Nintendo’s Kaplan Discusses 'Blue Ocean' Strategy

In a Forbes.com interview conducted with Nintendo of America’s long serving vice president of marketing and corporate affairs Perrin Kaplan, the executive has discussed some of the company’s new marketing strategies, as recently exemplified by Nintendo's Brain Age DS titles, which have been a massive success in Japan and are now launching in the West. According to Kaplan, the company’s new strategy is named 'Blue Ocean', signifying the attempt to create a market where there initially was none, and a major subject of Satoru Iwata's speech at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show. This is as opposed to 'Red Ocean', which apparently signifies the currently established and highly competitive console market. The interview also touched on a number of other points: when questioned on the Revolution’s virtual console, which allows users to download and play games from any of the company’s previous home consoles, Kaplan indicated that it did not represent Nintendo’s entire online strategy and that “more will be described soon”. She also commented of the Revolution: “We will use the Wi-Fi component in a different way for each game, just like with the DS.” Finally, regarding the company’s decision not to support high-definition resolutions with the Revolution, something which is a cornerstone of the marketing campaign for Microsoft's Xbox 360, Kaplan suggests that: "Many independent sources tell us that experiencing current high-def games on a regular TV makes it near impossible to see everything clearly. That means the majority of homes are experiencing something lesser than what they bargained for."