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Nintendo's Long Tail

The Long Tail  is a theory that suggests a significant amount of money lies in niche markets, and smart companies of today are investigating ways to access those niche markets.

I think Nintendo is a smart company.

This isn't a solid thought, but I've never been a solid thinker, so take this all with a grain of salt -- it's categorized as rumour for a reason.  It just smacked me in the face this morning and I think it's a worthwhile discussion.

Lets face it, Sony dominates the game market.  To a large degree, Sony created the current game market.  Nintendo saved it in the mid-eighties and helped people accept games, but in the mid-nineties Sony opened the doors to people who wouldn't otherwise bother.  I think playing CDs exposed a lot of people to the market that wouldn't otherwise have bothered, and using optical media instead of cartridges was excellent.

Microsoft is going to give Sony a run for their money this generation.  XBox Live bought MS a lot of credibility.  A couple of decades ago Bill Gates started Microsoft with the vision "a computer on every desk and in every home" and he's very nearly reached that point.  XBox 360's integration with XP Media Edition and streaming video and all that jazz (and oh yeah, video games) is going to lure some people away from the PS3.

Nintendo has spent two generations being relegated to the sidelines with their home consoles.  The GameCube was far more succesful than the N64, but still, Nintendo's been hearing for a decade how lame they are and they've been told in their numbers that, while profitable and rock solid, they don't dominate the market any more.

Twenty years ago Nintendo saw that a flood of crappy games was ruining the industry, and instituted the Nintendo Seal of Quality and other practices to ensure that people who purchased games for their systems were at least getting something that worked.  Lately Nintendo has been saying that they don't really like the direction gaming has taken.  Huge and increasing budgets for major titles that dominate the market but aren't really fun.  Publishers sinking millions upon millions of dollars into one title that needs to succeed or everyone involved loses their clothes and walks home in barrels.  Development companies that devote 30 - 80 people for three years (and for 80 hours per week or more) to produce one title that gets an 8.5, the same as every other title, and ultimately doesn't add anything new to the field.

Miyamoto talks about things that might not be games  but that might appeal to a wider audience.  Using the DS to compete with seven friends to study for your tests, a little Japanese to English and Back translator, a pet dog, visual toys that form llamas given the right stimulus.  Since Christmas, everything that's come from Nintendo has talked about attracting non-gamers, about parents walking past their kids who are playing and say "hey, that looks like fun" and tries for a few seconds before returning to other obligations.  Or sticking around and playing for another decade.

And then Nintendo announces that they'll be working on making their back catalog available.  Miyamoto doesn't know which games they'll make available, but everything can run.  I can pretty much guarantee that the chance to play Dr. Mario on a big screen is going to sell my father a Revolution.  Admittedly he's not necessarily your typical approaching 60-year old (he bought us our Intellivision and I'm convinced that it being "for the kids" was never an excuse he had to use) but instant access to a library that size is a compelling reason for a great many people.

For years people have been ripping off Nintendo's intellectual property.  This past Christmas saw kiosks in every mall in North America filled with fake N64 controllers containing emulators with a library of older games, and they sold well.  Nintendo emulators and ROMs have been available online for ages.  There's an obvious demand there, and finally Nintendo's woken up and said "Hey, we want some of that."

And of course the press release for the Revolution with the hints at indie development.  Everything Iwata and Miyamoto and Reggie and everyone else speaking for Nintendo has said involves a comment that developing for the Revolution will be as easy as developing for the GameCube, and while I have no idea how easy that is, I know that there's a lot of knowledge out there.

Nintendo looks to be taking advantage of the long tail in a couple of ways.  By making their library available they're going to sell to people who want to play games from their youth (or as in my dad's case from their childrens' youth) and once there's a Revolution in the house they'll sell to the curious.  I can think of dozens of titles I'd drop $5 to rent for a weekend or $10 or even $20 to keep on a memory card for whenever I want to play it.  So what if they only sell a couple hundred copies of Super Mario Brothers 2 (though they'd sell more), at this point it's all profit. 

On the other side of the coin, there are reams of indepependant developers out there who just can't write a console game.  And I don't even mean someone sitting at home banging away on their keyboard.  There are hundreds of small companies writing games for cell phones and online puzzle aggregator sites and releasing titles as shareware or selling online.  There's a huge industry out there that is entirely niche.  If Nintendo opens their console to these companies they don't need EA or Konami (though, you know, it would be nice).  And if Nintendo builds a distribution network, then they make it even easier for these companies to deliver their software.

There's a long tail of consumers and a long tail of producers, and I think that next year Nintendo is going to introduce the two to each other in an entirely new way.

Posted by in Rumors |

Comments

Karmakin

You're probably right there. I suspect what will eventually happen will be an iTunes type service or something like it (iNintendo?) where you pay so much, and it's downloaded to the flash memory built into the Revoluiton (512 built in. Not too shabby to be honest, and it's expandable)

Now here's the fun part. From what i'm hearing, Nintendo might open the door to wanna-be game makers to have their games going through their service. Plus, this may come with help for starting to program for the various "levels". Even the GameCube/Revolution level (It's stated that it's basically the same programming base, which is good)

So, could I see kids making 8 and 16-bit games, some companies releasing some pretty spectacular small puzzle games, and so on. It would follow the PC casual gaming market, I would suspect. And that could entice a lot of people.

And by creating a climate where creators DO NOT have to charge (there's the option, but they don't), and they can create demo versions and the like and put them over the network. Hell, and the old game companies can put their stuff up as promo as well. (For example, say if Capcom offers Megaman as a free download when they put the rest of the Megaman games up on the network/new Megaman game for the Revolution)

You might even see some freeware projects being created, just for the fame.

But yeah, Nintendo sees the long tail and they are shooting for it.

Posted by: Karmakin | May 21, 2005 at 11:00 AM

Phil Boardman

Yeah, more games = more fun.
Most of the "new" games take so long to learn and play. I love the games you don't even need to ask the buttons for.

Posted by: Phil Boardman | May 24, 2005 at 05:43 PM

Theodore Wheeland

Thank you so much for articulating that thought. I've felt similar sentiment, but did not know how to organize my complaints into something constructive. I'm only 18 so I'm definitely not old nor have I followed the "politics" or "internal affairs" of gaming for very long but I used to get a subscription to PC Gaming World and I would follow games in the mainstream print media (ie Newsweek, US News and World Report, Time) and more recently online news sources or blogs.

When I hear the fans, the game developers, and especially the game pundits (ie game writers, editors, journalists) critique the game industry it comes down to, correct me if I'm wrong or have missed some, cost of game development, cost of game software as a product, cost of hardware (both PC and console), lack of innovation, and most importantly, the one that every "interactive entertainment" (the new politically correct lingo) CEO wants to solve, the inablity to bring in a wider audience (ie girly girls, females in general, social butterflys, the elderly, baby boomers.) In my eyes I see two trends that seem to be gaining traction at solving these vexing problems: the long tail previously described and new game interfaces and their corresponding new game models.

I'm now out of high school but as of a few weeks ago, I can recall coming into the school library before 1st period. When I saw every computer occupied with an absorbed student I assumed the zombied-out kids had been up late like myself writing term papers and studying for finals. When I walked over I saw they most were addicting games dot com playing what appeared to be flash based games for free. Some were playing billiards online against one another while others were playing simple MMORPGs while others yet were playing new arcade like games that looked very fun.

I remember the first time I heard of long tail. It was after I had seen Jonathan Harris's WORD COUNT so visually it made sense to me. ( Here's a blog devoted to long tail and here's the Wired Article that coined the term.) I never would have thought of applying longtail to interactive enterainment (i know that term sounds weird but I don't want to exclude my next point with limiting terms like video games)

"It would follow the PC casual gaming market, I would suspect" (Karmakin.) This connecting of the longtail with the console market would be a huge leap forward. Having an active "indie" game developers community connected to an eager-for-something-new consumer base would be brilliant.

The next trend that seems to be bringing innovation into the game space is new game interfaces coupled with their ingenious new game genres. I can remember a while back reading the Emerging Technologies section in Discover Magazine. The article was titled The Anti-Video Game. The article explained The Journey to Wild Divine a video game based on exploiting the possibilities of unconventional interfaces.

Here's an excerpt:

"...Playing Wild Divine involves exploring a lush 3-D world with waterfalls, elaborate gardens, spiritual guides, and a menagerie of grazing llamas and white wolves. The pace is reminiscent of the pioneering game Myst: slow and entirely free of violence. Solving puzzles or passing special tests allows you to enter new areas. A narrative begins to develop, although following the plot generally takes a backseat to exploration.

The real fun comes from those biofeedback sensors. Most important, the tests in the game require you to alter your physical state in a specific fashion—to slow your breathing and heart rate or to push yourself to become more alert. If you succeed in changing your state, you pass the test and can advance. Wild Divine uses the spiritual language of “energy flows” and “heart breath” to describe those changes, but underneath that vocabulary are real physiological events tracked by the sensors. The more you play the game, the easier it becomes to lower the electrical resistance of your fingertips on command. Once you’ve mastered that kind of self-regulation, you can translate it into the real world..."


I aslo have a subscription to WIRED magazine. They have an annual event called NextFest. In the June magazine they ran a pre NextFest section which mentioned some future Agumented Reality (AR) game types, think the middle ground between Virtual Reality (VR) and plain old reality. They also had some simple games that exploited the cheap, near ubiquious (among cell phones anyway) potential of GPS integration into mobile game platforms.

To bring "interactive entertainment" to the masses it will have to be as specialized, diversified, and strangly wacky as the world we live in. It will certainly take more Miyamotos and Will Wrights who risk being gimmicky. I can remember when my older brother first told me about Dance Dance Revolution. He said something like "Ted, ya know this is totally one of those lame gimicks that'll be dead after people realize how ridiculous they are dancing around on this little platic mat thing." Gimmicky to him but amazingly entertaing to others.

Give us cheap. Give us social. Give us mobile. Give us gimmicks. Give us experimental. Give us the long tail. Just don't give us the same ole, same ole.

Posted by: Theodore Wheeland | June 17, 2005 at 02:36 AM

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