Experience Results from Experienced Marketers

Social Media Lessons for Nintendo

October 20, 2008 – 10:48 am

This is a guest post from Samir Balwani who writes about Social Media and Internet Marketing at Left the Box, http://leftthebox.com

Every once in a while you’ll be doing something and you’ll have a “why not”
moment. Mine happened while I was playing Mario Kart on my Wii Online and
thought, “why can’t I connect with people on the Wii?” It got me thinking,
“why hasn’t Nintendo launched a social network on the Wii for Wii users?”

If you don’t know what this Wii thing is, you’re sorely missing out. It’s
one of the greatest gaming consoles and is targeted towards everyones.
Instead of using a joystick to move the system tracks your body movements,
making games interactive and forcing people to get up and move around. Most
importantly, for this post at least, it connects to the Internet and allows
you to play games with friends online.

Since the Wii already has a huge user-base, it’s primed for a social
network. Users already have something in common, they’re Wii owners. Many
may be looking for people to share their games with, want to highlight
their top scores, or just want to connect with new people that share their
interests.

A social network on for the Wii benefits Nintendo just as much as their
users. The network gives Nintendo a look into their users. As a person
fills out their profile, we can build data on who uses the Wii, what games
are popular with what demographic, and what people expect from their games.
Also, by having a singular online space for Wii users, Nintendo can
advertise new games and add-ons directly to Wii owners.

My experiences as a Wii user make me think a social network would be great.
I’d be given the chance to meet people around me, or add people as friend
to play Mario Kart with again. The social network would make the Wii more
robust, taking it from a single player console to one for many.

So how should Nintendo implement it? Simple, call it something like
Wiispace and make it accessible from the Wii’s home screen. Give it a good
set of features like -

• Ability to create a profile for search users
• Add friends and highlight connections
• See who’s online and invite them to play games
• Show what games you play, and your high scores
• Give updates, what game are you playing, what are you doing?
• Recommend people, games, and add-ons
• Integrated chat with video and audio
• Add widgets to take Wiispace to the blogosphere, and other
  networks

I know personally, I’d love something like this. As more games take
advantage of online group play; consoles need to make it easier to connect
and find others to play with. Would you sign up for a Wii Social Network or
do you think this is just a waste of time?