Console Market not contracting, becoming more focused

[Cloudman]

twintail said:

Cloudman said:

Oh boy... Gaming was a hobby for a specific group back in the early days before the 6th gen, but nowadays that couldn't be farther from the truth. The Wii was one of those things that really paved the way for expanding that gap. We had people of all ages playing games, including people who never played games. It got people together to just have a good time. That was the point of the Wii, and yeah, that did pretty dang well. Heck, the DS did the same thing with having games like brain age, animal crossing and Nintendogs. It got people from all ages enjoying games. People young and old are still playing Animal Crossing.

Honestly if there is one console that pushed the boundaries of who a console could appeal to it, it would be the PS1. Sure, the Wii expanded upon this but before the PS1 gaming was pretty much exclusive to youth and as a niche hobby. Then the PS1, and all it's marketting was aimed at saying that anyone could play games (mostly teen, young adult culture at the time). And here we are. The PS2 pushed this even further with various software aimed at casual gamers and did gain traction at the time.

If anything, Nintendo reinforces the whole staying in their own ecosystem too, it just isn't as apparent. Their whole rewards system is pretty much tied to ensuring you stay a repeat customer by giving you something in return for their purchases. You could argue the semantics of it all, but at its core its a sytem designed to ensure you keep spending your money on Nintendo hardware/ software and not anywhere else thus entreching you deepper into their ecosystem. 

 

zorg1000 said:

I think you missed his point, all hes saying is that Nintendo tried to open up console gaming to everybody with the Wii (kids, teenagers, adults, seniors, boys, girls, men, women, families) while Sony/Microsoft and the major 3rd party publishers have primarily focused on the "hardcore" gamer which is primarily teenage/adult males.

The less individual demographics there are on consoles, the more niche of a market it will become.

PS covers just as many demographics as well (it wouldn't have the 2 best selling home consoles of all time if it didn't). 

Sony (and even MS) attempt to hit the demographics they know they can hit from the start, ad then start spreading out after that. You think Eyetoy was for hardcore gamers? The likes of Buzz and Singstar (which itself used to pretty really popular in EU) are not hardcore focussed either. They have a large variety of games aimed at kids. 

This is not to say that what Nintendo did with the Wii or DS wasn't important (it was), but its bizarre to think that Nintendo are somehow 'special' and exempt from a more potentially focussed gaming industry. The amount of demographics that exist still exist. 

Well, I didn't say the Wii was the only one to do it. I agree that the PS1 and 2 did a good job as well in paving the way and expanding the market to larger audiences. It deserves some of the credit as well. My point really is that gaming should not go back to being 'exclusive' to more focused groups, though I don't think that is really happening at all. There are still many games covering the varying audiences there are now.

And there's nothing really wrong with Ninten's current strategy of bringing in more people into their ecosystem. It's really in a way that benefits them, getting extra goods and deals off of games, enticing them rather than enforcing anything. Seems like a good way to do it to me.

And again to note, I don't mean to say Nintendo is 'special' and the only one. Just one example I listed. There are likely others like you have listed now.