Microsoft recently started recruiting women to throw Xbox soirees as part of a branding effort to get women to start playing the Xbox, according to the Gannett news service.
They got an Xbox party pack of freebies that included microwaveable popcorn, Xbox trivia game "Scene It? Box Office Smash," an Xbox universal media remote control, a three-month subscription to Xbox Live, and 1,600 Xbox Live points (used for game, movie and TV show purchases).
I do think this is a great marketing strategy but as with all Microsoft marketing efforts it feels a bit off. Women have proven to be huge consumers of casual games, and heavily interested in the Wii (Nintendo has been advertising heavily to the ladies for quite a while) but the Xbox feels like a stretch. And, there aren't a ton of Xbox games that are appealing to women--at least not from my informal survey (I asked my wife and a woman in the hotel lobby.)
"We've sold 20 million consoles to date globally since we launched three years ago," says Heather Snavely, Microsoft's director of interactive entertainment business global platforms. "In order to get to the next 20 million, we need to get a new audience of women and teens. We're going after them in ways that are different than ways we've done before."
Good for Microsoft on this attempt and good for the women who want get involved with playing video games.
Of course, the main thing that comes to mind for me with this program is a free episode I downloaded of The Real Housewives of Orange County, where all the snake-skinned ladies got together for a cocktail and lingerie party. Somehow, I just can't see that crew getting together for a rousing game of Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto. Maybe if there was a Botox game or something where you drink until you irreparably insult your husband and isolate your children? (Zing!)
Wii Fit has already sold more than 8.7 million units worldwide and has maintained a shockingly high sales run rate of about 225,000 units per week for the last few months.
At the same time, Take-Two Interactive Software's Grand Theft Auto IV has dropped off the best seller lists with about 10.6 million copies sold, which means that Nintendo's Wii Fit should surpass it in sales.
What's driving this? Women. Nintendo realized that there was an untapped audience of "women and moms" (their words, not mine) that would allow it to expand the brand. This is counter to the traditionally male-dominated world of video games.
Wagner James Au nails the irony of Wii Fit versus GTA:
A blockbuster franchise for nearly a decade, Grand Theft Auto's fantasy world of antisocial behavior has helped solidify a stereotype of gamers as 18-34 males, but the market has expanded far beyond that sector. Wii Fit's success is the most prominent, emblematic example of that shift. And an ironic one at that: Every edition of GTA has aroused complaints over its portrayal of women. Yet this year, it's women consumers who will help steal Grand Theft Auto IV's thunder.
A number of casual game makers I have spoken with told me that their audience is primarily women. Maybe Nintendo has cracked the code for an emerging market.
Link to GigaOm: Wii Fit on track to outsell GTA IV this year
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