It’s far from a secret that Nintendo’s marketing focus has shifted in emphasis over the last few years. After hitting the market with user friendly gaming, Nintendo realised a new segment of the market to give its attention.
It’s also a well published proclamation that this manoeuvre, however prudent it later became, has left Nintendo much less capable of making their mark in the ‘core’ gaming demographic. It could be debated the ‘casual’ gaming market as it stands will be short lived, or that this kind of gaming is here to stay and Nintendo will be at the forefront of casual gaming for ever more. This, however, is not what was intended for this discussion.
How did this happen in the first place? Did Nintendo just decide to ignore the core gamer demographic, or is it the core gamer that fell out of love with Nintendo?
With the exception of Wii, every home console Nintendo has released has sold less globally than its predecessor. The competition in the market has increased dramatically over this time, and Nintendo has suffered because of it. From dominance to desperation, Nintendo was losing market share and shareholders. These years of declining market share prompted Nintendo to make a bold move and venture into uncharted territory in hope of uncovering a new market.
But where did this decline really take off? The market remained relatively stable throughout the NES and SNES generations, with little progression in market trends. The real shake up was introduced by the release of PlayStation, which expanded the market considerably and lifted the boundaries that previous hardware had kept in place. As a result, people wanted more from their games, and the type of gaming Nintendo were promoting at the time was not easily marketable in this new climate. No pre-rendered graphics, plumbers still jumping down pipes and no attempt at ‘realism’. It was, perhaps, these things that drove gamers away from Nintendo, in pursuit of more matured experiences. It could be said that gamers started falling out of love with Nintendo in the mid-90’s.
This trend continued throughout the life of N64 and Gamecube, where other formats were perceived as offering more of what the gamer wants… and they were. This trend has a spiral effect, in that people buy a system, the market is on that system, games go to that system and more people buy that system as a result. This took effect from N64’s inception to the death of the Gamecube, and this is exactly what pushed Nintendo to uncover new markets.
Nintendo has never been able to recover from the effect that Playstation had on the market, making Nintendo formats a hostile place for the core gamer and publishers alike. Even with output of such a high calibre as their core franchises have been offering for many years, it seems Nintendo cannot get Wiimotes in the hands of core gamers.
If there is a reason for “How Nintendo fell out of love with hardcore gamers”, It’s because they fell out of love with Nintendo first.
