loves2splooge said:
Older hardcore Nintendo fans are not Nintendo's bread and butter. Anyone that is aware of Nintendo's recent successes on the DS and Wii front is aware of that. Like it or not, the casual crowd was key to Nintendo's success this generation. And like I said, even Gamecube had the support of children. And if you look at software sales and what gets stocks on shelves, it's very clear that casuals are the bread and butter. When the 3DS comes out, the core Nintendo camp will buy it like crazy at launch. And then the sales will drop off sharply. Until it gets to the sweet spot price point for handheld. Which is gonna take awhile. I predict that the 3DS is going to be a late bloomer (like the PS3 but more successful due to the lack of competition in the western handheld market). It's going to take awhile for the 3DS technology to be cheap enough for Nintendo to hit that sweet spot price point. When it finally does, it'll be very popular. The 3DS is ahead of it's time and was released prematurely. There was no need to rush out a successor. The DS was still going strong up until the 3DS got announced (just look at the figures). And if it wasn't for the premature 3DS announcement this year, the DS wouldn't have dropped off this year hardware and software sales wise (and even then, it's still doing very well). Sony isn't a threat. Apple doesn't threaten their market. They could have waited until the 3DS tech was cheap enough to launch it at a reasonable price point. Buying a freakin iPhone for your child (along with the expensive contract that comes with it) is not the norm. In North American culture, this kind of indulgence is looked down upon. As for the PSP, the main reason why it's not that successful in North America in the first place has to do with the fact that the DS is cheaper and thus much more attractive to parents. Teenagers and adults with disposable income were mainly the PSP's target audience. Not children. But that didn't work out for Sony because in North America (except for major urban centers like New York City) most teenagers over 16 and adults drive a car. In Tokyo and other urban centers in Japan, where salarymen take the subway and bus, the PSP is a strong no.2 and a real threat to Nintendo. But the Japanese market's volume is drowned out by the massiveness of the North American and European markets so Japan doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things anymore. Now that the PSP is more reasonably priced, they're trying to market to the pre-teen crowd (Marcus campaign) as a "cooler big boy" alternative to Nintendo. You can get a PSP-3000 with Modnation Racers bundle for $170. Which is a pretty decent deal for kids. Though I think Sony should thrown in a 2 GB memory stick pro duo too at that price to make the PSP more attractive. |
i wont disagree in the points you noted , but while parents are frowned upon buying expensive phones and gizmos for their barely able to handle kids at some point they do,specially if the income is good.I also dont pull my ideas of psp markets out of anecdotal evidence, as if i follow what ive seen, id confirm that kids love to ask their parents psp*specially young teen boys*, due to the cool factor. However, by checking most surveys the results show that the age gaps between the DS consumer and PSP isnt noticeable, and its been stablished that ADULTS are the majority of the market in the end, even if young kids are a good chunk( i believe it was something around 60% from 12-30 in rough terms).Is not shocking to me, and certainly not what wed come to expect if we follow forum wars. The amount of adults owners of DS following games like Layton is huge, and in japan, i wouldnt be surprised if surveys showed similar results. I wont disagree that casual is a big DS market, if not biggest, but casual does not equals kids market. Nintendo loves parents to buy ds for their kids, but in the manner of sales, is not what it has come down to in the end.Lots of adults have been buying DS for their gaming needs. Also, if you really want to be lieve that the, what, 60 millions of gba users were not interested in following trend with the DS and its backwards ability, you are doing it wrong. If you wanted to label GBA owners as kids, then how would you lable them years laters as consequential DS owners?time passes, brand loyalty remains, sequels of GBA biggest hits most likely will hit Nintendo*doh*, so they wont buy Sony products. Same goes for 3ds. Mario and luigi, Mario kart, they all follow trend on next nintendos console.And sure, you could be a kid owner of GBA, but 10 years later, you arent.
the case of the 3ds is very unique and different from PSP or PS3.You have to account for everything. Just remember nintendo has a huge market from the past that is loyal, its much older and backwards compatible. GB has been since antiquity. However, the new gamers that were drawn to flashier looks and overall appeal of games like NFS(on the PSP)r Assasins creed, will also have their games on the nintendo system. Theres the tradition, the casuals, the kids, the old PSP market(AC, MG, DOA,etc and much more afterwards).Again, if PSP once priced, without the weapons 3ds is sporting now, that price, and still did fairly well*on par with previous nintendo handleds*, nintendo SURELY can do so and be twice as succesful.
