How one product got Real People, into the Virtual World, Really!(2)

When we look at Wii, the distinguishing feature of the console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect movement in three dimensions. In other words – while playing with Wii – one does not sit and press some buttons – instead one actually engages in mimicking the physical movement of various body parts, the way one would actually do in a any real sporting event. As the user gestures in the ‘real world’ his gestures turn into direct stimulus for the actions in the ‘virtual world’.
Wii’s strength is based on competition’s apathy towards one market reality that was staring every game console marketer in their face - only existing gamers were gaming more and more but the gaming franchise was not growing.
The market was filled with products that catered to existing gamers. The PSP made it easier for existing gamers (mainly) to engage in gaming on the move. X Box 360 made it easier for console gamers to do the same stuff online with their friends thus getting the joy of online gaming to consoles, and the, then soon to be launched, PlayStation 3 promised to make games more and more graphic rich. However in this heat and dust of faster, better, richer, more powerful, there was no particular plan to expand the scope of the gamer franchise.

• Nobody was thinking why do Daddy and Mommy need to be non- gamers?
• Nobody was thinking, why can’t grandparent’s game with their grandchildren?
• Nobody was thinking how a gaming device could add more fun to an evening party!
• Nobody was thinking how a gaming device, which has always been known as ‘bad for health’, could actually offer you a fitness plan
• Nobody was thinking how could we make a gaming device that engaged girls as much as boys
• Nobody was thinking why do games always need to be about competition and not engagement

Wii, as we see later, finally became that ‘nobody’ who thought of all this and single handedly changed the entire gaming industry. It challenged almost all the conventions that we talked about earlier:

Wii challenged the convention and launched a product that offered an entirely new kind of benefit

Wii challenged the convention and defined her target group outside the existing core gaming community, and rather loosely – something totally unthinkable!

And Wii did all this at a new price point, lower than the competition

This does not imply that other game developers were not doing anything right. In fact they were doing their best within the existing gaming paradigm. All of them were addressing the hardcore gamers usually males from 13-30, the time of life, when guys see a butterfly and think “how can I most impressively squish that bug?”
Video gaming was all about driving faster, hitting harder, killing more etc. And, interestingly, the game console and even game software development paradigm was also more and more about faster processor, better graphics, improved controllers with more buttons for increased precision, so on and so forth.

Thus PS2 was to be bettered by PS3, PSP was supposed to be able to create the PS2 or PS3 joy on the go & X Box 360 was mandated to beat the others by taking the whole experience online and steal the thunder from the PlayStation series. However, despite numerous innovations, the big players in the market were still competing within the existing paradigm & perhaps this is where most of their products fell short. While all game manufacturers were taking people into the virtual world by asking them to kill, drive faster, fight harder etc, Wii brought people back to the real world, as it asked them to move hands and legs move the body, exercise and even cook!
It is this approach that attracted the attention of those ‘potential’ gamers who so far had rejected gaming as a worthless couch activity which was not for them.
Finally, a paradigm changing opportunity was created but only after one of the players in the market approached things unconventionally.

It almost seems that Nintendo was viewing the market very differently – with an entirely fresh perspective.
• “What product would we have made, had we been entering this market today?”
• “What could we do that would make it easier for people to adopt indoor entertainment and gaming, that was not a board game, not a card game, not indoor physical sports and yet used enough physical activity for to be viewed as a sport and not the usual (unhealthy/unproductive) video gaming!”

This new way of looking at the market changed the prevailing dynamics

• Redefined and more importantly expanded the core video game user group by bringing older people into the gaming fold - turned it from an individual to a family activity.
It is this paradigm-challenging design, which makes 83% of people believe that Wii console fosters family-oriented play, the corresponding figure for X Box 360 and PS3 is almost half at 40% (GfK NOP, London)

• It brought girls into the gaming fold, through games that could engage them specifically (and even gave an opportunity for girls to play with their boyfriends!)

• It even brought forth new, unexpected and hitherto unthinkable applications viz. an 80 year old woman, who had difficulty in standing after a surgery, was suggested by her doctor, to take up Wii sports in order to tone up her muscles etc. There are even stories about users who have rediscovered their love for bowling, tennis & golf, all because of Wii!

• And to top it all, the biggest service that Wii has done to gaming is to make it seen more as a mainstream activity than just a nerd- fixation.