Numbers were once something Nintendo distrusted. How many Playstations do Sony sell for every Gamecube? Who has the second place, you or Microsoft? How many people will buy another Mario Party because there's nothing else in the release schedules for their purple cube? Now, like accountants stuffed with Viagra, they can't get enough of them. 16 out of the year's top 20 games have been Nintendo's! We have 80 percent of the German handheld market! The country's gaming population will reach 4 million soon, and that's thanks to us!

Like Santa Monica's numerical theatre last month, Nintendo's media briefing at the Games Convention was tinged with smugness and self-indulgence (do they really think journalists find staged questions with Nintendo-endorsed 'experts' at all interesting?), all of which, of course, is probably justified. It has been a long time since Nintendo were in such a favourable position, their Touch Generation approach both assaulting adversarial market share and garnering cultural currency in a way thought beyond unlikely by most. More than many, they deserve success.

General manager for Nintendo of Germany, Bernd Fakesch, reminded reports that it was only two Leipzigs ago that Nintendogs was showcased to the public, the canine care simulator helping to launch the current trend of low concept, tactile, alternative games. But for all the benevolent talk of 'breaking barriers that divide us' and championing democratic gaming - Nintendo's mission, a Iwata reference, is 'to make people happy and to make them smile' we were told - it is obvious to most that it is Nintendo's taste of once-rare commercial success that is driving the Brain Training, Wii Fit etc. outlook. The easier it is to market to casual and non gamers, the better.

Nintendo claim they aren't doing so at the expense of the hardcore gamer, that their 'Nintendo family' is for all types, and it's true that there's little evidence to the contrary at the moment. But as the success continues, expect software like Flash Focus and cookery guides, not games, to enter the limelight more and more. The English translator on our headphones was perhaps more prophetic than he meaned to when he translated what was presumably 'traditional' or 'classic' translated to 'classical', with connotations of antiquation.

Despite any conjections, there is still Mario, Metroid and Phantom Hourglass, and expect more on those in hands-on reports coming soon, but Nintendo know what they're doing, and they know where they are going. The backlash is inevitable, I think, but if Nintendo could learn to trim the back-patting fodder in their presentations, maybe the knives will be that bit blunter.

Conor Smyth
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