Forum - View topicINTEREST: Game Marketing Seminar Reveals Girls Prefer Nintendo Switch Over PS4
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Dey21
Posts: 43 |
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TLDR
Girls prefer Switch because there are more cute games like Mario. PS4 is for men. Thanks, bye. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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My main reaction to this headline was "...doesn't everyone?" But apparently I'm just not a Real Gamer(tm). Switch has only sold ~20 million units, and PS4 is up to ~80 million, though of course it's also been out for about 4 times as long.
Non-Nintendo consoles always seem to have mostly shooters with maybe one interesting indie game exclusive, so they just don't seem worth it to me, especially if you have a PC/laptop with a decent video card (also have never figured out how people manage to play 3D FPS games with an analog stick). Lack of interest from women is likely mainly due to the, let's say, hypermasculine side of gamer culture. |
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Arale Kurashiki
Posts: 773 |
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That's not true, PlayStation consoles have tons of interesting exclusives. For example, PS1 and PS2 are bastions of creative adventure games. I know that western marketing wants you to believe that it's all shooters but it's not. However, there aren't really many "exclusives" in the first place anymore, so Nintendo really wins out on the whole "being a game developer" thing (i.e. that they can develop exclusives for their platforms).
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bleachj0j
 Posts: 926 |
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Which couldn't be further from the truth. That would be like saying Nintendo only has Mario and Zelda and nothing else. |
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-SP-
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Japanese Girls Prefer Nintendo Switch Over PS4 would have been a more fitting title.
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chronos02
Posts: 272 |
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Well, that was underwhelming, I thought they studied something else that explained why women like one above the other, and not the obvious kind of analisys of the marketing Sony and Nintendo have used to aim one console towards one or another demographic.
The PS4 (and all the playstation brand) is marketed towards males in general, mostly from mid-teens to young adults, women appear simply because it's more "ethical" to include them in most ads and other forms of comunication. The PS4 is black with a blue hue here and there, it has a straight design with some curved borders, simplicity being the main protagonist; its menu is also sober, with predominant blue colors with mostly square images and large text without too much of it. This is aimed at men, or rather, what society perceives as manly. On the other hand, the Switch is marketed towards everyone between 8 and 30, men and women play a very important role in its image, this can also be seen on the design itself: 2 controllers of different colors (the base design), a more cutesy shape that is simple and yet attractive because of its non-linear design, it has lots of different curvy shapes, the small gimmick of taking off the controllers, docking it a-la-mecha, etc. As for its menu, it's also very interesting and quite colorful, with a very positive array of these, it has a warm feel to it, and it's very welcoming for everyone (well, maybe not so much for manly, sober people). As for the games, the PS4 has an overwhelming exposure of serious games with serious themes, violence, epic stuff, apolapitic stories, etc. It wouldn't matter even if 90% of its library was made of games aimed at girls, women, effeminate people, sensitive people, etc. if what's mostly comunicated through the media is the other stuff. The Switch, on the other hand, has a lot of varied titles, from Marios (obviously) to Doom, Wolfstein, etc. But they're all displayed more or less equally, safe for Nintendo's own software that gets a lot more exposure, and that software has a lot of variety but stays in the confines of "everyone can enjoy it", from the more action and serious oriented Metroid, to the cute and fluffy Kirby and Yoshi titles. Still, the article is a good way to show people that things are as they appear, at least when it comes to products aimed at the mass market. |
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Arale Kurashiki
Posts: 773 |
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Are "games not aimed at men" and "games that take themselves seriously/have something to say" mutually exclusive here...? |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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In conclusion, mobile needs to go way down for all genders, mobile is cancer and the F2P side is predatory in nature. It's bad for gaming in the terms of everything but profit.
There is a lot of otome fare on Switch for it would explain why females prefer it over a PS4. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5181 |
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I don't think the disparity in the gender demographics between systems has to do with the type of games being made or how the systems are marketed, which I think is relying too much on gender stereotypes to explain it, but Nintendo tends to focus on making games with legacy characters more like Mario, Zelda, and Fox McCloud that are popular with all demographics while Sony doesn't seem to have as many popular legacy characters outside of maybe the Final Fantasy games. Nintendo knows how to tap into nostalgia better to me and nostalgia is a big seller with all demographics. Of course I'm not a woman but I know the main reason I prefer Nintendo is because they focus more on these classic characters everyone has grown up with whereas I'm just not as familiar with Sony video game characters.
Last edited by Cardcaptor Takato on Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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chronos02
Posts: 272 |
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There is no such a thing as mutually exclusive in genres and themes, deepness and gameplay when it comes to games. You can't define something as "aimed for X or Y" based on a single factor, it's a combination of them, like blue by itself, it's just a color; it is only when it gets combined with certain shapes, in the right proportion with other colors, and within certain objects, that the target becomes apparent. For example, GoW is a game that takes itself seriously, has an apocaliptic story with plenty of serious story content, its MC is a man that teaches his son the ropes of the hunt and what it means to be a warrior, be it with witts, strength, or cruelty; However, Life is Strange is a game that also takes itself seriously, and even moreso than GoW, the action centers around the characters, around a story that affects them all. Its mechanics that drive the story are also essential and have a very important role on how they're displayed and how the player interacts with them. And yet, one is mainly aimed at people that enjoy manly, serious stuff, with violence and a deep lore, while the other is aimed at a more relaxed and undefined target that encompasses mostly women, or people that enjoy the introspection of characters, their situations, and how they solve them, with also quite a deep story with very serious themes. Also, the deffinition of "aimed at men" and "aimed at women" does not have a direct correlation with men and women, it's just a form of speech. aimed at men simply means that it's aimed at what society generally perceives as manly or what men tend to like, and the same goes for aimed at women, but it's undeniable that both deffinitions correlate in a vast majority with what society perceives of men and women. This, however, can change in the future (and has, in fact, changed even in the past 10 years) |
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ARC-1300
 Posts: 364 |
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i definitely prefer it over the xbox one,but than again who doesn't? I feel as if ninetnedo is the only gaming company tha understands what gaming is supposed to be like these days. i dont really have a concrete reasoning behind it.it's just kinda how i feel. |
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Chester McCool
 Posts: 322 |
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My girlfriend plays a lot Nintendo games but really only touches a PS4 when a new Final Fantasy or other RPG comes out, so in my experience this is true. Not at all shocked games like Mario, Zelda, Kirby, and Pokemon attract more women than AAA open world/shooter games like GTA5 or Last of Us. Although to be honest, I'm not into those kinds of games either. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6281 |
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This comes off a bit backhanded to me.
......Yeah I'm pretty sure more people associate Kratos, Nathan Drake, Cole, Parappa The Rapper, Sly Cooper, Gabe Logan, along with Dante, Crash and Spyro (who're no longer exclusive) with the Sony Brand way more than Cloud, Squall, Tidus, & Vaan.
And yet it's that same nostalgia why Mario games never really evolved beyond their cliche plots or having full voice acting. Same problem with Zelda, Metroid, & to an extent Starfox. |
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Scytalle
 SubscriberPosts: 53 |
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I would argue that there are definitely redeeming games for the platform. Monster Strike, as the article mentioned, has been the highest grossing mobile game in the world for good reason, it's a really, really good game. Sure you can spend money if you want, but you'd never feel punished for not doing so. Wish more mobile games took their cues from MS. I've played it for a couple years and only spent probably 5 bucks on a new player starter pack. |
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Heishi
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I need deep, involved plots in my Mario games. Oh wait, there's something called "Mario & Luigi" and "Paper Mario". |
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