Nintendo Needs to Showcase Downloadable Content to Gamers
by Benjamin Yoder, posted on 12 August 2011 / 2,204 Views
Recently, digital content sort of snuck up on gamers. It's not that gamers weren't aware of it or its quality, but suddenly we're seeing seeing extremely high quality content from PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE Arcade, and Steam that are filling that lonely hole in our gaming lives known as the Summer Drought. No one knows the drought like Nintendo fans. Not only is support for Wii and DS waning, but the 3DS is taking its time to get off the starting line. Through this drought, Nintendo doesn't have that downloadable luxury, or do they? While Nintendo's online platforms haven't had the highest quantity of quality software, there are still some fantastic titles hidden in Nintendo's downloadable services. How does Nintendo sell these titles?
As of right now, Nintendo's main strategy on the Nintendo eShop is to push content through “shelves.” These work essentially as groups of software that Nintendo features each week where they have staff picks, racing games, titles fit for road trips and pretty much any other grouping you could imagine. In theory, it sounds like a great plan. If you don't give consumer a reason to consistently visit the eShop, these shelves are useless. There's really nothing to push the 3DS owner to take that extra step to jump into the eShop to see what kind of content is circulating, even if it isn't brand new software. How can Nintendo fix this problem? Well, they sort of already have.
Every week as of late I've been receiving e-mails from Nintendo. I'm not sure where the subscription originated, maybe it was my early 2000's Nintendo fanboy days or just when I signed up for Club Nintendo. Honestly I delete them all, but I never unsubscribed. I finally decided to pop open one of these e-mails and was greeted with a big advertisement showing off the latest software on Nintendo's eShop and Wii Shop Channel. Each featured a game with a single screenshot that you could then click on and be taken to the title's official page on Nintendo's website. At the end of this e-mail adventure, I bought the Gameboy title Avenging Spirits and developed a heavy interest in a WiiWare title called Kyotokei, which looks like an Ikaruga clone. It's surprising how simply displaying a screenshot for a title can draw someone in to take a greater look at it and possibly result in a purchase. On that part, Nintendo's doing a pretty good job, for those who get the e-mails. I'm going to assume the average gamer probably isn't subscribed to Nintendo's e-mails. So while it might be pulling in some people, it's pretty strange that Nintendo is completely ignoring delivering this information directly to those who have the systems.
Nintendo has a message and notification systems on Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Wii, which they heavily under-utilize. Sure, I don't want to log in every day to five advertisement messages, but a weekly mail out doesn't seem like something hard to throw together and obtrusive to the system owner. Both services are mainly text based, but the 3DS offers the ability to display images on the top screen and the Nintendo Wii allows attachable images. Throw a couple screenshots up there along with the title names and you might build a bit of curiosity in the consumer to actually go and boot up the eShop or Wii Shop Channel to take a glance. With both messaging systems being built into the menu system itself, it's a much smaller step than logging into the eShop or Wii Shop Channel.
That being said, would it be perfect? No. Ideally, you'd want fully interactive page where you could click on a title and learn about it straight from there, just like in the email, but that might not be entirely doable because of possible technical limitations with the user interfaces. Nintendo of America's website, for some reason, skimps on description pages, only plastering on a couple of screenshots that don't tell you much about a title, where Nintendo of Europe's tends to have a video available for most titles.
With 3DS owners keeping their eyes peeled for the free ambassador releases, it might be a great time for Nintendo to really start chasing after the gamer, advertising software via notifications alongside the latest purchasable content. If Nintendo doesn’t give consumers a reason to look at their service, then consumers won't purchase. If the consumer doesn't purchase software, Nintendo won't get software support, which gives consumers no reason to visit their service. Nintendo should try to advertise the software they get now to a larger crowd along with older quality releases. Otherwise, it's hard to say if they'll be able to catch up.
