Nintendo's Marketing

Athrun brought up a while ago about the lack of marketing for Xenoblade Chronicles X at the time, I even said it's the sort of game everyone that people taht want it know about it.

NoA recently said this Xenoblade Chronicles X is an RPG, a game for RPG and Xenoblade fans. We didn’t do anything too big because the audience for the game already know it exists and is already attentive of its release.

Which I posted in the games thread but that may go of subject with some of the replies and I doubt Cappa looks in the thread.

We got this from NUK

We can see there is a big appetite for proper JRPGs within the home console market, and not much currently fulfilling it. On the 3DS, titles such as Bravely Default and Fire Emblem Awakening have proved hugely popular, and so we know that within our Nintendo audience this genre is particularly well received. It will be great to offer this type of game to the Wii U audience as well.

This game is very unique within the release schedule. The only other vaguely comparable title – Fallout 4 – is a very different breed of RPG so there is nothing similar within this window that offers dedicated RPG fans the score and depth of gameplay that Xenoblade Chronicles X does. As one fan said ‘It’s giant robots, flying around a massive field, fighting things. There’s nothing not to love about that.

Which Athrun touches on that a kid surely would love to play a game were you pilot a mech and kill giant monsters but there not marketing it, but will it really bring many more people in as that kid likely wants a PS4 or XBONE like his mates.

And this whole generation the marketing hasn't been great for the Wii U which is hard to get the message across as people still think it's some sort of Wii add on, that the NX surely can only be better with marketing.

There is also this statement from NoA about the current adds:

Thoughts, should Nintendo be pushing the hell out of Xenoblade knowing that the core already know about it and what about next generation what do they need to do?

Maybe Balla can use his admin skills and add in the post from the Xeno X thread

It definitely feels a lot like they've given up, doesn't it? I really do think Nintendo have accepted the Wii U is a sunk cost and are preserving their marketing money for 3DS titles (I've seen adverts for Triforce Heroes) and the inevitable NX push. In the long run, that might be the smarter choice but it is frustrating knowing that Xenoblade will probably be excellent but no bugger will know about it.

masofdas wrote:

Balla, please may you use your admin skills and add in the post from the Xeno X thread  

fixed

I think it will do a Bayonetta 2 be critically acclaimed, it was mine & yours Drunka GOTY last year but it sold 830k, okay it must be hard to market being more raunchy then Xenoblade.

I guess they've gone where the install base is with 3DS games having adverts.

Let's hope then push the NX better then the Wii U.

Yeah I should of said please.

Nintendo's marketing in recent years has tended to be disappointing; I remember the original Wii U ad for Christmas 2012 being pulled because it was inaccurate, and Nintendo never seemed to recover from that.

The NX had better be easy to market and have a great launch line-up because they might never do justice to that, either...

It seems like it won't have Wii or DS in its name, which is what caused Nintendo so much confusion for some reason.

I've seen some say it's a brand problem being that Sony has playstation & MS have xbox but I don't think I can entirely agree with that because surely the brand is the name of the company itself, so to stop any confusion all they need to do is slap Nintendo in front of it.

I'd be fine with it just being the Nintendo X (cross) as that'd be hard to mess up from marketing point of view since the big innovation seems to be about cross play.

I think brand is a big deal and one of the reasons Sony likes to slap PlayStation on everything.

That makes sense Jas, Nintendo X would be a good name for a hybrid which may be difficult to market but I've said before how I would market it.

They can also make it look like this  

Yes, difficult to name it the Nintendo X for that reason alone, surely?

Nintendo's marketing has been terrible for the entirety of this generation, it feels, apart from one brief push for the 3DS. Of late, I've seen a lot of advertising for e.g. Zip-Lash and Mario Tennis on Nintendo Life, where the best advertising would be to actually make good games, and very little anywhere else. That's a recurring pattern.

But it's a Cross not a X Balla

*Blessing Dart*

So a new Nintendo slogan launched recently and it is here. Y'know, I like it? It's true, for starters. It probably won't start a revolution in how Nintendo market to the masses - I've pretty much given up on that - but a good touch.

There really isn't. I just had a fantastic six-person session of Nobby's Bumpie's Party and it was great fun and couldn't happen anywhere else.

I was looking at some old NGamer Magazines at the weekend, and some of the advertsing was class. You'll all remember it; rather than appeal to the hardcore - becuase the hardcore Nintendo fans will always be there, no matter what Nintendo do - all the marketing showed people across all ages and backgrounds playing the Wii and DS. It was really inspired stuff. For a lot of people that I know, those adverts changed the way that they view gaming - it's not even 'gaming' any more, it's 'playing the Wii'.



There's a good example. Brain Training and New Super Mario Bros were as famous as Tetris and Pong for a long time - maybe they still are, as my local Sainsbury's still stocks both of them, ten years after they came out! Even if they spent $100m marketing it, you can't see the likes of Xenoblade having anything like that type of traction. There's just no chance. That's sold about as many copies as it's going to, and it probably did so in it's first week out. Those types of games are just for the hardcore. Just leave them be. They know what's coming out. It's the lapsed casual gamers that Nintendo need to get back. More adverts with Chris Tarrant and Kriss Akabusi are what NX needs (as well as dozens and dozens of sports games and racing games right up the fucking arse, natch).

Not Rufus Hound?

Seriously, I agree with pretty much everything you've said there, Cappa. It's beyond time for Nintendo to expand the scope of their marketing: however they do it, it needs done. Sports games have a very broad appeal and, really, it'll involve getting EA - or at the very least Konami, for a PES Pachinko - onside (nailed it). That'll be easier said than done but not an impossibility. There's a small chance that that will bring back lapsed Nintendo gamers, too, which I would very much like to see.

They got so much flak at the time those adverts.  And yet they worked.  

If there's one thing I want to see Nintendo do this coming generation marketing-wise, it's target people (adults I guess) who aren't Nintendo fans.  I don't even particularly care whether that means gamers or casuals.  Just... I don't want to get thousands of targeted adverts through Google Ads, and see not a single one on the street.

Harry Redknapp playing Brawl. Nintendo got every dick for their adverts back in the day. JLS for Wii Party, Patrick Stewart for Brain Training, Girl's Aloud for Mario Kart DS, and they even got Joe Calzaghe to advertise Punch-Out!!. And those adverts were everywhere - ITV, Channel 4, Sky One, Gay TV, you name it. Back in the day.

EDIT: Actually, fair play, Nintendo UK got it bang on when with the Donkey Kong 3DS/Tropical Freeze adverts: