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Soundwave on 31 January 2019
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TheMisterManGuy said:

 

Soundwave said:

It means the Wii/DS era is pretty much over and even Nintendo knows it. The Switch demographics are largely adult core gamers, that's simply a fact.

There is no need for stuff like Brain Training or Wii Sports today to get "non-gamers to try video games!" because the smartphone is too good at doing that and does it for free. There's no proposition Nintendo has been able to come up with in oh 8 years or so that has captured the imagination of that blue ocean audience.

I said this stuff many times over the last few years and the Switch software trends and demographics basically bear that out. 

Nintendo always appeals to a wide audience, the NES, SNES, N64, GCN were all more "friendly" entry points for a gamer than other systems, that's nothing new. The Wii/DS era of casual fad chasing is over though, Nintendo knows they can't win with that audience, those people don't care enough about video games to pay $200-$300 for a dedicated game system on top of a whopping $40-$60 a game when they can get their minor game cravings satisfied for free on their shiny new iPhone. 

It's not 2007 anymore. 

Not really, the Switch's audience is very broad, including people who only really played Smartphone games before. You're correct that Nintendo is no longer focusing on targeting people who never played games. But, that doesn't mean they're going to be some hardcore, gamer company because the reality is, they were never that to begin with. Instead, their goal is to appeal to smartphone gamers with their IP, along with ideas you can only find on Switch. The success of titles such as Pokemon Let's Go!, Super Mario Party, 1-2 Switch, and Nintendo Labo means that smartphone gamers will pay a premium for console games. 

It may not be 2007 anymore, but the core philosophy at Nintendo remains the same. Make products and games for everyone. 

Switch's demographics show it's very clearly an adult centric platform and that's OK. 

There's a thing that happens to kids ... it's called growing up. What's happening now is kids who were 9-10 fifteen years ago have grown up, but they still love Nintendo and have their own disposable money and are driving Nintendo's business today. 

I would bet even for Pokemon Lets Go ... it ain't little kiddies buying the majority of those games or even smartphone users. It's the core Nintendo fanbase -- which is large today, much larger than 10-15 years ago. Every time I see someone buying an Amiibo it's not some kid, it's some 29 year old dude with a full blown beard, lol. 

This is the same thing that happened with the comic book business, the majority of comic book fans/audience for those movies are adults, not children anymore. You have multiple successive generations of kids who are now grown up and they out number whatever number of kids. 

The casuals who can't play a damn game any more complex than Super Mario Bros. are gone to smartphones, they're not coming back, Nintendo knows that. They're not going to waste heavy resources on that crowd anymore, you can't compete with Apple/Android, unless your game is giving free blow jobs there's no value proposition at $50 that works for a non-gamer when you put your game up against ... Candy Crush for free on their phone. 

This is a new era for Nintendo where demographics are simply different for them and there will be new software trends. The Wii/DS era is long in the past, step into the present, it's plenty interesting. 12 fucking million copies of Smash in one month is something pretty damn new, not even the Wii could dream of doing that. 

And I told you Labo was not going to even sniff Brain Training's jock strap. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 31 January 2019