Why is Nintendo only marketing to kids

[IanTheGamer]

Seriously, Nintendo, Kids alone aren't going to make your console sell well, you need to market it to everyone, wasn't that the point of the Wii, to have games for everyone, the Wii U needs more core games (I mean like Resident Evil or some kind of FPS, or even a Forza\Gran Turismo simulation racing game, also by trying to get more sports games other than Wii Sports to attract Frat boys)

 

[Firus]

There is absolutely no reason that games "targeted at kids" can't appeal to everyone, and just because games are "realistic" and have blood 'n' guts doesn't mean that they're more mature or core. Games that are cartoony and all are not inherently kid games based solely on their aesthetic.

Nintendo is having issues with the Wii U and there are definitely ways they can help that, but I don't think appealing to the markets that the PS4 and Xbox One already have covered pretty well is going to be their saving grace and I don't know why that's where people always turn as a complaint for Nintendo's consoles. They've never been big in those markets, never been good with third parties (which is where a lot of those types of genres come from), and they fared pretty well with the Wii with an overall family-friendly appeal. The problem is they lost the non-gamers of the Wii because the whole thing where everybody got a Wii was a fad and not some revolution in the gaming industry, and, at least from my perspective, they haven't done a good enough job putting solid franchise titles on the Wii U yet. They're finally starting to come, and I expect that Wii U sales will pick up particularly once we see games like Hyrule Warriors and SSB4 hit.

What I do not expect is for sales to pick up by throwing a few games into the Wii U library to appeal to the people who are perfectly content playing the consoles that are far more dedicated and intended for games of that nature.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Do Bayonetta 2, Devil's Third, SMTxFE, and Xenoblade Chronicles X not exist? Also, it's pretty obvious a new Metroid is coming at some point in the Wii U's life, but probably is too early in development to be shown. You can also go out and get COD ghosts, AC IV, ZombiU, and RE Revelations right now for it. Nintendo's main problem is that the only way for them to get any kind of consistent 3rd party support is to make their console as similar to Sony's and Microsoft's as possible, and they would rather do their own thing than make a poor man's Xbone/PS4 with better exclusives. (Even if it would probably sell better)

 

[LIQUID12A]

"You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway."
— Walt Disney

Adults can enjoy the same things kids can and vice versa(with the exceptions of games clearly not targeted for kids like Resident Evil, Arkham City/Origins, Bayonetta, COD(though COD has many kids so as an example it's questionable), among others.

Why else does, say, MLP have a huge male fan base?

 

[IanTheGamer]

"You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway."
— Walt Disney

Adults can enjoy the same things kids can and vice versa(with the exceptions of games clearly not targeted for kids like Resident Evil, Arkham City/Origins, Bayonetta, COD(though COD has many kids so as an example it's questionable), among others.

Why else does, say, MLP have a huge male fan base?

Well, there's probably something wrong with bronies

 

[Sarki Soliloquy]

...the Wii U needs more core games (I mean like Resident Evil or some kind of FPS...

Splatoon says hi.

You see, the problem with thinking like in the OP is that people believe too much in age demographics to truly enjoy themselves. That's Animation Age Ghetto logic and I vehemently oppose it. A fallback of this kind of thinking may be that Nintendo gets the best marketing output in children and adolescents because they've been conditioned that general appeal games are childish fare. They can't outreach to older gamers because of that instilled logic too.

They've done a great job appealing to older and younger audiences with MK8 and Smash 4 (BestBuy Smashfest exemplifies this in droves.) Then you have Bayonetta 2, Devil's Third, etc., that you can only get with them. Games with hyper violence, sexual content, etc., can be no more mature, or even less, than some games most consider "childish". Gears of War and DOOM create some compelling universes and gameplay scenarios with their gritty directions. Hell, even CoD and Battlefield are taken the same way and they're more tame. But doesn't the appeal of that also crutch on the young kids or the hot-blooded adults who plays the games for that, perhaps because they are insecure about their own maturity? Those low-brow regressions might as well be responsible for the existence of The Guy Game.

The real topic at hand should be why Nintendo isn't pushing for 3rd party support on big multiplats. Sure, they got CoD and most Ubisoft games down. But having big titles like GTAV, Gran Turismo, or even Minecraft makes the baseline of your console more diverse, especially if its made as faithful as the PS4/XBone/PC versions. Nintendo will surely be fine with their exclusive lineup. But they'll yet again miss out on enticing a greater portion of the hardcore gamer because they sleep on 3rd party support.

 

[IanTheGamer]

Splatoon says hi.

You see, the problem with thinking like in the OP is that people believe too much in age demographics to truly enjoy themselves. That's Animation Age Ghetto logic and I vehemently oppose it. A fallback of this kind of thinking may be that Nintendo gets the best marketing output in children and adolescents because they've been conditioned that general appeal games are childish fare. They can't outreach to older gamers because of that instilled logic too.

They've done a great job appealing to older and younger audiences with MK8 and Smash 4 (BestBuy Smashfest exemplifies this in droves.) Then you have Bayonetta 2, Devil's Third, etc., that you can only get with them. Games with hyper violence, sexual content, etc., can be no more mature, or even less, than some games most consider "childish". Gears of War and DOOM create some compelling universes and gameplay scenarios with their gritty directions. Hell, even CoD and Battlefield are taken the same way and they're more tame. But doesn't the appeal of that also crutch on the young kids or the hot-blooded adults who plays the games for that, perhaps because they are insecure about their own maturity? Those low-brow regressions might as well be responsible for the existence of The Guy Game.

The real topic at hand should be why Nintendo isn't pushing for 3rd party support on big multiplats. Sure, they got CoD and most Ubisoft games down. But having big titles like GTAV, Gran Turismo, or even Minecraft makes the baseline of your console more diverse, especially if its made as faithful as the PS4/XBone/PC versions. Nintendo will surely be fine with their exclusive lineup. But they'll yet again miss out on enticing a greater portion of the hardcore gamer because they sleep on 3rd party support.

Your are actually correct, if Nintendo wasn't trying to scare off third party developers with gimmicks that they don't have the foggiest idea how to develop for, the Wii U would be doing much better

 

[Sarki Soliloquy]

I basically agree. Not sure if it's exactly gimmicks that inhibit 3rd parties though. I mean, a good portion of popular 1st party Wii U titles work great without the need of a Gamepad controller. Yet alone utilizing its capabilities.

I've also talked to people who've said things about Nintendo being one of the most cordial companies to develop for. Like, they'll pitch in to help fix a bug within a week's timing if you give it to them.

 

[finalark]

I'm going to give you a little history lesion.

I assume you're familiar with these:

Spoiler

These are comic books. At one point in time, they were one of the most popular mediums around. But then, some time around the late 80s to the early 90s, something happened. The success of more adult stories like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns caused the industry to suddenly shift towards exclusively an adult and teenage audience. However, many companies missed what made those stories so good and just vomited faux manliness onto the pages with panels upon panels filled with "badass" violence and little else (plus some really, really ugly art).

So, then what happened? Well, comics books suddenly stopped being marketed towards kids. Meaning that there was no younger generation to pick up the hobby while the teens lost interest and adults simply couldn't afford to pick up as many comics a month as the once could. With no younger generation to keep the comics flowing, the industry just crashed. Marvel filed for bankruptcy, DC nearly collapsed from financial ruin, and that's why for the entire 2000s kids wouldn't read comic books unless they were backwards and from Japan.

So what does this mean for video games? It means that if the entire video game industry stopped trying to appeal to kids we would face the possibility of crashing like the comic book industry did. Granted, I think that video games are a much more stable business than comics ever were, but simply excluding an entire new generation is far from healthy.

Besides, Nintendo's games are awesome regardless of target audience.

 

[LarsINTJ]

Nintendo has always stood for family-friendly entertainment, but I don't think they have ever marketed 'only to kids'.

 

[IanTheGamer]

There is absolutely no reason that games "targeted at kids" can't appeal to everyone, and just because games are "realistic" and have blood 'n' guts doesn't mean that they're more mature or core. Games that are cartoony and all are not inherently kid games based solely on their aesthetic.

Nintendo is having issues with the Wii U and there are definitely ways they can help that, but I don't think appealing to the markets that the PS4 and Xbox One already have covered pretty well is going to be their saving grace and I don't know why that's where people always turn as a complaint for Nintendo's consoles. They've never been big in those markets, never been good with third parties (which is where a lot of those types of genres come from), and they fared pretty well with the Wii with an overall family-friendly appeal. The problem is they lost the non-gamers of the Wii because the whole thing where everybody got a Wii was a fad and not some revolution in the gaming industry, and, at least from my perspective, they haven't done a good enough job putting solid franchise titles on the Wii U yet. They're finally starting to come, and I expect that Wii U sales will pick up particularly once we see games like Hyrule Warriors and SSB4 hit.

What I do not expect is for sales to pick up by throwing a few games into the Wii U library to appeal to the people who are perfectly content playing the consoles that are far more dedicated and intended for games of that nature.

True, Hyrule Warriors does look awesome

 

[Booster]

There is absolutely no reason that games "targeted at kids" can't appeal to everyone, and just because games are "realistic" and have blood 'n' guts doesn't mean that they're more mature or core. Games that are cartoony and all are not inherently kid games based solely on their aesthetic.

For example...Madworld

 

[HugoBoss]

Nintendo shouldn't be still censoring, that could help.

 

[IanTheGamer]

Nintendo shouldn't be still censoring, that could help.

Exactly!, Nintendo doesn't have to just be family friendly, they could also try appealing to adults a little bit as well, just look what Sony did, they marketed the PS3 to everyone and it became very successful, you had cutesy family friendly games (LittleBigPlanet and Lego games), dudebro games (Madden, FIFA, Call of Duty, etc.), games for racing fans (Need for Speed, Burnout: Paradise, Gran Turismo, Blur, Split Second , and more), you had games for core gamers (Killzone, Resistance, God of War, Uncharted, the Fallout series, inFamous, the Last of Us, and the GTA series), if Nintendo wasn't so strict about game content, the Wii U could be a very successful console

 

[Hickory]

Eventually you'll get older and all this "adult" vs. "kid" nonsense will be forgotten. I wasted a lot of time as a teenager needing things to be bloody and shooty and realistic, time that could have been spent enjoying games that were actually properly fun.

Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing and Donkey Kong are absolutely core games. They may not be what you consider grown-up games at this point in your life - which, as I said, will change - but they are core games. You can enjoy the same series as a twelve year old without feeling immasculated.

 

[finalark]

Eventually you'll get older and all this "adult" vs. "kid" nonsense will be forgotten. I wasted a lot of time as a teenager needing things to be bloody and shooty and realistic, time that could have been spent enjoying games that were actually properly fun.

Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing and Donkey Kong are absolutely core games. They may not be what you consider grown-up games at this point in your life - which, as I said, will change - but they are core games. You can enjoy the same series as a twelve year old without feeling immasculated.

Pretty much. There was a very brief point in time where I was genuinely embarrassed by my fondness for the JRPG genre simply because they weren't bleeding masculinity. Of course, I grew up and decided that I'm just going to enjoy the games that I enjoy and if anyone wants to judge me for it that's their problem.

Ironically, games that are genuinely for dedicated gaming fans like DKC Tropical Freeze or most of the Shin Megami Tensei series tend to get completely overlooked and ignored.

 

[Firus]

Eventually you'll get older and all this "adult" vs. "kid" nonsense will be forgotten. I wasted a lot of time as a teenager needing things to be bloody and shooty and realistic, time that could have been spent enjoying games that were actually properly fun.

Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing and Donkey Kong are absolutely core games. They may not be what you consider grown-up games at this point in your life - which, as I said, will change - but they are core games. You can enjoy the same series as a twelve year old without feeling immasculated.

I can imagine this is incredibly unhelpful to hear, because I know "when you get older..." rarely sounds like a compelling argument. I spent a lot of my teenage years on this forum complaining about "core" games and Nintendo's lack of them (if you search back through my posts you can probably find them, but please don't because they are incredibly embarrassing), and if anybody had said this to me I probably would've screamed. But stuff like this has mattered to me a lot less as time's gone on and I've stopped caring about pretty much anything except whether or not I enjoy a game.

 

[JusticeColde]

It's more adult and mature to figure out that being mature means not being a standard.
Being your own person with your own tastes, that's what a mature person is.

If you play GTA just because it's bloody and they swear, then you still have yet to grow-up.

 

[D-idara]

I'd answer the question, but Nintendo's not only marketing to kids at all.
I can't quite find it, but I remember a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien that went along the lines of "One day you'll be old enough to read fairy tales again" which basically means that 'mature' things are not what make people mature. There's a lot of other things that make people inmature or mature, one of the things that makes them inmature: Thinking that they're childish for feeling child-like wonders.

Nintendo has no business pandering to frat boys, dudebros or anyone on the group of people who are bringing down the gaming world.

Nintendo shouldn't be still censoring, that could help.

The people from Nintendo asked Platinum Games to skimp out Bayonetta's outfits even more for Bayonetta 1's remake, with their own character's looks, if that doesn't say something...

 

[Cheezey Bites]

See that Nintendo logo at the beginning?
See the Nintendo copyright at the end?
See the partially severed neck?

So child friendly...

 

[Gatlin]

I actually like Nintendo for that reason, lol. Most of the games I play anymore are from Nintendo; and a lot of them I play on at least a slight competitive level, including Smash and Mario Kart. While the remainder, especially Zelda series games, I enjoy playing on a casual level; and I have enjoyed playing them ever since I was like 4 or whatever and I'm 22 now. They're fun :D

 

[Zzuxon]

People like us don't need to be marketed to. We are always in the know.
Kids are different. I was in 5th grade during the pre-brawl era. It literally NEVER occurred to me to get game info online. I relied on NP.

 

[HeavyLobster]

If there is any legitimate criticism in what Nintendo's been doing in terms of games, it's that none of them target a mainstream Western audience. Note that pretty much everything post-Rare that Nintendo has done to appeal to older(T-M) audiences has been in niche Japanese genres, whether it's survival horror(Eternal Darkness, Fatal Frame), hack-and-slash(Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2), or JRPGs.(Xenoblade, Fire Emblem) Nintendo hasn't really made an effort to directly compete with popular Western games, nor has it made an effort to get them onto its platforms, preferring to focus on genres and demographics other platforms and developers overlook. As much as some of us don't care about COD, GTA, and Madden/FIFA, the market for these types of games is massive, and not catering to these tastes has hurt Nintendo as a business.

 

[Stompu]

Its like most disney movies - they're made so that kids will enjoy them and they're made to be appropriate for kids - but there are also a plethora of things that in these movies that appeal directly to the adult audience (clever jokes/references etc) and the all around story is still strong enough to stand up compared to other popular movies. I think the games do this in a similar way by having characters that kids can appreciate and gameplay that can be appreciated by everyone.

Its like how I'm equally inclined to see "The Croods" or "The Lego Movie" as much as any other new movie. I'll get "Smash Bros", "Mario Kart" and other Nintendo titles and then I'll also play TF2, League of Legends etc etc

A target audience isn't a products audience, it's the audience that the product is promoted towards. Everyone else can enjoy the product the same.

 

[finalark]

Its like most disney movies - they're made so that kids will enjoy them and they're made to be appropriate for kids - but there are also a plethora of things that in these movies that appeal directly to the adult audience (clever jokes/references etc) and the all around story is still strong enough to stand up compared to other popular movies. I think the games do this in a similar way by having characters that kids can appreciate and gameplay that can be appreciated by everyone.

This reminds me, I rewatched Lilo and Stitch about a week ago. If you took out the goofy hyjinks and aliens that movie would be entirely for adults. I mean, damn, rewatching it as an adult made me realize that it genuinely had no idea what was going on in the that film.

That's the power of treating kids with maturity and respect, folks.

 

[Stompu]

This reminds me, I rewatched Lilo and Stitch about a week ago. If you took out the goofy hyjinks and aliens that movie would be entirely for adults. I mean, damn, rewatching it as an adult made me realize that it genuinely had no idea what was going on in the that film.

That's the power of treating kids with maturity and respect, folks.

Yeah, I rewatched Toy Story a little while ago and its full of stuff like adult jokes (not like, sexual but just clever, like the Picasso joke with Mr Potato Head). At the end of the day they're not so much movies targeted to kids but targeted to families, which you can again relate to Nintendo - they make their games E for Everyone, not just for kids and not just for mature people.

 

[FirestormNeos]

>"only marketing to kids"
>bayonetta 2 coming out
>mfw

 

[finalark]

There's also the previously mentioned Fatal Frame.

People like us don't need to be marketed to. We are always in the know.
Kids are different. I was in 5th grade during the pre-brawl era. It literally NEVER occurred to me to get game info online. I relied on NP.

Pretty much this. By the time you're old enough to have your own income and make your own entertainment choices if you've been playing games your entire life you'll probably know what you like and seek out games that appeal to you on your own. But when you're a kid, you pretty much have to rely entirely off of word of mouth, game magazines and box art to find games you like. Well, at least I did when I was a kid since I thought that the internet was just some boring thing for adults until I was in middle school (plus my parents had dial-up until around 2005 anyway). Not sure how it is these days given how wired into the net everyone is, even kids.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Nintendo likes to game on little children, however gets the most satisfaction when little children game on them.

 

[Zelbertoad]

Not sure how it is these days given how wired into the net everyone is, even kids.

The kids are off being console fanboys online somewhere and/or screaming profanities when playing COD.

There's also Devil's Third coming out for the Wii U. It looks like an interesting shooter.

I agree that kids need to be marketed to more than adults. It makes more sense for these reasons.

It works out for Nintendo since they stand out to parents for having family friendly commercials on TV as opposed to violent or "mature" commercials for games meant for older audiences.

Plus kids have more money to spend on games anyway. They don't need to work and spend money to make a living.

Also if you get kids to be loyal to your brand, they might want to buy your games when they are teenagers and adults.

Although, ironically kids tend to want to "grow up" quickly which leads them to tricking their clueless parents into buying M rated games for them.

Their strategy for marketing mostly to kids has been working out for them in the long run. The Wii U had trouble selling because it failed to release with lots of good games and the name confused the parents.

 

[Booster]

See that Nintendo logo at the beginning?
See the Nintendo copyright at the end?
See the partially severed neck?

So child friendly...

Doesn't count, that game is only going to be in Japan. What DOES count though is Bayonetta 2.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Nope. ~ Mic