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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - How can I take the DS seriously...

...when the only adds I ever see on TV for the DS are Olivia Newton-John talking about how Brain Training helps her senile old brain to find her car keys?

Intellectually I know the DS has gamer's games, but this sort of add it a total turn off.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

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The main purpose of Nintendo is to advertise product to people beyond gaming. So no surprise that "gamer's games" (don't like this term) won't receive such attention from marketing department. "Gamer's games" are relatively easy to promote, those to whom they appeal already into gaming, on forums, blogs. Just make catchy trailer and bring it on GTTV and you're done, you've raised level of awareness among gamers. Those games, that partly or fully depend on people, who play games casually, need to be heavily advertised on TV, outdoor advertising etc.



I can't enjoy a system because of its commercials also...

*Goes back to playing Henry Hatsworth*



Dinomax said:
I can't enjoy a system because of its commercials also...

*Goes back to playing Henry Hatsworth*

Yeah, I know I'm being shallow. And how can one criticise a marketing strategy that is having such fantastic global success? Though among the countries I'm part of in the VGChartz charts the DS probably has the smallest lead over the PSP. It's still a healthy 33% lead, but in comparison to the global picture that is pretty small. So maybe that particular strategy isn't doing as well here as would be a different strategy aimed more at the traditional hand held demographic.

 



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

binary solo said: How can I take the DS seriously...

...when the only adds I ever see on TV for the DS are Olivia Newton-John talking about how Brain Training helps her senile old brain to find her car keys?

Intellectually I know the DS has gamer's games, but this sort of add it a total turn off.

 

How can I take this thread seriously...

 



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Just replace with a bikini girl and you'll take it seriously.



binary solo said:

So maybe that particular strategy isn't doing as well here as would be a different strategy aimed more at the traditional hand held demographic.

That's not the case, small markets with relatively small gaming population (compared to total population of region) are tend to be more core-oriented as long as gaming culture is not wide spread. In my country for instance PSP is far ahead of DS (26% PSP owners vs 1% DS owners among those who has any portable or home console). PSP out there serves as portable media-player with gaming functionality, heavily pirated, used by 12-17 years old males. While Nintendo and DS brands remain completely unknown.



@ binary

I'm from NZ too. Nintendo has ALWAYS underperformed here, so I don't neccesarily agree that its casual marketing strategy is to blame. In fact, I think there is a strong case to argue that Nintendo are doing better now than they ever have in NZ.

I agree that it would be nice if hardcore games were advertised more often, but if you consider the limited attention Nintendo tends to pay the NZ market, it just makes more sense for them to focus on their most profitable titles.

Like someone suggested earlier, hardcore gamers are already well informed so its less effective to advertise to them. You even said yourself you knew that gamers games exist on the DS. You don't need an advert to remind you.

I'm sure you remember that little more than a year ago Nintendo ads were extremely rare on NZ tv. I know for a fact that Nintendo's advertising is more diverse in Australia, and I suspect the same is true of other countries. Geez, I haven't seen any DS games other than Brain Training advertised on NZ television. EVER.

Nintendo's smaller share of the NZ market is and always has been symptomatic of the poor support NZ receives from Nintendo in general, not its television marketing strategy, which actually coincided with quite a significant improvement in sales. Nintendo games simply didn't chart at all until about a year ago, and now Wii Play and Wii Fit appear frequently in the NZ top ten, which represents quite a remarkable turnaround.



LOL.. we got Lisa Kudrow and Professor Layton ads... much better..



 

Face the future.. Gamecenter ID: nikkom_nl (oh no he didn't!!) 

... I really do not like the female british accent, I'd have thrown something at the TV to make her stop talking :P