Nintendo Department Opens in Toys "R" Us NYC Store
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Nintendo, Department, Store, Toys, Us | Themes: Business, Digital Entertainment
Nintendo America announced this week that it will be opening a “Nintendo Department” within the Toys "R" Us flagship store in Times Square in New York City.
The department will command 1000 square feet of retail space and will be visible from the street level, with a direct view of Broadway. Nintendo will be staffing this store with its own product experts, dressed in its own uniquely designed and branded uniforms.
According to the press release, this “Nintendo Department” will be completely separate from the “R Zone,” Toys "R" Us’ electronics and gaming department. It will also feature interactivity in the demonstration of Nintendo products and promises to be an exciting and fun experience. This whole announcement follows shortly behind the massive success Nintendo enjoyed in November with the number of Wii and Nintendo DS consoles sold in North America.
From the description of the design and function of this new partnership, it appears Nintendo may be positioning itself to move into direct retail distribution. This all seems vaguely familiar and parallels can be easily drawn to Apple Stores and the Apple Geniuses. Of course this is purely speculation as Nintendo of America has not issued any official statement regarding such a plan.
With the continued growth of the video games industry and its promotion budgets nearing that of feature films, having a dedicated venue for consumers to visit for each of the platforms could be an interesting approach and would go a long way for market exposure. Nintendo continues to enjoy record breaking sales figures for its Wii console and has previously stated that it is still having trouble meeting the demand of the consumer two years after the launch of the console.
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Well, it's all over.
Gaming, as we know it, will be dead soon. And we can all blame Nintendo.
No, gaming is going to evolve, even if MS and Sony both dropped out of the next generation of consoles, software would be developed for the "hard core" crowd, just maybe not as much.
Modernized "World of Nintendo" [circa late eighties] anyone? I remember taking the slip for the game you wanted to a part of the store where the person would give you your shiny new "Game Pak"...
Death of gaming? No, more like the re-emergence of gaming from the hard-core niche os PS/X-Box/PC back into the mainstream commercial market.
Personally, I am impressed with Nintendo - from a "cheap toy" manufacturer to the maker of the NES/SNES, and now getting back to its "gaming for everyone" roots with the Wii - they are a company that knows how to make a product that will appeal to the general consumer market.
If you are a hard core gamer, don't panic - unless your hard-core system manufacturer decides it needs to emulate Nintendo and chooses to dumb down their games to appeal to a broader market. The only companies that would abandon their niche markets to make greater profit are those evil greedy ones... doh! Panic.
Oh well, at least the PS3 is still hands-down the most cost effective(price/performance) BD player on the market that I know of...
No, gaming is going to evolve, even if MS and Sony both dropped out of the next generation of consoles, software would be developed for the "hard core" crowd, just maybe not as much.
Surprising how you didn't understand what I said.
Death of gaming? No, more like the re-emergence of gaming from the hard-core niche os PS/X-Box/PC back into the mainstream commercial market.
Where did anyone say anything about the Death of gaming?
So the loyal hardcore market, that has been the life blood of the market, is being screwed because now they've been milked of all the sustenance they can give?
The whole idea of elevating the down market is bullshit. Not everyone will make it, and if there is a market people will still make bullshit for them. If these people are too stupid to see a good thing right in front of their faces, they shouldn't have the privilege of playing anything.
Tindytim : I agree with you in one thing:
"If these people are too stupid to see a good thing right in front of their faces, they shouldn't have the privilege of playing anything."
Though considering I love how nintendo is shaping up the market you would probably enter into the "stupid" people crowd.
Consider that I used to play a 30-40 hours a week until about a couple of months ago, I can consider myself pretty "hardcore". Games stopped being good when people started being elitists and forgot about enjoying them.