Bloomberg: Nintendo's market value hits 73 billion USD.

[Julius Seeker]

Nintendo's market value has passed Honda and is now the 5th largest company in Japan. Nintendo, last month, rocketed past Sony Corp. Since then they have continued to grow at a staggering rate. Nintendo's market value is now 38% larger than that of the entire Sony Corporation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

[Nev]

Nintendo's *very* smart about its financials. Their profit margins are rumored to be about ten times that of their competitors...

[Flip]

Yeah, i would feel good supporting a profitable company if i actually liked their system.

Even my non-gamer friends who ended up buying Wii's are getting tired of the games and they complain about pointer accuracy all the time, even when calibrated correctly.

[Lox]

Even my non-gamer friends who ended up buying Wii's are getting tired of the games and they complain about pointer accuracy all the time, even when calibrated correctly.

Do they just have shaky hands or something? I haven't had accuracy issues since the 1st week.

[Zeus]

Yeah, i would feel good supporting a profitable company if i actually liked their system.

Even my non-gamer friends who ended up buying Wii's are getting tired of the games and they complain about pointer accuracy all the time, even when calibrated correctly.

Games are slowing down, I completely agree. It's been far better than the GC or N64 but that's not saying much. Heck, it actually had a better first year so far than the 360 and slaughtered the PS3 but again, that's not saying much. Games are still short. But, like the 360, looks like starting this holiday season, there's gonna be a steady stream of titles to interest people.

They're complaining about the accuracy of the pointer? Never heard that one before. Calibration? Am I missing a menu feature? It's not perfect, no, but it's still pretty damned good. You sure the bar is set up properly and they're not on an angle to the TV? I mean, my 6 year-old neice hasn't had any issues with the pointer.....

[Kupek]

I think Nintendo's biggest problem will be getting the casual players to buy new games. Marketing games to gamers is a solved problem. A lot of people bought (and are still buying) the Wii because it looks fun and isn't intimidating. They know it exists because of the enormous hype surrounding the machine. But the hype won't last. So how do they communicate to the new casual market? These people don't read 1up or gaming message boards. Will we start to see Wii games advertised in more prime locations on television, newspapers and the like?

[Lox]

I think we've already started to see the Wii advertised more on TV. I can't recall many video game commercials since the SNES/Genesis days really. But I've seen various Wii commercials over and over again.

[Zeus]

I think Nintendo's biggest problem will be getting the casual players to buy new games. Marketing games to gamers is a solved problem. A lot of people bought (and are still buying) the Wii because it looks fun and isn't intimidating. They know it exists because of the enormous hype surrounding the machine. But the hype won't last. So how do they communicate to the new casual market? These people don't read 1up or gaming message boards. Will we start to see Wii games advertised in more prime locations on television, newspapers and the like?

You're assuming Nintendo's marketing department has the ability to do this. Right now, they're in shambles due to this move they're doin' to Cali and New York. We'll see if they can get their act together in time.

But it's not like they have a great history of marketing either....

[Julius Seeker]

At this point in time, on the software side of things, Wii is doing incredibly well. In the first 7 months 45 million units of software had been sold for the Wii. Incredible, considering those numbers are on a userbase which averaged about 4.6 million units for the time period (Nintendo reported 9.27 million Wii units sold during the first 7 months); essentially Wii owners are buying software at an average of about 1 title per three weeks.

[SineSwiper]

I think we've already started to see the Wii advertised more on TV. I can't recall many video game commercials since the SNES/Genesis days really. But I've seen various Wii commercials over and over again.

What, are you living under a rock or something? Since FF7, we've seen an explosion of VG commercials, and it increases with every generation of consoles. Maybe it's just the channels I watch or something, but everybody knows about games like Call to Duty, Splinter Cell, GTA series, and a bunch of sports games because of the commercials.

[Kupek]

Not just commercials targeted at our demographic. Commercials during the evening news. Or The View.

[Nev]

Gaming is roughly the size of the movie business now, give or take. I think we may be somewhat smaller if you factor DVD sales and ancillary revenues from movies, but it's within the same order of magnitude.

Or, to put it another way, you *bet your sweet ass* that the game industry is advertising. Heavily, across any demographic that gaming marketing people think can make money.

[Kupek]

You're missing the point. Clearly, there are places right now where games are not marketed. Nintendo's strategy is that there is no one demographic they're targeting. They're going after everyone. So my question is that will advertisements for Wii games become as ubiquitous as advertisements for cars and bathroom cleaners?

[Nev]

I was actually kind of just talking shit with Zoosy and not really thinking about your question per se, you kind of caught me out there.

As far as your question goes - which I'm thinking of as something like "how does targeting a casual gaming space affect advertising for those games?" - I really dunno, man.

I'd make the same comparisons you are and suggest similar strategies, such as TV ads, magazine spots, maybe even daytime TV publicity promos and etc., but as far as I understand it targeted and even more specifically demographically-based advertising is getting more and more in these days anyway, so the ubiquity you mention as far as car advertisements go might never be quite as "ubiquitous" again as it was during the 80's and 90's, for example.

I dunno. If I ever hit up an industry panel on casual games marketing, I'll let you know what all the heads are thinking. I'm sure this has been a discussion panel topic before and will be again (not to mention a frequent source of discussion in industry marketing backrooms).

[SineSwiper]

Not just commercials targeted at our demographic. Commercials during the evening news. Or The View.

Heh, more games for women.

Women: the almost untapped market for gaming (except maybe MMOs)

[Lox]

Honestly, I remember some FF7 commercials but since then I have seen very few for games, at least on the channels I watch.

Now I am seeing Wii commercials all the time. Based on that, I'd say they're advertising differently.

[Nev]

Not just commercials targeted at our demographic. Commercials during the evening news. Or The View.

Heh, more games for women.

Women: the almost untapped market for gaming (except maybe MMOs)

Smart marketers and designers have known this for some time (see The Sims), but women are sort of regarded as harder to "get" than guys.

My friends and I talked about the difference between process-based gaming (i.e., The Sims, elements of World of Warcraft) and goal-based gaming (Gears of War, other elements of World of Warcraft, and probably 95% of gaming titles out there) and agreed that women prefer the process-based stuff - also, women are more likely to enjoy games with a heavy social component.

I wish we'd see more women designers. There hasn't been a significant one really since Roberta Williams, who's now out of the gaming sphere as she feels storytelling is kind of by the wayside now (and I can see where she's coming from a bit there). Much as I hate to admit it, the game industry does very little to attract talented women, or to make them feel comfortable and keep them.

I have great hopes for things changing down the road, but not so much at present unless something comes out of left field.

[Zeus]

Well, we are starting to see the mainstream media pick up more on games. Wasn't the Wii one of the hot gadgets of 2006 in Time magazine back in 2005?

It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo can muster up the courage to advertise WiiFit on Desperate Housewives, CSI, or The View (the woman-centric shows; so, really, every show in the top 20 :-). If there's any game that may appeal to women, that's one. But like I said above, I don't think they're gonna have their marketing department fixed up by then

Although I did see those Wii commercials with the Jap guys going around in their cars to people's homes and introducing them to the Wii on more traditional channels than most gaming commercials. But no, nothing like during the evening news or anything.

[Blotus]

I watch G4 quite a bit so I see a lot of commercials for games. The only ones I've seen not on G4 in recent times are the "Wii would like to play" ones and the "Cluster Bomb" PSP ads.

[Julius Seeker]

2006 the US gaming market was 12.5 billion dollars and the box-office movie industry was 9.2 billion. The home video DVD market was worth 23 billion dollars though (in the US).

On marketing, there is a lot more to it than just TV and magazine ads. Nintendo's banking on a strategy that their early games are going to get a lot of people familiar with the system. Games like Wii Sports are games that many many people are going to try out, that gets the controller into more hands. It is not just Wii Sports, Nintendo also released Wario Ware and others which a lot of people have been trying out. When people buy the console, they are buying games as well, lots of games (Wii software has an incredibly high tie-in rate with the hardware). The marketing plan is actually quite well thought out.

[SineSwiper]

Smart marketers and designers have known this for some time (see The Sims), but women are sort of regarded as harder to "get" than guys.

Maybe if they didn't make the body shapes so damn obviously geared towards men. Hell, I'm playing Odin Sphere of all games, and there's plenty of subtle-but-obvious T&A to go around. Never mind Everquest, WoW, Dead or Alive, and thousands of other games.

Damn 15-year-old horny Japanese designers. Yeah, it's pretty to look at for guys, but it's one more element that alienates the other half of the population.

I wish we'd see more women designers. There hasn't been a significant one really since Roberta Williams, who's now out of the gaming sphere as she feels storytelling is kind of by the wayside now (and I can see where she's coming from a bit there). Much as I hate to admit it, the game industry does very little to attract talented women, or to make them feel comfortable and keep them.

Killcreek? Nah, I'm joking. In fact, that actually proves your last point, and mine above (except in a real world situation).