As a child of the '80s and early '90s, the majority of my earliest sports-gaming memories were forged on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I can remember countless hours spent with games like Pro Wrestling, Punch-Out!!, Excitebike, Baseball, Ice Hockey and many more first-party, non-licensed, titles for Nintendo's first home console.

When the Genesis was released, followed by the Super Nintendo, the days of first-party Nintendo sports titles seemed to be scaled back drastically. Starting with EA's NHLPA and Madden series, licensed sports games became more of a necessity in a market clamoring for realism in the sports-gaming sector.

This trend was the beginning of the end for unique sports titles on the Nintendo consoles, and also served as the end of the fictional players and teams of yesteryear. One of the more disturbing results of this shift in sports gaming was that Nintendo, in many ways, even abandoned its own first-party sports titles -- I would argue that there has not been a relevant sports game on a Nintendo system since the N64 days.

With the Wii's launch in 2006, Nintendo was able to once again summon its first-party sports magic, releasing the incredibly popular and fun Wii Sports. While a few of the games included on the disc could be categorized more as sports mini-games, one truly stood out as a full-featured sports experience that will go down in sports-gaming history as a true classic: Wii Bowling.

I fall in love with Nintendo as a sports developer each and every time I play Wii Bowling, just because of how awesome the game plays -- I even wonder how much money bowling alleys have lost since the game's release. More importantly, the nostalgia for the glory days of sports games on the NES is put into full effect whenever I play Wii Bowling.

In today's license-heavy sports-gaming market, I often find myself looking for something more. Sometimes I am unsure as to how I can keep myself excited for sports titles that release on a yearly basis, contain minimal upgrades, run off the same engine and will inevitably find themselves on my dreaded "dusty gaming shelf" within weeks of purchase. I find myself yearning for the NES sports games of the '80s -- games that I still find myself playing on a regular basis thanks to the Wii's Virtual Console and my own personal collection of Nintendo consoles.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder what the sports-gaming landscape would look like if Nintendo were still thoroughly committed to providing both licensed and unlicensed first-party sports titles. In this hardcore sports gamer's humble opinion, we would all be a lot better off than we are now.

Nintendo Can Still Create Sports Games That Sell

The first question that really has to be explored before moving on in this discussion is, can an unlicensed sports title even survive in the market today? This is a tricky question to answer, especially after looking at recent commercial flops like All-Pro Football 2K8 and Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff. In addition, my answer to this question is a bit unique because I feel the only developer that can actually pull off a million-selling non-licensed sports game today is Nintendo.

Perhaps it is my nostalgia speaking again, but if I was given a Wii title with the overall quality of an Ice Hockey, Excitebike or Pro Wrestling, then it would not matter if there was a sports license and real player names.There was something so addictive about the aforementioned games that I almost would rather play hockey as a generic Team USA or wrestle as The Amazon. If you think about it, hockey players like the skinny, medium and fat guy, and wrestlers like Starman have become just as popular as the Ovechkin's and Triple H's of the world.

Nintendo has always been able to create its own recognizable sports characters that have a place in pop-culture history, and this is the the main reason why Nintendo could be wildly successful if it created more unlicensed sports titles. Nintendo has to understand that there is a serious opportunity to make non-licensed sports games as relevant as they were in the '80s and '90s -- along with cashing in on some strong remakes of existing licensed franchises like Ken Griffey Baseball and the Kobe Bryant Courtside series.

Nintendo Creates Quality Games

Aside from creating memorable sports franchises and characters, Nintendo already has a leg up on much of the current competition when it comes to quality and polish. I say that because there is no denying the fact that many sports games today can be summed up with two simple words: declining quality.

I know I am not alone when I say that I have had enough of the half-hearted sports releases that require multiple patches post-release to even become playable. Nintendo is a company that has extremely high quality standards (at least when it comes to its own games) -- a fact that makes me believe any internally developed sports game will be solid.

No one develops games with more love and attention to detail than Nintendo, and I believe Nintendo could make sports titles that sports junkies have been dreaming of since the Wii's motion controls were announced. I am talking about full one-to-one movement in a baseball game, life-like free-throw shooting, glove saves in a hockey game -- everything we only dreamed would be possible when we were kids watching Back to the Future II (I still cannot believe the Cubs won the World Series in that movie, how unrealistic).

Nintendo could essentially change the entire sporting landscape by rebranding its "N Sports" line, last seen in the N64 days, and provide high-quality triple-A sports games once again.

Renewed Interest

The biggest test for Nintendo will come later this year when Punch-Out!! Wii releases a little before Fight Night Round 4. Only time will tell how well Nintendo does against a more "simulation" licensed title, but I have a feeling that Punch-Out!! will outsell FNR4 by a pretty large margin.

I know this will have a lot to do with the Wii having a larger install base than both 360 and PS3 -- and many will claim it is because Punch-Out!! is more "kiddie friendly" or arcade -- but it can not be denied that this could be a solid barometer for how successful Nintendo could be competing against other sports developers. As an avid Fight Night fan and a complete Punch-Out!! geek, I will be picking both games up, but I can almost guarantee that Punch-Out!! will be getting playtime long after my copy of Fight Night hits the dreaded dust-filled shelf.

It may be a long shot to see Nintendo completely re-enter the mainstream sports-gaming market in the near future, but I for one would welcome the company with open arms. The current state of sports gaming is getting stale, but if Nintendo got involved, it would help me get over the sports-gaming blahs.