Hollis: Nintendo isn't putting any energy into WiiWare

From Games Industry Biz:

Zoonami founder Martin Hollis has told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes Nintendo has not sufficiently promoted its Wii Ware download service.

Speaking ahead of his talk at this week's GameCity event, Hollis remarked that the download market had instead been cornered by the iPhone.

"Apple have had such massive success in capturing media attention - they've sucked all of the air out of it," he said. "I don't know that Nintendo's putting a great deal of energy into trying to generate PR for Wii Ware or D Si Ware."

edited 25th Oct '10 7:37:18 AM by JAF1970

Okay.

Ya.

Well, it's true that I don't remember ever seeing any TV commercials for Wiiware games...

Yeah, most of the good Wii Ware games are pretty much a niche thing.

That's very nice.

"Apple have had such massive success in capturing media attention"

That just means the media pays attention. If the media had as much effect on gaming, Wii would flop, and Okami would have sold 5 million.

I think this is because of Nintendo's over cautiousness regarding the internet. Nintendo have always seemed to be somewhat cautious about new tech. Remember back in the day they were the last company to adopt optical discs over cartridges? Even the Wii itself is arguably conservative in some ways (hardware) while being innovative in others (the control scheme). It shouldn't be much of a surprise that they are reluctant to fully embrace the internet as a new distribution channel. They just don't really think of digital distribution as any serious priority... certainly not during this generation anyway.

Okey-dokey then

"I think this is because of Nintendo's over cautiousness regarding the internet. Nintendo have always seemed to be somewhat cautious about new tech."

Internet not new tech for them. Famicom, Super Famicom, and Gamecube have Internet.

Nintendo very aggressive with Internet in Japan, but some reason not carry over outside Japan.

^ The problem is, not only does Nintendo do very little to promote the internet functionality on their consoles (outside of when they're first launched, maybe) they usually make you jump through all sorts of hoops to actually *use* the services (IE internet functionality for the Wii—you have to collect friends numbers for everyone, and you can't communicate with each other in a lot of games, etc etc...) I know people complain about the 360 charging for their internet service but in my experience X Box Live and the XBLA are both way more useful than the Nintendo counterparts. (And I'm a Nintendo fangirl, so it's painful to say that.)

They do promote, quite aggressively. But only in Japan.

Well, that only solves a fourth of the problem if they're still not promoting elsewhere and their service isn't that great in the first place.