The Casual Audience is Already There

Nintendo has sold over 56 million Wii consoles since the system launched three years ago. While it's hard to clearly define “casual” versus “hardcore,” it's become quite clear from consumers purchasing habits on the Wii that a good majority of that platform's audience is indeed casual. Nintendo's focus this generation has been all about simple, casual and social rather than high-tech and complex. The Wii is a very social platform, but Nintendo could do a lot better by encouraging its audience to be social online. Social networks are hugely popular in this Internet age, and it's highly likely that most of the Nintendo audience also frequently uses Facebook or MySpace.

Gaming is also now the most popular application category on Facebook and MySpace. Why not align one of the most well-known and trusted gaming brands in the world – Nintendo – with these social networks? Yes, Nintendo already allows DSi users to connect to Facebook to upload photos, but that is just a small step. Nintendo needs to start pumping out games for Facebook and MySpace, just like Playfish, Zynga and Playdom.

The audience is there, and because of the viral nature of social networking, Nintendo's games would very quickly be adopted as word of mouth and recommendations get thrown around. FarmVille has somewhere around 60 million monthly players, and it's easy to envision a large portion of those players, for example, trying out a Nintendo social game and inviting their friends to play too.