Kaplan: Touch Generations Is About 'Emerging Markets'

A new report by BusinessWeek has examined Nintendo's recently launched Touch Generations label, which is used to differentiate its particularly 'mainstream'-oriented or casual game titles for the Nintendo DS, including fascinating comments by Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan. In particular, the report discussed the way the new brand is being positioned in advertisements so that is appeals to a larger demographic than just the established gaming community, the core point of the brand. "It was really important to let people know these are pick-up-and-play games," said Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice-president of marketing. According to the report, Kaplan noted that the term “touch generations” was first coined by the company's offices in Japan to refer to the “broad spectrum of players drawn to the DS and its touch screen.” She then stated that idea to use the phrase as the actual name for the sub-brand grew from this. Turning to why Nintendo felt that a classification of games aimed a larger audience was a necessary part of Nintendo's overall strategy, Kaplan stated: “The industry is really healthy, really big. But it's also very clubby. One of our goals was to target people entering the game world for the first time. It's absolutely about tapping into emerging markets." Kaplan also noted that Nintendo is looking to appeal to the market of older players "weaned on Pac Man and Pong reentering the gaming world." She added: “There's a dormant group of gamers out there, and it behooves us to keep enticing and exciting gamers as they age. We asked, 'How do we bring in people who have careers and families that take up their time?'" The answer was games priced at a very accessible $19.99 MSRP that could be played by anyone for minutes at a time. The games currently grouped below the Touch Generations umbrella include Big Brain Academy, the second title in the brain-training series that focuses on memorization, computation, analysis and identification, the Mitchell-developed puzzle game Magnetica, as well as Brain Age, Nintendogs, Tetris DS, and True Swing Golf. The latest game to join the Touch Generation family of games will be a all-Sudoku title called Sudoku Gridmaster, launching June 26th.