Nintendo's big gamble paid off with the Wii

Games That Sell While Others Languish
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 30 — Some of the video game industry’s smartest minds thought that couch potatoes wanted richer graphics and more challenging virtual worlds. It turns out that a lot of potatoes simply wanted to get off the couch.
That may be the best explanation for the growing popularity of the Nintendo Wii, the new video game system that has players jumping, punching and swinging, giving them an aerobic workout right in front of their television sets.

To be completely honest, I don't think I would have bet on consumers wanting to get off their ass and work up a sweat in front of their televisions. It's a completely counter-intuitive left-field leap. Yet, Nintendo made that leap, and are profiting from it.

In addition to the physical component of playing the Wii, Nintendo nailed down two other key drivers:

• keeping their eye on the ball, they made sure that it was fun.
• they opted out of the technological rat race. With no imperative to be the biggest, beefiest, fastest processor, or download movies, or any other secondary feature they could stay focused on the first point; just being fun.

General Patton said that winning a war required being simple, direct, and brutal. Nintendo has leapfrogged Sony and Microsoft by being simple, direct, and fun. Not just fun for hardcore game nerds, but "fun for the whole family" as the old Milton Bradley ads used to say.

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