While Nintendo's sizeable regional teams around the world evidently do an excellent job of promoting and selling the Switch, we often find ourselves admiring the homely and natural style seen in some of the company's Japanese marketing. This is most evident in extended seasonal commercials, which often emphasize the role of a Switch in day-to-day life.
In the first of two recent commercials, above, we have a group of three going on a Holiday together. This takes in Universal Studios Japan, as a handy bit of cross promotion, and also shows the group playing Switch together in a hotel. In a lovely final touch, one starts to create a memory island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the way home.
The second commercial, below, focuses on a family heading for a quiet Holiday. The dynamic shifts to parents playing with children, of course, and again it's focused on multiplayer games. It also sounds a little like a Satoru Iwata clip saying "Nintendo Switch" at the end, but we can't be absolutely certain.
It's interesting to see this approach to marketing, especially in Japan where the portable aspect of Switch is so vital to its appeal. It puts plenty of focus on sharing game time, too.
Let us know what you think of these commercials, as always, in the comments.
Comments (17)
Take a drink each time you read the word 'often'.
@Lordplops It was there 3 times, but I took one out to save your liver
Looks great.
But I admit I don't really have the same enthusiast with Nintendo Switch on this year after 5 years ago I got Nintendo Switch with very high enthusiast level.
I felt I slowly switched back to PlayStation guy during pandemic after I got PS3 last December 2019 and I started to boost my PS4 games quantity during year 2021. Also, I have some changes in term of picking the 3rd party multi console games. Whenever the games have at least 2 version release (Nintendo and PlayStation version), I will immediately consider the PlayStation version as I want to give a chance for my PlayStation games library growing as big as my Nintendo games. Now, I don't really have appetite to consider the 3rd party multi console games on Nintendo Switch as I found some of the Switch version have worse performance than PlayStation version or some of Switch version have code in box treatment but not for the PlayStation version (full game in disc). I started to feel a little bit disappointed to see a bad treatment like that for Nintendo Switch as after some thought, Nintendo Switch have some issues that slowly changed my mind about Nintendo Switch after five years. I still want to support Nintendo Switch with their exclusive games on it (1st or 3rd party) but I think I will going slowly to add more games for Nintendo Switch.
@ThomasBW84 I'm sorry to go off topic but I keep getting a 504 error. In fact it's been happening quite a lot here recently. Loading times are slow too.
@Anti-Matter no console has any enthusiasm right now. The switch is old and both Series and PS5 consoles aren't available anywhere. You can't find them in stores and neither have a rather impressive library. So at least no novelty of the Switch is still it's one big selling point on top of it's library.
I really want that Yoshi hat that one of the ladies have in the first advert
Marketing is a powerful tool...but unfortunately, Nintendo of America just doesn't have that same level of marketing they had back in 2016-2018. Not only was there so much more hype for the games, but the commercials for the Switch actually gave some emphasis on what audiencea it wants to reach. The current Nintendo Switch commercials are either celebrity appeal or well...family.
@BenjyK
This. Nintendo's marketing has gone down once again because they don't seem to invest in actually writing the commercials anymore. This Nintendo Switch My Way just doesn't cut it...
@ThomasBW84 it's Friday, so you can put more in tbh.
@Rika_Yoshitake
Recently, I have some hype with older games like PS3, Wii, NDS, 3DS that I built during pandemic. For current gen machine, I started to boost my PS4 games quantity and will start to build my PS5 games library for future investment when I can get PS5 machine in the future with cheaper price.
PS5 machines are still available in my country Indonesia but the price was still insane so I will wait until Slim model available with way cheaper price.
This year I have a plan to pick XBOX 360 to play DDR and Kinect games as I have never played XBOX 360 games before, especially Kinect games. But for Nintendo Switch on this year.... I will try to pick 6 games by total during this year.
@RubyCarbuncle Thanks, I've noticed some hiccups too. It is being looked at so will hopefully improve soon.
The Japanese ads have always been more endearing. Their Link's Awakening marionette commercial is still a hoot
@sleepinglion The Who Are You ad is still my fav.
Nintendo has had really chic and well produced marketing for a while now. Cudos to their team.
Sidenote: Like the kids in the 2nd commercial, I too learned to play Shogi via Clubhouse Games!
And I’m still playing the lovely Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, but I wish more people knew how/wanted to play Mini-Shogi with me 😔. I also secretly hope it gets an unexpected free update (like Super Mario Party did) or DLC that adds more skill-based games, card games, board games, strategy games, game variations, customization options, robust online (i.e. monthly online leaderboards, ranked matches, stats, tracking, tournaments, gauntlet mode) etc. Maybe that kind of DLC could be a good candidate for an NSO Expansion Pak addition like they’ve done with a few other games, although admittedly I don’t think that the game is popular enough for it to move the needle for them in terms of increasing subscribers for that reason.
I really enjoy & love Clubhouse Games and think it could be expanded upon to be a great Switch hit, especially in these ongoing Pandemic times.
... Wun can only hope.
I gonna be honest, those commercials/adverts hit the feels like those McDonald's ads do in the UK. I think they are perfect for those casuals in Japan. Look how clubhouse games 51 worldwide classics are still being shown off. What a perfect showcase for a fun family device that little kids and parents can play or teens or 20 somethings.
It really is a super versatile little console!
Simply put, the adverts are great. Kudos to the marketing team in Nintendo Japan.
They seem to wish to portray about making the Switch accessible easily and part of everyday life. (That's obviously a sales winner for Nintendo)
For someone without a Switch but is remotely interested in computer games it's subtly pushing you to go and get a Switch.
This should be the basic aim of any advert, it does this well. It has charm and ease, it's not forcefull however. Overall it's very well done. 9/10 From me.
This is one of the reasons why I subscribe to Nintendo Japan! All of their commercials are so aesthetic <3
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