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Nintendo's Strategies for the Wii for 2008 and Beyond...

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So the Wii, one year on, is a cultural phenomenon, this Christmas' 'must have' accessory, redefining the demographics of the gaming mainstream.

But how does Nintendo maintain this momentum? If you were in charge of Nintendo's R+D or marketing departments how would you ensure that the Wii maintains its #1 position in the UK and/or worldwide?

 

Firstly, a few points have to be acknowledged: Nintendo's competitor's will only get stronger as this generation progresses:

 

- In 1-2 years' time the apparent gulf in graphical capabilities between the Wii and PS3/XB360 will only grow larger, particularly as uptake of HDTVs increases. Therefore the challenge for Nintendo is not merely to produce good games, but ones that show off the console's USP - namely utilising the Wiimote/balance board in ways that could simply not be replicated on any other system.

 

- The X-Box 360 has acquired an impressive array of software that caters to the hardcore gaming market: Project Gotham 4, Gears of War, Halo 3, Orange Box, Oblivion, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, etc. Not only are these games exceptional but the machine boasts high definition graphics capabilities seemingly on par with the Playstation 3, in addition to a competitive price tag.

 

- The PS3 catalogue can only improve. At the moment it seriously lacks anything to make XB360 owners jealous (except possibly the BluRay drive), is overexpensive and short on AAA software. However, will the PS3's alleged technical superiority over the XB360 eventually become so apparent as to tempt the hardcore gamer over to Sony's system? Will future exclusives (Metal Gear Solid 4, etc.) tip the console battle in Sony's favour?

 

- Both the PS3 and XB360 are gradually becoming less expensive, whilst the Wii has retained its original £179.99 price tag.

 

So how can Nintendo remain on top? Here are a number of suggestions:

 

- Nintendo needs to keep developing games in the Wii Sports/Play mould that are unique, cannot be replicated on rival consoles, widen the demographics of gaming, appeal to the casual gamer, and serve as long-term system sellers. 'Wii Fit' is destined to be huge, but what comes next after that? Also we need these types of games to appear more often as one day soon the appeal of Wii Sports/Play will start to wear thin, so what will take their place?

 

Wii Music - Hopefully Nintendo will release this in Q2 of 2008 so that Wii Fit + Music will become second generation successors to the Wii Sports + Play brands, system sellers in their own right.

 

Wii Sports 2 - An upgrade to the original Wii Sports would be a huge hit.

This sequel could, like its predecessor, come bundled with Wii systems in time for next Christmas, and also be sold as a standalone game for existing Wii owners. Give us some extra graphical polish, iron out some of the original game's failings and up the depth & longevity. How about multiple 18 hole golf courses? How about turning Wii Boxing into the game it should have been in the first place? Add extra modes and bonus challenges, online play and perhaps even more sports (Volleyball? Fencing? Table Tennis?)

 

Some other ideas for potential future games:

 

+ Wii Winter Sports - A pseudo-sequel to Wii Fit in that it utilises the balance board for its games: Skiing, Snowboarding, Skii Jump, Jet Ski, etc.)

 

+ Wii Create - A creative package, a successor to the aborted 64DD Mario Artist/ Talent Maker series. Use the Wiimote to draw, paint, edit, perhaps even design characters and then craft basic 2D platform or shooting games. A DJ package would let you create and edit your own music samples. Swap your creations with other Wii users.

 

 

- Simultaneously, Nintendo needs to appease hardcore gamers, including its long-term fans, by supplying us with quality games regularly, not just sporadically or every Christmas. UK gamers should not have to wait months and months for games such as Smash Bros and Mario Kart.

 

- Nintendo needs to resurrect some of its dormant franchises to try and achieve the kind of consistent AAA output that it boasted in its SNES heyday: StarFox in all its shoot-em-up glory, 1080 Snowboarding, Kid Icarus, WaveRace, Pilotwings (would show off the Wiimote again, appeal to hardcore and casual gamers) etc.

 

So a quality Q1 lineup for the UK with a good mix of first/third party games, casual/hardcore appeal, with at least two quality titles per month, could look something like this:

 

JANUARY ZACK & WIKI

JANUARY BATALLION WARS 2

 

FEBRUARY NIGHTS - JOURNEY OF DREAMS

FEBRUARY WII FIT

 

MARCH SUPER SMASH BROS BRAWL

MARCH NO MORE HEROES

 

APRIL MARIO KART

APRIL WII MUSIC

 

MAY DISASTER - DAY OF CRISIS

MAY FINAL FANTASY - CRYSTAL CHRONICLES

 

So what other factors could serve to keep Nintendo on top?

 

PRICE

Nintendo are surely making a steady profit with the Wii's £179.99 RRP. Should the XB360 and PS3 become able to compete with this, Nintendo can confidently undercut them. To become truly mass market Nintendo may eventually have to cut the RRP of both its hardware and software. At £99.99 the Wii could become the first truly mass market console with a price affordable to the impulse buyer. Games could come down to £29.99.

This way XB360 and PS3 owners would likely opt to buy a Wii in addition to their console of choice simply for the benefit of playing its unique games.

 

BUDGET SOFTWARE RANGE

How about initiating a Wii Players' Choice Range? Cult games such as SSX Blur, Sonic & the Secret Rings, Monkey Ball, Excite Truck, Eledees, Trauma Centre could all be available for the affordable price of £14.99 - £19.99.

 

DS / WII DOWNLOAD SERVICE

The ability to utilise the Wii Virtual Console Service to download classic Game Boy/Colour/Advance games and transfer them to the DS would persuade all DS owners to invest in a Wii and vice versa.

 

UTILISE NINTENDO'S HERITAGE MORE EFFECTIVELY

The other advantage Nintendo has over its rivals is 20+ years of classic retro gaming which it can present to new gamers.

 

Wouldn't it be great, for instance, if purchasing 'Metroid Prime 3' on Wii had allowed you to download 'Super Metroid' for free? Or if those who bought the new Mario Kart on Wii could receive Mario Kart 64 for free?

 

Nintendo could even bundle games together and sell them in downloadable value packs: how about a 'Sega Classics' download for a tenner that would let you play Golden Axe 1,2,3, Streets of Rage, Sonic 1,2,3, etc? This may , of course, necessitate the release of a Wii hard drive.

 

Nintendo could even periodically give free games away as a reward for customer loyalty eg. register 3 Nintendo Wii games in two months and receive a free retro download of your choice.

 

Nintendo could even really open the floodgates for retro fans - how about a subscription service that would allow you to access unlimited retro games? £19.99 per month for entrance into gamers' nirvana?

 

WII UPGRADE

 

A new Wii hardware revision could include such features as:

 

- Wireless Wiimote & Nunchuck

- Inbuilt upscaler to make Wii games appear hi def when running on HDTVs.

- Integrated hard drive

 

I would love to know what the rest of you would do if you held the reins of power at Nintendo?

 

How would you ensure that the Wii stays top of the pile for the next 2-3 years?

 

What new, unique games would you commission to keep interest in the Wiimote high?

 

How can Nintendo best utilise the unique features of its console? This could include its low specs (can be priced to undercut the competition), the Wiimote, virtual console, DS link-up, WiiConnect 24, even its relations with other developers (how about securing exclusivity rights with giants such as Sega, Capcom or Square to ensure certain IPs are unique to the Wii?)

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If I were Nintendo I would avoid a new revision. All the different revisions for X360 and PS3 has confused the consumers. I welcome new colors though. Maybe black by the end of 2008 or early 2009 when sales have cooled of a bit. A £50 cut after 2-3 years will reboost sales as well.

 

For 2008 I hope Nintendo try to spread their big games better throughout the year:

 

March: Wii Fit

May: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

June: Disaster: Day of Crisis

August: Wii Music

October: Red Steel 2, Mario Party 9

November: Mario Kart Wii

 

2009? A new Zelda. Should be more innovative (in terms of wiimote use etc.) and more family friendly than Twilight Princess.

New, exclusive FPS franchise. Made by Retro Studios. Online.

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TC, I like all your points and htey are all relevent.

 

However, though this is Nintendo under Satori Iwata, they are still looking to make money, and lots of it. Nintendo have many billions saved up for a reason (though what they are saving for I really don't know), and they will continue to amass wealth.

 

Of all your suggestions, my most anticipated would be increase the amount of development studio's they have - by about 5 or so. The wii's stand should be made into a HDD of sorts for the wii - using the USB holes around the back to connect it up.

 

My personal favourite suggestion so far (not from you) is opening up the wii channels to third party companies. I would LOVE to see an ebay channel, a thunderbird channel... the possibilities are endless.

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one of the quotes from perry kaplin was music would be big on the wii

i think we nmight see a change in console colour and thats it

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I don't think they need to change alot, and it seems like at the moment PS3 and 360 are doing a good job of digging themselves into a rut without the Wii needing to even do anything. I'm sure PS3 sales will pick up next year with whatever games don't eventually get delayed, but I honestly can't see it having any damage on Wii sales which I think are only going to rise once Wii Fit and Smash Bro's are out.

 

Sure, there are alot of things I think Nintendo should do, but nothing they need to do. The third party support is going to come simply with the consoles success and lower developement costs, and WiiWare seems to be set to fill the void of downloadable games on the Wii.

 

All I'd do is up production at the moment, and try and get some more major third party IP's on the system.

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Sure, there are alot of things I think Nintendo should do, but nothing they need to do.

 

I disagree. I think Nintendo do NEED to get their fingers out and give us some form of hard drive especially when the WiiWare titles start appearing. I really dont see what the deal is with Nintendo, I mean its an obvious problem and the fans are screaming for it.

 

I also think they need to sort out their online system. The FC is just troublesome and the WiFi connection is very unstable. I can play on my 360 and Live without ever getting disconnected and yet when I tried to play on Guitar Hero 3 I sometimes couldnt even log in ( I use the official LAN adaptor )

 

What gets me though is that they said they would take online more seriously this generation but it cleary aint happening. Even 3rd parties have talked about their problems with getting online stuff in their games on the Wii

 

Maybe the hard drive may come eventually but the online system they probably wont sort out.

 

Great topic by the way!

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I'm quite happy with the wii and the "little" things it offers like the photo channel/VC. The chance to play old classics is a huge draw for me and many, many others. Especially the 16bit games.

 

Therefore my main concern is indeed a HD. Personally I think the stand being used as a HD is an excellent idea and one Nintendo would do well to listen to. And as Wiiware becomes standard I really feel that Nintendo will see the problem staring them right in the face and actually be somewhat forced to make a knee-jerk reaction into making a hard drive. (I hope!)

 

The sooner Nintendo realise they could be making more money with a HD the sooner we will see one. My hope lies with Reggie. If he is as in-touch with consumers as he makes out to be, he could be the one to push it to Iwata.

 

Other than that I would love to see more Mii games. I honestly think using Mii's was half of what made sports/play so popular. And the recent inclusion in M&S@Olympics was a brilliant touch that gave the game a touch of personalisation.

 

As previously mentioned on these boards, Mii Paintball would be phenomonal if handled with charm and technical prowess, both online and off.

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I don't think a hard drive is needed as such, though one would be most welcome (I imagine it being a replacement for the angled stand you get with your Wii, except this one contains a couple of gigs of storage and a few usb ports). All that is really needed is the ability to load Channels and Games from the SD cards directly, then we have unlimited storage and cheaply too.

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Make a new DVD playing Wii that replaces the old system at no additional cost.

 

Or make it do alot of fancy tricks. Why leave it at exercise machine? It could become a personal nagging device!

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That was a mammoth of a first post! Impressed. :)

 

I agree with your point about Wii specific software. I do see it coming, as these things take time to develop. We need titles that could ONLY be done on the Wii, and with Nintendo's creativity. Titles like Nintendogs and Brain Training are selling, because they have that Nintendo magic, and because they are utilising the systems in special ways.

 

We need that, games which will push the boundaries further. It's coming, but what it is, I don't think we can even begin to dream that.

 

So far, we've had WiiSports, which has been somewhat of a revelation, and has been the game to get people used to the Wii's controller.

 

And, on a more hardcore level, Super Mario Galaxy, which uses the controller to bring something new to the genre.

 

There's groundwork there, and they just need to work on it. The important thing is that the system is selling, which gives Nintendo a lot more freedom to try different projects. If the system had flunked, then they might have just poured their money and resources into something else.

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My thoughts...

 

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Hard-Drive

 

Seeing as we may not see a hard-drive, I'd like to see Nintendo give all Wii owners 500MB (or something similar) of "virtual space".

 

Preferably selectable from the wii menu and then cutting into a "list" of owned VC games. (Thus enabling the traditional 'favourites' in the Wii channel menu ON the wii.)

 

I would imagine these 'online stored' games would take a few seconds to load up as essentially they are being stored on a Nintendo server. Maybe I'm way off the mark and this isn't possible, but I'd like to see a better situation than the current "10-15min download for an N64 title. (After trawling through shop menu's etc...)

 

Even if you have to only download a smaller amount of information, shouldn't that sort the problem somewhat?!

 

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Mii's

 

I'm actually REALLY dissapointed Nintendo haven't released more titles featuring Mii's. I thought it would have become a brand of some sorts.

Not that I want Nintendo to start shirking away from "traditional" design. But with the recent everbody votes channel, Mii's have enjoyed a new leash of life. Nintendo should capatalise on this and put out more wii fit/music/play/sports titles. I hope 2008 brings more Mii love. They should maybe have a department solely putting out Mii games. The whole line of games entitled Wii____(insert title)_____ should be embraced by Nintendo.

 

Yet maybe I'm only enamoured by this as I've seen that games featuring Mii's seem to enrapture and deliver entertainment to those usually not familiar with gaming.

 

However

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I always feel Nintendo have been a company that, when their backs are against the wall, they take risks and really go into overdrive in respects to ideas and hardware.

Historically speaking I feel this is evident.

 

Now the Wii has taken Nintendo (read: everyone) by surprise, Nintendo have time to breathe. If the Wii was a flop we would have probably seen Metroid sooner and Smash Bros for Christmas. It's a double edged sword.

This is why I feel we haven't seen the true range of ideas/software from Nintendo scince Wii Music/Aeroplane was unveiled.

 

Nintendo really do seem to have time on their hands at the moment. Both a good thing enabling perfection of elements and a curse due to delays. A very interesting 2008 awaits; yet I can't help but feel we will see the Nintendo of old labouring over release dates in the face of unit availability.

 

We shall see...

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You don't need Nintendo to release a hard-drive, surely a third party will be allowed to do so?

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The Wii sales will be slowly right down in 2 years or so they should just concentrate on developing AAA titles to impress us with.

 

I mean, in two years i will most definately own a ps3/360 and developers by then would have easily tapped into the potential of those 2 consoles. here's hoping Nintendo manage to push the Wii too.

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You don't need Nintendo to release a hard-drive, surely a third party will be allowed to do so?

 

They just a need a firmware update that allows HDDs.

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I feel the area Nintendo has neglected most this generation is ensuring a steady supply of top class software. Anyone who ever owned a N64 or GameCube will shudder at the memory of the agonising delays we had to endure between the big releases. Months of nothing then a deluge at Christmas. It seems the situation has improved only marginally. Why can't us UK owners have Wii Fit straight after Christmas when those who have overindulged over the festive period would lap it up? Then have Smash Bros in Feb/March? I have a horrible feeling we won't see either of these til summer at least. These games have already been completed so the delays just seem unnecessary.

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How is this all even necessary when Nintendo have to pull ads to keep down demand? Nintendo don't have to do anything to make the Wii sell like hotcakes.

 

Not that that's good news. Nintendo can do anything they want at the moment and get away with it. They could even raise the Wii price...

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one of the quotes from perry kaplin was music would be big on the wii

i think we nmight see a change in console colour and thats it

 

WOW i thought that bug was real!

 

 

and as for the original post

 

 

 

 

 

 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZ

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If i were 'Head' of Nintendo, I would bang my secretary in a huge pile of ill-recieved profit and not give a toss about what you all want because im a billionaire :yay:

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If i were 'Head' of Nintendo, I would bang my secretary in a huge pile of ill-recieved profit and not give a toss about what you all want because im a billionaire :yay:

 

Then you'd get bored and start thinking of games to make, people at Nintendo probably do it all for fun. Wouldn't you think making a game would be fun? Make stories, characters, drawings, the technical stuff. Would be a fun job.

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Then you'd get bored
Making money never gets boring.
and start thinking of games to make, people at Nintendo probably do it all for fun. Wouldn't you think making a game would be fun? Make stories, characters, drawings, the technical stuff. Would be a fun job.
Get real. Sure they enjoy their job, but corporate decisions are corporate decisions.

 

I really, really hope the Wii's tremendous succes doesn't kill Nintendo's inspiration.

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Other than that I would love to see more Mii games. I honestly think using Mii's was half of what made sports/play so popular. And the recent inclusion in M&S@Olympics was a brilliant touch that gave the game a touch of personalisation.

 

As previously mentioned on these boards, Mii Paintball would be phenomonal if handled with charm and technical prowess, both online and off.

 

i agree with you on this 100% its just alot of fun to have an avatar of yourself in a game, i dont think i would of had my girlfreind playing wii sports any other way. i think theres so much potential for the miis but the nintendo i know tells me what we have is all that we are getting, which is a fucking shame and also a big mistake on nintendos part if they dont do nothign with it. i cant believe miis still dont have clothes.. the wii having stuff to do without any games is a big part of its sucess i think. but if they dont add anything new people are gonna get bored fast and the wiis sucess wont last.

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I just need tales of symphonia 2. Then I wouldn't care for or need anything else.

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