if you call yourself a journalist.

Having worked on both sides of the industry (journalism and development), I've seen a lot of unfounded biases toward the company on the journalism side of things. From people crying foul at some sort of imaginary lack of innovation in the digital distribution space (have any of you guys even tried WiiWare?) to whining about how there are no role-playing games on the system (2009 has plenty, but you didn't bother to look them up did you?), there's no end to the stream of reasons these game "journalists" spew in defense of their dismissal of the Wii and DS. 

I've heard these same "journalists" say they're bored of the DS because they're tired of the games on it, and in the same breath, hoist the PSP up on some holy pedestal despite the complete and utter lack of support from third-party developers for the system. DS and Wii had the majority of support at TGS this year, but apparently, that was lost on everyone amidst the hype for Halo 3 Recon and Resident Evil 5.

Braid for XBLA is touted and cheered on, while equally innovative titles like Lost Winds and World of Goo go ignored because they're on WiiWare, are less than 50 megabytes each, and peoples' Wiis are supposedly too busy "collecting dust" to be turned on. 

People complain about the lack of innovation on the system, but refuse to give the Wii version of Shaun White Snowboarding the coverage it deserves. 

Look, I'm equally disappointed that Mirror's Edge isn't on the Wii. But developers have been playing with the system for two years now, and the results are really starting to show. 2009 in general looks great for both Wii and DS...but you wouldn't know that now, would you?

Nope. Not as long as the next gory online-ready sci-fi / WWII shooter is right around the corner for the high-definition systems.