DS Cookbooks and Long Tail Economics

Hey check it out: Clive Thompson, who writes Wired News' Games Without Frontiers column, is on vacation this week, and they asked me to fill in for him. Big shoes, big shoes. It took some doing, but I came up with something about DS cookbook software, Long Tail, and Wonder Momo.

Mario has sold nearly 3 million units, but nine more productivity applications that sell only as well as O-Ryouri Navi would equal that amount. And because the development cycle of something like an interactive cookbook is significantly shorter than that of a sprawling, epic adventure game, Nintendo could churn out a number of different products with little difficulty.

Nintendo is also in an excellent position to capitalize on Long Tail economics with its upcoming home game console, Wii. Specifically, the company's planned digital delivery service, which will allow users to download games from the company's 20-year back catalog, has some advantages over Microsoft's competing Xbox Live Arcade service.

My word, what could those advantages be? You'll have to click the blue underlined text above.