Luke's Wii Debate

[Luke]

Hello Racketeers.

Long story short: A friend of mine (who is a lawyer and loves to debate/argue) and I had a discussion about the launch of the Wii. He says that the Wii was targeted towards Women, and I say the Wii was targeted at increasing purchases from casual gamers.

Now here's the issue, women can be casual gamers, but not every casual gamer is a woman. My lawyer buddy has plenty of stats that show that the percentage of female gamers has grown exponentially since the Wii was released, and that Wii Fit owners are more likely to be female, which supports his theory. That in mind, I don't think the Wii was made specifically to attract women who previously despised video games as he does.

So, is there any documentation of Wii Creators, Programmers, Designers, Developers, or Marketers stating either the Wii was designed for Women (not "with women in mind") or Casual Gamers?

And as always, share your personal thoughts as well.

Thanks-Luke

[noiseredux]

thinking about when it launched, I don't think it was aimed at women specifically.

[CRTGAMER]

Not at women, but to sell to a larger traditionally non gamer audience. One of the Nintendo TV ads shows Grandpa bowling with a Wii Remote. I voted Casual gamers, but the Wii does have intense games as well. I think it was genius to expand on the Eye Toy concept and come up with motion Controls to reel in the non gamer. The idea of swinging a golf club or baseball bat more natural to one that does not play games. I was not a big fan of Motion Controls until I discovered how accurate it is in FPS and Rail "Light Gun" games.

[Erik_Twice]

My lawyer buddy has plenty of stats that show that the percentage of female gamers has grown exponentially since the Wii was released, and that Wii Fit owners are more likely to be female, which supports his theory.

I disagree quite strongly, that many female gamers liked the Wii or bought the Wii doesn't mean that the console itself was targeted towards women.


It was just targeted towards a casual audience. The social focus, simplistic gameplay, videos of "average people" playing, grandpas and grandmas playing, explaining how Zelda works...All points to a casual audience. There's nothing pointing out a pandering towards women in particular.

[irixith]

The Wii wasn't targeted towards the overused "casual" audience, nor was it targeted towards women.

It was targeted at towards people that are (or were) "non gamers". A lot of those people happened to be women, as we are traditionally under-served in an arena filled with shooters and misogyny. There are only so many hidden object, match 3, sudoku and cute kitchen time management games you can take before you realize you can demand better!

The Wii certainly accomplished the goal of expanding the potential market, but I believe it's ultimately failed on expanding it permanently. Smartphones is where most of them have ended up, and who can blame them? You probably own one anyway, and the games are dirt cheap.

[isiolia]

What I've seen from interviews with Nintendo is that they intended to go after new and casual gamers with the Wii. Over time, they seem to have admitted more that, in doing so, they may have missed the core gamer market a bit.

In a sense, by targeting casual gamers a bit, they were targeting women. According to research around that time, women would have been ~70%, maybe a little more, of that particular audience.

That said, Nintendo's stated goal earlier on was to make a console for everyone. Obviously, it's marketing, that's what Reggie's experience is in. Even if they were targeting women more, they wouldn't say that. Still, targeting "everyone" is a more logical business goal.


IMO, placing any rise in female/casual gaming solely on the Wii would be misplaced. It hit in late 2006 - but 2007 saw things like the launch of Zynga, and the iPhone...if you mention casual games, in 2011, are people thinking Wii Sports, or are they thinking Angry Birds and Farmville? There's a definite rise in casual gaming, but the Wii is only part of it - and probably a minor part next to smartphones and Facebook games.

[Pulsar_t]

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2006/11/n ... t-for.html



UKR settled this debate almost five years ago

[BoringSupreez]

The Wii is aimed towards casual gamers, rather than women in particular.

[Hatta]

All I know is that women love playing with my Wii.

[Luke]

Thanks for the input.

Does anyone have documentation (from Nintendo) stating who the target audience is/was?