Nintendo DS Sales Driving Games Industry Growth

VonSnouty writes "After watching Sony and to a lesser extent Microsoft stealing market share over the past few years, the DS is seeing Nintendo producing its most bullish numbers for years. Indeed, it's just used the latest NPD figures to claim that the Nintendo DS is largely responsible for US games industry growth in 2006 so far. From the article: 'Up until the end of September, the U.S. industry overall shows revenue growth of 11 per cent when compared with the same period in 2005. Nearly all of the growth comes from the portable DS — without it, the industry would report a mere 1.6 per cent growth over the past nine months.'"

Comments

Its the untapped market

[tont0r]

Nintendo is finally doing what everyone has been trying to do for a really long time now. And that is tap into the 'casual market'. Just last night, I saw a DS commercial of a mom hanging out in the minivan waiting for her kids to get out of class and she was play a DS. And it was a game that looked similar to Brain Age. Just a small little game that people will pick up and play with for alittle bit and then drop it until they are bored again.

The hardcore market is a static market for the most part. Of course it will grow, but when you tap into a new market, the growth is a lot more noticable.

Re:Its the untapped market

[TFer_Atvar]

I'd argue that it's not untapped so much in regards to new gamers, but gamers who want a cheap portable gaming system. You have to remember that the best-selling game system in history isn't the PS2 or NES, but the orginal Gameboy. The PSP was great, but it served the high-end market and didn't sell many units because of that. It's a great system, but was hampered by cost. The DS is cheaper, and by marketing at the lowest common denominator, you sell a lot more. Because the price is lower, you open it up to people who wouldn't buy a PSP (i.e. casual or new gamers). They're not buying it on the wow factor alone; they're buying it on price. Only when you have the system in the hands of the consumer do games like Brain Age matter. They'll help you expand your market once you've established yourself on the price point, but they probably won't help you establish a market in the first place. Brain Age is a great game and we've heard a lot about it, but so far, the numbers don't indicate that it's doing what HALO did for the Xbox.

Re:Its the untapped market

[docdude316]

The difference between Brain Age and the DS and the Xbox and Halo is the fact that the DS doesn't seem to "need" a system selling game. It's been selling quite well on it's own without one defined "system seller". The Xbox on the other hand needed Halo. Without Halo it would've suffered the same fate as the NEO-GEO, Jaguar, and more recently the PSP and N-Gage. I would argue that Nintendo is the one that first tapped into the "Casual Gamer" market when they released Tetris on the Gameboy 10 years ago. Nintendo knows how to reach the casual gamer, and they've figured out that they need to reach that segment of the population to thrive. I think that had Nintendo kept trying to market to the hardcore as Sony and Microsoft have not only would they have continued to only reach second or third place in the console market, but they might have fallen behind in the handheld market as well. Also there is a very real chance that without the growth that the new casual gamers bring that we could've been headed toward another video game crash such as the one in the late 70's/early 80's.

Re:Its the untapped market

[swcrissman]

Gamers don't want a cheap portable system, they want a cheap portable system that has games that they will find interesting and/or fun. The parent was right in that the games on the DS appeal to a large chunk of consumers who don't fit the standard mold.

Brain Age has done really well, and people point to it alot, but the entire Touch Generation line of games appeals to non-gamers. Even outside of that series, however, the games are purposefully aimed at the perception of being easy to pick up and have fun with. I agree no one game has been the single driver, but the general selection of games together has an affect.

I bought the DS Lite because I liked the ability to tote it around while I have downtime, and New Super Mario Bros. was irresistable to me. I probably fall into the market you describe, where the platform was the most important aspect.

The unintended consequence of me getting the DS Lite, though, is that my wife has been using the DS as well. She likes brain age, loved NSMB, and recently picked up SM vs. DK 2 because she likes puzzle games. She is someone who stopped playing games a while back because they just got too complicated/not fun enough. She is exactly the market that the original poster was referring to: someone who has not been a gamer for a long time, but has been brought into it because of the DS game selection.

The original post was correct in saying that a large chunk of the growth is the untapped market of people who either never have been gamers, or haven't been for a while.

It makes sense

[LittleFishSan]

Even people that don't know anything about video games know what "Nintendo" means, and to many people "Nintendo" means 'video games in general.' Mothers and fathers always bought their kid the new "Nintendo thing they wanted." Their kid kept wanting the new machines, so they had to be somewhat fun. Now Nintendo is targetting that person that wants a little distraction and relief during their busy day; not a complicated fighting game or a long-winded RPG, but a simple (And somewhat meaty) distraction. And it's working. My mom came home early from work because she felt a little sick, she's up in bed. When I came home, what did she have next to her? Her DS. That sounds like what I did when I was sick, I'd play games. That's cool.

Re:It makes sense

[7Prime]

Ironically, the first thing that comes to people's minds when they see a Nintendo DS, actually doesn't have the word "Nintendo" in it... it's a "Game Boy". The term "Game Boy" is probably even more synonomous with handheld gaming than "Nintendo" ever was with TV gaming. Most people STILL think the thing is called the "Game Boy DS" (especially since everyone was bombarded by the term "SP" last round, so many people don't question the idea that you just put two letters after the words "Game Boy").

But you do draw an insteresting distinction. The Playstation will always be a "Playstation", the "Playstation 2" will always be a "PS2" or "Playstation", and not "A Sony". The XBox and XBox360 will always be "XBox" and "360", and never "A Microsoft". The NES and SNES were most definitely "Nintendos" though.

I must admit, though, that the use of the term "Nintendo" to mean any game console did go down hill after the Super Nintendo, due to a number of things:

1. Since there were now three large companies in the game, and Nintendo was no longer the top dog, people were gradually weined off using the term "Nintendo" as a generic.
2. The term "N64" no longer had the word "Nintendo" in it, it was the "N 64", even the logo drove that home.
3. "Super Nintendo" was about as reliavent as saying "Nintendo 2". "Super" doesn't mean anything, and to be honest, it isn't a very hip word to say all the time in English (unlike in Japanese). "64" actually has meaning, therefor, there was reason to use it as a designation.
4. Gaming changed... drastically. The introduction of 3D gaming, new control devices (the analog stick), the introduction of cinematics, and the whole genre of "party gaming" really separated Nintendo's 3rd outing from its first two. The Super Nintendo was advertised and accepted as a more powerful NES, where-as the N64 was something totally different, as it brought many more new things to the table. Therefor, it had to be distinguished from previous generations.

Microsoft had touch screen games FIRST

[tepples]

MS isn't even in the handheld market...

Windows Mobile, a Microsoft handheld platform, had touch screen games before Nintendo first sold the DS.

Re:Microsoft had touch screen games FIRST

[PeelBoy]

Who gives a shit?

It's good to see

[Tarlus]

It's refreshing to see that the market is gradually starting to lean more toward innovation rather than raw graphics power. The PSP is a really nifty-looking little system, but its games are predominantly all the same stuff we've already seen, just handheld. The Xbox 360 can put out some impressive graphical effects, but all they do is make all the same games we've already played more shiny.

The DS is admittedly very underpowered when benchmarked next to the PSP, but it would be like comparing apples and oranges (as Nintendo intended). They're going for innovation, originality, and fresh approaches to an otherwise stagnant market. The Wii will be very much the same way; not as graphically impressive as the PS3 or 360, but definitely the most unique and possibly most desireable.

I know a number of people who, five years ago, would have said "f*ck Nintendo, I'm getting an Xbox" because the Xbox could put out so much more raw power, and was less prone to suffering from censorship. These people, now, are realizing that graphics are starting to reach a point where they really don't make that much of a difference, and nudity/blood/violence/profanity aren't really what make games great. They are expressing an interest in the Wii because it just looks like the most fun top play, as a major departure from all the same old gameplay we've already seen.

In the end, what all of this comes down to is that superior graphics or more adult themes don't make games great. Being enjoyable, memorable, and somehow unique are what separate the great from the bland. And in the case of the Wii and DS, there are and will be a lot of potential with the bold new directions they're facing.

Re:Wow, that's just sad.

[7Prime]

Neither is Okami...

Clover... *sob*