Nintendo Unveils Casual Gamer Brand

The Guardian Gamesblog discusses the newly announced Touch Generation of games for Nintendo's consoles. From the article: "This is, of course, a pointless piece of product re-positioning, symptomatic of modern business's obsession with branding above and beyond the call of sense. More importantly though, it's about Nintendo reveling in its E3 success. It is about a company that has effectively spent the last decade in its own self-made ghetto, turning to the industry and saying, 'I told you so' ... The wider world is coming back to videogames - and Nintendo is speaking its language. Anyway, the first three new releases in the Touch Generations line-up will be Big Brain Academy, the second title in the brain-training series, Magnetica, a marble-based puzzler, and Sudoku Gridmaster, a Sodoku game with over 400 puzzles. They're out this summer."

Comments

Puzzle Games

[dancpsu]

I think Nintendo is realizing that puzzle games are the most effective games in the handheld realm. When you have a handheld gaming system, most likely you use it while waiting for something, and you want to be able to put it away at a moments notice. You don't want to have to tell someone to wait while you finish up a level, or fighting a boss.

Re:Puzzle Games

[kannibal_klown]

you can just shut the DS. The DS will automatically pause when its closed and go into a always on sleep mode.

I know (I play some DS games quite often lately), but I'm not talking about the complexity to pause/unpause or turn on/off. Merely the act of doing it in a frenzied "puzzle" level (which can be even more tense than an arcade game).

If you made it to a high level of Lumines (DS) or Tetris (PSP), by the time you close the lid a shape may have come close to landing in its default position. The same with opening and/or unpausing. You'd be tempted to say "can you wait 5 seconds so I can clear these lines" though you probably wouldn't if it was something important like work. And in the end you be just as hesitant to stop and likely to "lose" as if you were playing against some hard boss in an arcade game.

Confusing and counter-productive

[atezun]

I highly doubt that you need to make a second brand to help casual gamers more readily adopt casual games. Usually casual games are far cheaper to begin with and usually give away the fact they are are rather simple concepts. I'd say a casual gamer is far less likely to look for a brand within a brand and far more likely to pick up an affordable title that looks enjoyable.

Re:Confusing and counter-productive

[DrEldarion]

I'd say just the opposite. With a properly-marketed brand, non-gamers know what they're looking for rather than just wandering into the game section and being overwhelmed. Can you imagine a typical grandma trying to browse the game aisle at Best Buy? Now, what if she knew she had to head to the "Touch Generations" section?

The real question...

[Tab is on Slashdot]

Who pissed in this blogger's Cheerios?

The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many ways can juveniles combine "Touch" and "Wii" in a sentence?

Oblig

[gEvil (beta)]

The Casual Gamer(tm) likes to play with his Wii.

"Over 400 puzzles"?

[Jerf]

"Over 400 puzzles"? I sure hope they mean "over 400 variants" of Sudoku or something. (Variants can add up fast when you have multiple independent dimensions to vary on; remember the old Atari 2600 games that had "32" variants, which were just all combinations of 5 binary flags? "Shots bounce" vs. "Shots don't bounce", for instance. Oh, and don't forget the color variations!)

Solving Sudoku puzzles is moderately computationally intensive and maybe the DS shouldn't be doing that, but it ought to be able to generate them just fine, and an experienced Sudoku player who is also a decent programmer even ought to be able to make a good stab at varying the difficulty levels automatically. (It doesn't have to be *perfect*, just mostly effective.)

Otherwise that's a bit of a rip-off; as long as you're going to computerize your Sudoku you might as well get all-the-puzzles-you-can-eat. (And for that matter, open the field up to some of the more advanced variants, like the 4-version.)

Re:"Over 400 puzzles"?

[Kusunose]

All 400 Sudoku puzzles in Sudoku Gridmaster are not computer-generated but created and rated by Nikoli, godfather of Sudoku.

Darwin

[FidelCatsro]

Nintendo , Sony and Microsoft are a bit like The Finches in the Galapagos isles(The phantom being more like the Lesser spotted Galapagos Fantastapotamus) .
Sony and Microsoft are unfortunately both going after the Bugs , whilst Nintendo has decided to screw it and eat berries .
There are a lot more Bugs out there , but they require more energy to catch and you have to deal with the rival birds.

Website

[snib]

Official Touch Generations website here. It contains a full list of games included under the Touch Generation name.

Brand Power to the Rescue!!

[Draracle]

"This is, of course, a pointless piece of product re-positioning, symptomatic of modern business's obsession with branding above and beyond the call of sense."

Obviously this blogger has never taken a basic marketing class in his 80's university classes. As one marketing giant once stated: "If you are too intelligent to be swayed by advertisement, then why, when I say 'Jolly Green Giant', you think frozen peas?". The power of branding is extreme and Nintendo realises that although their brand strikes a cord with those who grew-up with Mario and Co., everyone else sees Nintendo as a waste of time for young boys. Nintendo is realises that seizing the new "casual gamer" market can't be done through that lens and so is providing the new customer a way to look at the product without thinking of Mario and classic video games. To market everything under the Nintendo brand would make a difficult barrier for the new user and taint the brand image for the old user.

Re:Brand Power to the Rescue!!

[Metsys]

"...Everyone else sees Nintendo as a waste of time for young boys. Nintendo is realises that seizing the new "casual gamer" market can't be done through that lens and so is providing the new customer a way to look at the product without thinking of Mario and classic video games."

This is absolutely true. How many parents do you hear talking about their lazy sons "playing their Nintendo," when they are really playing Halo, or any other game for that matter? Nintendo has such a strong mind share that it's a house hold name associated with video games. This is good, and every company wants that kind of mind share. Unfortunately, in the mind of most parents, Nintendo is a waste of time. I've heard that Nintendo's newest console is just going to be known as Wii, as compared to the Nintendo 64, Super Nentendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo DS, etc. It'll be kind of hard to get those parents into gaming when they associate Nintendo with something bad. Image can make all the difference.

This is pretty strange...

[Dysson]

Since my left hand is disabled, I am unable to play any games that require the directional pad. I've tried, believe me. It is difficult for me to shop for DS games since the ones that do operate with the stylus only use it for mini-games. I have found many games that run completely on stylus control, but I had to do alot of research to make sure that was the case.

I was going to write Nintendo today to see if they could provide a list of games that only required the stylus.

Lo and behold: they've already done it.

Damn, I haven't been this pleased with Nintendo since the 8-bit days (Even if they have been helping me unintentionally).