Nintendo's Audience Getting Older

[UltraMagnus]

While this has been a meme for a while, I think it's actually becoming a core reality of Nintendo's business these days

The Switch and the success of things like the NES/SNES Classic is largely driven by adults. And while Nintendo will always have a good sized kids demographic (so lets not turn this into an argument about that) what I think is starting to shift is the idea "you can't just sell a system just to Nintendo fans (ie: their adult fans) ... the GameCube is proof that can't work".

The thing is even the GameCube by now is 20+ years old. Even a kid who was a "Nintendo fan" with a GameCube back in the day today is grown ass adult, heck even a kid with a Wii or DS circa 2007 is now entering adulthood.

Culminatively I think Nintendo has been quietly amassing 5-10 million "Nintendo lifers" (people who continue to be avid Nintendo consumers into adulthood) each generation, starting with the NES/GB gen, then you have SNES/GB, N64/GBC, GCN/GBA, a bump with the Wii/DS era, and even Wii U/3DS ... that would mean you're looking at probably in the vicinity of 30-50 million fans that a system like Switch can appeal to these days just by being a well executed "Nintendo system".

That's part and parcel why IMO Switch is experiencing really great sales even without the need of a Wii Sports or Brain Training type large scale blue ocean hit. Even the Wii era is by now 12 years ago, a kid who had a Wii circa 2007 at age 7 would today be hitting his 20s. The Nintendo "adult audience" has hit critical mass after so many hardware cycles.

That doesn't mean the Nintendo fanbase is suddenly going to turn into the crowd that loves hyper-violent shooters or a mirror of the PS/XB crowd at all ... but I think what you're seeing is with the Switch games like Hollow Knight, Breath of the Wild, probably over performing what one would expect. Octopath Traveller might be another success story, the Megaman games seeming to sell very well. Nostalgia/retro sells big on Switch for one, open world games seem to be doing well also, almost anything fantasy/mideval seems to clean up also.

I think it's an interesting shift that's occuring, we've reached a point now where multiple generations of Nintendo fans (whether they started with the NES or even Wii/DS) are now grown ups and I think they are the primary driver of things like Switch, NES/SNES Classic, and even things like Amiibo. I've yet to see one kid buying an Amiibo, lol, it's always grown men.

 

[Hayama Akito]

"Family" games will always be appreciated at any age, is just like Disney, so Nintendo will have this core forever.

 

[MrConbon210]

"Family" games will always be appreciated at any age, is just like Disney, so Nintendo will have this core forever.

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Yep, Disney and Nintendo both have the magic able to get adults just as excited kids.

 

[Voxl]

So their Switch commercials were on point then, huh?

 

[Shauni]

How old is that chart? I feel like it gets posted a lot, so I wonder if any of that has changed.

 

[Terraforce]

How old is that chart? I feel like it gets posted a lot, so I wonder if any of that has changed.

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Pretty sure it was released a few months after the Switch launched. So yeah pretty old.

 

[UltraMagnus]

"Family" games will always be appreciated at any age, is just like Disney, so Nintendo will have this core forever.

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I agree but what I think is shifting is the idea that was born out of the GameCube's "failure" that "Nintendo can't just sustain itself with Nintendo fans" and while of course singularly they can't, what has happened is ... a lot of time has passed even from the late 90s/early 2000s.

And quietly what I think has changed is Nintendo's "adult fanbase" has effectively doubled or even tripled to the point where adults are effectively the primary driver of Nintendo product.

Of course kids will always be a large part of the equation for Nintendo, but it's an interesting shift that I believe is being manifested in the success of the Switch and NES/SNES Classic (which sure as heck is not being primarily purchased by kids and they're selling millions upons millions of these things).

 

[Vesper]

Yup. It's simple, really. Lifelong Nintendo fans who are now 25,26,27 etc. now have disposable income so of course they'll buy the switch.

 

[Deleted member 426]

Switch is currently too expensive for kids and families. 3DS is hella popular with kids, Switch will be too in the future.

Plus of course they play a lot of mobile games. Like....a LOT.

 

[Soap]

I imagine Nintendo are a lot like Disney, where kids and adults love them but teenagers go through the phase of being too cool for "kiddy stuff".

 

[Serebii]

I imagine Nintendo are a lot like Disney, where kids and adults love them but teenagers go through the phase of being too cool for "kiddy stuff".

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This is probably the most apt comparison I have ever heard

 

[Onilink]

I mean, you can't be a kid to start a family....

 

[duckroll]

I imagine Nintendo are a lot like Disney, where kids and adults love them but teenagers go through the phase of being too cool for "kiddy stuff".

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That's why Disney bought Marvel and Star Wars.

 

[CaviarMeths]

How old is that chart? I feel like it gets posted a lot, so I wonder if any of that has changed.

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It's definitely very outdated. Switch hadn't even had its first holiday season then.

 

[FaceHugger]

I think Nintendo's core audience has pretty much been young parents of new families for like a decade now. Hook 'em young, they buy your stuff for their kids 5-10 years down the road. Sound business strategy honestly.

 

[navi-usagi]

Not super surprising, but Nintendo will always have every audience. The kids of today will be the twenty-somethings years from now buying out the Switch Classic or whatever they'll have by then. Although I don't think the perceived Nintendo audience is going to continually go up and up as years go by either, just like Disney movie audiences.

 

[UltraMagnus]

Yup. It's simple, really. Lifelong Nintendo fans who are now 25,26,27 etc. now have disposable income so of course they'll buy the switch.

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Yeah, and I think they by now outnumber the "kids".

If you think about it, OK today's 5-12 year olds are a set market ... but whatever share of that Nintendo can grab will probably be lower than the "Nintendo Lifers" ... the existing audience that they've amassed from the NES/SNES/N64/GB/GBC/GBA/Wii/DS/3DS/Wii U time span.

A kid who was 8 with a DS playing Mario Kart in 2006 is today 20 years old, so it's not just the adult portion of Nintendo's fanbase being "the guys who had Super Mario Bros. for their 8-bit NES back in the day", even the Wii/DS era is by now quite a while ago.

During the 90s/2000s this wasn't a large enough audience to really "carry" Nintendo by itself, but today in 2018 ... things are changing.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

The other kids used to tell me Nintendo was the kiddy console and give me shit about it
well look at me now! 33 and crippling depression

 

[Deleted member 4359]

Well, people got older and younger people weren't going to be turned off by Nintendo, so it's mostly two generations have grown up enjoying something that is timeless for most people... not really their audience getting older, per se.

 

[weekev]

Don't I know it.

 

[Deleted member 9971]

See lots of kids and teens enjoying Nintendo i love that those people grow up with stuff like Splatoon.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

Kids think mature games are cool and family-friendly stuff is lame. Adults are old enough to know that that isn't the case.

 

[kjtc1979]

The seamlessness of Switch going from handheld and docked mode and back, and quick load times, make it a console uniquely well suited for busy adults. I haven't played video games this frequently since I was a young teenager.

It works well for kids, too, and as prices go down and the catalog expands, I'm sure they will become a bigger part of its demographic. But they definitely targeted the kind of adults the OP writes about when launching the system, and it worked.

They keep getting the software right, too. The number of evergreen titles the system already has is remarkable.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

I think it's an interesting shift that's occuring, we've reached a point now where multiple generations of Nintendo fans (whether they started with the NES or even Wii/DS) are now grown ups and I think they are the primary driver of things like Switch, NES/SNES Classic, and even things like Amiibo. I've yet to see one kid buying an Amiibo, lol, it's always grown men.

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A lot of the time, it's often the older fans that just buy these for younger players. I got my kid cousin into non-mobile video games with a 3DS and games on Christmas. He's got a switch now from his parents and every now and then I help with his game buying.

 

[UltraMagnus]

The difference in the 90s/2000s is there wasn't enough time for Nintendo to build up an established base of "Lifers".

It was just basically the NES/SNES generations preceding that era.

But today? You got "Nintendo fans" who never grew up with Super Mario Bros. even, GameCube or DS was their first Nintendo system and they are now adults.

The gradual build up has create a fanbase that is multiple console cycles deep now.

If Nintendo had this same base say around the GameCube-era ... who knows. Maybe the GameCube would've performed better.

 

[legend166]

While I certainly think the Switch is appealing to an order audience than is traditional for Nintendo, that chart is from like 3 months after the launch. Console launches, especially those outside the holiday window would be heavily, heavily tilted towards an older age group.

 

[B-Dubs]

I imagine Nintendo are a lot like Disney, where kids and adults love them but teenagers go through the phase of being too cool for "kiddy stuff".

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This 100% happens with Pokemon games. I've seen it happen. People are into it when they're kids, start falling out when they hit their teenage years, then as soon as they leave high school they start going back.

It's to do with this psychological thing we all go through where we all want to grow up faster or be seen as more mature when we're adolescents, so we put aside "childish things" but then once we are actually mature many people realize they just like what they like and pick the stuff they put down right back up again. It's part of why we say popular trends as cyclical and usually come back. 90's kids are now adults so 90's stuff has come back into vogue (to a degree). It'll happen again when 00's kids hit their mid-20's as well.

So basically, yea, Nintendo seems to be gaming Disney at this point.

 

[UltraMagnus]

While I certainly think the Switch is appealing to an order audience than is traditional for Nintendo, that chart is from like 3 months after the launch. Console launches, especially those outside the holiday window would be heavily, heavily tilted towards an older age group.

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While somewhat true, Nintendo system still trend more towards kids in the past. That's 90% adults practically, it's hugely one sided.

There just isn't enough 5-12 year olds in the here and now that will buy a Switch even as the system gets older/cheaper where I think they will outnumber the "adults" anymore, because the "adults" by now are 30 years deep of several successive generations.

You got the NES guys, other folks that had the SNES as their first system, others with N64, Game Boy, GBA, even Wii.

I mean heck, the kid who got a 3DS in 2011 at age 7/8 and became a Nintendo fan because of the 3DS library is going to be an adult in a few years time heading off to college, that's probably another 4-5 million+ "adult fans" Nintendo will soon be adding to the mix.

 

[signal]

tfw you want to post cod_audience_vs_splatoon_audience.jpg but OP did it in the second line

 

[TanookiTom]

The thing is even the GameCube by now is 20+ years old. Even a kid who was a "Nintendo fan" with a GameCube back in the day today is grown ass adult, heck even a kid with a Wii or DS circa 2007 is now entering adulthood.

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woa woa, you scared me there for a sec. The GameCube came out in 2001, so it's gonna be 17 years this November. Let's not get ahead of ourselves ;-)

But I generally agree. I think Nintendo fans for a long time have by large part been those who kept their inner child alive. But I don't think this means that Switch owners necessarily want more mature games. If they did, they'd probably not be Nintendo fans, right?

 

[Hours Left]

I'd like to play as an adult in games like Pokémon too.

 

[UltraMagnus]

woa woa, you scared me there for a sec. The GameCube came out in 2001, so it's gonna be 17 years this November. Let's not get ahead of ourselves ;-)

But I generally agree. I think Nintendo fans for a long time have by large part been those who kept their inner child alive. But I don't think this means that Switch owners necessarily want more mature games. If they did, they'd probably not be Nintendo fans, right?

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Yeah you're right, but kids generally don't get consoles at age 1-2, so even in the most stereotypical "GameCube wuz fer kiddiez" logic, a 5-6 year old receiving a GameCube as their first game system in 2001 or 2002 would be 20-21 years old today.

As for what games this aging demographic wants ... I think it isn't necessarily the violent brand of gaming Sony/MS tend to gravitate around. That said, I think today something like Skyrim has a greater chance of success on a Nintendo platform. What seems to be killing is retro/nostalgia ... indies like Hollow Knight, Star Dew Valley, etc. are killing it on the Switch, Octopath Traveller looks like it's generating some good buzz ... that stuff is primarily adults. Breath of the Wild also.

 

[big_z]

if the percentage of female users is that small on Nintendo it must be nearly nonexistent on ps4/xbox.

 

[TanookiTom]

Yeah you're right, but kids generally don't get consoles at age 1-2, so even in the most stereotypical "GameCube wuz fer kiddiez" logic, a 5-6 year old receiving a GameCube as their first game system in 2001 or 2002 would be 20-21 years old today.

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Right, but that's not what I meant. You wrote "The thing is even the GameCube by now is 20+ years old." so reading that shocked me for a second ;-) But it's true of course, even the Wii generation is likely entering adulthood these years.

By the way I think the classic teenager/young adult is not automatically gonna buy a Switch even tho they might have had a Wii. In fact I think image-conscious teens might prefer a Playstation or an Xbox (something "cool" and "powerful"), before maybe coming back to Nintendo for nostalgic reasons (and after having rediscovered that inner child ;-)). But I don't think the nostalgia factor sets in before you hit your late 20ies or early 30ies.

 

[ElBoxy]

That doesn't mean the Nintendo fanbase is suddenly going to turn into the crowd that loves hyper-violent shooters

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Then who's asking for all these shooters to be on the Switch?

 

[UltraMagnus]

Right, but that's not what I meant. You wrote "The thing is even the GameCube by now is 20+ years old." so reading that shocked me for a second ;-) But it's true of course, even the Wii generation is likely entering adulthood these years.

By the way I think the classic teenager/young adult is not automatically gonna buy a Switch even tho they might have had a Wii. In fact I think image-conscious teens might prefer a Playstation or an Xbox (something "cool" and "powerful"), before maybe coming back to Nintendo for nostalgic reasons (and after having rediscovered that inner child ;-)). But I don't think the nostalgia factor sets in before you hit your late 20ies or early 30ies.

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Yeah, Nintendo obviously loses some people over time, but what I think happens is every cycle you have probably conservatively about 5 million "kids" who really love the Nintendo experience so much, that they graduate into "life long players" who are gonna be into Nintendo product well into adult hood.

During the GameCube/N64 days this crowd wasn't very large yet, it was just basically the NES/SNES guys.

But today ... it's so much larger because of the addition of "lifers" from other cycles. And every year a new "graduating class" moves up, this year for example the kids who were 8 years old in 2006 or 2007 and had the Wii or DS make them into huge Nintendo fans ... well they're 18-19 this year.

So it keeps shifting upwards.

 

[massoluk]

The other kids used to tell me Nintendo was the kiddy console and give me shit about it
well look at me now! 33 and crippling depression

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I know, right? Haha, now, I'm a successful 9 to 5 office workers while those kids are now owners of businesses and models and shits. Hahaha haha haha haha haha.....
/Cry

 

[aerie]

I'm getting real close to that 17% bracket, but i'll be a Nintendo gamer for the rest of my life.

 

[TheFireman]

"Family" games will always be appreciated at any age, is just like Disney, so Nintendo will have this core forever.

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I think they outdo Disney a bit in this department. They've done a pretty decent job avoiding making games that overly pander to children, while still making games that are perfectly playable by children.

 

[MrTired]

OP I don't think this a Nintendo issue I think it's a dedicated gaming platform issue. With the advent of gaming on smartphones it becoming more difficult for adults to justify buying dedicated hardware over smartphones. Therefore the demographic skew towards middle aged adults.

 

[B-Dubs]

woa woa, you scared me there for a sec. The GameCube came out in 2001, so it's gonna be 17 years this November. Let's not get ahead of ourselves ;-)

But I generally agree. I think Nintendo fans for a long time have by large part been those who kept their inner child alive. But I don't think this means that Switch owners necessarily want more mature games. If they did, they'd probably not be Nintendo fans, right?

Click to shrink...

This kinda plays into that adolescent mindset I was talking about in my post. Something like BotW is no more or less mature than say The Last of Us. The two games are just created with different goals in mind.

When we finally leave adolescence and reach adulthood we just like what we like. People aren't reaching for maturity anymore.

I'm not saying one game or publisher is better than the other, just that how we percieve the content we consume changes as we age and we generally stop caring about the opinions of our peer groups as much as we once did.

This is all just a long way of saying it's probably less to do with inner child stuff and more to do with how we look at the world as we grow from children through adolescence and into adulthood.

It's why nostalgia is so potent.

 

[MrTired]

This kinda plays into that adolescent mindset I was talking about in my post. Something like BotW is no more or less mature than say The Last of Us. The two games are just created with different goals in mind.

When we finally leave adolescence and reach adulthood we just like what we like. People aren't reaching for maturity anymore.

I'm not saying one game or publisher is better than the other, just that how we percieve the content we consume changes as we age and we generally stop caring about the opinions of our peer groups as much as we once did.

This is all just a long way of saying it's probably less to do with inner child stuff and more to do with how we look at the world as we grow from children through adolescence and into adulthood.

It's why nostalgia is so potent.

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ESRB, PEGI and other ratings boards disagree with your assessment.

 

[UltraMagnus]

I think you have various "graduating classes", every time Nintendo releases new hardware, a certain portion of kids who get that system as their first Nintendo system, fall in love with the Nintendo brand and stay on as life long fans. So just guesstimating (you can guess your own number) lets say even a conservative 5-6% of Nintendo buyers per cycle go on to become "new lifers"

NES/GB Era (1983-1990) - 8 million, these are the O.G.s of Nintendo's fanbase, they know what a Power Glove is while kids from the GCN era will give you a blank stare.

SNES/GB Era (1990-1996) - 5 million, a lower tide era, but still good

N64/GBC/Pokemon Breaks Out Era (1996-2001) - 8 million+, large Pokeboost here.

GCN/GBA Era (2001-2005) - 5 million, GCN less successful but GBA and Pokemon still strong.

DS/Wii Era (2005-2011) - 8 million+ another boom cycle for Nintendo

3DS/Wii U (2011-2017) - *pending, first batch of "3DS kids" will start hitting adult hood in the next couple of years.

It adds up after a while to the point where the adults start to outnumber the amount of current day 5-12 year olds Nintendo can get.

 

[skeezx]

nintendo certainly has its share of 'lifers' who are probably way more committed than somebody who keeps going back to sony or ms based on branding. but i dunno, i would think it's a fairly insignificant subset in the market. late 20s/30s guy buying a switch probably buys it because it's a cool system, not to relive childhood magic or whatever

 

[Dr. Mario]

This kinda plays into that adolescent mindset I was talking about in my post. Something like BotW is no more or less mature than say The Last of Us. The two games are just created with different goals in mind.

When we finally leave adolescence and reach adulthood we just like what we like. People aren't reaching for maturity anymore.

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As I'm well into adulthood that I have kids and noticeably past my prime, I think this is not fully true. I mean the second part definitely, if I want to enjoy something I definitely don't care what other people think of me anymore. I'd sit in to watch a Pixar film at a children's matinee no problem.

But I do crave different experiences, or to experience different emotions. Simple good vs bad like in Marvel movies really don't do it for me anymore. I can enjoy them fine, but I don't consider any of them particularly good because they don't resonate in a way that is meaningful to me.

I found the Last of Us a bit too derivative to really resonate, but it does say interesting things about parenthood and human nature under stress. The fact that BotW works in this comparison is in my opinion not because I'm old enough to appreciate a fairy tale adventure (I do, by the way), but because it actually grapples with complex emotions of melancholy underneath the cartoony shine.

Spoiler: It's basically one big game of

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

I know, right? Haha, now, I'm a successful 9 to 5 office workers while those kids are now owners of businesses and models and shits. Hahaha haha haha haha haha.....
/Cry

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To be fair i got abused because of being autistic and quiet/antisocial more than liking Nintendo games. N64 was probably the last time i was ever happy, but what a time that was. If it makes you feel better some of those people ended up fucking their own lives up.

 

[Deleted member 5535]

This certaily is true. Many people that I know began in video games with the Wii or DS in the last generation and they're younger than me.

 

[Dragonyeuw]

My first Nintendo console was in 89 as an 11 year old( the NES of course). Im now 40 and love their products and games as much as I always did. Switch owner here and own or owned just about every one of their major consoles. And heading into next gen, I'm pretty sure I'll buy whatever comes after Switch. I look at my Ps4 and Xbox and wonder if I'll do the same with either of those, or just stick with 'Switch 2' and my PC.

So, guese I fall into the 'lifer' category.

 

[paulc]

Stop it, we've already hit the quota for positive Switch threads in one day O.P!

I don't think Nintendo is making this their focus for Switch to be honest. All their exclusives bar DKCTF are very easy games. I think their TD is still "everyone" not adults.

 

[B-Dubs]

ESRB, PEGI and other ratings boards disagree with your assessment.

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Those rate basic content, not actual maturity. Violence, sex, and cursing aren't necessarily mature and can infact be immature. We just don't want kids of a certain age exposed to them for developmental reasons.

As I'm well into adulthood that I have kids and noticeably past my prime, I think this is not fully true. I mean the second part definitely, if I want to enjoy something I definitely don't care what other people think of me anymore. I'd sit in to watch a Pixar film at a children's matinee no problem.

But I do crave different experiences, or to experience different emotions. Simple good vs bad like in Marvel movies really don't do it for me anymore. I can enjoy them fine, but I don't consider any of them particularly good because they don't resonate in a way that is meaningful to me.

I found the Last of Us a bit too derivative to really resonate, but it does say interesting things about parenthood and human nature under stress. The fact that BotW works in this comparison is in my opinion not because I'm old enough to appreciate a fairy tale adventure (I do, by the way), but because it actually grapples with complex emotions of melancholy underneath the cartoony shine.

Spoiler: It's basically one big game of

Click to shrink...

This kinda misses my point a bit. I'm not saying we don't want more fulfilling experiences, but that when we reach adulthood we're willing to also look to things we might have abandoned in the past, for being childish, to find those experiences we crave. We're not concerned with looking adult anymore because we are adults and that frees us up to make content choices we might not have in our adolescence.