In its early years, gaming was all about difficulty.  Some of the hardest games ever created were on the NES and Sega Genesis–Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Battletoads for example.  Those games were extremely frustrating at times, but the sense of accomplishment that awaited at the end of the speed run or finally getting the impossible pizza made it all worth it.

Technology has come a long way since then.  No longer are crushing difficulties needed to achieve a worthwhile gaming experience.  Beautiful graphics, superb story-telling, and state of the art motion capture and voice acting have brought gaming to a whole new standard.  Games are thus less difficult and immerse the player into a believable virtual world.  However, gamers still want that sense of accomplishment.  Games that do not have some type of achievement system seem worthless.  PlayStation and Xbox have had a trophy and achievement system for years now.  PSN titles are beginning to offer platinum trophies, and even the PS Vita will include trophies.  The Wii, however seems to be behind the curve.

To this day, I have not beaten Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii.  The difficulty of early NES games resounds in this title, and the sense of accomplishment lays in its completion, but I haven’t picked up my Wiimote for months.  Some type of achievement system would definitely make difficult games like this worthwhile.

There are specific Nintendo titles that do offer an in-game achievement system such as Super Scribblenauts on the DS and Wii Sports Resort, adding value to those games.  The stamp system feels like an appropriate approach for Wii.  There could be a “Stamp Album” that displays the various stamps earned in different titles.  With the development of Nintendo’s newest console, the Wii U, the focus has been on creating a console to compete with PS3 and Xbox hardware, but if they put a focus into software issues like achievements, they will add a whole new level of value to their newest system and attract a larger demographic.  Wii is missing that point when it comes to today’s gaming standards.