Let's Keep Things Simple

4 Fuks Saké

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Please head to 4 Fuks Saké for more of the same.

Goodnight and God bless.

Going For The Jugular With A Feminine Touch

They must be shitting themselves inside the Xbox and Playstation marketing teams, and rightly so. Nintendo is my favourite company in the world right now, and this report from The Guardian which says that Face Training is on the way, makes me clench my fist for them just a little bit harder

Having spent four or five years of my life at the sharp end of their PR machine in Europe when things were shit, (I ran the UK & Europe account at Cake between '99 and about '04 desperately trying to hack GameCubes and Game Boy Advance) it's utterly refreshing to see the company deliver the ethos it always promised, with Wii and DS consoles.

This is a company that is nothing but odd. Now I'm told, Japan's second richest company based on cash in the bank, Nintendo has always been clear. It is an entertainment company. Has been for 100 years. Video games were just the next extension of that in the 1970s. They make money and sell things based on a simple premise: will this game be fun?

Having sat on the receiving end of 3rd party games developers getting wet about how the grass moved on a football pitch, or the flickering of an eyebrow on a Uzi-armed terrorist, it is rather gratifying to see how an entire industry is now paying for metaphorically and physically taking its eye off the ball. The disparaging 'kids stuff' put-downs in the direction of Mario and his mates have dried up.

What would send chills through my veins the most is the manner in which Nintendo, with Christmas is approaching, is going for the jugular - aggressively targeting anyone but spotty boys in bedrooms. The latest spot is the one of the most direct forms of TV advertising I've seen for a while....slow, orderly gameplay followed by a strapline which might as well say, 'these are games for girls.'

Nice work lads.

What Goes Around Comes Around, Again.

Blogging, Web 2.0 - God it's so dynamic and fresh. Gizmodo have just posted on Nintendo's Gameboy (sic) shoes.

Me and a couple of mates of mine at Cake made those for Nintendo back in 2000. We were trying to suggest that older, cooler people might play Game Boy other than the kids we'd weaned onto Pokémon.

Creatives 1 Technocrats 0

My boss was the first person I remember who said about 2 years ago, 'ah, blogs - we should pay attention.' 12 months ago he gave me and my colleagues a copy of Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" 12 months on Pink's words are starting to bear even more fruit.

Pink's now well-read book can be summed up in two sentences, thus. In this age of automation, cheaper labour in Asia, and abundance; the winners in business in the 21st century will be the right-brainers: the empathisers, the artists and the story-tellers. Conceptual thinking will defeat linear thinking.

Nintendo v Sony v Microsoft is my favourite latest case study. I worked with Nintendo during the N64/GameCube era and the atmosphere was very different. At the time, a games producer from one of the large all-format software publishers showed me a demo of a sports game with such pride, because the grass blades on the pitch flickered that much more than version 3. 'Who gives a shit?" I suggested politely, "what does that do for the game?" I interpreted his private thoughts as 'this guy just doesn't get it.'

The video games industry went nuclear when Sony's Playstation brand granted social acceptability to the sector. The figures speak for themselves. But Nintendo have been entertaining people for 100 years. Playing cards, games, dabbling in a taxi company, eventually moving into video games in the 1970s - they are a compelling and fascinating example of a Japanese creative company. Nintendo have never needed to remind themselves to get back on track by chanting glibly 'content is king.' It's in their blood - and it's their ability to see the bigger picture in gaming - to symphonise to use Mr Pink's terminology - which is bringing them financial success now.

Games are about having fun. Wii meets that basic human need for all ages - without getting into a technocrat arms race. It's conceptual. It's right-brained. It's profitable and they can't knock them out quickly enough.

The technocrats have been given a bloody nose, and they won't be the last.