What’s Next for Nintendo?

The company’s first shift toward a broader and decidedly older group of players came with the 2004 introduction of the DS portable console. Shedding the Game Boy moniker, this little handheld device included a selection of educational and mind-challenging games geared at more mature users, played out on two touch screens, complete with texting and Wi-Fi capabilities.

The second step came with the hugely successful Wii system. Ceding ground to their competitors when it came to graphics and realism, Nintendo instead sought to broaden their fan base with the novel idea of a wireless motion controller, and titles meant to get people off their couches and into the game, not to mention alongside family and friends.

Nintendo’s latest offering comes with a seemingly simple pad that aimed not only at sports and fitness games, but also at actual wellness and training titles. Equipped with sensors for the feet, the Wii Fit offers titles from yoga to dance, erasing the reputation of video games as being an unhealthy endeavor. Released in May, the Wii Fit has already become one of this year’s fastest selling products, suggesting that it may follow in the footsteps of its predecessor; appealing to audiences outside the world of traditional gaming.

Nintendo’s recent success has also come with a broader approach to development and design. Whereas before Nintendo insisted that all their programming and development come from within the company, the Wii has been opened up to a slew of outsiders in an effort to find novel ideas rather than focusing on advanced technology.

Part of Nintendo’s new approach to game design and programming is allowing private users and developers to create variations on older games or entirely new ones using the company’s basic technology, long regarded as unattainable secret. The Wii Ware games, as they are called, are not actually available in stores, but can be downloaded from Nintendo’s online store.

Nintendo’s transformation from industry deadweight to leader has come in part thanks to its appeal to non-traditional gamers—those that fall out of the young men’s market. Appealing to both women and older users, Nintendo has expanded their base, while transforming what it means to play video games.

Nintendo’s success is part of a larger embrace of gaming across the world with some new video game titles outpacing revenues of some Hollywood blockbusters.

Starting life as a playing card manufacturer in 1890 in Japan, Nintendo has gone through many incarnations, emerging with one of the first home gaming consoles in the early 1970s.