ounding out the past two months of pre-E3 gamers’ days for the press (and there are still more coming in June), Nintendo held its event in downtown Seattle this week at the Hotel 1000. With so many companies showing off their big guns the past few weeks, we expected Nintendo would drop quite a bit of heavies. Unfortunately, Nintendo fans, we have some bad news. Not only have we covered most of what has been shown already, but the big three titles Nintendo has up their sleeve for Wii – Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl – and their big DS title – The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass – are all being held until E3. That being said, there were a few titles that we felt deserved some attention, both good and bad.
The Regginator Speaks
Nintendo of America’s President and CEO Reggie Fils-Aime kicked off the event and talked about the company’s recent successes with the Nintendo DS and Wii. In the history of the video-game industry, there’s only been one company that has been the number one manufacturer of a hardware home console and portable console, game publisher, and owner of America’s top selling game, which was Nintendo back in the '80s. This month, according to Fils-Aime, Nintendo has done it again with Wii, Nintendo DS, and Pokemon Pearl and Diamond.
Then came the facts. In Japan, more than half of the software sold for all consoles in 2006 was for the Nintendo DS. With GameCube, less than half of the consoles sold were set up in the living room; with Wii it’s over 75%. In Europe, both of the rival console systems are selling at slower rates than their predecessors. In the last week in France, the sales data revealed that all of the top 15 games were from Nintendo.
The focus of Fils-Aime’s speech was around the expanded market. For the Nintendo DS, female purchasers are up over 42%. For purchasers over 30f sales are up 120%, and for users over 35, sales are up 212%. Fils-Aime pointed to games leading to these changes that included Mario Kart DS, Nintendogs, Brain Age and Big Brain Academy.
The following numbers come from Nintendo’s internal research. 40% of Wii owners worldwide have connected to WiiConnect24. 3.3 million pieces of content have been downloaded so far with the service. In the U.S., 45% of males ages 6-24 are playing Wii on a regular basis. However, the numbers for older users is quite high, and 95% of males 25-49 have tried Wii, with 60% of the users playing the system on a regular basis. With women ages 25-49, a third are regular Wii users, with three quarters actually trying the system. And with men over 50, 16% are regular Wii users, and with females over 50, 10% are regular users.
Nintendo also showed Net Promoter numbers, which looks at the percentage of users who would recommend the system to their friends, and subtracts the amount of who wouldn’t recommend the system. This number was 85% for Wii, with the next closest competitor the Nintendo DS at 65%. Fils-Aime said that other consoles didn’t reach 50%, with some actually in the teens.
With this expanded audience, Fils-Aime expressed that Nintendo doesn’t consider Sony and Microsoft as their main competitors, but other forms of entertainment such as movies, TV and more.
Even though this speech was centered around this expanded-audience speak, Reggie said they want to still satisfy the core gamer. “We understand that if we don’t satisfy that core gamer, it won’t matter how successful we are on the outer edges. As I’ve said more than once our vision is to be an 'and company,' not an 'or company.' We’re not for one group or another. We’re for that expanded audience and the core. I’ll tell you sometimes it’s really difficult when you launch a stellar game to differentiate between the two.”
Games he touched on coming out this summer that will encompass both the expanded audience and the core gamer include Brain Age 2, Picross, Planet Puzzle League, Pokemon Battle Revolution, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Party 8. While some would say that list contains more titles focused on the casual than the core, Fils-Aime did explain that Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption would all be released this year.
With that concluding the speech, I scratched my head. As someone coming from the enthusiast gaming press, if the core is where the company wants to grow things and then move outward to the expanded audience, why was so much of this focused on the expanded audience? It’s a no-brainer that Nintendo has had success in the past year with the huge addition of the expanded audience. It seems the core is where the company is struggling, which is also quite evident in the games that were available to play.
If you want to read the rest of this article here is the link: http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200705/N07.0524.2310.27007.htm?Page=2
The Regginator Speaks
Nintendo of America’s President and CEO Reggie Fils-Aime kicked off the event and talked about the company’s recent successes with the Nintendo DS and Wii. In the history of the video-game industry, there’s only been one company that has been the number one manufacturer of a hardware home console and portable console, game publisher, and owner of America’s top selling game, which was Nintendo back in the '80s. This month, according to Fils-Aime, Nintendo has done it again with Wii, Nintendo DS, and Pokemon Pearl and Diamond.
Then came the facts. In Japan, more than half of the software sold for all consoles in 2006 was for the Nintendo DS. With GameCube, less than half of the consoles sold were set up in the living room; with Wii it’s over 75%. In Europe, both of the rival console systems are selling at slower rates than their predecessors. In the last week in France, the sales data revealed that all of the top 15 games were from Nintendo.
The focus of Fils-Aime’s speech was around the expanded market. For the Nintendo DS, female purchasers are up over 42%. For purchasers over 30f sales are up 120%, and for users over 35, sales are up 212%. Fils-Aime pointed to games leading to these changes that included Mario Kart DS, Nintendogs, Brain Age and Big Brain Academy.
The following numbers come from Nintendo’s internal research. 40% of Wii owners worldwide have connected to WiiConnect24. 3.3 million pieces of content have been downloaded so far with the service. In the U.S., 45% of males ages 6-24 are playing Wii on a regular basis. However, the numbers for older users is quite high, and 95% of males 25-49 have tried Wii, with 60% of the users playing the system on a regular basis. With women ages 25-49, a third are regular Wii users, with three quarters actually trying the system. And with men over 50, 16% are regular Wii users, and with females over 50, 10% are regular users.
Nintendo also showed Net Promoter numbers, which looks at the percentage of users who would recommend the system to their friends, and subtracts the amount of who wouldn’t recommend the system. This number was 85% for Wii, with the next closest competitor the Nintendo DS at 65%. Fils-Aime said that other consoles didn’t reach 50%, with some actually in the teens.
With this expanded audience, Fils-Aime expressed that Nintendo doesn’t consider Sony and Microsoft as their main competitors, but other forms of entertainment such as movies, TV and more.
Even though this speech was centered around this expanded-audience speak, Reggie said they want to still satisfy the core gamer. “We understand that if we don’t satisfy that core gamer, it won’t matter how successful we are on the outer edges. As I’ve said more than once our vision is to be an 'and company,' not an 'or company.' We’re not for one group or another. We’re for that expanded audience and the core. I’ll tell you sometimes it’s really difficult when you launch a stellar game to differentiate between the two.”
Games he touched on coming out this summer that will encompass both the expanded audience and the core gamer include Brain Age 2, Picross, Planet Puzzle League, Pokemon Battle Revolution, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Party 8. While some would say that list contains more titles focused on the casual than the core, Fils-Aime did explain that Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption would all be released this year.
With that concluding the speech, I scratched my head. As someone coming from the enthusiast gaming press, if the core is where the company wants to grow things and then move outward to the expanded audience, why was so much of this focused on the expanded audience? It’s a no-brainer that Nintendo has had success in the past year with the huge addition of the expanded audience. It seems the core is where the company is struggling, which is also quite evident in the games that were available to play.
If you want to read the rest of this article here is the link: http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200705/N07.0524.2310.27007.htm?Page=2