14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo is one of the biggest companies active in gaming at the moment. Not only has the Japanese corporation taken the world by storm thanks to its hugely successful franchises like Mario or The Legend of Zelda, but its newest lineup of hardware, in the form of the Nintendo DS and Wii, have broken sales records for quite some time now.
But as you may have seen from recent sales data, things aren't what they used to be, and the worldwide recession has generated in a drop in sales for both the Wii and the DS, even though they are still selling well, better than most of their rivals.
This is why, according to the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, the marketing strategy regarding the DS handheld console will change soon enough. Besides wishing the device to be shared amongst family and friends, basically the new direction will be that everybody should have a DS in the near future.
But don't forget that, according to many analysts, the DS, in all of its variants, like the DS Lite or DSi, is nearing complete market saturation, meaning that this new strategy will be quite risky for the Japanese company. But if it pays off, let's just say that Nintendo will be laughing all the way to the bank for quite some time.
It seems that part of this strategy will be a marketing effort meant to make the DS a device “like a mobile phone” filled with interesting features that everyone needs to have. Hopefully, this will translate into more support for its online characteristics, like DSiWare and many other new additions for the small handheld in order to make it more attractive.
Do you believe that this new marketing effort will work or is the market saturated and Nintendo needs to launch a new device? Leave us a comment with your thoughts.