Nintendo Gifts DS Lite to President Bush
Nintendo of America sent President Bush an early baby boomer gift pack today. The bag of presidential goodies includes a DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. Bush turns 60 tomorrow.
Context & Ripple Effects
Nintendo of America's gift to a soon-to-be-60 President Bush is a deliberate extension of the DS Lite rollout that began weeks earlier, when the company staged its Rockefeller Center launch party in New York and retailers scrambled to meet pre-release DS Lite demand. Pairing the hardware with Brain Age is the pointed part: the software is Nintendo's vehicle for reaching buyers far outside the traditional gamer base.
First-order effects
- Nintendo converts a birthday gesture into mainstream publicity, landing its handheld and Brain Age in political and general-news coverage rather than just the game press.
- Bush becomes the highest-profile Brain Age owner yet, a living endorsement of the 'train your brain' pitch aimed squarely at his demographic.
Second-order effects
- Rivals Sony and Microsoft — both preparing their PlayStation 3 and Wii console pitches for later in 2006 — face a competitor whose marketing narrative already owns the casual and older-audience territory they have not addressed.
Third-order effects
- If gifting and endorsement tactics like this keep working, console makers will increasingly court politicians, celebrities, and institutions as a route to non-gamers, blurring the line between game hardware and consumer-wellness products.
The trend: Nintendo is systematically pushing the DS and Brain Age beyond the core gaming audience ahead of its next console launch, using high-profile figures to legitimize play for older adults.