Making a Successful Game Console I wanted to talk about the upcoming console war. Who doesn't? But the problem was, how could I make an article that wasn't just another cliché list of reasons why Nintendo will win? Then it came to me, I should discuss what it takes to make a successful game console. So I am going to take a look at several things that are important for a console's success, including a brief discussion of how I think Nintendo is doing in each of those areas. There are five factors that I consider to be key to any console's success: image, marketing, quality and quantity of games, and price. I want to look at each one a bit further. Image Back in 1994, the Super Nintendo wasn't doing so well in North America, and NOA decided to roll out the brand-spanking new "Play it Loud" ad campaign. Up until this point, Nintendo had a pretty button-down image in the media. Their commercials were basically game play spliced together with the typical propaganda one might expect from any advertisement. Sega, meanwhile, was blazing the trail for all video game ads to come, using in-your-face dialogue and humour. Basically, Sega was cool, and Nintendo was lame. The Play it Loud campaign changed that. Filled with pictures of teenagers clad in grunge-era clothes, listening to alternative rock and playing Nintendo, suddenly it was cool to play video games. OK, so looking back on it, the ad campaign was horribly cheesy, but interestingly, Nintendo's fortunes started to turn around. In fact, the Play it Loud campaign earned awards in the advertising industry due to it's success. It would seem that image is indeed important to a console’s success. Today, Nintendo once again faces an image problem. The dreaded word is "kiddie", and whether or not Nintendo fans really believe Nintendo is marketing itself to five year olds, the fact is the average person does. Sadly, Nintendo isn't doing much to combat the problem by designing their next system to look like a bright purple building-block either. Personally, I'm more interested in software than the design of the GameCube - I'd gladly buy a pink one if that was the only colour I could get - but many people do care about appearances, and a PS2 really would look better next to my stereo stack than a purple GameCube. On the bright side, Nintendo is publishing more "mature" games, and I like the way they're marketing them. Call me crazy, but I consider it rather noble (and possibly smart) of Nintendo to go to such lengths to make sure Conker and Perfect Dark are not marketed towards kids. Having said that, I can't help but wonder if they may be alienating teen players in the process? What about all of those players who are "too old" for Pokemon and "too young" for Conker? Only time will tell if Nintendo can shed the "kiddie" image, and what effect it will have on their reputation. Marketing There's a reason nobody takes (or rather, took) Nuon or Indrema seriously. It's just not possible for small companies to compete with the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo in terms of sheer cash. These companies have the power to make sure that their products appear in every store, and get advertised during every TV show. The fact is it's important to have marketing muscle in the console world. How does Nintendo stack up against its hefty competitors, Sony and Microsoft? I don't know a lot about the financial situations of these companies, or marketing, but based on how things have gone over the past few years with the Playstation and N64, I would suggest that Nintendo might not be able to sustain the amount of advertising that it's competitors can, but it should do "well enough". In particular, Microsoft's five hundred million dollar advertising campaign isn't really out of the ordinary for a console launch, according to what I have heard. Nintendo is a large company itself, and I have a feeling that the other companies don't want to spend a lot more on advertising than Nintendo does; they have probably decided that they won't earn back what they spend by substantially increasing the marketing budget. Overall, I think Nintendo is in a decent position with respect to marketing. Games - Quantity What do the NES, the Gameboy, and the Playstation have in common? First, they were all clearly the "winners" of their respective console wars. Second, they all have a huge pile of software for players to choose from. Like it or not, quantity is probably more important than quality in creating a popular game console. And why not? If you walked in to a music store that had nothing but rows and rows of Radiohead CDs, you would probably shop somewhere else. They may be a talented band, but they aren't the only thing going. This is a bit of a problem area for Nintendo, although it seems to be doing its best to fix the situation. Most of the big name developers are on board: Capcom, Konami, Ubi Soft, Acclaim, EA, Sega, and so on, but Square and Enix are noticeably absent from the list, and some developers don't take the GameCube seriously as anything but a toy for kids. Hopefully Nintendo can change some developers' minds about the GameCube's target audience. Equally important, if Nintendo hopes to reclaim Japan, is capturing the support of Enix or Square. If Nintendo can't do that, then they ought to consider concentrating some of their own efforts on developing some great RPGs, because this was one of the main weaknesses in the Nintendo 64 library. Beyond that, it looks as though Nintendo may avoid the general lack of variety that we saw with the N64, which should be a big help to the GameCube. Games - Quality So far this has been a rather bleak portrait of the industry, but I do believe that quality games are still important. The Play it Loud campaign I mentioned earlier probably wouldn't have been so successful if it hadn't been for games like Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, and Final Fantasy III. Quality does help, especially in attracting informed gamers who really know what is going on in the industry. If you don't believe me, consider the fact that Microsoft acquired Bungee not long after they announced the Xbox. Microsoft knows that the Xbox needs good games, and this acquisition will help to facilitate that. This is one area where I think Nintendo has a clear edge. With Sega out of the hardware market, Nintendo is now the best first party developer, hands-down. Nintendo has also spent the past seven years or so putting together a team of top-notch second party developers such as Rare and Silicon Knights. Microsoft and Sony have made some recent attempts to match Nintendo's efforts (the Bungee purchase is a primary example), but it takes time to groom a talented game developer, and I believe it will be a few years before Microsoft or Sony can match Nintendo's team of second parties. That's assuming they even want to match Nintendo; I honestly believe that Nintendo is interested in building a group of developers that creates top- notch games. Nintendo wouldn't put up with "failures" like Conker's Bad Fur Day if it weren't interested in bringing high-quality, innovative games to the players. Having said that, I'm afraid that quality is not the most powerful factor here. Having the best games will convince hardcore players to buy your system, and it may turn a few casual players into "believers", if they get a chance to play those great games, but it's not enough on it's own. The Dreamcast would still be around if it were. Price Like high-quality games, I don't consider this to be the most important factor in a game system's success, but it is important. I think the price of the Gameboy is one of the driving forces behind the handheld's consistent popularity. It is a very accessible game system. Neo Geo also helped to prove that price is an important factor, as few gamers could afford such an expensive system. This is the other area where Nintendo is likely to be the clear winner, although we don’t know for sure just yet. Of course, the other consoles have DVD players and some other extras going for them, but I will get to that in a minute. The Rest There are some other influences in this particular console war, which I want to discuss before concluding. I don't consider these things to be as important as the "big five" I have already mentioned, but they might have an impact in the end. The first thing is backward compatibility. This seems to have been an asset for the Gameboys, and it will be interesting to see if it helps the Playstation 2. I personally don't think it is going to be a major factor in most purchases (Sony doesn't seem to be pushing it very hard, either), but I have to admit, if I owned a PS2 I'd probably be spending most of my money on Playstation classics like Metal Gear Solid, rather than the mediocre PS2 games. Maybe it will be important. DVD players are another concern. Certainly, one can see how a consumer looking at the GameCube and one of the other consoles might say, "Wow, a Sony DVD player for a hundred bucks?!" I think it will be a big draw this Christmas. However, it could also become a big liability a year or two down the road. If you already own a stand-alone DVD player, or if you're buying your second game console, chances are you might want to go with the GameCube and save yourself some money. There are also many people like myself who just don't really want a DVD player. I am looking for video games, not a home theatre system. I really admire one thing about the Xbox: the disk. I was hoping that Nintendo might include a hard drive with the GameCube, but it doesn't look likely. I would like to be able to save games without having to buy peripherals, and developers are more likely to take advantage of the Xbox's built-in memory device to enhance their games, but I don't think most consumers will be thinking about this when they buy their consoles. That basically wraps it up. I strongly believe that the first five factors are going to be the deciding ones, although it will be interesting to see if any of "the rest" has a major influence on the outcome of this console war. In particular, I have to admit that the DVD playing functionality probably will compensate for the price difference, at least for a while. As for Nintendo, I think they have acknowledged their weaknesses, specifically image and quantity of games, but only time will tell if they are effective in dealing with them. I believe the GameCube is going to do just fine, but it will be interesting to see if the company can take their new console a step further than "just fine".