Gnizmo on 03 October 2008
| Sky Render said: Ah, the elusive "demographics", target of marketers everywhere yet seeming to have no cohesive nature to speak of. I don't know if you've noticed, but Nintendo has done what many highly successful companies do: they've foregone the concept of "demographics" in the original sense, and focused instead on tiers of users. To wit, there are four tiers: Tier-0: Existing customers, already part of the market and not going to leave Tier-1: Soon-to-be non-customers, who are either recently departed from or soon to depart from the market Tier-2: Refusing customers, who actively refuse the product. Tier-3: Distant customers, who aren't aware of your product. These tiers disregard the traditional "demographic" concept entirely, and fit actual human behaviour much more clearly. The original DS was targeted at Tier-0/Tier-1 customers (there's not much difference between these tiers), while the DS Lite is clearly aimed to bring in Tier-2 users (sleek design with longer battery life, brighter screens, and a slew of "non-game" titles to satiate the concerns of those who actively refused video games). The DSi targets Tier-3 the only way one can: by expanding the product's target market by adding features which have nothing to do with the surface-level purpose of the device, but match perfectly with the overall purpose of the device. To wit: the purpose of the DS is to be useful and to entertain. The purpose of the DSi camera is to be useful and to entertain. The purpose of the DSi music player is to be useful and to entertain. The central values align, and as such, it can act as a form of "gateway" to video games for Tier-3 customers to move up to Tier-2 ("I only use it for photos and music, not games!") and eventually Tier-1 ("Okay, I'll give games a try...") and Tier-0 ("Yeah, I play games on it!"). |
I see what you are saying here and it does make sense. The catch is, the tier 3 customers being targetted are the ones that will also be interested in the PSP and iPhone for the exact same reasons. If someone hears you can play MP3s on the new DS why wouldn't they have heard that you can do it on the competition as well? They are expanding their audience, but it is expanding right into the market space the PSP and iPhone have. I really don't see how you can call adding features your competitors have anything but an attempt to move into their space.
