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Michael Hoffman (Blog) - November 4, 2007 1:03 AM

11 comment(s) - last by UNCjigga.. on Nov 5 at 5:33 PM

Silicon Valley Nintendo is open for business

Nintendo, say hello to Silicon Valley!

I wrote a blog in June that reported Nintendo's plans to move some jobs from Redmond, Wash. to Redwood City, located in California's amazing Silicon Valley -- and that move is now completed. Silicon Valley Nintendo will largely be made up of sales and marketing positions, in a move that originally could have moved four out of every 10 employees sales and marketing jobs from Washington to either Silicon Valley or the New York office.

Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime spoke regarding the mission statement and future plans of Nintendo.

"Our message is that everyone's a gamer," Fils-Aime said. "Whether it’s bringing joy and happiness to mothers and fathers as they experience Wii for the first time playing Wii Bowling or Wii Tennis, or whether it’s bringing a game like Nintendogs to a fifteen or sixteen year old girl who has a puppy that responds only to her voice."

With the success Nintendo has seen from the Wii game console, morale at the Silicon Valley Nintendo should be relatively high over the next couple of months. The Nintendo event served as the official welcoming of ex-Yahoo chief marketer Cammie Dunaway, who is the new Nintendo sales and marketing EVP at the Silicon Valley office.

CEOs from Namco Bandai, Hudson, Natsume and Sega were also present during the office christening.

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Job postings visible at Nintendo.com

By UNCjigga on 11/5/2007 3:46:28 PM , Rating: 2

There are some nice marketing jobs based out of Redwood City that just went up at Nintendo.com. FYI

wow

By sj420 on 11/4/07, Rating: -1

RE: wow

By Etsp on 11/4/2007 9:15:28 PM , Rating: 2

They decided to avoid a crowded market with HUGE players pumping BOATLOADS of money into their respective projects. They made one hell of a lot of money that way. They didn't forget about that market, they simply felt that that market was going to be handled just fine without them. Also they felt they would make less money out of it.

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RE: wow

By Missing Ghost on 11/4/2007 10:24:42 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
Nintendo say: "What is an FPS?" "Whats an RPG? I thought those were those bad rocket grenades".

LOL

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RE: wow

By Adsski on 11/5/2007 4:05:59 AM , Rating: 2

"What is an FPS?" Nintendo says "Metroid Prime Corruption"
"Whats an RPG?" Nintento says "Zelda Twilight Princess"

And if I may add, superb examples of both genres.

Go the big "N"

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RE: wow

By mikefarinha on 11/5/2007 4:41:33 PM , Rating: 2

As a Nintendo fan myself, I have to point out the error in your statement. Zelda is definitely not an RPG, it is an adventure game. One could go out on a limb and say that Super Paper Mario is an RPG... but that is one very long limb!

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RE: wow

By Verran on 11/5/2007 10:28:39 AM , Rating: 4

I think you're right. They don't care. They've given up on fighting over the small fraction of the total demographic that considers themselves "hard-core" gamers.

For every single kid that wants to play 6-8 hours of Halo every night after he gets home from junior high, there are 10 people who'd rather just play 30 minutes or so of Tetris, or Wii Golf. The testosterone driven mega-explosion-fest genre is bloated with competition, so much so that there's no real money to be made. Nintendo would rather go after the "low hanging fruit" that your beloved "next gen" consoles have ignored for years. In the same way that Nintendo doesn't care about you, your consoles haven't cared about me for years.

And thank god. Finally a company that realizes that people (some, that is) have social lives, families, hobbies, JOBS. Finally someone is making games that don't rely solely on huge anti-aliased explosions. You know, games that are really FUN.

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RE: wow

By mikefarinha on 11/5/2007 4:45:48 PM , Rating: 2

Should have voted you up before I posted... Oh well.

I agree with pretty much everything you said.

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RE: wow

By Symmetriad on 11/5/2007 11:18:58 AM , Rating: 2

Nintendo doesn't market to the 16-25 male FPS gamer market much anymore because that's practically all that any other system (including the PC) is targeting. Why duke it out with everybody else in that market when there's an enormous variety of other kinds of games - and gamers - that's spent the latter half of the video game age being largely ignored?

I like what Nintendo is doing right now, and honestly I wish other video game companies would branch out from the "WE HAVE THE NEXT HALO, LOOKIT THESE 'SPLOSIONS" strategy. Yes, I like shooting up zombies, aliens and Nazis just as much as anybody else (I still play Doom to this day), but just as often I'd prefer to play a less intense time-wasting game to chill out after work. After all, that's half of how Nintendo came to be such a huge player in the video game market in the first place. You guys have your market covered - let the rest of us play too.

And bring back good 4X and space sim games, while you're at it. :(

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RE: wow

By Sahrin on 11/5/2007 3:16:01 PM , Rating: 2

I'm not saying you don't have a point - but Turok sucked.

The Six-Quad had what is arguably the greatest (and certainly the most revolutionary) FPS in console history (Goldeneye/Perfect Dark).

I think you're not one of the hardcore gamers you attest to be - a hardcore gamer is someone who sits down and plays Darwinia or Pikmin or the ilk and says "Damn - this game which everyone else says 'neat' to I absolutely love, because I can appreciate the design elements instead of dismissing them at face value."

You're very much one of the cosmo gamers - I want the material I want, and I want it to appeal to me. How do you think EA decides to develop another Bond game? By sitting down and saying "What would be the best and most creative design of this game to engage and entertain?" - or do they say, "Well, we just got the results of the latest marketing study - and sj420 says that we should make another Doom clone. OK EA Canada, you're up!"

You can hate Nintendo for a lot of things - but criticizing their creative decisions as appealing to the mass-market is lunacy. Just a year ago, people were predicting that the console that sounded like a dirty word in third-grade was going to kill the company. Now you're assailing them for "forgetting their roots."

What a difference a year and 15 million units sold worldwide makes.

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RE: wow

By UNCjigga on 11/5/2007 5:33:39 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
They don't even care, they don't even mention us like we exist. What about the young 15-16 yr old kid who just wants to shoot up some zombified towns-people? What about THEM!?!

Check out Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles with the new Wii Zapper...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvOLed7Ovh8

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