Food for Thought: 4th Gen Parallels in American Market

[fkusumot]

couchmonkey said:

[Snip]

I'd also argue that that generation was unique in that Nintendo was largely seen as a toy for kids. There were definitely adults playing, but kids were the driving force. I think Sega made a clever move by marketing Genesis towards an aging Nintendo fanbase that was "outgrowing" Mario.

Today, Wii is arguably marketed towards those same kids - we're older and many of us have families and we don't necessarilly have the time for 80 hour RPGs anymore. If we're going to play video games, it may be with the whole family, and Wii is well-designed for that.

I've thought the same thing and have been seeing it but in a slightly different way.  All of my friends are in their mid to late 40's (just like me) and  use to play SMB or Duck Hunt. Now they are playing Wii Sports and are buying Wii's for their parents and their grandkids. The strategy aimed towards the entire family is working like never before because of past indoctrination and current accessability.

With the SNES I perceived (at the time) that Nintendo was going squarely after SEGA, if not at first then, by very early in the consoles life. Sonic was very cool to the teen crowd and Mario was "for the kiddies".  Business strategies aside, the hardware choice of going to four buttons did turn off a lot of people but had appeal to the same market that the Genesis was taking away from the SNES.