Nintendo revealed to Bloomberg that they will be spending the rather large sum of $200 million on advertising the Wii, in an attempt to gain back the market share they lost in the last Console War. The campaign starts this week, and from the sounds of things, you won’t be able to escape it!

It is their biggest advertising campaign ever, and they have apparently learnt their lesson from the failure of the GameCube.

“GameCube didn’t meet out expectations,” Harrison said in an interview. “There were lessons in there for us that led us to the Wii. The first lesson was that just trying to be like the others in the marketplace wasn’t the answer.”

He says they have given up in trying to take on the big boys for hardcore gamers to convert, instead targetting those that find games boring, a chore or just not fun. Nintendo are also trying to move away from the kiddy reputation they have unintentionally adopted over the past few years too.

About 80 percent of advertising for Wii will target adults in an attempt to expand the video-game market beyond children and teens that have been Nintendo’s traditional market, said George Harrison, the company’s senior vice president for marketing.

An ad from a magazine

An interesting move, but will it work? I hope so, because I don’t think anyone would want to see Ninty go the same way as Sega and become just a 3rd party developer. I for one will definitely pick one up around or just after launch, depending on if it sells out in England or not.

Of course, many of you may think it is a waste of money, it’s just advertising after all. But what many people fail to understand is just how important advertising is. With such a huge campaign being lauched, with two minutes of documentary being on offer, it makes sure that every person with a TV and eyes sees the Wii and immediately becomes interested. Be it Grandparents for their Grandchildren, or just the average gamer; everyone is included. So will it work? I for one truely hope so.