Topic: Should Nintendo Drop The Family Focus?

It's been a big aspect of the Nintendo brand for years but does focusing on a family friendly experience still serve them well?

Rivals like Sony and Microsoft have found great success with a more adult approach to their gaming ethics. Their products feel better aimed towards the (big spending) adult market with explosive trailers showing before movies, deeper online functionality and a "for the gamers" ethos. I'm willing to bet that, due to more suitable exposure, a lot of non-gaming adults are more familiar with current Sony and Microsoft brands than they are of current Nintendo ones. People know the likes of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, yet perhaps wouldn't be able to identify Yoshi or even Link. And as we all know, popularity often brings in profits as a result.

Yet Sony and Microsoft still have a fair share of younger consumers, even with the more adult image, their games are still considered 'fun' for kids. It's almost like they consider gaming to be an interest for all ages while Nintendo, at times, feel a little old fashioned when they put the focus on family alone. It's certainly helped them carve out a niche in the market in the past but moving on, with the NX, should it be dropped? Should they be looking to include adults with a year long disposable income in addition to the kids whose parents may only buy games on Christmases and Birthdays? Do any older gamers feel at odds with a child friendly Nintendo?

Note: I'm not talking actual games, I think there is always room for cute platformers alongside gritty shooters, but aspects like The Cat Mario Show, grinning kids and boy bands in the commercials, Nintendo magazines including stickers and sweets with each issue, Amiibo figures replacing paid for DLC, the limiting of online functions to protect users etc.

I think nintendo should lower the family focus but not drop it entirely(especially for commercials which I think they need a balance between family focused and "core" gamers commercials.). Also I do not count amiibo as a product geared to families but more geared to collectors.

I assume this is a UK-only thing? I want stickers. Sweets in the mail sound kind of cool but probably gross in reality.

Nintendo probably isn't doing its older gamers a service by pretending they're not there, for sure. But seeing as "mature" seems to go hand-in-hand with "top-down corporate approach to game-making," I'm not really sure it'd be that great in reality. Stuff like fancy trailers mean bigger budgets and bigger budgets mean less risk is possible. (Although I guess you could argue Nintendo isn't much for risk taking these days anyway).

It just seems like if they were to truly "grow up" their brand, it'd probably look like they were trying to be Sony and would overall make them look worse in the market. I think the fact that they're dipping their toes into courting more "mature" indies on their consoles is a good first step toward remembering that there are gamers with more adult tastes. I can understand how that might not seem like enough if you're in the demographic being overlooked, though.

Maybe I'm way off base though. I'm technically an adult, but I tend to fall in the "wants stickers in the mail" demographic.

Do we need another Microsoft/Sony console?

They just need a balance. That's all

The question wasn't talking about the games or the system but more about how Nintendo advertises themselves

Interesting question. I don't know but I know it's going to be intriguing to see how Nintendo evolves from here on out.

I didn't mention games.

Sony and Microsoft advertise their consoles to adults. Thread starter wants them to drop the kids approach and target adult gamers. My question still stands.

Well....There's Metroid, Fire Emblem and Zelda for that right? Also doesn't Uprising have matured content in it?

The problem isn't really the market Nintendo is focusing on. The real problem is the IP themselves. Whenever Nintendo makes IP, they always try to use that IP to appeal to all ages. A game like FE:A isn't going to appeal to a young audience but it does appeal to casual gamers. They want their IP to be played by everyone and I respect that honestly. A guy like me should be able to experience a game like Fire Emblem instead of only realizing that I'm not "Hardcore" enough to play the game.

There are so many IP's that Nintendo has but besides cameos, they don't do anything with them because the fanbase for those games are so small. F-Zero doesn't have a huge fanbase like Mario Kart so the reason as to why its taking so long for F-Zero to be revived. Pit came back not because of the demand of the fans, but because Sakurai-San felt that the gameplay fits the character.

I don't see the benefit of voice chat really. if there's bound to be cursing online, Nintendo would have to pay attention to several hosts just to ban someone who swore.
Seeing as how Miiverse is strict on what you post there, there's going to be complaints that the cursing has to be allowed like how the others do. If many gamers would have the option to turn off the voice chat, then its only satisfying the ones who want it which is so little.

They should never lose the family focus but they need to realise that kids want to be adults and most gamers don't want to be seen buying juvenile games. Their recent output has been aimed at such a young audience that most kids think it's too young for them. The Wii U had the ability to make HD avatars from photos to show it was a step up from Wii but they only used the camera to make the same Miis from 2006. In 2009 it seemed impossible that Nintendo would mess up so badly with Wii U. There were probably 50,000,000 Wii owning kids that would have grown up with Nintendo but they got drawn to bigger more exciting platforms while Nintendo drip fed some of their lowest quality console games of all time (and some of the best which were released without any fanfare). A GTAV capable PS360 clone in 2010 would have sold much better than Wii U.

Like others have said, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo evolves. There's no reason they can't be a gaming powerhouse for years to come. They've got all the money and IP they need. They have excellent hardware people and we're nearly at a point where cheap hardware has too much power for developers to make the most of.

I kind of hope NX is a platform which includes a smartphone. All I want is a 480p Nintendo handheld (like a GBA that plays Wii U quality games) with a reliable phone attached. Advance Wars or Fire Emblem on a commute would solve 99% of commuter rage. After all, nearly every child has a smart phone pacifier with terrible games to play. They deserve Mario!!!

Nintendo's problem isn't that they focus heavy on a family-friendly image, it's that they don't take mature content very seriously, if at all.

Yeah, I doubt adult-oriented content from Nintendo will ever match the success of their family-friendly content, but you know what? They'd at least do better if Nintendo actually put effort into promoting them

I just hope they keep making games that fits any age really.
As long as they are good.

@Artwark: All of Nintendo IPs are fine, its how they market the IPs. Nintendo says they are for all ages yet they market them to children.Nintendo problem is not the games but how they advertise/present their games and themselves.

ALSO: Nintendo refuses to advertise games that don't fit their "family friendly views". Bayonetta honestly could of used more push in the market and we already know Fatal frame & Devil third wont get much if any mainstream(like on TV) advertisement. I honestly doubt they will push XCX as hard as they would push their core IPs like mario or zelda(Though XCX has alot more advertising then I thought it originally would).

This is why everyone says nintendo only has "kiddie" games because the "not kiddie" games nintendo has no one knows about.

I'm not quite sure I agree - Sony and Microsoft are way too entrenched as the "adult" systems at this point for the market to ever open up to Nintendo, unless either company drops the ball, hard, and even that then relies on Nintendo being ready to strike before they're able to recover. Having said this, I do agree with you on some points- diversifying advertising to appeal to a broader range of people is always a good thing, and with advertisements like Splatoon's really clever Shibuya advert appearing on prime time TV around the time of the game's release; Nintendo UK at least seems to get that an advertisement which appeals to a wide range of people is better than appealing solely to kids or solely to parents. As for more robust online - excluding arguments about voice chat or game-specific Netcode (Smash being a popular one due to its incredibly finnicky netcode), I'd say Nintendo has achieved this. It's highly situational, and my personal experience is hardly the perfect litmus test, but Nintendo's free online services have been more stable for myself than the PSN - the PSN I pay forty quid a year for, might I add.

As for the more whimsical stuff like having cat puppets host a show about games or packaging their official magazine with posters, stickers and candy? I'm totally down for that. Even as an adult, I am completely down for all of that. I'd be quite happy if they still published said magazine, since I actually kind of miss getting a magazine that was 100% Nintendo coverage in the post every single month; and any alternatives either don't have enough Nintendo coverage to justify the monthly cover price (GamesTM, EDGE and Gamesmaster have very lacking coverage) or are aimed at younger children, like Pocket World. That may, of course, be because most gamers over a certain age instead rely on sites like NintendoLife for their gaming coverage; but it does not explain how the multiformat equivalents listed above are still going relatively strong.

I don't think marketing is really the issue here. If the marketing was so bad that they seriously need to improve on it, then sales wise, FE: A wouldn't have sold well. I think the main issue like I said is the IP's that Nintendo has. Its more like how to market casual gamers to F-Zero? or how to market Kirby to hardcore platform gamers?

@Artwark: Fire emblem is a nintendo IP and nintendo did have a huge successful push for it(Mostly because nintendo basically said if this fire emblem doesn't sell there would be no more fire emblems so that in my opinion must of been a factor for the big push)

I am saying nintendo is horrible at marketing games like fatal frame and devil third which are not nintendo core IPs, also 99% of all of nintendo advertisements are targeted to families/children which I don't think should be nintendo main focused(Like others said before there should be a balance). Also Kirby is not and never was supposed to be a hardcore platformer so that should be advertised to families and thats OK, nintendo needs a diversity of games and push their diverse games.

Also to advertise F-Zero to "families" nintendo needs to first...MAKE a F-Zero game(plus most racing games can be easily to advertise to both "casuals" and "Hardcore" at the same time)

Basically we're talking about market share. I think people are tripping over a common but highly intelligent marketing tactic. In the old days, commercials showed and focused solely on the product. Today we're spoon-feed desires. We'll see Nintendo commercials aimed directly at parents. They're not selling the Wii-U to these parents, they're selling the experience of happy engaged family members interacting with each other while using the Wii-U. This has been the traditional market for this toy/game manufacturer. If they went towards a more "mature/violent" audience they would be at risk of losing customers. Nintendo's biggest problem isn't Sony or Microsoft. Their problem is they're more in competition with the tablet market. Most parents are going to know what an iPad is, the social status, the $0.99 apps for everything, etc. The stationary Wii-U has an uphill battle with the portability, social status and staggering catalog of cheap software these devices can run. While Nintendo can attempt to insert themselves into the mature content market, we all know it's the "family-friendly" titles like Mario Kart, Wii-U Sports, etc that sells these systems. The other important fact here is there's no clear winner in the "mature-content" marketing of the PS4 and Xbox One. Most sales have been driven not on mature content but hardware specs, frames per second and fan-boy-ism. I can't think of any PS4/Xbox One mature title that would have me dropping $500 on either system. In a year or two this might change, but like any "new" console, they're both starting off slow.

Which is why I said they can do BOTH at the same time, while at first the 360 wasnt the biggest seller....at the end of the last gen life the 360/ps3 dominated because kids wanted more bigger and loud experiences. Nintendo needs to PROVE that they can offer both.

By you saying that nintendo shouldn't even try to go after the mature crowd(That doesn't mean leave the family crowd), you admit that nintendo shouldnt even try to get games like beyonetta or fatal frame anymore. Your mentality is the same as nintendo mentality and it frustrates alot of us who wants games like fatal frame, XCX and devil third to do well. That mentality is why third party refuses to put their games on nintendo. That mentality is why Metroid prime games were not big sellers and probably why nintendo hasn't tried a new one.

I don't really think they need to drop the "family" focus they just need to appeal to a wider audience like others said. It gives them a bad image in a way because they treat their fanbase like 4 year old children and thats really a dumb move considering how small and uninterested it's getting. They need to broaden their player base more with more "everybody/age" games and maybe even some hardcore games too. They need to grow up themselves in a way.

Nintendo couldn't drop the family focus even if they wanted to. Nintendo is so tied to the "Family First" mindset, that hearing "The new hardcore game from Nintendo" is like hearing "The new horror movie from Disney".