During Nintendo's recent Financial Results Briefing, president Satoru Iwata explained that the company was hoping to maintain the commercial momentum of its ageing 3DS system in Japan by targeting female players.
We've already seen the likes of Girls Mode / Style Savvy and Animal Crossing: New Leaf draw in female gamers, and Nintendo's strategy will no doubt be aided by Happinet's announcement of Nico ☆ Petit Girls Runway.
Based on kids fashion magazine Nico ☆ Petit - a spin-off of the full-blown Nicola magazine - the game will be packed with fashion brands and will allow players to get a feel for what it's really like being a model on a catwalk. We're guessing that the catty back-stabbing, dangerous crash diets and skeletal frames will be omitted, but that all-important vacuous self-centred feeling should hopefully remain intact.
It's scheduled for as Winter launch in Japan, and there's no word on whether or not it will recieve a Western release. You can check out the official site here, and the first trailer is below.
[source girlsrunway.happinet-games.com, via gonintendo.com]
Comments 9
Wow clickbait, came here expecting Zoolander, I got NOT Zoolander instead! you people have betrayed a lot of innocent children today >:C
What a very disappointing trailer to see but I guess that's fine. I don't want to see a cool game we won't see outside of Japan.
I caught my reflection in a spoon and thought to myself: wow you're ridiculously good looking!
@Trike_Pike IKR? does a Magnum
Zoolander should be made into a game!
Or as a character in Smash Bros, those blue steel look can be the ultimate power: like Medusa, turning people to stone.
@Ichiban There has to be more to life than being really, really ridiculously good looking.
That Blue Steel though.
@Trike_Pike Same here. My day has been completely ruined! Thanks Nintendo Life
The eshop/retail Girls Fashion Shoot 3DS game was originally named Nicola Kanshuu: Model * Oshare Audition 2 in Japanese. There is probably a connection between that game and the full-blown Nicola magazine. However, Girls Fashion Shoot was developed by Alchemist and this newly announced Nico Petit Girls Runway is developed by Happinet so I'm not sure if both games relate to each other in any way other than being from the Nicola brand. Being that it features actual Japanese brands, I doubt Nico Petit 3DS will make its way outside Japan. But there's still the option for a Girls Fashion Shoot 2 (Rising Star Games, I'm looking in your direction!) plus we better get Style Savvy 3, or else.
Somehow I'm not entirely sure girly games are the way to interest female gamers. I can believe there's a market for this stuff that makes them worth making (just about believe anyway). Isn't it more the culture of gaming rather than the game type? There is quite a bit of sexualisation of female characters from Japan and that has some cultural bias that really doesn't sit well with a western (female) audience. It doesn't bother me that much because I avoid those games or just mock them. I can be quite happy with platformers, shooters, puzzlers. Games designed specifically to suit a female audience sound like a nightmare of nauseating and trite quasi-spiritual "this is a good way to live your life" platitudes, drowning in pink ribbons and glitter. They are really not appealing at all. Just make a good game. And please, no more animal sims.
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