I always viewed the "hardcore" Nintendo  fans as people who just happened to fit in with Nintendo's business strategy. If you will, you can call them the people who never grew up.

Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Twilight Princess and such are all excellent titles, the former is nearly my favourite game yet. They're essentially games made for children, that adults also can play. Generally, saying that there insults a lot of people, because they don't want to be playing children's games.

A fitting way to describe it is that Nintendo games make you feel like a child when you play them. You lose your cynicism, doubts and such and just love the games like a child does. The more "standard" Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc) appeal to children, and people who become children when playing the games.

Whether Nintendo targets a new audience (the children) or the old audience (the people who are now grown up, but become children when playing games) is really quite irrelevant - and probably close to impossible to distinguish now - because they like the exact same games.

So I'd say the "old" Nintendo didn't make games for everyone. They make games for children, and the people who become children when playing games. They didn't make games for the rebelling youth, violent people, or the people wanting a proper intellectual challenge. Or just the people who simply weren't "childish" enough to play their games.

 Meanwhile, the rest of the industry targeted the people who weren't children at heart. Whether they were children who felt like being adults, teens who wanted to rebel against their childhood or young adults.

Neither really targeted the adults. Nintendo only partially targeted the adults by targeting the ones who liked playing the childish (targeted at children) games, and the rest of the industry did even less. Those are essentially the people Nintendo started doing with the DS.

So mainly, Nintendo attempts to attain new gamers, as well as keep the ones that are children at heart. However, they pretty much keep the ones who are children at heart by just trying to attain new gamers.

Oh, and just out of curiosity - the gaming industry is larger than/on size with the music/movie industries now? Are you sure about that, I don't recall hearing anything about that.

Why does a game for adults have to be an M rated gore-fest? There are a lot of great PG movies that I enjoy as an adult. I recently saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and loved it.

You feel that Nintendo makes games for adults that never grew up, but I feel they make hardcore games for more then just the small teenage male market. Since when were Brain Age, Wii Fit or Smash Bros kids games?

Nintendo focuses on its older brands because they are relativly safe marketing decisions. they do make new IP's now and then, Pikmin was a greta first party game, and Eternal Darkness and Geist were also amazing titles published by Nintendo. However Nintendo isn't good at marketing new IP's. The only really successful ones to have come since Pokemon are the Wii series and a few DS series like Nintendogs and Brain Age.

Does Sony not focus on Gran Turismo and does MS not focus on Halo?

I also disagree about Nintendo not making games intelectually chalenging. In my long history of playing Nintendo games, basically every great single player Nintendo franchise encorporated puzzle elements to games like no other developer. Levels in Mario, Dungeons in Zelda, Boss encounters and Room puzzles in Metroid are all puzzles deeply integrated into the games design. This is one of the reasons why I love Nintendo games so much, it's because in their core they are actually games. They make you think, where a modern FPS is mindless shooting.

I think everyone targeted the adult audience, just in different ways. Brain Age for the DS, and Wii Fit, Metroid Prime 3, and even more casual games like Mario Kart were designed to attract adult gamers on the Wii/DS, MS did it with Halo, Forza, and 3rd party exclusives, Sony did it with Gran Turismo, Killzone, Uncharted, and a large grap of 1st party games.

Everyone also targeted the youth audience, and Sony and MS are now also more directly trying to target the casual audience with Kinect and Move.

So in the end I disagree. I think Nintendo sticks with older franchises because they garentee sales. Mario Kart is a must for every system because it's a recognized brand, a quality game everyone can be interested in, and it's a safe investment. Nintendo probably does work on new large scale IP, di you already forget Brain Age and the Wii franchise? Last gen there was Pikmin, and Eternal Darkness. It's just that Nintendo has always been skeptical about new IP's, but isn't everyone?

Aren't Square Enix's main fanchises still Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest? Yes there are lots of spin off, and occasionally we do see a whole new IP, but I always feel those are more "projects of interest" then full out investments.

Sony is going to hold onto GT and any other mega successful franchise for as long as they can, and so will MS with Forza and HAlo.

I see not difference except that Nintendo tries to play a safer investment, and since they are the smallest of the 3 console manufacturers and have withsttod a severe financial crisis over 30 years ago, it's pretty easy to see why they do that.

However I do think Nintendo should make a new IP, with a plot (not a fitness/brain game).

As for gaming growing bigger then music and movies, I've heard this comment again and again when a big game is released. I don't have any exact articles, but Halo 3 made over 500 million dollars in profit. How much did Avatar make, 2 billion? Avatar was the biggest box office film, Halo 3 is not the biggest game, MW2  doubled Halo's figure, and I bet you Nintendo makes even more $$$ on some of its franchises. As for music, it's been down since the MP3..

I think I expressed myself quite poorly in my last post.

I was talking about how the older Nintendo games didn't target the people who were looking mainly for an intellectual challenge.  Their games have always been somewhat intellectually challenging, but they were made in a way so that anyone could finish them. That doesn't mean they were easy for most people, but I'd imagine the majority wasn't complicated enough for a large portion of the adult audience.

The point was mainly to illustrate that the "old" Nintendo didn't make games for everyone. A large portion of the adults,as well as the teenagers, weren't really targeted. It's not that Nintendo didn't target the adults, nobody really targeted those adults. They weren't really seen as potential customers, or at least not priority customers.

And that's one of the changes Nintendo did this generation, as you said. They targeted the adults to a larger degree, with games like Brain Training and Wii Fit.

I'm also not trying to claim that a game needs gore and blood to be adult. It's however clear that blood and gore makes the game not targeted at children. In other words; it's a game made with the older teenagers in mind, rather than the younger people. In fact, I'd say that "blood and gore" games aren't really adult at all, their target is the old teens and young adults.

So rather than say that everyone targeted the adults, I'd say it depends on how you define adults. You're going to have to divide people into 3 groups, rather than just two.

Children, ages up to 15 or so (depending on the person, of course, but that's the ballpark)
Teens/Young adults, ages 16 through 30, or so.
Adults, ages 30 and up.

It's not as simple as just putting ages on it - sometimes people remain "young adults" in their gaming interests until they're 50 -  but there's a clear development among which games people like. The standard paths are kind of like this

1. Interested in Nintendo-esque games (child) > Interested in more gore-y games (teen/young adult) >  Interested in less gore-y games again, or "Nintendo-esque" games

 2. Interested in Nintendo-esque games (child) > Interested in more gore-y games (teen/young adult) > Loses interest in gaming

3. Interested in Nintendo-esque games (child) > Interested in more gore-y games (teen/young adult) > Loses the bias against "childish artstyle" games, and pretty much likes all games

4. Interested in Nintendo-esque games (child) > Interested in more gore-y games (teen/young adult) > Interested in more "casual" games (Wii Fit, Brain Training)

5. Interested in Nintendo-esque games (child) > Interested in more gore-y games (teen/young adult) > Keeps an interest in the more gore-y games all their life

Rather than say that Nintendo targets children, it's more fair saying they used to target mainly the children, as well as the adults in category 1, and a smaller extent category 3. You're right on that part.

But I think that at some point Nintendo sort of gave up on the category 3 adults. Fighting for the adults who care equally much about nearly all games takes too much work. Nintendo is the world's best at appealing to children and the category 1 adults. They're not the world's best at targeting the category 3 adults (although definitely among the best).

Instead, they're now targeting the category 4 adults, while leaving the category 3 and 5 adults to the rest of the industry.

I'd say that Sony, however, is still attempting to appeal to everyone. They try to appeal to children and category 1 adults through a fair bunch of their games, and they have a fair bit of games for the category 4 adults. Of course, they mostly try to target the young adults and category 3/5 adults, but they try to appeal to everyone. Nintendo doesn't.

As a kid, I could never finish Zelda, it was too confusing for me. I only think Nintendo has made games like Brain age to expand their audience. All Nintendo games are puzzle filled, and that is a premise as to what a game is for Nintendo. By taking the story, plot, characters, and any theme out and just making a pure puzzle game, they can appeal to others. This isn't necessarily a new trend, Nintendo had Tetris as a launch title for the Gameboy, and they did make Mario's Picross back in the day.

I don't really agree with your statement of the "old" Nintendo not targeting adult gamers. Super Mario RPG, Killer Instinct, and Zelda on the SNES were clearly games that weren't specifically designed for children. Yes they didn't allow blood on Mortal Kombat in their games, but overall most of the 3rd party mature games were built for the Nintendo consoles.

I understand the point you are making, but I disagree. I think Nintendo doesn't like to make games like Gears of War, or Killzone because Nintendo wants games to be more moral. they do make games for adults, they just don't invest in shooters. That said, I don't know why Nintendo doesn't have a proper racing simulator, maybe too much competition?

Nintendo is a developer that does make games for adults, but they do it in a very different way. First of all, I don't think gamers above 30 are too interested in shooters. They have families and other things to take car of. It's only the young adults who car about shooters. I agree with you that Nintendo targets those gamers mainly through nostalgia (meaning they grew up on Nintendo and may want to stay with them), but many of Nintendo's games are just wicked fun. Fire Emblem, and Metroid Prime are two franchises young male adults will love.

I will agree with you that Nintendo doesn't have a strong focus on young male adults, but my girlfriend loved Pikmin, and Mario Kart, and my parents actually want a Wii for Mario Kart and some of the more laid back games. It's because to them, games are just something they do in their free time. They need something simple that doesn't require too much time to invest with and it has to be easy to pick up.

Children are the same, this is the group of people Nintendo mostly targets

I understand what your saying, and I think I can sum up things quite nicely. Nintendo doesn't put a strong focus on young male adults, those interested in shooters, and more violent games. However they do publish a good game now and then for this age group (Conkers Bad Fur Day for N64, Eternal Darkness and Geist for GCN, The Last Story for Wii), and they do develop some games for this group (Metroid Prime, Fire Emblem). Other then that the only way Nintendo focus's on this "hardcore" group is through Nostalgia. Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Bros Brawl are great games, anyone of any age group can pick up and love, but it's generally more targeted at the younger audience, or the older more casual audience.

This said, Most of Nintendos games are focused on the younger, or more casual audeience, this doesn't by any means imply that a teenage male can't enjoy their games. Isn't Avatar the best selling film ever made? They do make all their games challenging by including puzzles, or by directly making games difficult (DKCR, Metroid Prime 3 Corruption, Advance Wars), and to Nintendo, thats what gaming is.

That's my view on it. Next gen, I think Nintendo will try to expand their target audience, by working with 3rd party publishers more frequently, focusing on the female audience more, and just making their next console easier to play.