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Wii May Be Succeeding in Widening Game Market
superdan2k writes "When Nintendo brought the Wii to market, one of their stated goals was to get people who didn't normally play video games using their console. Based on an article from the AP, it seems they've made some headway in capturing the senior citizen market. With the Wii's price point, and it being a good way to get people engaged in physical exercise, it's easy to envision it catching on with other retirement homes beyond the one mentioned in the article."
If you'd told me a year ago that my grandmother would actually try a console game, I'd've looked at you most puzzled.
But Wii tennis seems to have near-universal appeal.
But that could because my grandmother is dead.
I for one welcome our senior Wii playing overlords.
Oh crap, now I can see the medicaid fund running out very quickly....
That headline could mean either that the Wii is succeeding in a market that is widening independent of the Wii, or that the Wii is having success in trying to widen the market.
"Nintendo's Wii may be succeeding in the widening game market." versus
"Nintendo's Wii may be succeeding in widening the game market."
Hurry up and rush out that Get Off My Lawn! title for the Wii!
I think by now most of us have realized that the wii isn't a PS3/360 type 'gamers' game console. It doesn't push massive graphics and processing capability over good ole' fun. That isn't to say (lest I anger the fan-boys) that it can't have great 'gamers' games, only that it was designed, priced, and marketed beyond that. The wii is more about having fun than the latest and greatest, and is more appealing to people who aren't traditionally console buyers. Nintendo is trying to increase market share by courting buyers who might not normally be interested, and I don't doubt for a second that it will (at least to some degree) work.
Case in point, my 50 something year-old mother asked me about it just last night (as I was working on her computer). She hasn't played a console since the original NES, which she bought for me when I was 6. She said she thought it looked "fun."
It's a heck of a strategy. Consoles have traditionally been the market of kids/teens, and guys who aren't willing to grow up yet (ok, some girls too) and yes I've been one of them. Nintendo went for the "Console the whole family can play, and even grandma might love" market and it's no big surprise it's paying off.
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
And THAT is why I bought nintendo stock. Up 7% since December.
Qxe4
Lest we forget, the Wii has also captured the elusive 22-month-old demographic, as evidenced by this video.
If that's not widening the demographic, I don't know what would be.
Goo goo g'joob.
One good thing about seniors playing w/ the Wii...
They usually aren't strong enough to pitch the remote hard enough to break the TV.
[runs away]
Is largely a failure, most people are content without higher-resolutions or more detailed textures or better anti-aliasing. Unless you're obsessive compulsive, that is, like many so called "nerds" or "hackers" are.
It's largely a goof up that's a product of the competition oriented corporate market for games and the result of the boom in stock-investment as a result of the internet, peculiarly the world-wide web, in the '90s. Is it really such a bad thing not to sell out and work at something because you love doing it and you seek making a good rewarding, entertaining and enticing final product?
Avoiding graphical pissing contests between developers/publishers is also a good thing to do. Anyways, the video game market is too large, in fact, the TV market is too large and bloated as well. Of course, what people fail to realize is that the televisation and greed of America is the cancer that is killing Western Civilization. I don't play video games or watch TV to escape reality, I play them for entertainment and drama and adventure that else wise I wouldn't be able to recieve in a, what used to be, standard ordinary life.
Of course, who gives a shit, I'd rather have Mahmoud Ahminejad or a Communist Party or Vladimir Putin be my elected leader, right? Right????
Yeah, shut up and enjoy your luxuries while you have them. Fuggen bloated dot-commers need to get grasp on reality.
I'm normally reluctant to bring a new tech into my house that will make the kids sit around turning into lumps. But with the Wii's apparent success in inducing physical activity and playing games *together*, it offers something that just doesn't seem to happen with the PS/3 or 360.
So I find it interesting that the Wii cracked its way into *my* home: the home of a gamer who didn't want his kids (previously) to have a console. Now if I could only find one in stores...
OK, so I'm a member of the widened market. Unfortunately this widened market seems to be soaking up all the Wii's as soon as they hit retailers' shelves.
Does anyone know when the northeast U.S. is supposed to have a supply to meet demand?
(I know you can get them at Ebay etc., but they're pretty over-priced. And walmart.com sells the bundles, but I don't want to drop $650 initially.)
goats-wii?
People seem to forget that the DS started widening the game market with titles like Brain Age and Nintendogs. The Wii is just an extension of that.
My wife, who has never played games in her life is now regularly beating my ass at wii sports. Tennis and Bowling. Shes scored 273 best score on bowling on wii, I've only managed 144 and I've been playing games for 25 years. Go, as they say, figure.
My father bought the latest EA golf game for the Wii.
I had no idea that any amount of marketing or innovation, ever, would entice him to even consider purchasing any video game, ever.
He likes it. A lot.
Hell, he even plays it with friends. It's amazing.
People who want to use a wii have normal lives. People who use ps3/360 are flourescent dwellers....
price point
Why do people insist on using this godawful term? The word "price" by itself conveys the exact same meaning, and it does so with less words and the bonus of not sounding like a marketing schmuck. Give it a try, smitty.
Headline poster is from Soviet Russia!
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
So my buddy picked one up a few weeks ago, and we started playing Wii tennis. It's a fun game and we'll play for an hour or two at a stretch. However, we've figured out that you can pretty much 'flick your wrist' instead of moving your entire arm to swing the racket, and be just as successful in the game. In fact, if one of us tries to play as if they were actually playing tennis, 99% of the time they lose.
I'm not saying that you *couldn't* play this game and get some exercise, I'm just saying if you think that 100% of the people that play this will play in the manner that is considered 'exercise' then you are mistaken.
Plus, we've never had an accident whereby the controller flew out of our hands, knocked over a vase, started a fire, killed the dog, broke the TV.. ala http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/
As you can easily buy a usable DVD player (that also does VCD, MP3, JPEGs, CD-Photo, etc), for less than $35, it seems a little silly to not buy a Wii because it doesn't do DVDs.
I think I wouldn't want the Wii to do DVDs anyways, to reduce the wear/tear on the $250 unit, and take advantage of the fact that they're two separate units (e.g. a separate DVD unit is much easier to use with a Slingbox for example).
Nintendo certainly widened the gaming market, but that gain came at a high price, namely they have alienated many gamers and long term fans, me included. Before the Wii got released I hoped that it would bring back the glory days of the SNES, good hardware, at a good price with tons of games. Well, what we good was very outdated hardware with a new controller at a rather high price, sorry, but 250EUR for something which I payed only 200EUR for five years ago just doesn't look pretty, that it now feature 1.5 or 2.0 times the power of the Gamecube doesn't change that fact. Third parties seem yet again have little to no interest in the Wii. Sure, Ubisoft and EA are squeezing money out of it with for most part cheap ports, but the real AAA titles happen elsewhere, I have yet to see a single big third party Wii title to be announced. Even so many AAA titles now happen to be cross platform, the Wii is, yet again, the console that doesn't get the ports, since it just a console of a different generation (no UnrealEngine3 titels on the Wii and such).
Nintendo is certainly making money with the Wii and will continue for a while, but at the moment I am really not so sure of the long term causes. In terms of third party support the Wii already looks just as bad as the N64 or Gamecube, probably even worse. In terms of 'normal' games, i.e. the games that are not BrainAge, Nintendogs, Wii Sports and stuff like that, it also looks pretty bad on the Wii. Online support is also yet again a thing that Nintendo rather ignores, I don't mind all that rather useless Vote channel and stuff, but multiplayer network gaming, not on the Wii and not for a while, and with friends code it won't really be much fun anyway.
The Wii was the first Nintendo console that I didn't bought on launch day in over a decade, in fact I still haven't bought it and have some doubt if I ever will. Nintendo found a nice new niche to make money, good for them, but I do actually care about games and that bunch of Minigames on the Wii just can't get me excited.
No. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/13
Kudos to nintendo and all but I live in fear of the day when gaming becomes widespread. Just thinking about how very very few even remotely interesting things get released for TV fills me with horror of what could happen to gaming.
Interesting to note that after only a couple of months release the PS3 has 19 games with a metacritic rating of 75 or above yet the Wii has only 9 games.
(The Xbox 360 has 79 games, but then it has been out for over a year, so not a fair comparison).
I'm sure there are plenty of reasons, especially revolving around the new controller and how to make best use of it - and to be fair, I'm not qualified in any way to comment - but the statistics do show that for whatever reasons the current portfolio of Wii games rated "excellent" is smaller than that of a system which has been out for a much shorter time.
Anyway, just thought I'd throw this into the pot for some discussion.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
And she hates computer/console games (with one notable exception - she played Grim Fandango for a couple of hours). She asked me today when I was going to grab one. She thought I we should get one for her parents.
But it already comes with Wii Sports, how many of thos "old-timers" are just going to by the system and then never ever buy another game for it?
I get tired of hearing about how I should buy a wii because of how much someone's grandmother likes it. Should I start watching Matlock too?
Nintendo isn't widening the gaming market, at least not at this point in time. They are only expanding the Wii's market, because those new gamers still want nothing to do with the PS3 and 360. It's in a niche of its own right now, and will probably enjoy its unique position for years to come, until Sony and Microsoft release their next generation of consoles with ripped-off ideas that still aren't quite as good as the original. The fact that non-gamers are interested in the primal fun of throwing motion sensors around does nothing for the game industry, it's just locking them into Nintendo. It's going to be interesting when Wii gets old and something new comes around. Will they continue supporting more immersive gameplay, or will they turn the page and go back to sit-down thumb-mashing gameplay ? That would effectively lose the fringe gamers, sending back to the boring TV realm they came from.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Sounds like a game title waiting to happen. Could contain all sorts of activities and games that promote specific movements/exercises.
One could say "That is a good price" and mean that the item is being sold at a "bargain" rate. There is a distinction between talking about one item being sold at an affordable price versus selling hundreds of thousands/millions of that item. Thus the phrase "price point" is used.
Talking about "price" can involve buying, while the phrase "price point" lends itself to the topic of selling. Is this too subtle a distinction for you?
vV
After a month the Wii came to the market, everyone already knew it was widening the game market [Nintendo market]. Some people still speculating, is a little strange.
Minti: What's that huge shuriken in your back?! Kin: It's the instrument of my victory.
I know for a fact that my Wii has people hooked who are no gamers. From my wife to my neighbour, everyone who's tried it loved it, and yes it's the controllers, the fun-factor, the "fuck the graphics, let's try to make an actual game instead of a tech demo for our graphics engine" attitude.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yeah, I would never have thought my grandma would be playing a Nintendo system, but she tried mine during last thanksgiving and said she couldn't get it out of her head, she really wanted to play it at home.
Now she plays Wiiplay (which I bought her) and Wii Sports. The rest of the games out there right now are too hardcore for her, but she likes to do the everybody votes channel, create Miis of friends and family, browse the web, check the news, play with the Nasa Weather Globe Channel and message me (I send her pictures using the Wii messaging system).
I couldn't believe how well the system has integrated into her life - seeing as it integrates into my life so well also.
If your looking for a great gift for your grandparents (and like I said, never thought I'd be typing these words) try the Wii.
I was about to order one for Thomas Jefferson's grave. I bet he's a hoot at Wii Bowling Parties.
Heaploads of cash paid to reviewers, games sent en masse to review magazines before they are out, and such.
you know the drill - its the usual marketing stuff. except, apparently nintendo does not do it anymore, but microsoft, and sony still play by the old rules.
Read radical news here
Apart from answering to an obvious joke, you're actually right. We've never had a playable 3D Sonic that felt like the old-style 2D Sonic games, until now. Metroid and Mario aren't out yet, but they look pretty fresh so far (especially Mario), and we've definitely never played an FPS with light-gun mechanics, or a party game which had you use your controller as Macaras. So yeah, you tried to be sarcastic, but it didn't work: These games are new and fresh, and many of them share nothing but the name and the characters with their previous installments.
This title is currently in development by Nintendo (the name seems to be unclear, sometimes Miyamoto seems to call it "Wii Fit" or similar names).
A friend of my ex bought his mother an XBox 360 a couple of months ago; last I heard, she was hooked on first person shooters.
She's 65.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
"My grandmama could beat you at this..."
(Al due apologies and considerations to Larry Johnson)
Well, thanks to new technology soon your Grandmama and many countless other octogenarians may in fact be the person beating you at something at any given moment in time...
I'm waiting for the first time I'm playing some FPS against some other people online (which the Wii doesn't have right now, but I am sure will at some point...) And I get fragged in a most compromising and embarrassing way, and instead of a teabag the person just stands over me and utters those words..
"...and get off my lawn"
On the actual topic, I suppose to some degree my wife and I also represent an expanding demographic, but in another way. We're both in our 30's and neither of us has bought a console new in easily over a decade, I just lost interest in console gaming as we both game on the PC. But we bought a Wii and have been loving it. Currently only have three games for it, but we're picking up about a new one a month.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
My Friend's Father recently suffered a head trauma and is having problems with his balance and is a little slow to react. They are thinking about getting a Wii so he can work on his balance and his reaction time with the Wii Sports. It's a fun way to achieve those things, he is already using my friend's DS and Brain age to try and speed up his reaction time.
I think that using the Wii as a Physical Therapy tool may be unorthodox, but honestly I think it might help him.
"Just call me Girly Blank"
So, I can't find a Wii to save my life because GRANDMAS ARE BUYING THEM ALL? Damn the irony!
.. till some pensioner confuses their TV remote with their Wii remote and spends the entire day wondering why the Mario is hosting the Jeremy Kyle show.
I never understood why people can't grasp the concept of "walking to school uphill both ways".
I had to do it.
If there is a large hill BETWEEN your house and the school, you have to walk up it (and afterwards down it) BOTH ways.
It is perfectly possible, and it's a huge PITA, especially to bike.
The DS game isn't just called Animal Crossing (for Nintendo DS). It's Animal Crossing Wild World. By including the name on the hanging plank in the title of the DS game, Nintendo established a tendency toward a retronym for the GameCube game. Also compare the maximum population of a GameCube town (15) to that of a DS town (8), and compare Sega's renaming of the original Sonic the Hedgehog (for Mega Drive) to Sonic the Hedgehog: Genesis (the origin, start, or point at which something comes into being) for its GBA release to avoid confusion with Sonic the Hedgehog (for Xbox 360).
But that's neither here nor there. The point is that the GameCube games in the AC, Sims, and Harvest Moon franchises all run on Wii (with a GameCube controller), and new Sims and AC titles made specifically for Wii are due in 2007.
I'd much rather have a hypothetical grandma calling up her friends and saying "Hey Gladys, how are the grandkids? Say, want to come over to my house for some bowling? Oh, that is bold talk girl -- I am a PRO Wii bowler! Bring it!" than sitting around watching Wheel of Fortune all day. The Wii combines light physical activity, which has obvious health benefits but won't shatter Gladys' fragile hips, with the emotional pick-me-up that hobbies, friends, and competition bring. That can only save on Gladys' trips to the doctor.
I'm as Republican as the day is long. That being said, if a study showed that a Wii Sports a day kept the doctor away, jack my taxes up a notch and give every senior one of them. A Wii and a game is $300. That won't even buy half a day in a hospital bed. If I have to pay for one of the two of them eventually, and I know I will, I want to pay for PREVENTATIVE medicine.
Note: if any government administrator takes this post seriously, please, do so AFTER I have bought my next round of Nintendo shares.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.