The last few years have made a very compelling argument that there is no room or demand for Nintendo in the larger market. Where Nintendo continues to stick to its way of doing things, the larger market has passed it by, and no longer cares for it- the failure of the Wii U, and Nintendo’s games no longer making the kind of splash they used to, have contributed to this way of thinking catching on.
However, the last few months have shown us several instances that seem to indicate the exact opposite. The incredible reception that Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild got at E3, for example, or the wild success of Pokemon GO, all seem to indicate that the market is more than willing for Nintendo goodness- it is hungry for it. Nintendo just has to meet the market halfway, and give them something they want.
Now we have something else to add to that list of recent successes for the beleaguered Japanese giant- the recently announced NES Mini, a modern recreation of Nintendo’s classic NES console, which comes with 30 games pre-installed, and HDMi upscaling and output, has apparently met resounding success- in fact, VideoGamer reports that the system is now topping PC and Video Game charts on Amazon UK, outperforming several highly anticipated games, such as No Man’s Sky, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Mafia, and FIFA.
The fact that this success comes for Nintendo in the UK, a region that is famously indifferent to Nintendo at best, is the icing on the cake- it indicates that people do want Nintendo products. Nintendo just need to make products that are at least slightly desirable.
This bodes well for the NX launch, going forward- let’s just hope that the NX isn’t something odd and quirky that the larger market won’t care for as well, though.