The recent Japanese TV spots for Super Mario 3D All-Stars and news Nintendo has recruited Love Island's Laura Whitmore as a 'Ring Fit Ambassador' got us thinking back on Nintendo's long history of TV commercials and 30-second spots. Whether you're nostalgic for the 'Now You’re Playing With Power!' days or think back wistfully about all those celebrities lounging about their airy, wood-filled abodes playing Wii and DS, Nintendo commercials have really run the gamut from mad to mellow, cute to crude, over the years.
In the early '90s it has SEGA who was taking the fight to Nintendo in the advertising space, and we've previously taken a look at how SEGA's marketing approach in the UK prompted an advertising response in kind, with more biting ads that became edgier over time, especially as Sony entered the arena with its groundbreaking PlayStation ads.
Nintendo has always been a big spender then it comes to TV advertising, and that has only increased as its audience broadened considerably in the Wii and DS era. As a result, there are a great many commercials to choose from, but we've collected our picks below for your viewing pleasure. They'll take you on a tour from the early 1980s up to the present day showing you the best, and the worst, of Nintendo's advertising output on the box. We've stuck to TV commercials rather than the more modern online trailers or reveal videos (sorry over-enthusiastic Ring Fit Adventure duo).
Before we begin, it's important to remember that these commercials were produced for Nintendo rather than by Nintendo. Ad companies pitched ideas and Nintendo's regional departments signed off on them, so the developers of the games and even the higher-ups in the company around the world probably had zero input in the content of these commercials, if they were aware of them at all.
The Best Nintendo TV Commercials of the '80s and '90s
Before we begin with Nintendo's 8- and 16-bit systems, there are a couple of even earlier ads which we love...
"Mario, where are you?"
This pre-NES ad for Mario Bros. on Atari features Luigi 'in a bind' wondering where 'Mario from Donkey Kong' as got to. It's a catchy tune, the turtles and crabs attacking Luigi are hilarious, and this ad showcases Luigi's scaredy-cat nature years before it appeared in the games. Classic stuff.
Game & Watch
This one's probably most notable for the titans of animation appearing alongside each other. Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Lucy show up just after Popeye, Olive Oil and Bluto, along with Mario, Luigi and Donkey Kongs Sr. and Jr. in their early guises. It showcases the large number of Game & Watch titles available at the time and should give younger readers more of an idea about why crusty older gamers are so jazzed to get their hands on the new Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch.
Moving into the NES and SNES era of ads next, we'll start with a series which defined Nintendo in the US throughout the late '80s into the next decade...
"Now You're Playing With Power!"
There are plenty of 'Playing With Power' ads to choose from, although this one that channels Alien and Terminator and spits NES controllers and CRTs at cyberpunk kids from the spaceship corridor walls is probably our favourite.
"Mario! Mario! Mario!"
If you're too young to remember the huge following Nintendo's mascot amassed in a relatively short space of time, this ad makes clear just what a total cult Mario was in the early '90s.
Animated Russian bears complaining about Tetris
With several Tetris ads to choose from (including a surreal one where a child doctor insists "You need a Tetris shot!" and another where Patrick Bateman gets 'Tetris-ized'), we've got a soft sport for the animated Russian bears complaining about the game taking over their kids minds and the world at large.
Who's Kirby?
If gamers in the US had missed Kirby on Game Boy, this ad served as a neat introduction that plays on the idea that Kirby can transform and 'be' anything, really. We very much enjoy swordfighting, moustachioed Kirby fencing on the staircase, and animated Kirby would return for the Kirby's Block Ball ad.
Now you're playing with... Paul Rudd?
Nintendo stuck to its 'Playing With Power' slogan in the 16-bit era, although it added a 'Super Power' addendum. We like this one because it's got all the elements you want from an early '90s video game commercial. Chain link fence? Check. Floppy hair? Check. Random youths congrating on wet concrete in the middle of the night as smoke machines billow and they all stare in wonder at Paul Rudd playing Pilotwings on a giant drive-in cinema screen?...
Why aren't all ads like this?
Zelda: A Link to the Past Japanese Rap
There are plenty of great SNES commercials, although the production values on this Super Famicom ad are hard to top. Featuring a rap that's an infinite number of cuts above the crummy NES version in the US (we'll get to that later), Hip Hop group Scha Dara Parr spat the rhymes on Game Boyz, a track from their album Towering Nonsense used here by Nintendo.
SDP would return to the Nintendo fold two decades later with a bespoke version of the same track in a Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds TV spot, too.
Rik Mayall's Super NES ads
We've taken a look at these before, but we couldn't go and leave them out here, could we?
"Change the System"
Skipping 32-bits completely, Nintendo jumped into the 64-bit pool with gaming's greatest launch game, Super Mario 64. This US commercial added a random rad-tubulant '90s kid into the game, jumping, sliding, flying and wisecracking alongside Mario. It's stupid, but we like how it highlights the silliness of Mario's movesets transplanted to an actual human, and the voiceover is priceless. "Change angles! Go anywhere you wanna go, do anything you wanna do!" Badda-bing!
On the extremely crass end of the 'Change the System' campaign scale, another N64 launch commercial featured voices crying out defiance of the oppressive shackles of two dimensions, embracing the freedom of 3D. The '90s was a different time.
Happy Together
Just one of the many, many TV ads featuring someone dressing up in a Mario suit, this one sets the scene with The Turtles' Happy Together playing as all the happy sappy Nintendo characters dance through a field. After a few moments, Mario trips Yoshi and an almighty scrap ensues.
That takes us up to the millennium — on the next page we look at the best Nintendo commercials from 2000 to the present.
Comments 85
I was going to be mad if the smash commercial didn't make it, it's what made me want the game so bad dammit!
That Atari ad is a classic!
Glad to see that Yoshi's Island commercial. It was truly the worst of an entire era of tasteless marketing.
Though since you brought up the Dr. Mario commercial, why not the Kirby's Dream Land commercial (that at least ran in the US). Yep, the VERY FIRST image we got of Kirby was him eating a "muscle-bound superhero" and then spitting out his bleeding disembodied head. That was a year before they famously forbid Mortal Kombat on the SNES from doing the same thing.
Hot buttered Popcorn that's a deal!
Where's the JP Mario vs. Donkey Kong commercial
The one where Mario's face pops out of a Japanese woman's cleavage. Classic.
Where are the Redknapps? Harry Redknapp playing Wii is all I live for!
I'm trying real hard to not laugh at the Majora's Mask ad where the world is ending and the camera zooms up to a guy on his phone in the park and all he's gotta say is "I'm using all my minutes!"
...Is that Phil Jupitus in the Rik Mayall ads?
Best SNES commercial: "A bit more ____" for Super Mario World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWyMk-2aH9E
"Now you're playing with power... SUPER power."
Half-naked people in the Sunshine commercial.
That certainly fits the description I've heard of "UK commercials that probably wouldn't have flown in the US."
Though I haven't watched TV in some years, so I don't even know what broadcast standards are now.
My favorite one ever is Robin Williams mixing his daughter and Zelda up. It’s 10x sadder now that he’s passed.
Not a Nintendo commercial, so it wouldn't fit.
But certainly this commercial where a nerdy kid buys a Genesis with Streets of Rage 2 bundled, then the next days tries out of some of the moves on the schoolyard bullies, is something the game industry would these days try very hard to distance themselves from.
W E A R E N I N T E N D O L I F E.
Y O U C A N N O T B E A T U S.
Smash 64 (in the US not sure if it was different anywhere else) is still the best commercial ever made...period.
Although the Japanese Zelda commercials are fantastic because they were geared towards all ages and had girls in leading roles (a difference from the marketing in the US that usually pretended that only teenage boys played video games). Honestly, I don't think I would have become a gamer had it not been for my mom because I remember feeling like the commercials were all only about boys. The US Majora's Mask commercial was weird/interesting cuz it made you think the zombie apocalypse was coming or something...that being said the JPN ones were more to the point and scary.
This Mario Sunshine advert is the most memorable one for me...
"Clean is better than dirty and dirty's meaner than clean!"
https://youtu.be/0PjVzzK2PrM
Iconic!
Personal favorite is this nonsensical commercial for Fire Emblem 7 that's only like... tangentially related to the game.
https://youtu.be/LM-s5C0dnZs
I actually enjoyed that. Some good memories and some silliness
Glaring omissions: Mario land 2, and gc animal crossing ads
Wii would like to Play has to be my favorite out of the many gems here 😂
Mario! Mario! Mario!
Has to be one of the best video game commercials ever imo.
The Ocarina of Time "Wilst thou play like a girl" was so cringe worthy. I've got a postcard of that ad buried in my loft somewhere.
For such a huge landmark game and such an important release to have it tied to such a "missing the mark" advert was a real shame. Compare to Sony's (amazing) adverts of the 90's in the UK and you can start to understand just why Nintendo and Sega got completely annihilated from the market.
All of the adverts with ‘The People’s Poet’ are the best
I've never seen the "will you save the girl? Or will you play like one?" version of the OOT ad. I could have sworn it was always "Whilst though succeed? Or whilst though suck?" or something along those lines
Ya know what? At the time, I was pretty mad at those Wii U commercials because I felt like I needed to defend my Nintendo choice against the other consoles, but dang it, I like 'em now. They're funny. They were not funny at the time, though.
The power of some advertising, I very clearly remember seeing that Mario 3 commercial as a kid. I'm sure I saw some of the others too, but none really stuck with me as much as that one.
@Slowdive that is why people are worried about the supposed live action Zelda show for Netflix.
As a child of the 80s my favorites are from that era. I didn't see the Zelda commercial with the weirdo dressed in all black.
Commercials are rarely timeless since they are of their time in most cases. If you don't like the 80s you won't like 80s commercials, etc. Especially if you weren't alive then.
Why do so many Nintendo Life articles make me feel like such an old man?
The commercials for Kirby and Mario 3 came to me at about the age where I started to develop the parts of my brain that made me marketable to a capitalist society and started thinking to myself "Pacman and Frogger have suddenly become boring now, and I want to play whatever that is"
Am I right in believing that the kid with glasses in the advert titled "It's The Legend of Zelda and it's really rad..." is Brian Provinciano, developer of 'Retro City Rampage' and 'Shakedown: Hawaii'?
The "save the girl" OoT one is actually an ok add without that last sentence. The music is fine and syncs up well with the gameplay being displayed and the text and the voice over aren't bad either.
I REMEMBER THE GAMECUBE ADDS
That Australian NES commercial is nightmare fuel, how could this have ever aired on TV??
Nintendo's always had some...peculiar commercials from what I've seen, though I'd admit that the Smash 64 commercial is one of my favorites. I wish they did something like that again.
Looking at the "Worst Commercials" list, though, I'd say that I enjoyed them for quite a bit despite not being good. Then again, any Nintendo commercial is still better than Bowser's Inside Story's (DS) commercial. Holy crud, that commercial was just bad
This is still my favorite Nintendo commercial ever:
https://youtu.be/M0LfLk9lLEg
I knew the Ocarina of Time ad would be on here. Also, you are all uncultured. The Zelda Rap is one of the best things of all time.
This is my favorite Nintendo ad (after Happy Together of course) just for the narration. It gets the story wrong and spoils the final boss, so it's actually kind of a bad commercial all things considered, but I still love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9EfFlf7qU8
Smash bros 65 is the best one.
No Luigi's Mansion ad? That one is by far one the weirdest ads I've ever seen. Although to be honest it's not horrible, just seems out of place.
You guys missed the Yoshi Story commercial. I thought it was kinda bad too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Y7DrAElTA
For me there's a top three.
The Mario 3 commercial with the multitudes calling his name. I remember that game from my childhood.
The Smash commercial where they're all beating each other up. That's the commercial I remember from my teenage years.
The "Wii would like to play" commercial. That's the commercial from my adulthood.
That Link to the Past ad looks like it was actually foreshadowing Cadence of Hyrule!
Seriously though, why don’t we get more dancing in advertisements?
What the **** is this garbage PC bullcrap claiming the "Will thou get the girl, or play like one?" is one of the worst Nintendo ads. That is easily one of the best Nintendo ads ever. Only someone trying real hard to virtue signal in 2020 would even try to claim otherwise.
My favorite ad is definitely the Zelda Rap. Thank you Jon Tron
And you missed this ad, which was extremely cool in its day:
I don’t expect NL to cover all the good/bad commercials from Nintendo over the years, however, this article should be followed with a part 2.
It's not Nintendo, but I still fell obligated to add what I feel is the best video game ad of all time
https://youtu.be/WnGIkHQX6WY
I uploaded this awful Super Gameboy ad the other day. Found it on an old VHS tape in my folks' garage.
https://youtu.be/0xQ_Q9l1ZPw
It's bad, man. 1995, I believe
@Spustatu considering how much I still love my piece of garbage known as the wii u I still can't watch a commercial that terrible. People think that marketing into the 80s and 90s was tasteless it might not have given info on the game but it had personality. The wii u commercials are some of the worst I've ever seen like they were catered towards not children but stupid children lol.
@impurekind oh its not that its offensive no one cares about that it just comes off as cheesy and tacky. I also remember the lyrics being whilst thou win or whilst thou suck or something that was a funny for kid me but get the girl? Really? Cheeeeeesy
obey wario
destroy mario
@Ghostchip I dunno... A lot has changed in my life since then. I've had cancer. I went from 29 and single to 35 and married. Maybe I'm old and lame now... This is depressing.
@Spustatu hey look on the bright side of things there is always a light in the tunnel and I'm sure you will put everything behind you and live in the moment maybe do something sporadic!
Sometimes I have legitimate PTSD flashbacks of the Yoshi's Island commercial. I am not joking.
Edit: I exaggerated a little. Do not worry, I don't get genuine emotional trauma over a 90s gross-out commercial, I more just... think about it at random times, pause in place and squick.
@impurekind Imagine defending the use of misogyny to sell products to children in 2020
I don't know. That Dr. Mario commercial was bonkers and funny. Just shows how people became way too sensitive.
Always loved the mario! mario! mario! That's when you knew Nintendo was taking over the world! By that point every kid knew who mario was. I still remember the one from when snes arrived on the scene. That year 12 year old me was hyped!
https://youtu.be/mt9E5UHr_Oc
The Rik Mayall ads are unironically some of the best ads I've ever seen for anything.
@Noid Imagine being so humorless.
Remember this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVCuUkf-SO0
I always find most gaming commercials generally bad and as time has went on with the videos being available online they tend to be the best way of selling games to people who are actually interested. If anything TV commercials tend to be aimed at people who have no clue what games are what or to sell the idea of something. If commercials for games on tv were more like movie trailers they would probably better as a whole.
Bloody Rik Mayall?! NOW you're playing with power! BOTTOM POWER!
The Mario 3 one is actually really impressive. Must've cost a million bucks back then.
Let me tell you that these old ads were not wrong about how doom-sy (yea, not a word) the future will be. They only failed on the low lightning artistic expression.
@Ghostchip This I agree with: The line is cheesy. But it's certainly not a bad ad. In fact, it's a great ad. And, the article writer trying to get all PC and virtue signal was just gross imo.
@Noid God, this kind of statement is sooo desperate and virtue-signally that it's just cringe imo.
More boys where playing games back then, this game was clearly made to appeal to young boys first and foremost, and it was marketed at mostly young boys too. Making a tongue-in cheek line in the ad that boys are better than girls at gaming, especially back in '90s when it mostly was boys that were gaming, was nothing more than a bit of a playful joke with the core demographic of people buying and playing the game. It goes no deeper than that. Hating women and thinking men are superior to women in general is misogynist*; this ad is not. They are not the same thing at all. To even suggest there was misogyny going on there is actually quite insidious and disgusting, and completely and utterly ignorant of what misogyny even is. Maybe you need to go read about such things a bit more before opening your mouth regarding them.
*https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/misogyny
@impurekind you know I really see what you mean not a bad ad after all
Smash 64 and the bus driver with Pokémon are really the only Nintendo advertisements I remember.
Oh and of course the weird GameCube ones.
God I miss Rik Mayall, what a legend
@Noid shut the hell up
@impurekind I like you
Beyonce is trash
Man I remember the Smash 64 commercial and it is still a classic and hilarious, still my favorite.
Imagine having your family's stability rely on the Wii U.
I'm glad you guys went ahead and DIDN'T feature that creepy Mario Land 2 commercial.
"and finally... WTF??"
(dislikes this part of the article)
The Mario amiibo one with the overecstatic kid and the sparkles seems to be forever burned into my mind and not in a good way.
Those Rik Mayall ads are just brill-eeee-aaaaaant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0
I can't believe Mother isn't on your list @dartmonkey
One of the few that I remember (and I've been around awhile) was the American Zelda Rap commercial, which you did include via the 'adding rap' link above. Kept waiting for Michael Jackson to pop up on the Japanese rap commercial.
Had never heard of Jedward before today. If I don't have anything nice to say ...
my favorite nintendo commercial is The Wizard.
I am deeply offended that those 5 teenage punks got to see the interior of the pirate frigate Orpheon decades before Samus did. Apparently it takes five of them to "play with power" when only one of Samus suffices.
@Lindhardt Guess that explains all the stability updates.
lets be real, nothing will ever top people finding out about Mario Bros 3 for the first time by seeing The Wizard in theatres
https://youtu.be/C3c_JDDp99k
Wait, how could y'all leave out the Kirby Canvas Curse commercials?
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