Over the past couple of weeks we've shared a number of Nintendo commercials with you, and they've attracted mixed reactions. Some have been popular, some haven't, but all have at least shown that the company's doing some old-fashioned advertising to encourage big sales this shopping season.
There have been quite a few new commercials released in the past week that we haven't got around to showing, so below is an all-in-one commercial-fest of most of those from the Nintendo of America stable that we've missed to date. As the headline should have tipped you off, celebrities are out in force, whether you like it or not.
We'll start with the latest 'Pitch', however, so check them out and share your thoughts.
Comments 34
Who are these people?
On the Wii Sports Club Pitch: "We can FINALLY play online.."
Dang right, it's finally time!
As usual, I prefer The Pitch commercial, and it does not even have "stars" in it.
@sinalefa Agreed. I feel they try WAY to hard when they try to add any Stars to the comercial. What happen to tv comercials just being plan and simple?
Nice commercials and so glad to see so many of them. I start to feel bad that till not long ago I was accusing Nintendo of not doing any marketing... I guess they were saving for give it all in this holiday
The Most effective one was with the pantomime Mario And Sonic. If they used those costumes more, they'd have more memorable commercials. The original Super Smash Bros. commercial strongly sticks in my mind...
Meanwhile Microsoft is showing huge, high-budget ads in movie theaters. Nintendo needs to get it together if they want the Wii U to be successful.
These are all fantastic, and a great step in the right direction marketing-wise. Let's go Nintendo! Leave luck to heaven!
@SomeBitTripFan Nintendo don't operate on the same level as MS so comparing them is a bit silly, Nintendo is a profitable games company with a hand is other things while MS is a ridiculously profitable technology company with a hand in gaming.
The only one I ever remember is the "Me Wario" one think it was for Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins.
I agree with the Panasonic CEO in that the more advertising you need to do the worse your product. (Better pay off to putting the advertising money into the product).
@unrandomsam
"I agree with the Panasonic CEO in that the more advertising you need to do the worse your product. (Better pay off to putting the advertising money into the product)."
Link to quote?
@Emblem: I never state that Nintendo needs to make a high-budget commercial and show it in movie theaters. Nintendo needs to advertise their console in other places than Wikias and these commercials. They've been handling 3D World well, but if they want to get the general "Wii Effect" to occur, they need to put far more Wii U's in people's houses, not to mention a true casual "killer app".
Yup. No clue who these people are either.
I'm guessing the "Disney stars" ones are being shown on the Disney Channel?
The Jennete ones aren't really that great, though. I don't know how they would ever be able to fit in those commercials, anywhere.
The Mario and Sonic one was decent.
I have never heard of any of them, but Jamie Anderson gets a pass, since I've always liked snowboarding.
I wish mario and sonic were my friends....
Nintendo will be quite rightly wanting genuine goodwill for their product to generate hype. Mario World 3d once installed in a few peoples homes, kids invite their friends, the laughs and good times will stick. Quite why anybody has any problems with a company going their own way, and genuinly wanting to make good games is actually beyond me. Is a company that makes great games such a threat to your hollywood budget games?(By the way, the production values in Xbone games are insane, quite how anybody expects to make money on this level I have no idea...To make up for this, alongside the new £55 per game, your going to have less game for your money, and LOTS of paid dlc...is that really where a gamer wants this to go?
Nintendo's celebrity adverts always bemuse me. The oddest was Kim Cattrall playing Mario a few years back.
@SCAR392 Disney also has a couple movies hitting theaters soon (Frozen and Saving Mr. Banks) those seem to have been filmed as a theater commercial before the movie previews.
Celebrity doesn't matter as much as just having the commercials and showing them places. Saw SM3DW Thursday night during Dragons Defenders of Burke.
And on the no news is good news front, not a single Wii Mini ad in the papers today after 3 different stores were advertising it last week Couple of Wii U ads - $25 GC at Target, and Zelda 3DS XL for $219. Glad to see the PS4 and X1 haven't run the Wii U out of the paper. 4 more days till the big BF holiday ads Thanksgiving morning. Then I can start shopping.
All of the real stars are already booked in playstation and xbox commercials, Nintendo got the 3rd rate ones that do daytime soaps.
Gods, I love Jennette McCurdy. She's such a humorous person.
Meanwhile at Microsoft...
[youtube:c2H5EZK3mEM]
And Sony...
[youtube:s0d9d-cdxhk]
FYI, Jeanette McCurdy was in the Nickelodeon original series "iCarly" and currently stars in a spin-off series called "Sam and Kat." Bradley Steven Perry and Peyton List are both in Disney Channel original series, "Good Luck, Charlie" and "Jessie" respectively (which are the only two live-action Disney Channel series I like that are still running).
@GamerJunkie Real Stars wouldn't stoop to the level required to participate in commercials.
I've seen Wii U ads at movie theaters before a film is played, nice try.
I have a hard time beliving unfamous stars can sell a wii u. Why not use some one like Reggie? At least we have heard of him before
It would be nice if they actually got some real stars. At least get an athlete from the big 4 sports but then again no NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL games on Wii U for this season.
I don't know why Nintendo doesn't use Charles Martinet to do some CG Mario shorts.
These commercials are in heavy rotation on abc family...so now you know..
@Tobias95
I don't think it would help. Most of them never heard about Reggie. Actors like in this ads are more known to the major public I guess.
BTW. We've got Steffi Graf in one of the Wii Party U ads. (EU) The bad thing.. She can't act. lol
@unrandomsam
Robert Downey Jr and Jonah Hill were in a Call of Duty commercial a year or two ago. Brad Pitt and James Franco are in cologne ads, Jerry Seinfeld and Alec Baldwin do credit card/bank ads and there have been hundreds more who have done them too.
So ya...'real stars' will appear in commercials.
@FutureAlphaMale Interesting I presumed they wouldn't reduce themselves to such things without the need. (I try and avoid advertising if at all possible - I suppose a site like this probably is basically advertising).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHCs3v_mFkM truer words have never been spoken to my knowledge about advertising.
@unrandomsam
Bill Hicks fell for the marketing and killed himself with cigarettes. Bad example.
@BakaKnight marketing is expensive, and it also didn't make sense to spend all that money until there is a decent enough library to hook consumers.
Now when I look at the Wii U's library and compared it to xBone and PS4, it's no comparison, hands down the Wii U library is brimming with variety with a few stellar options from core titles to casual titles... The sub-Nextgen twins have pent up demand, but once that demand buys up all the launch product, is Sony and Microsoft going to be able to sustain momentum with a lousy game library? Looks like they are going to suffer the same issues the Wii U had. They might not flop around the deck like a fish out of water as long as Nintendo did (almost 8 months with only 1 interesting exclusive - Momster Hunter), but surely they will have a games drought that ALL system launches go through.
Perhaps the head start wasn't wasted. Nintendo just used it to build up a library to compete with the new consoles' first Christmas. Nintendo has always had problems with having a decent launch library, so launching a year early allows them to recover some of their R&D investment with the suckers who bought a launch Wii U (suckers here, I fell into the hype), while they build up some must play games for the system. Now they are there, advertising makes a lot more sense.
I'm curious to see how this shakes out. The Wii U is easily the best value this holiday season. Of course you will have graphic obsessed people that want ps4/xBone, (they should just skip consoles entirely for PC, it's not even close) that will shun Nintendo and have been biting at the bit to get their favorite dudebro box. But how will the value of the new consoles translate to the wider market? These systems feel more niche and not ready for market saturation with their limited games library and higher retail prices.
Would the broader market buy these two new systems without any compelling software just to say they have one? Just because they are a sucker for a new product?i find it hard to believe all these analyst think these systems will sell like the OG Wii.
Sorry for the length, just find these analysts reasoning, just baffling.
Tap here to load 34 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...