Nintendo hopes to shed its kiddy image

When video game players think about Nintendo, names that border on the cute and cuddly usually spring to mind, names such as Mario, Zelda or Pokemon.

That was fine 10 years ago when the vast majority of gamers liked their video game characters the way they liked their pajamas: warm and fuzzy.

But those players have grown up, and Nintendo wants to keep them, not just wait for their younger siblings or children to take the controls. It's not giving up its classic titles, but it is going to offer more action -- and that means more violence and gore -- to attract older players who want more than the games they played as kids.

Industry estimates are that more than two-thirds of today's video gamers are over age 18. The children's bracket that once dominated the industry is just a small segment of the overall picture.

While Sony with its PlayStation 2 and Microsoft with its Xbox have roped in adult gamers by the score with hard-edged titles such as the Grand Theft Auto crime series and the futuristic shooter Halo, Nintendo has remained kid-oriented in its image.

So Nintendo is revamping its marketing approach, hoping to win over hard-core gamers in the 18-26-year-old demographic -- the ones with disposable incomes and grown-up tastes. The company wants to be seen as more than your little brother's favorite gamemaker.

It's not that harder-edged games have been barred from Nintendo systems. When the brutal fighting game Mortal Kombat left arcades for home systems in the mid-1990s, Sega marketed a video game for its Genesis console that left intact the gore and violence (including scenes of decapitation and evisceration).

But a version of the game was also available for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System, with the violence but not all the gore.

Nintendo also scored hits for its Nintendo 64 with the adult spy adventure James Bond 007: Goldeneye and the similar game Perfect Dark. And Nintendo's current system, the GameCube, has featured adult material as well, including a no-holds-barred version of the zombie-killing classic Resident Evil and the brooding horror game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.

But the company is still seen primarily as a provider of kiddy entertainment, and the dribble of GameCube titles released so far has focused on the younger set.

All that's about to change, along with Nintendo's marketing approach.

From nightclub kiosks to college campus tours, from limited online play to celebrity-studded parties at Hollywood hot spots, Nintendo's pulling out the stops in its image makeover as it prepares to release a flurry of adult-aimed games by the first of the year.

Due soon for mature gamers are, among almost 80 others, Resident Evil Zero (a GameCube exclusive), the edgy Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a new James Bond title, Nightfire, the World War II shooter Medal of Honor: Frontline, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Die Hard Vendetta, the brutal boxer Black and Bruised, several new sports titles and the eagerly anticipated return of Nintendo's classic Metroid series, updated for mature tastes.

To get the word out, Nintendo recently announced a marketing campaign that will boost holiday spending 25 percent over 2001, to $140-million, much of it targeted at luring adult and older teen players.

Nintendo hasn't completely forgotten the kids: Coming by Christmas are Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Nickelodeon's Party Blast, a new Donald Duck adventure, a SpongeBob SquarePants game and a handful of Disney sports titles.

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