
Many people claim that very little has been done to advertise the fact that the new DLC portal is up and running, with Nintendo initially stating that it hadn’t budgeted for such promotion.
Nintendo of Europe’s Laurent Fischer (we’re sure you all know who he is by now) has commented that although Nintendo firmly believes it has effectively pushed the WiiWare service via the internet and the Wii’s own Nintendo channel, the company is committed to spreading the word and intends to ramp up its promotional activities.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview Fischer recently had with Gamesindustry.biz:
What we are doing, and this is I think important to keep in mind, is within the tools that we have at Nintendo to support and promote this feature, we are already use them as extensively as possible. The key tools of course are the website, which is updated automatically every time we have a release.
We also inform the journalists all over Europe about new titles; and we use the Nintendo Channel, which basically allows us to go directly to all of the consumers who have connected their Wii online. These tools area already there and we use them proactively and intensively. The next step is that we start to develop TV campaigns – this is on different paths in different countries. In France the TV campaign to promote WiiWare in general has already launched and I know that we're considering that kind of activity to promote WiiWare via mass market media. It's just a matter of timing between the different countries.
We believe that this software we have is very unique so the idea is that we need to drive awareness of what is available and how it works. We know that it takes time to drive that awareness among the general public.
Comments 16
with that story about the wacky release date garbage it seems the only ones to really benifit will be nintendo because companies can't adevertise if the don't know when their release date is
Nintendo can't advertise because they keep everything a secret.
Here's their commercial, "WiiWare... TRY IT!"
Much like the Vitamin Water commercials.
I am looking forward to seeing these ads, if indeed they do actually happen. I have been amazed at how little Nintendo have actually done to actively promote WiiWare games. If I were a small publisher I would be very nervous that Nintendo weren't even able to give me a release date for my own games launch!
Looking on the bright side if the big N do indeed pull their finger out then soon we might be seeing WiiWare ads like this on our TV sets soon
Did they ever actually advertise the Virtual Console on TV? I remember seeing an ad for the photo channel, so surely they could show a dad playing Super Mario Bros. or something (until I got my N64, my parents played games almost as much as me, though it was mostly Mario or Sonic).
I'm quite surprised at how many console owners don't make an effort to go online even if they have the hardware for it (Wireless router etc.). I think Nintendo should make a big push about the things you can do with your Wii online, I can imagine that improving VC/WiiWare sales. I guess the question there is if the marketing costs would be worth the pay off, but I think it'd be a shame if the majority of Wii owners didn't experience VC or WiiWare, which have delievered some of my personal favourite Wii experiences.
The Nintendo Channel? According to that, Actionloop Twist (Amongst hundreds of other games) doesn't even exist. That's some real good use of those "tools" Mr Fish.
I doubt Nintendo will release any ads, but if they did, it would surely do them good. So many are asking about the nature of the Wii— and sadly, very few of them know about VC/WiiWare. They simply think it's another white box by Nintendo to run Mario games (No, really.)
Maybe the small publisher are not willing to pay Nintendo for the commercial? I mean, for sure, they'll be digging holes in their (already) small budgets.
"Nintendo can't advertise because they keep everything a secret." (x.SuperMario.x)
You took the words right out of my mouth. Nintendo will advertise when they get over their paranoia regarding revealing release dates.
If WiiWare games were advertised, I think sales would go up, especially for games from somewhat new developers.
It's most likely what they said originally - it's not in the budget. WiiWare is meant to be on the cheap, so massive TV ads and such are unlikely.
But then, there's really two companies behind every WiiWare title. Nintendo and the publisher. Just because Nintendo doesn't advertise doesn't mean the little gaming company can't do its share. Look at My LIfe as a King, they did that online flash game thing in addition to their official website. Look at Major League Eating. They've done... An event at the Nintendo Store, three "Meet the Eaters" press releases, one "Watermelon Eating Record Set" press release, have their website up and running... Though this shows the downside of the publisher advertising, they don't have any clue when their game will actually be released, so they can't really do targeted advertising, and end up doing a press release a week till it launches.
I suppose a good example of a publisher getting off their backside and advertising is Two Tribes who have been quite proactive in promoting Toki Tori. They've been popping up all over the internet on facebook, other different websites and they have their own Youtube channel. They even have their own TV ad to show off the game too.
The question for me is how much assistance do they get from Nintendo? I would say not a lot on the whole, for the US launch of the game the release date was not finalised until very late in the day, and even then the big N strongarmed them into making the price point 100 Wii points greater than Europe, which in this day and age with such global visibility probably wasn't the best idea. From what I have seen, it is hard to see how Nintendo are helping publishers in this respect.
In the UK Nintendo do a lot of advertising on the late Friday night "trendy" shows on Channel 4. Putting aside Nicole Kidman using her DS Lite, for a quick WiiWare round-up once in a while couldn't hurt. The casual Wii consumer probably doesn't even know that there is a Wii Shop!
WiiWare ads…only geeks and otaku watch TV…and they’re too busy crying over the storage problem. Sorry I had to (I don't think Laurent Fischer will ever live it down).
But as an earlier reader said, yeah the Nintendo channel situation is pretty horrid. The weird thing is NOEs site has pleanty of videos on it (it seems they added some to really old games…at least I don’t remember Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel having a vid 6 months ago…). Can’t they put those on the Nintendo channel? The answer is probably not due to throwing away the master copies and left with low quality and the Nintenod channel demands medium quality…
...but its more likely that the Nintendo channel is someone elses job and when we look at NOEs site we see that the Nintendo channel job is still up for grabs...
So basically they arent gonna change a thing, much less give us release dates.
Pssh.
Besides, I bet the ads would center too much on My Pokemon Ranch anyway and less on the underappreciated titles such as Toki Tori, Pop and SSR.
Not that my television is bursting at the seams with PSN or XBOX Arcade ads, but are these types of ads really necesary? Chances are, if you own a wireless router, you've already perused the Wii's catalog of online titles. Perhaps a Nintendo Online Awareness Program would be effective in educating the geriatric masses that their white boxes are able to do more than play Wii Sports. Otherwise, it's an effort in futility.
If Nintendo had some form of feedback about complaints for their console then I think they would be better off. Not to mention ideas from customer's that could lead to a potential turn in the right direction for a company. If they just had an ear to hear us all.
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