BigShinyThing

According to a report in The Times, the Nintendo Wii – which is currently outselling Sony’s PlayStation 3 by three to one – has begun to “steal” prime-time television audiences in Japan.

The Nintendo machine, which was specifically designed to repackage video gaming as a family-oriented affair - otherwise known as ‘casual gaming’, is believed by media insiders to be responsible for an unprecedented decline in early-evening viewing figures for Japan’s top-rated shows.

According to one senior executive of the country’s largest commercial television channel, Fuji TV, families who used to tune in to its colourful diet of soap operas, panel games and comedy variety shows may, instead, be drifting away and choosing to spend the same, economically-critical “golden hour” time playing on their Wii.

His comments come as Japanese television executives are reeling in horror at recent figures from Japan’s audience-tracking firms: last week was the first in nearly two decades where no single show on any commercial station attracted more than a 9 per cent audience share.

“The quality of programming has always been a little cyclical in Japan, but there has never been a period of decline like the one we are seeing now. There are outside factors at work. One is people watching TV on their cell phones where we can’t track them, but the really big factor is the time people are spending on the Wii,” an executive of TBS, another major commercial channel, said. He added that the “theft” of audiences was taking place because television producers and programming directors were used only to the idea of competing for time with other channels.

Parents – the critical decision-makers of family entertainment between 7pm and 9pm – were being wooed by something more interactive than television offers at present.

Investors have already shown their excitement over the Wii, despite the fact that it has yet to produce a range of titles that appeal to so-called “hard-core” games enthusiasts (you could say that it doesn’t need to). Nintendo’s stock has soared of late and the company now commands a greater market capitalisation than Sony – a rival that has a massive portfolio of businesses and eight times the global revenues of Nintendo. Sony has however encountered massive problems with the launch of its much-anticipated Sony Playstation 3 and a raft of PR blunders. By contrast, the Wii has even managed to turn negative PR to its advantage, with reports of Wii-related injuries just proving how compelling (and compulsive) the user experience is.

The Wii console, which is controlled by a motion-sensitive baton, has introduced a range of new experiences to the $30 billion (£15 billion)-a-year games industry. Because the controller can be used to simulate everything from a bowling ball to a battle-axe, software designers have come up with a range of titles that encourage gaming in a wider target audience than Nintendo’s old constituency of eight-to-16-year-olds. It has also put paid to the image of the coach-potato gamer.

Analysts at Nomura, for example, pin high hopes on a forthcoming Wii game with the working title of “Wii Health”. The game is expected to offer its users a full range of workouts and fitness activities using the motion-sensitive controller; it is also expected to snatch market share from the many fitness and health shows that dominate the daytime television schedules. Given the versatility of the Wii controller – it could simulate any kitchen utensil from a fish slice to an egg whisk – the Wii might also stage an assault on that bastion of prime-time Japanese television, the celebrity chef cookery show.

We are clearly witnessing the advent of a new type of leisure activity - the rise of ‘casual gaming’. Traditional TV has even more problems than we thought …