The Virtual Console and snatching up non-gamers

**Spiral** · #1 (**permalink**) 05-23-2006, 09:14 AM

hi
Lots of us know these non-gamers, usually, their either females, or our middle aged parents. Nintendo's number-one objective with it's new direction, is to open up a new market for developers to explore and create for. Out of this new direction of course came the Wii, a system, as far as I'm concerned, proved that it's abstract approach to gaming WILL WORK with non-gamers at E3. Big N. broke down the controller barrier pretty well with it's remote. There's simply nothing more intuitive than smacking a tennis ball around, just as one would literally smack a tennis ball around. THAT'S, breaking down a barrier. But this is only half the battle.

The other half of the battle is getting non-gamers to play the games. This is where the Virtual Console come in, in my mind. Non-gamers don't hang around EB-games. Non-gamers don't like to talk about games. They don't read gaming magazines, and they don't care about sequels to games they have no connection to.

The best way to reach the non-gamer is through the internet, plain and simple. Non-gamers aren't going to head over to their local EB to pick up a game. They're unfamiliar with such a store, and probably wouldn't ever find time to do it. Furthermore, there's no way to advertise to non-gamers through traditional means. You simply can't make a game like Tennis look cool just by showing a 30 second television clip. They have to try the game in their own home. They have to download it. Just like they download a song on I-tunes. This is the future. This is the only way Nintendo can reach it's new market.

The Virtual Console, as far as I'm concerned, should be less about old school titles (even though I do appreciate not having to download anymore crappy ROMS), and more about new school titles. Nintendo should be completely open to indie titles, and push to get more indie titles out on the system.

These games don't have to be (and shouldn't be) complicated or technically impressive. These games should be almost pointless, like Nintendo's Tennis game. There's really no other goal to play the game other than to win against your opponents. That, my friends, is the simplest form of game play. We as hardcore gamers, have an interesting perspective on this. We play games almost as if it's a sport, or something akin to reading a book. We have to get beyond that perspective to attract non-gamers to the industry. When one plays tag, one isn't worried about how many times you've won, or what your statistics are. You just play to kill time. That is what non-gamers will play games for, simply to kill time with friends, and for no other reason.

So ummm, with that, I guess the question is, what role do you think the Virtual Console will play in Nintendo's bid to attract non-gamers.?

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