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Nintendo DS Sales Driving Games Industry Growth

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the moving-on-up dept.

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.'"

19 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Its the untapped market by tont0r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Its the untapped market by TFer_Atvar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Its the untapped market by docdude316 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Its the untapped market by swcrissman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Its the untapped market by automattic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Haven't seen the commercial, but wow, that sounds just like my significant other. With both of us being parents, we do have to wait on kids to get out of class and numerous other time waiting activities.

      I grew up on the Intellivision, TRS-80s, and of course the NES. My SO, (in her words) was never what you would consider a gamer of any system. Nothing more than playing the occasional game or two, whenever she was around others that were gaming.

      Our kids are what I would consider to be hardcore gamers (time-wise), but guess who spends the most time with a DS???? That would be myself or my girlfriend, mostly when we have time to kill waiting on someone. She also still heavily uses the Palm Zire 72 that I purchased for her a few Christmases ago, mostly playing touch-screen based games. Go figure.

      IMHO, Nintendo's role in spurring growth in the market, is probably based a lot on situations like mine where not only do the kids have DSes, but so do the two adults in the house. Currently, we have 4 DSes, soon to be adding a fifth unit for the youngest (will be 6 just before Christmas).

      If you want my opinion on why the GBA SP did so well, it was probably based around the same idea that each home possibly has more than one unit. Ours has 5 of them!!!! In that sense, Nintendo has made more off of us with hardware sales than either Microsoft or Sony per console generation. It's funny I've really never thought of it that way, but that's what bean counters have surely planned for in their marketing plans for these portables.

    5. Re:Its the untapped market by rabbot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      Nintendo doesn't need a HALO to do what HALO did for the Xbox. There is a whole library of HALOs on the DS. It was easy for one above average game to start moving Xbox's...but when you have such a great library like the DS has, you'll rarely see one game pull those kinds of numbers. It's spread out a bit more.

    6. Re:Its the untapped market by ronanbear · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's important to understand exactly how casual the casual market is. My sister bought a GBA because she had a 7 hour wait in an airport and it seemed like something she'd use a lot. She certainly got her moneys worth out of it. For Nintendo that's not something very untypical. It's why they include batteries with GBAs. The switch to lithium was probably inevitable though. They are the ultimate impulse purchase. An iPod doesn't compare because you have to load music onto it so it's not something that can be used out of the box.

      --
      the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
    7. Re:Its the untapped market by TrickFred · · Score: 2, Funny

      Are you kidding? My wife (yes, a mom of two) is foaming at the mouth to get Nintendogs, and that new 'Cooking Mama' game... and up until a year ago, I couldn't get her to play a game for more than ten minutes, other than playing Chrono Trigger halfway through (with level 99 characters on my New Game+, back in 1996) when she was laid up sick for a week.

      I really don't think I'm going to be able to hang on to them until Xmas; she's about ready to go out and buy them on her own...

    8. Re:Its the untapped market by senatorpjt · · Score: 2, Funny

      Brain Age is horrible for the casual gamer. It makes me feel guilty if I don't play it every day.

  2. Wow, that's just sad. by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 4, Funny
    "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."

    Xbox management team: you are fired. Seriously. Just got your next-gen ass handed to you by an cheap white handheld with two buttons. Because its more fun.

    You are sentenced to go play Katamari Damacy and Brain Age for two years.

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    1. Re:Wow, that's just sad. by pembo13 · · Score: 2, Informative

      The article was about the more general gaming market, not about the handheld gaming market. In that regard it is a fair comparison. Trying kinda hard to defend the consoles aren't you?

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    2. Re:Wow, that's just sad. by 7Prime · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Neither is Okami...
      Clover... *sob*
      --
      Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
  3. It makes sense by LittleFishSan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:It makes sense by docdude316 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Where I come from, during the 16-bit era, everyone was going to go play "Sega" no matter which system they were playing. During the 8-bit era it was Nintendo, and during the past two generations is has been "Playstation". I can only speak from experience but that's the way I've always heard it.

    2. Re:It makes sense by 7Prime · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.
      --
      Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
  4. Microsoft had touch screen games FIRST by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful
    MS isn't even in the handheld market...

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

    1. Re:Microsoft had touch screen games FIRST by PeelBoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Who gives a shit?

  5. It's good to see by Tarlus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --
    /* No Comment */
    1. Re:It's good to see by HappySqurriel · · Score: 2

      Xbox was not significantly more powerful than GameCube, certainly nothing even close to the hardware advantages that both shared over PS2.

      True enough, in fact it has been said many times that the XBox and Gamecube were very similar in processing power but that they had different advantages; any game that took advantage of the Gamecube's fixed functionality pipline (usually) produced more polygons with greater texture detail than was possible on the XBox, the XBox's programable pipleine allowed it to generate effects which were not possible on the Gamecube.

      Anyways ...

      I think the statement that "Graphics aren't important anymore" is pretty true from what I have seen on the interweb. In 2000 and 2001 you'd see fanboys displaying countless screenshots of games saying "The Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube/XBox couldn't run a game that looked like this ..." Maybe this still happens, but I haven't seen too much of this so I expect that the Graphics whores are a much smaller group than they were previously. Maybe I'm biased though, I still think that the PS2 and Dreamcast produce graphics at a level which really don't have to be upgraded on (except for a little muddiness and jagginess).