Opening up gaming

I think the arrival of the Nintendo Wii has proved to everyone that it is not just geeks and gadget guys, and mostly male audiences that can enjoy computer games. Nintendo actually managed to bring gaming to everyone, without taking a big risk themselves, all they did was change the controller, and build some games that are slightly different to normal games.

What they did really well, was not alienate their old player base, not really change all that much about their company or consoles, yet at the same time open up gaming to a massive new audience.

One of the ways they did this was they realised that computer games do not need to be something that you completely immerse yourself in, that you get completely lost in. Although this works, and has worked for game developers for 20-30 years now, it is not the only approach. The Wii made gaming a family, social event. Many people can play, and most of the fun is outside the TV, not inside it.

Yet I still feel that they achieved this without taking that much of a risk. I still feel that there are markets out there waiting to join the computer game community, but they simply don’t have games built for them, as that would be massively risky.
One angle to consider here is Facebook, which gives access to a hundred million people, many of whom have not played games yet, but might if they found something good.