There's been precious few releases to celebrate about on Wii since Wario Ware back at the beginning of January. Now, we're into March, and we're still just as much in the dark as ever about Nintendo's first-party release plans- and rumours abound that some of the big hitters will be delayed further. In this edition of the roundtable, the staff discuss the big questions:

Just how serious is the current games drought for the Wii? Have Nintendo royally messed up with games scheduling again? And what are the implications for the Wii's future?

Iun:

Blahblahblah, games drought. Blahblahblah, lack of third party support. Blahblahblah, no new major first party titles.

Alright: Shut up. We have just plain and simple never had it so good. This release window has not exactly been bursting with new games and entertainment, but what release window ever is? The DS launched with only 2 quality titles and the rest were all rubbish, bar none. The Wii has released with at least 5 good games and Zeldaforchrist'ssake!

Raving Rabbids, Red Steel, Monkey Ball, Wii Play and Wii Sports are all excellent titles with plenty of replay value. While it is true that they do not encompass the full range of genres available across all platforms, they all represent innovative and new ways of playing. Even if they dn't get these right all of the time, the effort made is obvious.

And now to Zelda: if you have completed this, well, good for you. Well done. You have nothing else to do but power-game through one of the best games in recent years. I hope you're proud of yourselves: you have only yourselves to blame.

And now to the Virtual Console... how many quality games are available on there? 10? 15? Have you finished all of those? I doubt it. Simply put, most of the titles available represent the best of their genre throughout history. Has anyone completed R-Type? I mean, ever? Whack up the difficulty on Gunstar Heroes and see how far you get. 100% in DKC? I doubt it.

Stop moaning, things could be ten times worse: we could have the Playstation 3 lineup, which looks suspiciously like the lineup from the 360 launch.

Justin:

As much as people want to say that Nintendo screwed up and created a game drought, they really haven't. Although we do not have the flood of titles they were promising at one point last year, it is not like we are getting nothing. Here in America, I look at the release list, and there is at least one or two good games a month. Now, I personally don't even have the money for one good game a month, so two is good enough for me. While we are not being flooded with games as we may like, I don't think the drought is serious, and in the end it will all pay off later. I think that by the end of the year, we will have so many top-grade titles, online play, some new accessories, and maybe even some other stuff, that we will have forgotten that we didn't have a lot of great games at the beginning of the year. Also, you can use this time to go and play some of the games that you did not get at launch. Zelda is a no-brainer. I've recently picked up Red Steel, Call of Duty 3, and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam; despite what reviews have said about a number of these titles, I am having a ton of fun with them, and I think them and Wii Play shall tide me over until SSX Blur and Super Paper Mario come out soon.

I think the drought is only existent if you have a certain mind-set, and if you try and ignore that, you could be having fun playing with your Wii. Go Nintendo!

Fierce_Link:

At a first glance, you'd think that Nintendo have made a major error in terms of providing us with a decent flow of games. But, when you look at it from another perspective, the situation is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. I've recently purchased ExciteTruck, despite the game getting mixed reviews, and it is definitely one of the most fun games I have ever played. In terms of third party games, a few of us in the forums are wetting ourselves over the new Sonic and SSX games coming out in March, and both have the same potential as ExciteTruck to be great.

I think Nintendo have done well to ensure that there is always something to look forward to. With the Gamecube, we didn't always have that. They also made some major bugger ups in Europe if I remember right, with Resident Evil Zero and Metroid Prime launching on the same day (I think). It's far better to space out the releases.

Third party support will get better. If games like Sonic and SSX sell reasonably well on the Wii, then that should encourage third party players to take more of a risk on the system. There's a lack of games coming out over the next few months, so this is really a chance for third parties to shine. And, I expect them to.

Connell:

My goodness, people ARE impatient.

The thing is, a thin selection of new releases is part and parcel of a system launch. You can't have everything right now, that's just not how it works. And aside from the dreamcast, I can't think of a system that's had it so good so early. We got a Zelda, afterall, and a damned good one. And we're getting sonic in less then a month (which amazingly might not be awful).

The wii is having some quiet months, but it's got a far brighter first year in store then the DS had. And lets not forget people, the first few months of the year are always thin for new releases.

Tphi:

While on the one hand, any new system needs a good supply of fresh new games, I don't think the Wii is suffering too much. We've just seen the release of Wario Ware and Excite Truck, and while many other first-party offerings (which were promised in the "launch window") are no where to be seen, unless your Wii library is already in the double figures, there's still plenty of games worthy of purchase.

If anything, I know I am happy that Mario, Metroid and Smash Bros. aren't out already. I'm still loving finishing side-quests in Zelda, while multi-player action in my flat is still taken up almost entirely by Wii Sports - something that doesn't look as if it will fade anytime soon. So while Nintendo are taking the time to make their big Wii games better, I think we should all just be patient. They will come.

In the next month, the Wii will have Kororinpa, SSX Blur, Wing Island, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, Tiger Woods PGA 07, The Godfather, plus the just-released Sonic and the Secret Rings. These games are titles developers took a risk on releasing before knowing how popular the Wii would become. Hopefully the system has more than proven itself in the months thus far, and as such, developers have a lot more games in the pipeline.

Admittedly the only worry to me is the lack of a really big title for Europe to combat the PS3 launch with- Though Nintendo rushing something into Europe specifically for that purpose seems very unlikely.

Franklin:

I'm not actually noticing the so called 'drought' that much, but that may be due to the fact that with work and some other things getting in the way I haven't had much time to play the games I have already. So what I do have has been keeping me busy and satisfied.

I had managed to play at least 10 minutes of Wii Sports everyday to at least take my fitness test, up until last Friday when Excite Truck came out and that has just taken up every second of my free time since. I'm still in the middle of my second play though of both Zelda and Red Steel which I tend to only play on the weekend when I have the time to sit down for at least 3 hours to get a good session in. Then multiplayer wise I have Wii Play, Wii Sports, Wario Ware which are all still great hits.

But I can understand how there are many out there who do feel there is a drought more than I do. I'd just like to say to those people that at least you're lucky enough to have the time to play the games you have enough to be wanting new games as soon as possible.

Sure we were "promised" games such as Metriod and Smash Bros. early and now we are left to wait, but would you really want Nintendo to rush these games out? Or wouldn't you agree that if they think they need more time then we should give it too them so that we can have these games turn out to be as great as we hope they will be.

And even if the 1st and 2nd party line-up seems a little sparse at the moment there are lots of 3rd party titles on the horizon and a good number of them do look very promising. Just look at the titles coming out next month that Tphi mentioned. Given the fact that we have only had our consoles for just over 3 months now I think the release schedule has been more than adequate. I currently have 6 titles for my Wii which is double what I had this far into the Gamecubes lifespan.

RedShell:

I have to admit I got through my launch titles (Zelda, Wii Sports, Monkey Ball, Red Steel and Wii Play) very quickly indeed and that the wait for my next game (WarioWare) seemed to on go forever. But we have to remember that Wii is still getting settled and that this kind of scenario is unavoidable, but even so, there are more titles available for Wii right now than there were for both the Gamecube and the N64 during their respective launch periods. So this "drought" is blatantly not as bad as some people are making it out to be.

Plus let's not forget all of the additions we've seen to the Wii's Virtual Console and Channel's system since the December launch. We've seen what, 50 or so retro titles on the VC? More than enough to keep people busy in-between Wii games. So when you take all of that in to consideration the situation really takes on a whole new light.

As for Nintendo messing up, well I don't think that's the case at all, I believe they're merely being tactical. If Nintendo are to deliver all of their currently listed games for 2007 (it's a pretty hefty list and that's just 1st party stuff) I get a feeling there'll be much less of a drought come this summer time that what we've been used to in the past.

We've had our say. But what do you think? Is there a drought? Are you satisfied with the current selection of games on Wii? Let us know below.