What market is nintendo going after?

Flux

Regular
Adults? women? kids? teens?

Seems they are trying what atari was going at. An arcade in a box.
 
I own the 360 and PS3, I simply cant see myself being interested in a console consisting of archaic hardware and a new "gimmicky" remote.

I wish Nin the best on their venture but sheer lack of features and ppor hardware have eliminated me from purchasing the console (unless of course we start seeing some serious exclusive titles other than Nin's rehashed headliners).
 
Adults? women? kids? teens?
Gamers.

The Wii right now is an exceptional propostion for people who are and have been gamers for a long time, because of the excellent all-encompassing back-catalog that is the Virtual Console, and because of the new set of mechanics to explore in native Wii games. That's what gamers like to do: adapt to and master new mechanics. It's actually my favourite definition of gaming.

Casuals who walk by and give Wii Sports a shot will most likely enjoy it to some extent. It begs the question if Wii Sports is worth the price of admission, or, even if you're sure you want to game, if another console would represent a saner investment. But it is attractive to that broader audience, and there are many in-store demos going on right now that feature Wii Sports, and it really is the strongest pull to current non-gamers.
OTOH it's also something that most "real" gamers enjoy after they get over the facts of weak presentation and non-existant plot. Wii Sports might make a non-gamer "get it", see that there's satisfaction in doing well according to a computer program's rules, which would bring them closer to being gamers. That's Satoru Iwata's market expansion right there.
Predetermined gamers already know how the stuff works, and for them Wii Sports is a challenge in different mechanics at first, but the appeal quickly shifts to the physical excercise. It's a brilliant excuse to play another round of tennis or boxing.

So the two groups come to the machine for different reasons but they'll both end up playing Wii Sports on a level field. And then they can turn to the more complex "fun" games such as Super Smash Bros or to the more complex "serious" games such as Mario 64 on the Virtual Console, or to the fuller experiences such as Zelda and Metroid. Nintendo will soon have most bases covered, with the obvious exception of graphics.

So it's really not hard to find people who'd enjoy the Wii. The much harder question is: was it necessary to make the Wii such a low-cost machine? IMO no.

Nintendo has a way with mechanics-driven gaming and Wii Sports drives this point home just as well as Zelda, New Super Mario Bros, whatever. They do it again and again. It's their area of expertise, Nintendo pretty much runs rings around everyone else and it's only proper that they focus on it. However, I believe that certainly you can make a brilliant mechanic-driven game with excellent graphics. Good graphics cost money, yes, but graphics are not some malady that could pull the other aspects of a game down, if you leave the other budgets intact.

I would have been willing to pay the 30€ extra it would have taken to double Wii's hardware specs all-around (CPU, graphics, memory, bandwidth). But it's still, as it is, a platform that is fun to play.

And I think it's going to be significantly more successful than the Gamecube, both in terms of absolute metrics and in terms of market share. It's just so appealing.
 
Gamers.

The Wii right now is an exceptional propostion for people who are and have been gamers for a long time, because of the excellent all-encompassing back-catalog that is the Virtual Console, and because of the new set of mechanics to explore in native Wii games. That's what gamers like to do: adapt to and master new mechanics. It's actually my favourite definition of gaming.

I'm a gamer for a very long time, and a Nintendo one from the beginning. The VC seems like a new move to make buy once more the games I've already bought in the past, just the old nintendo way of milking franchises. I do not see how you can match "virtual consoles of direct port of old games" and "mastering new mechanics" in the same post.

I do not own an Xbox, but XBLA seems much more attractive, not talking about PSN which seems even more great.
 
The complement of the set of Halo fans. Thinking you're a hardcore gamer just because you know what a bump-map is and prefer games about shooting aliens is like thinking you're a hardcore sports fanatic because you watch the NFL playoffs every year.
 
And that's why I'm not a big fan of Nintendo...
They ignore me, Mr Hardcore male gamer..
Which is fair enough, seeing as there's two other companies offering what you want. I should revise my original answer to...

Everyone who doesn't want an XB360 or PS3

:p
 
Which is fair enough, seeing as there's two other companies offering what you want. I should revise my original answer to...

Everyone who doesn't want an XB360 or PS3

:p

Considering Wii is somewhat promoted as the perfect 2nd console, it may be wrong.
 
I'm a gamer for a very long time, and a Nintendo one from the beginning. The VC seems like a new move to make buy once more the games I've already bought in the past, just the old nintendo way of milking franchises. I do not see how you can match "virtual consoles of direct port of old games" and "mastering new mechanics" in the same post.
Read that again, two different elements there. The new mechanic to play with isn't VC, it's the Wiimote.
VC is for nostalgia, getting stuff back that you don't have anymore, catching up on games you missed. Two angles of attraction, one Wii to ... in the darkness bind them :-|

If you already have everything you ever wanted to play easily accessible to you I can see how the VC is of little value. For me the clutter reduction alone does it. I don't want to find a TurboGrafx on Ebay and plug another plastic thing into my TV, lkewise I don't find comfort in acquiring ROMs. But then Military Madness (Nectaris) is still an interesting game. If I can add it to my arsenal in such a tidy way, I'm in. I'll give you that the price is steep, but that's not the same as "buy once more". I never had that game.
 
well for one they have targetted me :) i consider myself a hardcore gamer (i also own a 360 with hd dvd add-on) and by that i mean gamer. i really do not base my gaming soley on what the hardware supports or does not support. more for fun factor and so far the wii has been a lot of fun. that's all that matters in my book.

brought to by wii opera.
 
I didn't notice in this thread the most obvious answer: present owners of Gamecube games and accessories. Why else make the DVD player compatible, provide controller ports and memory card slots?

Greg
 
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