Today's second in-depth DICE feature talks about the
previously mentioned DICE keynote by Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime, in which the Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing announced a number of new Nintendo DS-related measures, including DS-specific wireless kiosks and new voice chat game options.
However, Fils-Aime also went into a great deal of detail regarding Nintendo's philosophical position on market expansion and the future of games, and Gamasutra has perhaps the most in-depth write-up of his full remarks, including the following on Nintendo's forthcoming launch of the
Brain Training software for the DS:
"Two weeks ago, Time Magazine was talking about the importance of training your brain, speaking mainly to later baby boomers. Now, imagine a gaming company talking about appealing to that demographic, people approaching 50 to 60. That’s what we’re doing. What we've been able to do, in Japan, is to draw appeal of video gaming into a whole new segment that typically wouldn't pick up a video game.”
“The marketing for these titles in critical. You won't see ads on MTV. We'll be marketing by going on daytime TV, partnering with Oprah, Ellen…totally unheard of for video games, but fundamentally what needs to be done to reach new audience.”
“We believe that there are a number of factors going on that make a compelling point to why things need to go differently,” he continued. “For the first time in our industry's existence, the number of blue chip recruits – males 10-14 – is actually declining, versus about twenty years of constant growth. If all we do is target men and boys, this industry will decline. The only way to reverse that would be to make gaming more popular, but data suggests that's not happening.”"
You can now
read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including unrivaled detail on Fils-Aime's remarks on the future of Nintendo (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).
