Nintendo has been slandered with accusations of appealing to the casual crowd more than its hardcore fans for a long time now, and the Wii and DS have garnered immense success amongst the masses, with tremendous sales figures, because of the accessible approach. But Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata reveals that it was never Nintendo’s intention to appeal to the casuals.
“First of all, we would like to keep pursuing ‘gaming population expansion’ as our fundamental goal for the future because we believe that it is worth continuously aiming at,” Iwata told investors recently. “On the other hand, we do not think that developing video games for casual or light users is the only way to expand the gaming population.
“There was a misunderstanding that Nintendo was dedicated to such games at some stage of the lifespans of the Wii and the Nintendo DS. We have made efforts to develop video games that are in tune with various consumer tastes; however, we have not been able to gain adequate consumer understanding regarding our intentions, while in the common perception there are no or few core users playing Nintendo platforms, which is not the case.
“Unless we create a flow from beginner to expert by offering an entrance for beginners and the processes for a beginner to become an intermediate user and from an intermediate to an advanced player, the video game industry will gradually shrink.
“The symbolic stories of how “Wii Fit” and “Brain Training” made non-users start playing video games were overemphasized, and many other cases that such beginner players tried the “Dr. Mario” series next and eventually reached “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” attracted little attention. We hope to improve our efforts to explain that even though such titles initially triggered beginners’ interest to play video games, they will possibly try various kinds of games as their tastes change.”
Well, the Wii U seems to be following the Wii in its footsteps, but to be fair, it does seem to have a more hardcore approach, with a great third party support and great first party support too (which is kinda expected). What do you think? Tell us in your comments below.
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