Nintendo launches new brand for casual gamers
Keith Stuart
May 31, 2006
When I was at school in Manchester during the eighties, casuals meant lads dressed in Pringle and Farah listening to the Style Council and asking hairdressers for a flick - but now it's a lucrative sector of the videogame market.
Hence Nintendo's decision to create a new label - Touch Generations - for its mainstream DS titles. "We remain committed to turning video games into an inclusive mass medium that everyone can enjoy," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's (deep breath) senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Touch Generations will help novices and newcomers identify the fun and uniquely engaging experiences that are available only on Nintendo DS."
This is, of course, a pointless piece of product re-positioning, symptomatic of modern business's obsession with branding above and beyond the call of sense. More importantly though, it's about Nintendo revelling in its E3 success. It is about a company that has effectively spent the last decade in its own self-made ghetto, turning to the industry and saying, 'I told you so'.
Indeed, Nintendo understands that the rota Fortunae has turned, and that its time may have come again. For ten years, it has stuck with its recipe of cute, suitable-for-all experiences, holding out forlornly against the prevelant youth-centric, male-centric PlayStation philosophy. But subtle shifts in mass media entertainment are now harmonising with the Nintendo way. Interactive TV, community casual gaming sites run by big-name ISPs, quick and easy games embedded in phones...
The wider world is coming back to videogames - and Nintendo is speaking its language.
Anyway, the first three new releases in the Touch Generations line-up will be Big Brain Academy, the second title in the brain-training series, Magnetica, a marble-based puzzler, and Sudoku Gridmaster, a Sodoku game with over 400 puzzles. They're out this summer.
Source: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/05/31/nintendo_launches_new_brand_for_casual_gamers.html
Talk about Touch! Generations
Maybe you've been training your brain with Dr Kawashima, slotting blocks with friends worldwide in Tetris DS, teaching your Nintendog new tricks or hanging out with friends in Animal Crossing: Wild World.
Whatever your experiences, now you can share them with others at the new Touch! Generations community board.
Touch! Generations is a range of unique Nintendo DS titles that can be enjoyed by anyone, even if they don't normally play games. So if you want to describe how your gran beat you at Big Brain Academy or recount your Bark Mode adventures with Nintendogs, now there's a place to do it!
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