Nintendo hires marketer to help sell Wii games
Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 3:11am by Derek
The most successful video game company on the planet has hired a company to help them sell video games.
Irony doesn’t get much more ironic than that.
On the Feb. 9 episode of IGN’s Nintendo Voice Chat podcast, IGN editor Daemon Hatfield claims Nintendo has hired a San Francisco marketing firm to help the Kyoto-based juggernaut sell Wii games.
“I met someone over the weekend who works for a marketing firm in (San Francisco), and Nintendo is one of their clients,” says Hatfield 47 minutes into the show.
“He told me…Nintendo is hiring them to figure out how to sell more games to Wii owners. Nintendo is saying Wii owners are not buying many games; they’re just playing Wii Sports.”
According to Nov. 2008 research conducted by Gamasutra, Wii has the second-best software attach-rate among current-gen consoles, averaging 5.5 game purchases per Wii purchase. Between two and three of those games are first-party Nintendo titles, on average.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has a leading attach-rate of eight games per system purchase, and Sony’s PlayStation 3 trails Wii with 5.3.
(Note: This article was originally published Tuesday on Kombo, but I thought you folks might be interested. Infendo has some of the most active discussions on the Web — congratulations. Your thoughts?)
February 13th, 2009 at 5:23 am
I can’t wait to see what comes of this. Nintendo is still topping the NPD charts and I haven’t seen a Nintendo commercial in a while. They’re probably realizing that if they can convice every Wii owner to buy just 1 more game, their profit skyrockets.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:05 am
It’s a hard argument this.
On one hand Nintendo games are constantly top of all week/month/yearly releases.
On the other hand not every Wii owner is buying games.
But like Craig says, if those millions of Wii owners buy just 1 extra game then it’s a lot more cash.
How much involvement does this SF company have? Are they just putting together a few surveys or are they doing more?
February 13th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Attach rates are useless when one console is totally dominating another. If every console was equal, attach rates might matter. But they aren’t.
Int eh earlier parts of DS and PSP, the PSP had a higher attach rate by one or so. But the DS outsold it by 10 million.
It’s a totally useless stat and only serves as a marker for a stupid director of a third party should he or she ever utter it.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Tip one, put advertisements on TV. Look, and this is a message for every, publisher developer etc., we who visit game sites are in the minority big sales come from mainstream advertising. See Okami on PS2.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:00 am
@Jeff I totally agree. People have stated that a console’s attach rate is useful when the console is first released because it lets the publishers know how big of a profit they can make. Later in the console’s lifecycle it almost becomes a bad thing.
A higher attach rate later in the lifecycle essentially means that the console’s install base isn’t growing. When you buy a console you’re going to probably buy 1-3 games. Over the console’s lifecycle you’ll buy more and more games bringing up the attach rate. However, if new gamers buy the console and buy 1-3 games then the attach rate goes down. If gamers stop buying consoles the attach rate goes up.
A low attach rate for the Wii just means that the console is continuing to sell. The other consoles’ high attach rate means consoles aren’t being sold as much, or the gamers buying these consoles are somehow buying 6-8 games along with their purchase, or existing gamers have 15-20 games to offset the initial 1-3 games purchased.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:44 am
This is a “non-story”. I also heard that Nintendo hired a couple new developers this year to help make games as well.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
yup- attach rates aside, nintendo is complaining that wii gamers don’t buy enough. i think that’s prob pretty accurate. the blue ocean is happy with a few diversions. this is why i wonder how hard it will be to get blue oceaners to upgrade to wii2 next gen.
February 13th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
More money for Nintendo then.
February 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I THINK THE SAME When you buy a console you’re going to probably buy 1-3 games.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
HajigamaWHAT!!!!!?? They- But- Most consoles sold- Great games- Discontinued ads- Crappy opponent commercials- But Granny said- I told Natalie that- HUH?!?!?