Nintendo's Metroid Dread Marketing Campaign Is Well Underway In Japan

Glad to see Nintendo actually giving a damn about Metroid

I have no doubt that this will be the best selling metroid game

I've seen people complain that Nintendo hasn't given Metroid a good advertisement campaign in the past, and now those same people are saying that they're showing too much. You just can't win sometimes. I honestly cannot wait to play this game.

That's cool. The marketing for this game, between the trailers and Dread reports has already been pretty big. Wouldn't surprise me at all if this surpasses Prime 1 as the best selling Metroid game. Its great to see a new Metroid game getting the spotlight like this, game itself looks so good.

You know what's a big deal?

@BranSmith Why would anyone complain about that, I hope you're just making an assumption, because if people actually think that there is a such thing as too much marketing, I'd cringe so hard.

I have to keep reminding myself that it's a good thing that people are getting more interested in this wonderful series. For some reason I keep catching myself having elitist thoughts about new fans coming into Dread.

Metro Dread is looking good

@HotGoomba No it’s real. I believe a number of people felt like they were being spoiled when they showed Kraid. The markings is obviously not as much for the hardcore fanbase as much as to help get people new to Metroid into the series.

Cannot wait for this. Although I couldn’t quite finish super metroid back in the day, I loved fusion and samus returns.

I think their aggressive marketing campaign for Metroid Dread comes down to three factors (keep in mind, this is just opinion, not meant to be taken as fact, but that's the Internet for you):

1. Newer management with a keener eye for marketing beyond a name brand and/or legacy than previous execs (as much as I hate to say it, except for the first couple years during the Wii era, Nintendo has done a pretty poor job of marketing during the Iwata era; I only ever saw TV ads for Pokémon).

2. It's the conclusion the storyline introduced in 1986/1987. It will be the culmination of over three decades worth of stories (like Endgame was for the MCU, or Rise of Skywalker for Star Wars), and will be the one people will definitely pay attention to.

3. It's Metroid Dread, a game that had rumors about it's existence swirling around it since 2005 (and I should know, I was there following along with them), but not confirmed until this year. So the interest in reviving a dead game (like Nintendo did with Star Fox 2) is heightened as a result.

So I think Nintendo is definitely going to push this game as much as they can, based on those three factors, but that's just my opinion.

@HotGoomba They never didn't give a damn about Metroid. They just never had the best of luck when they do try, with the Wii and DS era games. Thus hesitancy to market it heavily. They care when we do given the sales of previous games. If they didn't care about Metroid, Prime 4 would be either let out in the state it was in or out right cancelled, not restarted and it certainly would not be given all these hires from other games like Minors Edge, Halo, Battlefield or God of War.

@Tigerfan810 I was one of those fans that felt showing Kraid was a HUGE spoiler. Now, I don’t blame Nintendo for that. I actually blame NL (and a couple others) for that. NL put Kraid’s name in the headline, so you couldn’t miss it if you tried. All they had to do was say “Spoiler Alert!” But, nope. Truthfully, a rookie mistake. They should know better.

@HotGoomba There's people saying that on Twitter. Then again mostly anything on that site is irrelevant.

The icing on the cake is that Metroid is so unpopular in Japan, Metroid 2 was released there a year after it was released in the US

@BranSmith I've seen people complain that Nintendo hasn't given Metroid a good advertisement campaign in the past, and now those same people are saying that they're showing too much. You just can't win sometimes. I honestly cannot wait to play this game.

People say that the anorexic girl doesn't eat enough and they also say that fat Albert eats too much. Sometime you just can't win.

I'm not the biggest Metroid fan. I liked Super Metriod and have been mixed on every other Metroid. Prime was the other one I liked. The rest, not so much. My most anticipated metriodvania is actually Silksong because I LOVED Hollow Knight but I am actually interested in Dread. Playing through Return atm just so I'll be ready for Dread.

Samus returns for your wallets.

I'm looking forward to sales numbers for Dread all over, especially in Japan. Metroid has had solid numbers, but that's mainly in the West. With how hard this game is getting pushed, I'll be very interested in comparing Japanese sales of Dread to other franchise entries.

@BranSmith Why do you think that the same people complaining about a lack of advertising are the same people complaining about showing too much? Can you point out anyone from this site that was actually doing that? Cause I don’t think you’re paying attention to users THAT closely, come on.

I've also seen some Metroid Dread advertisements here in the Netherlands. Alongside with WarioWare, Pokémon and GameBuilder Garage.

This is a much bigger game than prime 4 for me. I have played all the primes once and like them, Prime 1 and 3 twice, but with the 2D entries, I have played Zero, Fusion, Super, Other M at least 5 times each over the years. Super Metroid, like 10 times. I rate the 2D games as more fun and more interesting to explore.

Love seeing this advertising. Metroid deserves love all over our lil blue planet. Cannot wait for October 8th!!

I hope they don't give us more trailers. They've already spoiled some important surprises.

@Moistnado
Can't really disagree with you there when it comes to the fun aspect of 2d Metroids. Even though, when I played the original GC Metroid Prime the first time, it was the best game I had ever played right after or on par with Ocarina of Time. I played Metroid Fusion at the same time and loved it to bits, but Prime was the better game for me, if just for the fact how well it brought Metroid to 3D.

All this said I'm still more hyped of Dread than Prime 4. Then again, we haven't seen a glimpse of the latter yet.

@Tigerfan810 Complaining about Nintendo spoiling the game plot has nothing to do with complaining about Nintendo publishing this game too much. You're confusing concepts XD

I hope this means Nintendo knows the game is really good. It looks really good at least.

Metroid is way less popular in Japan than it is in the West

Everybody show your love and support for Metroid - buy two copies each!

@HotGoomba it's not too much marketing that's the issue, it's too much stuff being shown. The reveal of those two characters in the last trailer (well not the last one but the one before it) really annoyed some People, I didn't even watch the trailer and got croco boy spoiled because I was on nintendos own Twitter spoiling the reveal for me. Its specifically metroid that makes it worse though because the games are about exploration so discovering stuff is a big deal

I wonder how people on Nintendo Life will spin this into something negative. I'm genuinely curious of the results.

@LadyGwen but you don’t know the role of those characters yet. Nor whether they’re just cinematic (maybe Kraid isn’t a boss and it’s just a flashback) or actual part of the gameplay.

So to me it all raises more questions.

@the_beaver we don’t know anything about the plot though, as far as I know? We’ve seen a few characters, some environments and some (mostly returning) powerups. That’s it.

We don’t know anything about the plot yet. Or am I missing something?

Hoping this game will ignite more interest in the series in Japan. :3

Oh man, if they put one of these up in Sapporo I'm totally going to steal it and take it home. In my imagination.

What are those things with glowing eyes in the background? Plus Nintendo is just SHOWING Samus' new armor design now? Spoilers!

Metroid Prime 1 was big back on GameCube era. Some games like these were unique and few and it had a proper advertising and good information, especially for MP1! The second not so much and 3 less but the first one was also a demanding in costs for the production (to be made). So, Nintendo couldn't had it silent. After all these years, yes, Metroid Dread is the next I believe but Nintendo was trying in the past.

@BranSmith Yeah, I stopped reading Twitter years ago lol

Nice! Now it has has a chance of shifting around 20-25 more copies in Japan😁 Then they'll go back to playing train station bench simulator, or some random rubbish.
Also, you kids claiming you've never seen a Metroid game advertised so heavily obviously weren't around for the launch of Prime back on the Gamecube.

@Friendly the suits design, unless it's been a retcon is the new suit from dread so I reckon it At the very least suggests that kraid will be in the game in some compacity and some people would want to discover his existence at all completely blind. I personally don't mind that much, but I am keeping as far as I can from anything else on the off chance

@Friendly You're missing the point of a meteoidvania. Discovering the different environments, upgrading the character, getting new abilities and fighting bosses is what makes this kind of genre special. If they spoil all that in the trailers, there will be no surprises.

@the_beaver i think they’ve only shown perhaps 10% of it, just to get us hyped enough .

I think there are enough surprises to be found. I hope….

@HotGoomba
So Nintendo push of the Metroid series between 2002 - 2010 was nothing? It was “the people” who did give a damn about Metroid, so Nintendo shelved the series.

@locky-mavo You have a point, I was in just talking about recent times, as in post-OtherM.

@HotGoomba
And the only reason that time, post OtherM, exists is because most people didn’t care about Metroid.
Even after Metroid’s “golden era”, the series clearly wasn’t the cash cow Mario and Zelda were, which is ultimately what any game company want a series to be like.
So they stopped beating that near dead horse and let it rest for a while, and it seems like it’s going to work out well for them.

Similar thing happened with Crash and Spyro, it’s also something I think Sonic needs to go through.
Timing (as well as technology) is also apart of marketing strategy.

The amount of advertising that Nintendo has on Metroid Dread, plus all of the times they've promoted the "Metroidvania" genre has convinced me to go try out the Metroid 2 remake in preparation for Metroid Dread.

@Friendly Hopefully you're right XD

Good to see them giving the game more attention, the series deserves it. Looking forward to it coming in.

I'm still hoping their marketing team extends as far as making Samus available for Fortnite.

@AstroTheGamosian
You misspelled Return of the Jedi

I've haven't been this excited for a game in a long time. I truly feel this is going to be the best in the series, it looks incredible.

@iLikeUrAttitude I'm definitely getting it. IDEK why, I just think it looks really good and I've never played a Metroid game longer than 2 minutes.