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Nintendo Targets Women & Grandparents

by Tim Stevens on July 17, 2007 at 12:01 PM

Nintendo Tauts Expansion of Gamer Market

Nintendo has been selling out of its little white Wii console since its release late last year, and sales of the DS Lite portable have been equally stellar. At last week's E3 video game conference, Nintendo demonstrated that sales of both systems have been fueled largely by groups that aren't typically seen as, well, gamers. Making the systems as accessible to non-gamers as possible was one of the key design concepts when Nintendo designers were piecing the systems together. According to Nintendo's own research, that work is paying off.

From the DS and success of general-appeal games like 'Nintendogs' and 'Brain Age' Nintendo has managed to boost the portable gaming side of things. Portable gaming consoles now account for 50 percent of all video game system sales. That's up from 30 percent in 2002. The DS alone makes up for half of those sales, while Nintendo's older handheld, the GameBoy Advance, makes up most of the remaining half. Though it has been gaining steam lately, that still leaves the PSP with very little market share.

Thanks to those games on the DS and the pick-up-and-play nature of the Wii, Nintendo has managed to break long-standing industry standard demographics as well. For example, women make up an impressive one third of Nintendo gamers compared to about 20 percent for the competition. Likewise, while game companies typically target young males, half of all men over 50 have tried the Wii. This expansion of the gaming industry has resulted in an amazing 56 percent increase in sales of games and game hardware compared to last year in the U.S., and an even more impressive 114 percent increase in Japan.

With the DS being seen as a tool for seniors to ward off dementia, and the Wii getting more and more recognition as a healthy and fun way for everyone to game, by next year the mainstream gamer may indeed just be ... mainstream.

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Tags: DS, Nintendo, Wii

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