Nintendo’s strategy with its immensely popular Wii has been to market a simple game console that is easy to operate and appeal to a broad set of consumers. It has largely left the market for the “serious” game players to Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE) which build more expensive and fully-featured platforms.
The recession and less expensive version of competing products are leading Nintendo to change its approach.
According toThe Wall Street Journal, the Wii plans to take on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. “Nintendo Co., in a bid to keep up momentum for its Wii console, is pushing to increase the number of Wii videogames made by outside publishers, including combat and sports titles that target serious players.”
It is an “all win, no lose” plan. The Wii and its basic and simple games will still appeal to the larger market of casual game players. Adding more challenging games will help it to get the hard core players to consider the Wii, which they probably were not willing to do before.
Nintendo has a huge lead over Microsoft and Sony and it intends to keep it.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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