You want to touch, don't you? You like to touch. Go ahead. We won't tell. Touch it. Touching is good. Thus has gone, and will continue to go, Nintendo's recently unveiled marketing campaign for their DS. We all know about it, we've all seen print ads and TV commercials that proudly proclaim, "Touching is Good."

So, what does this mean? Nintendo has finally decided to grow up. Their commercials and ads all have an underlying sexuality that seamlessly blends innuendo and advertising. By marketing the product that, by the words of Satoru Iwata himself, Nintendo is "most proud of" in its entire 100-year-plus history, in undeniably the most mature campaign they have ever ventured, Nintendo is making a bold statement that they are no longer just for the kids, as they have been so unfairly branded for the past several years, thanks in large part to smear campaigns from Sony with the release of the original Playstation. Nintendo has stood up and finally declared that they are not just the Pokeémon company anymore.

So what's the problem? It takes more than just an ad campaign to change an image that has been so ingrained in the gaming community, casual and otherwise, that it is almost a part of our collective culture. Sure, Nintendo has gone to great lengths to market the DS to an older audience, using lines like "Touching is Good," as well as advertising in decidedly adult-oriented magazines like Maxim, and even using the word "ass" in their MTV ad featuring the Wildboyz, a word that a few years ago wouldn't even have been considered possible to appear in a Nintendo ad (the closest they ever came to swearing was the tagline for Mario Kart 64, which was, if you recall, "Kick asphalt"). But, without the proper software to back it up, it becomes just an empty promise.

Let's take a look at Nintendo's software lineup for the DS:

Advance Wars DS

Animal Crossing DS

Mario Kart DS

Metroid Prime Hunters (First Hunt)

New Super Mario Bros.

Pokémon Dash

Puppy Times (Nintendogs)

Super Mario 64 DS (Super Mario 64x4)

Wario Ware Inc. DS

Yoshi's Touch & Go

Of all of these games, only Metroid and, possibly, Advance Wars are decidedly more "Mature" offerings, though both are to be rated T, if that. The rest of the games are all what would be called either "childish," "family friendly," or - dare I say? - "kiddie." Yeah, there are third-party offerings out there like GoldenEye from EA, Viewtiful Joe from Capcom, Dynasty Warriors from Koei, Nanospray from Majesco, and Feel the Magic: XX/XY from Sega, but it's simply not enough. Nintendo has to take the formula that has been driving its ad campaign and expand it into game development. The best thing they could do is take an established franchise and completely revamp it. Take The Legend of Zelda for example. Look what's being done with the franchise in its latest GameCube installment. You've all seen the video and screens, I don't think I need to go too much into detail on what's going on with that. Nintendo needs to take it a step further and make a dark, mature Zelda for the DS as well. Of all of Nintendo's star franchises, Link and company would have the biggest impact if they were to take the next step and grow up. I don't mean to say that Zelda needs to take her top off or that Link needs to rip peoples' livers out and eat them with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, but there does need to be a more mature edge to the franchise, should Nintendo really want to expand their horizons and deliver what they've been trying to.

By no means am I saying that Nintendo should abandon their roots, of course. It's games and franchises like Mario and Pokémon that have defined Nintendo over the last two decades. I just think that they need to expand, while maintaining their classics. It's expansion like the new Metroid games that are a step in the right direction. Metroid has always been one of Nintendo's prized series, shooters with brains, that make the player think and explore, along with blowing stuff up. Nintendo took the right step in bringing this franchise back from the dead after eight years of dormancy with Metroid Prime, and now with Fusion, Zero Mission, Echoes, and Classic NES Series Metroid, and finally Hunters; here we have an in-house Nintendo-developed game targeted specifically at gamers in their teens and older. Good idea. Let's see what else Nintendo is developing in-house.

Puppy Times, or Nintendogs. I don't know if you've seen this game in action, but it's basically about playing with some dogs. You rub their bellies, throw Frisbees, and all the other stuff you do with dogs. Click here to see some screens of this game. Quite frankly, the game is too damn cute for its own good. This is not a game conducive of the image that Nintendo wants to portray for the DS.

I think at this point you all get my point. Nintendo needs to learn that, simply, halfway is not enough. If they want to paint themselves as a mature gamers' company, they need to prove it to us through games as well as through fancy ads with sultry female voices and the word "ass." Otherwise, it'll go up in smoke, and the Nintendo image will go unchanged. Sony will still be for horny boys, Microsoft will still be for people who like to blow shit up, and Nintendo will still be for kids. Let's get with the program, Nintendo - go all out or don't go at all.

Carl DeNovio