A little while ago we wrote rather glowingly about Nintendo of America's latest slogan - 'There's No Play Like It'. It's not the first time NoA has gone for the angle of promoting its games for their uniqueness, and in the context of a 2DS advert that pitch certainly made sense.
The subsidiary has now launched a couple of new commercials using the same line, albeit in this case promoting the New 3DS and some of the portable's best releases. The first is the better in this writer's opinion, in which a game-savvy Mum gives tips to her son. The second is called "confidence" and interprets the term as being defined by a slightly worrying level of aggression and lack of empathy, but perhaps that's a harsh interpretation.
In any case, they seem like slick commercials that could certainly appeal to an audience of parents and young-ish kids.
Let us know what you think of these commercials in the comments - is this a good way to promote the 3DS to parents and their children?
Comments 39
Great. Now how about stepping up the games next?
No, but that first commercial is good.
Cool
For once, decent Nintendo advertising!
The one thing I have always worried about was their advertising, or lack thereof. Nintendo thought people would always love them so dropped the ball majorly in regards advertising and only chose to advertise what they thought were important games. To consumers, all games are important, especially if they have few to chose from - not just the few that Nintendo cherrypick for crappy adverts.
God ! How much I love my 3ds !! ... I think it's my fav handheld ever !
Finally, some good advertisements. The first one is easily the better one, though.
Cool, advertising that doesn't fall into the "infomercial white people" pitfall. These should do well with the target audiences.
"slightly worrying level of aggression and lack of empathy"
Somebody needs to rewatch the original Bad News Bears.
I liked'em both. I think I like the kid one better b/c kids probably don't like being annoyed by their moms, but the mom 1 is obviously aimed at mom's, the kid one at kids, so they work for their intended audience.
I did think it telling mom got the price conscious $19.99 game selection and $79.99 2DS while the kids got the $199 3DS XL, but without the $199.99 price mentioned anywhere. Let the kids pester the parents for the expensive console w/o telling them how much it is.
But they were both well made.
Random Bad News Bears clip from 1976.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWN1xWdKbHY
As a father teaching my son to game, I can see myself doing that... "You use a WATER type against a FIRE type, waterhead!!
Not bad. But why is Pikachu the best? Everyone knows Rotom is the best!!! (That's my favorite Electric 'mon)
Isn't that too late for those commercial, though? MX or whatever it's called is on the way.
Anyway, the second commercial is weird - I understand they wanted to go "EXTREME!!!111oneoneone" way with all the mean spirit, but when there is no hot action showed, it loses that family Nintendo spirit and goes more into dark world.
That mom commercial thing looks kinda creepy in a way... Mom looks tired. Like she needs her fix or something.
And both are about Mario being one greedy bas...italian plumber.
@Captain_Gonru I pay almost as much attention to price as I do to release dates. Xbox 1 is officially $299 as of today, same price as Wii U.
And that tag line is so McDonalds, so I'll forgive you for not getting it, you don't spend enough time in the the drive thru picking up Happy Meals.
@Dave24 Uhh, wut?
Pretty good and the kids are cute, not annoying. That tag line fits with 3DS too.
I really loved the first one, but then I am a 28 year old woman, that exact target demographic (no kids though, yet). Why haven't they been making commercials like that one for years? I don't just mean Nintendo, either. I mean anybody.
The second was kinda meh. I liked that they hit a lot of genders/ethnicities. When I was a kid, video game commercials featured solely white boys with the occasional black boy thrown in for good measure. As a little girl it definitely made me feel a bit excluded. It was hard to be a girl into video games in the early '90s.
Either way the true measure is if they actually run these, not just post them to their Youtube channel. Somebody let me know if you see them in the wild (I don't watch TV). Of course the mom commercial is doing very little good running only on Nickelodeon but I doubt it will run anywhere else. :/
@Captain_Gonru Or you could get that X1 model and about 25 Happy Meals at the drive thru.
So how much of a fool would somebody be to spend $300 on a Wii U today?
I really don't like the 2DS design, but I agree, at $80 every kid in America could own one for less than a tablet.Well except the $50 Fire, but you wouldn't know about that. $200 is too much for me for an XL though, even if it is new tech, it's still based on a 4 year old design. Not sure what I would definitely pick one up for, but $149 would get me thinking about it.
I thought these weren't bad, but all of the 2016 Pokémon commercials have set such a high bar that they've spoiled me for Nintendo's other marketing efforts!
@TheLobster You must have really liked it, first time I've seen you post on here in about 3 months. Hard not to notice the animated Calvin and Hobbes.
Not that you've missed anything - leaks, rumours, more leaks, more rumours, and games and DLC that aren't coming to Wii U. Come to think of it I'm not sure why I still keep posting on here. Oh right, I like to complain.
The first one was nice, but the second one... not so much.
Now can we see these on TV?
@Dakt I didn't get that impression but let's hope your concern is abated as we approach March 2017. With Kimishima holding the (temporary) reins, I really hope the stupid Iwata era of shoehorning gimmicks into everything is over, which would include ignoring gamers again like they did with the Wii for a mostly kid audience.
@CreamyDream Any cynicism to be taken from your statement would be unfounded. You're correct: these - and other demographic-based adverts - should've been released throughout the entirety of the 3DS family's lifespan. It's never "too late" to do anything but at this juncture (especially with this NX thing on the horizon), what's the point?
Lol that was definitely reading a lot into it Thom. Confidence often does require a bit of aggression. Otherwise someone comes along and crushes it.
Don't care for the second but the first is quite decent for advertising to parents. Still not liking that new slogan of their's though. Logo was good.
There really is no play like a (New) Nintendo 3DS (2DS)
You guys are kidding, right? These adverts aren't very good in my opinion...
@Moon I agree. Also would have been handy to have in around 2011.
@rjejr Haha! I've been VERY busy irl, but yeah, hasn't been much to say, sadly. I'm worried that Nintendo will just drop all the info on NX in a financial report that has to be translated, and not give us a proper video to even react to!
Wow, great Nintendo adverts! Grab your ice skates people... we glide on hell today.
I particularly like the 2nd advertisement. It just hits the right notes.
And they need to get more kids playing their systems too, otherwise there won't be a future generation of Nintendo gamers.
@Captain_Gonru A N2DSXL would just be a tablet.
I'd probably have spent $200 if I had a job and a train commute. My wife spends about 4 hours commuting each way each day, 1 hour on the train. If I had that kind of day I WOULD own 1 by now. My HD screen Tab 4 7" costs me about $140, and I use it constantly, so that's sort of my baseline. $200 for a console that I need to spend $40 for each game, b/c Ntinedo SUXXXXX at putting stuff on sale, or lowering the price - $40 for 3 year old Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon is insane - gets to be a lot of money.
So first, get a job...
Great spots. More like this please, Nintendo!
@JaxonH "And they need to get more kids playing their systems too, otherwise there won't be a future generation of Nintendo gamers."
That's why they need a $80 or less branded tablet as part of the NX "platform" to get kids playing on Nintendo hardware. Amazon has $50 and $70, so $80 could get them decent enough hardware. Slap an NX type OS on it, all of those free to play 3 DS games, and Netflix. Gamers may hate touchscreens, but kids do it intuitively these days. Built in NFC for amiibo too of course. And of course kids can play their touchscreen games on the big tv if they have an NX, like Android and Apple do. And parents can use it as "smartglass", and use the NX controller w/ the tablet for Nvidia Shield type gaming, the tablet is multifunctional.
MS may shake up the gaming world in a 2 weeks, I think Nitneod needs to try for the kids. The little kids. 10 and up can get a $200 NX handheld. And the casual gamers. They may come back to play Candy Crush or Pokemon Shuffle on their tv on their kids tablet.
And if it fails, well at least it was only $100, not $300 or $350. Heck sell it bundled with Pokemon go, brand it as a Pokemon tablet. Include that "go" thing with it.
glad to see them finally trying with commercials again. Now hopefully they can make these for wii u/nx and individual 3ds games.
"There's No Play Like it" I didn't know Nintendo was a patron of fine stage arts. I assume such classics like Phantom of the Opera? Or Hamlet?
First commercial is good, second one is kind of awful.
These are just like the adverts they have been running on the kids channels in the UK. They very rarely advertise the Wiiu, but then that's no real surprise.
Nice to see Nintendo marketing towards its key demographic.
No seriously! I'm not being sarcastic, look at the last few years of shallow marketing towards an older audience when really Nintendo should be focusing on a new generation of kids. They can show to be the alternative to tablets.
When i was a kid.. if i seen commercials like these i would think Nintendo was lame as hell!
I grew up in a good time i think...
We had in your face awesome commercials with lots of energy!
And awesome slogans like "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER!!" and eventually "GET N OR GET OUT!!!"
I guess i'm starting to feel like Nintendo is a lot lamer than they used to be..... i'm so frustrated with them that the Wii U could possibly be my final Nintendo console.
I like these ads a lot. They're cute and all, but I'm not sure about the slogan.
They were well done and hit the right tone but I didn't like the mum's voice, I could barely understand her and was quite irritating. Perhaps if I was an American I could.
My issue is...what sort of message does this send out with the NX nine months away! Why finally go on the offensive with new branding and slogans and to push old hardware, which Nintendo will suddenly drop in favour of it's shiny new system early next year? The sort of demographic group these adverts are aimed at are easily confused with such things so I really don't see the point of these adverts at this time.
@JaxonH Uh, there was also the Strar Fox Zero puppet advertisements as well as the recent Nintendo UK Kirby: Planet Robobot advertisements. Those ones were really good; even better than the two ads above. And let's not forget those Smash Bros. ads (even though they were shown nearly two years ago lol). At this rate ice is seeping onto the Earth.
Now if Nintendo aired these ads on TV, hell would freeze so fast it would basically nuke the Earth.
This reminds me, what was that commercial years ago that had some kids and 3D-animated Mario playing some game, then the mom comes in and he/they all (i forget) hide, mom says something anti-climatic (like "i told you to use the coasters"), then they're all playing the gane together? Been on my mind for some reason, forget what it was for exactly.
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