May 7, 2008: the day America took one step toward parity with our Japanese Wii-playing friends as the Nintendo Channel goes live. An occasion I–and many other gamers–have been eagerly awaiting for not just the past six months, but since the launch of the Wii itself almost three times as long ago. But now that it’s live to enjoy, some of us are left wondering, “Is this IT?” A few videos and some DS demo downloads. Isn’t there a bigger opportunity for both Nintendo and gamers alike here? I’m not entirely sure Nintendo is interested in that kind of symbiotic relationship anymore, as this new channel is clearly not aimed at their core fan or the core gamer.
“How do you figure, mr. jezter?”, I hear it, I really do. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Just the other day, Satoru Iwata marginalised Nintendo’s core audience and the core gamers as a “small number” of their customers. Not fans, supporters, pillars, or even informed enthusiasts. We’re customers; and a statistical rounding-error to boot. While image, reputation, and customer service are important to any company’s business, the core gamer is already a tiny piece of the pie compared to their current and potential demographic (of everyone); and Nintendo has bigger fish to fry than appease us, the vocal minority. They could likely cut out all of us and still be ahead of the game, no pun intended. So we can whine all we want, it’s just becoming less and less relevant to their strategy of assimilating the entire world’s population into gaming.
Plus, it’s no secret that the company’s marketing of its software is and has always been rather poor, if nearly non-existent. For the sake of this discussion, their “biggest ever marketing push” surrounding Wii Fit is excluded, because it’s primarily a hardware offering, and also being targeted at everyone, of which core gamers are again a small subset.
Now I consume a lot of media–a LOT–and can honestly say that except for a Mario Kart Wii spot last week, the last TV commercials I saw for any Big-N game was one of two, both about the same time frame last fall: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Brain Age 2 DS (with the Crimson/Onyx DS). Either Nintendo isn’t marketing its software in venues the core gamer resides, or they’re not doing it at all; another unfortunate sign of our clan being marginalised. The Wii system hardware really needs no advertising…the thing sells itself. But with so many non-core gamers buying the system and no real marketing to support its games, how on earth does a company expect to rake in the recurring revenue? Enter the Nintendo Channel.
What better way to create a marketing campaign for a very captive audience–just the Wii owners–for free, or at least very cheaply? Give the people who might only be playing Wii Sports a chance to see what other games are out there. Of course, only show them the commercials and other marketing assets, because seeing is believing. Wait…I specifically remember seeing and hearing first-hand both Reggie and Iwata two years ago this week at E3 2006 and their pre-show bonanza touting “Playing is Believing”.
Obviously I think the biggest missed opportunity with the Nintendo Channel is the lack of Wii demos. Granted, that would put additional focus on the whole storage dilemma, but wouldn’t that really only affect us small percentage of avid gamers? We ought to be used to struggling with our makeshift solutions by now to make do. Perhaps the storage issues really aren’t issues at all. The DS doesn’t have a hard drive, but it has downloadable demos. How is it that the superior specs of the Wii make it less capable of doing exactly the same thing? If kid brother can do it, big brother can too. Or perhaps offering demos will only expand the storage needs and concerns out into the mainstream, and create the need for an internal system of rating, testing and approving the additional content; both solutions they want to postpone? That’s a lot of rhetoric…best pull myself back to reality.
For me as the quintessential Ninty fan and avid gamer, a channel on the Wii to view game footage is going to be precisely 44 steps behind my web browser in both timeliness and amount of content available. I guess there’s always the DS demos…but if I didn’t already own one, it’s nothing more than a lure for me to buy one. Since the DS and Wii have virtually no other connectivity between one another, the demos almost seem off-topic. But as a core gamer, I do have a DS and will gladly accept the bones thrown my way.
In the end, the Nintendo Channel fits nicely with my weather and photo channels as novelties to show my non-gaming friends, propagating the expanded audience philosophy. It’s like one of those infomercials you hate clogging up the airwaves, but you just can’t resist tuning in. Maybe some megaton announcements in the coming months will prove me completely wrong; I sincerely hope that’s the case. Or maybe once Nintendo has converted all of humanity into core gamers, they’ll have no choice but to listen to us. But in the meantime, I can’t help but feel like the cuckold whose wife is sleeping with everyone in town, yet I put up with it because dammit, I still love her anyway.