The introduction of the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox launched a new era in the video game market. Both consoles featured “lapsed” games that frequently spanned over forty hours of play and were known to be thought provoking and entrenched with strategy. These systems were primarily aimed at adult males, ages 18-24, who had grown out of the traditional “casual games” offered by Nintendo and Sega. This strategy proved very successful for both companies, especially Sony’s PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2.
Today, this niche market appears to be losing its edge; both Sony and Microsoft have been targeting the same audience for years and have effectively alienated a wider potential audience. The past console successes have ignored both the older population as well as women when marketing their products. More specifically women, both teenage and older, have frequently been ignored by video game giants as their interest in this industry has been underestimated and they have never been seen as a large potential source of revenue.
However, Nintendo appears to have realized this shift in target market and has successfully created a product that attracts a wide range of fans. The Wii has begun to gain back an audience of adults who played Nintendo as children; this market has become tired of the intense, strategy devoted games of Sony and Microsoft. In addition, Nintendo is also trying to appeal the women and older gamers historically alienated from the industry. The Wii promises “casual games” that are much shorter in length and aimed at a much larger audience, as is evident in their current marketing campaign and television commercials.
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The female population seems to have been severely underestimated, “Perhaps the most surprising statistic is that while 82 percent of games are bought by or for men, the total console gaming audience is actually 43 percent female and 57 percent male.”
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