Nintendo: Cultivating Complements

Peanut butter is to jelly as the Wii is to... well, video games, of course. We are talking complements here. It comes as no surprise that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo is "pushing to increase the number of Wii videogames made by outside publishers, including combat and sports titles that target serious players." The Wii has been a fabulous success, but some observers have worried that the system will run out of steam if Nintendo is not able to cultivate a more diverse array of titles. Many Wii consumers (includin our family) actually own and play a very limited number of games. The concern is that such users may eventually get bored with these games. The key to long term sustainable success is to continue to build more diverse games, including some that are for use with new hardware attachments. Thus, the push to cultivate more complements (i.e. games from outside publishers) makes a great deal of sense.

One note of concern though... the quote above from the Wall Street Journal suggests a push to create combat games for more serious players. What will these combat games be like? One reason that many families purchased the Wii instead of Sony or Microsoft is the fact that Wii games tended to be more family friendly. A push to move more aggressively into combat games enjoyed by hard-core gamers could turn off the core family casual gamers that Nintendo has had so much success selling to over the past few years.