Nintendo Spreading the Word of Its Wii Games with Metacritic Ratings

One of Nintendo’s previously stated goals in their “Blue Ocean” method of expanding the gaming audience was to be able to draw in people who don’t typically game with new kinds of software, and be able to sort of ease them in to the kind of games many of us enjoy on a routine basis. However, it seems that somewhere along the way, a stumbling block of sorts was hit, and Nintendo seems to be attempting to find a way around it.

And while EA Sports President Peter Moore believes that Metacritic ratings are not as important to the average Wii user, it appears that Nintendo respectfully disagrees, and is attempting to utilize the review aggregation site’s scores to its advantage when pitching its wares to new customers.

Nintendo Dpad reports that in addition to the health warnings and Club Nintendo inserts which come with Nintendo’s first-party titles, the company is now also including promotional sleeves for other games which feature Metacritic ratings, as you can see at the top of the article.

Of using Metacritic, Moore had said “I absolutely guarantee you, the thing we’re watching most closely now [with Wii titles] is things like Amazon – and I’ll go look at women’s magazines that have powerful websites, and then we look at what we call ‘mommy bloggers’,” adding “That’s where those people go for their information. They are not going to Metacritic. They don’t know Metacritic exists.”

But Nintendo Dpad notes “Metacritic ratings might not be known to people who don’t game often, but a rating being shown actually attracts needed attention as anything with a high review score is usually seen as a good sign of a valued product.”

“Just like many other rating systems in entertainment (Billboard 100, Ebert and Roeper, etc.), Metacritic may not be the score every person would give, but it is a good way of seeing the overall product for what it is worth.”

While other companies seem to use review scores on their products often enough, they have always seemed to shy away from such accolades. It should be interesting to see if this pays off for Nintendo in the long run.