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Originally posted by: Pittbboi
I think it's cool that Nintendo is bringing in non-gamers, but they're going to have to focus on gamers soon. Non-gamers may account for sheer numbers, but they're non-gamers for a reason. It'll always be gamers that shape the industry and push it forward.
I think you're patently wrong there Pittboi.
Non-gamers are called non-gamers because they don't share traditional core beliefs. They're not called that because they're poor.
I think you're vastly underestimating the spending power of non-gamers, and vastly underestimating blue ocean and long tail strategies. Non-gamers drink Star Bucks, use Netflix, and buy cellphones.
AND, non-gamers on the Wii are buying both Wii Sports and, to a lesser extent, Wii Play to the tune of 70-90 percent attach rates in Japan. I'll also point out the amazing and consistent sales of Nintendogs and Brain Age, and even though these titles are on the DS they are valid examples: they prove that non-gamers have purchasing power to rival conventional wisdom if only games and hardware come along that appeal to them. The Wii won't have a version of Brain Age that'll sell it, no one's saying that, but each cry of "Nintendogs" is a metaphorical cry for the successor to Wii Sports, the next in a string of non-traditional, non-gaming, blockbuster market-expanding hits that spurs on explosive hardware penetration.
Your stand that it will always be hardcore gamers who push the industry forward is the sort of marginalizing view that Microsoft and Sony take, and that Nintendo is fighting against. The industry is pushed forward by new ways to deliver entertainment: new ways to deliver fun. And as long as you're limiting your conception of "fun," you're crippling yourself.
"FUN" isn't owned by the 18-30 year old set, it belongs to everybody. The internet doesn't belong to the RSS geek, but to the Myspace user. And today's visual mediums aren't being changed by blockbuster movies, but instead by YouTube. And rest assured, the killer app for e-mail wasn't called 100 GBs of storage space, but "Grandma."
Traditional gamers are just one facet of the expanding videogame market, and they don't own it, or its future. The future of videogames will be owned by whomever can deliver the most "fun" to the most people, non- or otherwise, in the best possible way.
I AM concerned about the lack of epic titles on the order of a God of War 2 (is God of War the new Halo???) in the Nintendo Wii's horizon... But I am MORE concerned about when the next packet of mass-market fun is coming. Nintendo's future hinges indescribably more on how Wii Music performs than on how good Disaster: Day of Crisis turns out.
Besides, it was non-gamers who saved the industry back in '84. Before the crash, videogames had always been marketted more towards an adult crowd. Kids... were the non-gamers of the 80's.
~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com