With the likes of Olivia Newton-John, Nicole Kidman and Liv Tyler being the face of Nintendo DS and DS Lite, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Nintendo has been heading towards a market that has arguably being left untapped by console manufacturers.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of women gamers out there – in fact a recent survey carried out using the Everquest II online game found that women were a lot more dedicated than men to those games – but Nintendo seem to be the only console gaming company that has had dedicated advertising aimed at women. This seems to be reinforced with the soon-to-be released Nintendo DSi.
Now, Nintendo will never come out and say this, after all, it has its male base to pander too, yet with women-friendly features such as photo journal, two cameras and a calendar – plus a game or two specifically aimed at females – it’s not hard to see where they are heading with this one.
Nintendo have been kicking PS3 and Xbox 360 butts in the sales charts with the Wii for some time, and with the new Dsi launchnig this week will bring a new console to the portable market. How consumers react and compare it to the PlayStation Portable will be interesting to see.