Time magazine has ran an interesting interview with Nintendo marketing honcho Nick Chavez. In the interview Chavez explains why the company decided to fork out extravagant money to advertise during the lucrative Super Bowl where the New York Times says the average cost of a 30-second spot this year rose to $5 million.
“There’s no bigger stage in the U.S. on which to showcase the platform. I think it speaks to our confidence in the system,”
“Think about your 40- to 45-year-old parent who has really fond memories of playing Zelda growing up, sitting there watching Super Bowl with their 10- or 12-year-old child who maybe hasn’t experienced Zelda yet,” says Chavez. There you go.
“This isn’t just a six to eight week launch campaign,” says Chavez, referring to the Switch’s hands-on reveal in early January through to its launch on March 3. “This is really a 15 month campaign for us, to say nothing of our plans for 2018. You’re going to see a number of other touch points, including additional 30 or 60 second executions in the coming weeks that emphasize the full proposition, meaning those multiple demographics, including kids, teenagers, young adults, parents, active gamers, casual gamers and so forth.”
The real news item here is that the launch campaign is 15 months (October 2016 – December 2017) and that 2018 will be when Switch is officially done launching. Aka no games until next year so 3DS is going nowhere for now.
It’s good they are pushing switch so hard.
I feel bad for them, that they may see it as a failure if they can’t recapture the casual demographic again (which is obviously Switchs objective we now know) but even if they re-capture the gaming demographic, they should be proud.
I swear to God, they just can’t get that taste of casual blood out of their mouth after the Wii incident.
Casual taste? Who bought the NES, Playstation, Playstation 2, and Playstation 4? You already mentioned the Wii. These so called casuals you talk about are the majority of people that buy consoles. Which is the case in most popular products.
When they are trying to capture 40-50 year olds ( I need to be careful here, because I’m not horribly far off) I believe they are trying to capture families the way the Wii did. And I should note that I did not mean “casual” in a bad sense.
Hey I’m 40 years old. Lol
Gotta keep our skillz up to whomp on the youngins if they talk trash. :P
I hate when they call Wii an incident. Just because “hardcore” gamers can’t adapt to new things, doesn’t mean Wii was a mistake, it was just ambitious. Why always give fans what they want, if you can try to give them what they didn’t know they wanted.
I agree. I don’t know what I want. I never asked for Arms but it has my attention. I never asked for wonderful 101 but it got my attention. I never asked for a directional button and thought one button with a joystick is all I needed but I got a directional button and 2 buttons and enjoyed it.
The wii was fun, I had fun gaming on it, but I feel like it’s success forever changed Nintendo’s perspective on who it’s audience was and it feels like they might just be starting to find their way back. (hopefully… hopefully)
Judging by there trailers, and the games they are making, I’d say Nintendo is targeting young adults mostly, with a side emphasis on children and parents. The only casual focused game coming out from Nintendo is 1,2, Switch, and you might could say arms as well, but i think that has a lot of hardcore elements as well so i think its both.
Setting aside a couple of statements from Nintendo executives, that could be general talk, I agree their marketing is nailing it. And that’s probably the most important thing for a successful launch. I’m guessing most people are not analyzing everything said by Nintendo to the same degree we are – most are just getting the Marketing message – and that’s where Nintendo is getting things right.
Definitely
I want an all in one hybrid and even when they have the perfect system for it they still manage to fuck it up with talk of a 3DS successor.
We have hope with the recently announced, handheld-mode only game.
That’s because that game requires the touch screen.
They did try that- it resulted in Animal Crossing amiibo Festival and Federation Farce. Look how those turned out (spoiler: very very badly).
||Whatever the outcome, they will all be forced to like it because no one denies Nintendo forever…||
Thank god the ads are good.
Long story short: This is a soft launch meant to build buzz up to the holidays (Q3).
Bravo. I like they’re going all in. I hope it’s a success for them.
The Wii U was a good console poorly marketed. The Switch is a shitty console well marketed.
In what was was the Wii U a good console? Not only was it extremely underpowered compared to its competetion, but it lacked a healthy amount of games and support, and its gimmick was a major detriment to game development and user enjoyment.
In what way is the Switch a bad console? Not only is it near the competition’s power levels, but you can also take it on the go, and play current gen games, including Nintendo first party titles on the go?
I’m no Nintendo fanboy, but the Switch will be the first Nintendo console I buy in a long time. I am sorry you aren’t liking what you see.
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