Digital Journal — When it comes to getting publicity and keeping your company’s name in the news, Nintendo has definitely become an expert.
After months of stealing attention from the market leaders Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo is now grabbing headlines for its announcement that its upcoming video game console Wii (pronounced “We”) will support old-school games and be interoperable with the company’s portable gaming device, the Nintendo DS.
During a marketing event in Japan yesterday Nintendo president Saturo Iwata said gamers will be able to download and play classic video game titles on Wii for only $4.50 to $8.99 (all figures in US dollars) per game.
Based on Microsoft’s success with classic games for the Xbox 360 — the company has earned big kudos for allowing gamers to download arcade games for as little as 400 Microsoft “points” (about $5) — Nintendo’s support of retro games could also prove to be a huge hit. But, given the fact Nintendo has an absolutely massive library of games, the company could quickly cast a shadow over the Xbox 360.
In fact, the hoopla has already begun, with bloggers posting letters of praise all over the Internet. And imagine, even though Wii has not officially launched, the console has become an instant hit for everyone who grew up with Nintendo as a babysitter.
On the heels of all the Wii hype, Iwata is also keeping Nintendo on top of the news by announcing the company will increase production of its DS Lite to meet the unprecedented demand from Japanese consumers. In Japan, the DS Lite can’t be stocked fast enough and 10 games have already sold more than one million copies.
With the Nintendo DS Lite set to make its U.S. debut on June 11, Nintendo says it will increase production from 1.6 million units per month to two million. The increased production is designed to keep the gaming unit on store shelves so the company can reap the benefits of strong sales of the New Mario Bros. and Brain Age games. The original Nintendo DS continues to sell strong, with 8.43 million systems sold in Japan in just 18 months.
But Nintendo’s success in grabbing the world’s attention doesn’t stop there, as the company has also been widely applauded for its recent announcement that Wii has been designed to be compatible and interoperable with the Nintendo DS; in addition to allowing gamers to download classic games, Nintendo says its Wii and DS systems will be able to share game demos and the DS can be used as a touch-screen controller for the Wii. Iwata even suggested future DS games could be played on Wii with expanded content.
By allowing the DS to be used as a touch-screen controller for the Wii, gamers are already talking about the possibility of using Wii to play DS games on your TV (the same way the GameBoy Player was a successful sister product to the GameCube and games could be played on a television screen). Now, Nintendo is increasing its market share exponentially, turning DS users into Wii owners before the console is even out.
By closely linking the Wii and DS, Nintendo has turned the out-of-control next-gen console war into a precision game of chess, where Nintendo is slowly occupying all the most important spaces on the board. The company’s increasing momentum is a result of positioning its chess pieces in seemingly random places on the board, but the outcome is an entire surrounding of the opponent.
While Nintendo expects limited losses form the Wii launch later this year (every video game console faces initial losses and companies actually use sales of video games to recover and profit), the company continues to receive huge applause from media, critics, bloggers and gamers everywhere.
The console also stole the show at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) earlier this year, earning “Best of Show.”
Even though Nintendo says its upcoming console is not a direct competitor to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3 (it will not feature high-definition graphics or act as a multimedia hub) it has definitely stolen their thunder.
