Videogame Titans Show
Split on Sales Strategy
July 12, 2007; Page B4
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. outlined their plans to boost sales of videogame consoles by courting the most avid players with an arsenal of hyperrealistic games.
Japan's Nintendo Co., meanwhile, stood out at the E3 game conference here with an array of new products focused on more-casual and novice players, a strategy that has proven highly successful for the company in recent years.
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| Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto holds up Nintendo's new Wii Balance Board at the E3 conference |
Nintendo's offerings included a new wireless controller for its Wii console that users will press with their feet as they perform a variety of physical activities like heading virtual soccer balls and doing stretches. The company also played up plans to use a variety of games to appeal to "hard core" gamers, a market that Sony and Microsoft are vigorously courting with their PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 systems, both of which enable more realistic graphics than is possible with the Wii.
The E3 announcements point to a growing split in strategy among some big game companies, which are eager to keep up sales growth by turning more women and older players into game customers.
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, said one of Nintendo biggest goals is to make games, such as a new version of its Zelda game for the hand-held Nintendo DS player, attractive for people from both audiences. In the new Zelda, which is already available in Japan, players can move objects and kill enemies by moving a stylus on the DS's touch-screen.
"Our next immediate challenge," Mr. Iwata said, "is to destroy the psychological barrier between the veteran player and the novice players."
The casual consumer remains a top focus for Nintendo, though. The Wii has already found success with a motion-sensing controller that engages players physically in tennis, fighting and other games.
Nintendo said it plans to take the Wii deeper into the realm of fitness with its new pressure-sensitive controller, dubbed the Wii Balance Board, that users will stand on to manipulate on-screen action. The company showed the board in action with a game called Wii Fit, in which players can earn points by hopping on and off it like an aerobic step board in sync with visual cues on the screen.
Other possibilities in the game, which will be available in the first half of next year: yoga and swinging a virtual hula hoop. Nintendo also announced a new device, called the Wii Zapper, which turns the Wii's existing controller into a virtual pistol for use in shooting games.
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| Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai demonstrates the new PlayStation Portable Player |
At its own news conference, Sony showed off a revised, slimmed down version of its PlayStation Portable that lets users connect the handheld system to their TVs to watch movies.
Executives said the new PSP was 33% lighter and more battery efficient than the previous version.
The system will come in black as well as two new colors this fall: silver and a limited edition white version with Darth Vader's image on the back that will sell for $199 as part of a "Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron" game package.
Sony introduced a lineup of fast-action games that played up the high-definition features of its PS3, which has been outsold by both the Wii and Xbox 360 until now because of a lack of good titles, its weak online gaming features and its expensive price, which it just cut in the U.S. earlier this week.
the Wii is an epidemic.
