Poll: Hasn't Nintendo Always Been An 'Entertainment' Company?

‘Entertainment’ is too broad a term

Well you know the NES, the first console they released overseas, Nintendo Entertainment System, it's kind of in the name of the console

It's a gaming company which sells a bit of merchandise to up the profits.

But this is why they have made this new statement, because in recent times the priorities have changed.

They have always wanted to be but they have never been successful until this movie and the theme park. And due to Disney's recent weakness.

I've been saying this for years, often on this very site - the weakness in Disney's brand right now is a huge opportunity for other companies. While Disney is out fighting politicians and social justice - Sony and Nintendo are waiting in the wings; knives out with Disney's back as their target. if they aren't they are wasting their time and resources. The US, at least, is wanting a change in family programming and entertainment.

Not only counting tv shows from the past, but in Japan there's a lot of restaurants/pubs nintendo themed, for example. They've been around for a long while tho.

Videogame is entertainment. So Nintendo has always been an entertainment company.
Everytime I hear something that came out of Doug Bowser's mouth, I feel like he's just repeating something he heard without really understanding it.
When Reggie was explaining how Nintendo is competing with the likes of Disney and Netflix for consumer's time, that made a lot of sense (despite being obvious). Now Doug is just repeating that. What's the point? I'm not sure, but I know they have parks and what not, I just have no interest in it.
Nintendo makes quality videogames and that's what I really appreciate. Should they one day stop doing that, I will stop giving them my money.
Whatever marketing they're using in the meantime just doesn't grab my interest.

No, video game company. İ use it for more playing games. Pure video game company. Oke, before the year 1980 it was different but İ born later with Nintendo making video games.

There a Mario movie in the '90s and four Mario themed cartoons in the 80s'. Not to mention they were a broad entertainment company for over a hundred years before they got into the video game market. So yeah, they've always been more than a videogame company imo.

@Jigglypuff439 It depends on what you mean by "NCU" I don't think they can do one underlying story (like the Infinity Saga in the MCU) and have loads of films building towards one ending, it would be too forced.

There should be loads of stand alone movies and TV shows with a small amount of overlap where it makes sense, such as following on some of the story from the Mario Movie in a Luigi's Mansion movie etc.

They need to be thinking about coordinating releases of games and movies, how about Splatoon 4 and a Splatoon movie within 3 months of each other in 2028?

It's been a toy company with an extremely heavy focus on video games 😝 I would say The Pokémon Company is more of an entertainment company. Hopefully Nintendo can get some awesome animated series with some of their IP! And I'm confident the games will keep their gold standard quality (unlike Pokémon...)

@Jigglypuff439 Universe/multiverse films are starting to decline in interest.

Other than that Nintendo did make NUDE playing cards and a vacuum.

They were making toys and cards long, and running hotels long before the started making video games. They've never solely been marketing videogames.

Compared to Sony and Microsoft then I'd say no, they are a gaming company.

Yes they have made a theme park recently but unlike Sony for example they don't dabble in many other forms of entertainment and when they do it's once in a blue moon

So for example, Sony make video games, movies, tv shows, music, anime, Televisions, Cameras, Computers etc whilst Nintendo primarily just make games, even their Mario movie wasn't done by them but by illumination.

I always thought of Nintendo as a toys company, and I believe that is how they billed themselves previously.
That is where they operation has originated from and what defined their games as "special". Nintendo games have always been toys player can experiment with and get excited about unexpected outcomes, getting more out of experience through imagination. There is an old interview with Shigeru Miyamoto talking about how his game testing process basically involves using the game as a toy, where he tries to do with a game what a kid in a literal sandbox would do with new figurine...

I think people are getting hung up on semantics, as usual. We all know exactly what is meant when Nintendo say they are transitioning to becoming more of an entertainment company. Yes, they have had other ventures with tv shows and mobile apps and figurines etc, but they have been very predominantly a video game company for decades now.

It is irrefutable that they have expanded their reach in to different, more meaty areas lately. Movies, theme parks, Lego even. They’re becoming more of a collaborative entertainment company.

Considering that Nintendo began as a playing card company, to a toy company, and then a games company, its business model has always been moving to adapt and make good money.

If they want to get into films, I remember during the GameCube era there were rumours going around that they were planning to become an anime studio. Granted, it didn't happen, but it's clear that Nintendo is always looking into new business sectors.

Remember when PlayStation and Xbox were marketed hard as multimedia machines capable of playing DVDs/Blu-Rays/streaming, and Nintendo were firmly “no, we want to focus solely on Gaming because that’s our strength”…?

Nintendo will always be an entertainment company but their bread & butter is video games. That being said, I do hope their IPs grow into other venues but don't get too oversaturated and loose value (like what's happening with the MCU). Nintendo's always focused on quality over quantity, that's why we don't get major annual releases (except Pokemon) from many of their franchises. I'd much rather have one amazing Zelda game I can keep replaying vs 4 subpar Zelda games and alternate media.

@gaga64 I do remember too, but the way I see that was that Sony and Microsoft were already in other technology sectors, whilst Nintendo's technology sector was only really in gaming. So it was easier for them to do their own thing at the time, rather than jump to the hot new thing that could end up giving royalty cheques to the opposition. Nintendo now has a rich gaming history with enough content to expand out of gaming, clearly, Nintendo commissioning Illumination to make the Mario Movie was a really good move, and because of so they now want to expand into the film industry.

Historically, yes, of course. They've been all over the entertainment and gaming map. But readers of the Washington Post don't know Nintendo started out doing playing cards. To them, and to most of the culture, Nintendo is synonymous with videogames. So, from that perspective, Doug's comments make sense.

@Yalloo Spot on. Mario is a more valuable IP, with more brand recognition than everything else Disney has, put together. Disney may yet learn this the hard way, if they don't right their ship.

I mean, they started out selling playing cards and toys, so ...yeah. Entertainment in general. Iwata tried the fitness angle for a while as well. Video games just naturally became the main focus in the 80's when the money started rolling in, but they're still making toys with amiibo and the wacky Switch projects they have, like Labo.

entertainment company is like Disney(theme Parks, movies, other form of entertainment like Broadway musicals based on her IP).

This seems dumb and arbitrary. Video games are a type of entertainment. They’ve always been an entertainment company… does this really need an article/poll?

@Cashews Sony Pictures has been around for a VERY long time. Their studios have had numerous hit movies and TV shows too. Waiting in the wings? For what? They’ve been in Hollywood for many decades, they don’t need Disney to fall. Also, they work with Disney for the Spider-Man films with Tom Holland, which Sony gets a free lunch on since they can’t produce a decent one without Raimi or Marvel Studios help.

Nintendo finally got confidence to make films again after the Super Mario Bros live action film (produced by Disney) was a complete bust.

Nintendo has always been in the entertainment business, whether it’s hotels, playing cards, toys or video games, they are purely in the entertainment business. Which is a broader term than most of us care to think, we limit it to TV, movies, video games and books, but it is much more than those terms.

Yes but it’s sh*te compared to their games.

I mean, video games are just the thing they got internationally famous for. It's never been their only line of business.

Sure Nintendo has always been an entertainment company, but the fact that they're saying it now to contrast with it being a video game company is more important.

Option 4: Are we making too much out of this?

Yeah thay have all way been more than just video games
Just look at other way Mario and others did outside like
The Mario bros super show cartoon Mario bros 3 cartoon and super Mario World cartoon series there was the original film of Mario as well
There was the Legend of Zelda cartoon series as well
And pokemon cartoon and animated films
There were all them toy lines they did as well
So Nintendo have been entertain us for a long time now😊

Nintendo has a legacy of over a century. And has always tried to branch into as many realms of entertainment and merchandise as possible. Entertainment has always been their business.

But the better question is: isn’t Nintendo a playing card company? They still make cards (both trump/poker and hanafuda. I think they make karuta cards as well.

It's had supplementary media for decades. Either way, it certainly entertains people.

@nessisonett Not all of it. Their cartoons are pretty fun. The toys are nice. Plus people enjoy the themed cafes. Can't vouch for their books and comics.

@Vivianeat Wait what?

I mean, other then that brief time when they were doing mostly porn and back in the 80s when they were laser focused on making the NES work, they have never really done "one thing at a time"

The thing is, in the West we got introduced to them in the NES era, so I don't blame people in the West for not truly understanding how the company has always been about one thing and one thing only ... licensing.

They used to have the exclusive right to Disney in Japan, so they put that brand on everything. Playing cards, other, different types of playing cards, tiles for card games that use tiles instead of playing cards. Then they got the peanut license. When that dried up they ... ummm ... licensed models on an individual basis (porn, ok? They did porn).

They have always been about selling you a cute (or in some other way ... desirable) image on something.

Only difference now is they use video games to build the IPs they sell to us.

Their first home console was called the “Nintendo Entertainment System”, and they did everything they could to disguise the fact that it was a game console, because otherwise it wouldn’t sell. Not to mention, Nintendo existed nearly 100 years before they published their first video game. Also, say what you will about their quality, but Nintendo has been licensing movies and TV series about their games from very early on.

That said, most of us remember Nintendo’s “video game only” approach to keep costs down on the GameCube and Wii, while their competitors have included DVD player functionality in every console since that time. But the toys-to-life craze came not long after, so it could really go either way.

@HeadPirate I don't think they did porn. They bought a license, in order to stop a certain movie from distribution.

They've been a videogame company for the past 50 years.

Sorry I can't agree with the comments that due to the nintendo evolving as a company that it makes them an entertainment company. Yes there is the history of other things they have done, but games have been the sole focus ever since game and watch which is 40 years.
They are a business and if they see that that gaming has opened an opportunity to make some money elsewhere then they will.

@Mortenb

Nah, they disrupted pornographic imagery. It was the first product they sold outside Japan.

Ever see playing cards with porn on the back? Or poker chips with a naked lady on them? These were the first products Nintendo sold oversees. They did it because they wanted to expand and set up infrastructure in the West, but they only had the license to distribute their partner brands in Japan.

To be clear, this was a different time, and the thought process was pretty much "We make money putting cute things on the back of games and cards. We want to sell in the West and can't use the IPs we are using here. What do people in the West like? Well, everyone in the West is a godless heathen monster, and the West is a barbaric, primitive society (if you can call it that) where people only understand base and primal instincts. So porn seemed like the way to get.

Racism informed a lot of Nintendo's early guidance about how to market in the West!

I mean ... as far as I know they were just buying the images, not like ... doing porn shoots, but honesty? Who knows. It was long enough ago that details are hard to come by.

I've always thought of it as primarily a video game company. I'm definitely not unaware of all the other things going on but it's still always felt like a video game company at its core.

Nintendo has always had multimedia interests but I think the theme parks and the establishment of Nintendo Pictures show an unprecedented degree of investment in ventures beyond their bread and butter.

Well, except for 1941-5, they were an entertainment company. Videogames are a form of entertainment.

As for the remaining part, thearticle actually encouraged me to look into it and it's a pretty interesting piece by Nintendo - a war promoting board game with torn USA and UK flags

@HeadPirate you could be right on the money with the impression on their thinking, but I couldn't help but chuckle at the concept of Japanese calling others primitive and barbaric post WWII. Although when you think of it, Japanese culture was way more open in regards to sexual matters than the West.

@HeadPirate Oh, I found the cards now. Didn't know of those.
But they seem to have been for the Japanese market according to the article I read, and sensored according to Japanese norms of the time, and produced for a liquor company there.
Anyways, a tad less bad than the movies they have the license for.

@SepticLemon true. Also, to be fair to them: before the Wii and DS, Nintendo’s wares were showing diminishing returns - in terms of sales, each new console sold less than the one before. At this point they switched focus to blue ocean non-gamers, and their next Gen consoles started adding more non-gaming features as standard - admittedly to less success than the Wii and DS, so the Switch went “back to basics” as a pure gaming device, with their non-gaming investment being elsewhere.

But there was a solid couple of decades, from the NES to the Wii, where they were 100% focused on gaming.

What Nintendo has always been doing, as some have hinted, is looking to new new markets and new products in a blue ocean strategy avant-la-lettre kind of way… Is it now to build new products, go to new markets or both. You saw this with the wii (turn your old product upside down to open it to the new market), and you see it now with the films (serve your current market with new products based on your own). Interesting what the next move will be

Yeah, just their main focus was games. They have tried other things before with varying results.

Nintendo has always had this gimmicky approach towards their produts. Think all those funky perepherals, the Wii, Labo, amiibos, etc. I personally find them more an annoyance than anything, being a traditional gamer who only wants to turn the thing on and play. But it's been always mainly about videogames. I just hope this new approach doesn't send them spiralling down in terms of quality or focus.

Nintendo will always continue producing games, but the question is why, Miyamoto himself has said that Nintendo should never be related only to games, and this happened when fans compared him to Steven Spielberg and Disney's Nintendo, Miyamoto said he didn't like your comparison, but was happy with Nintendo's comparison "Nintendo's goal is to bring the family together in the living room."Nintendo has always been entertainment, and it is looking for more ideas to entertain fans

Well it's been around since 1889 and started with playing cards so yeah they started as entertainment but also have done other things like real estate and wut not but have mostly been video games since the 80s and now r looking to do movies and TV with animation so yes the r predominantly a entertainment company

Let Mii entertain you 😂

Nintendo wants to entertain your mom

@Drago201 they've been in video games since the 1970s. They built Game & Watch and arcade boxes to start off with before the Famicom.

They are a company that entertains people. So I'd say yeah

They've always been to me, long before they made video games even.

Even since they were mainly a video game company, they ventured into movies and TV shows in the 90s.

@progx that's right I forgot about that thanks

Even during their Love Hotel era, they were focused on "entertainment'

@Olrun In Japan are also cafés and pubs based on many other mangas/ animes, mascots and games. Dragon Quest even has its own island theme park for example and Monster Hunter has a section in Universal Japan before Mario did. It does not really mean that Nintendo is more than its games for that matter.

"entertainment" is SUCH a weak term with which to self describe your company. 😞

who besides fun hating money obsessed "investor class" people and their rubes and acolytes want to hear this crap?

No doubt the “love hotels” have entertained quite a few people.

Nintendo's bread and butter has mainly been the video game market since the 1970s, ever since they debuted the Color TV Game 6 in 1977.

Sure, they had some toys and Hanafuda cards since they started doing video games, but those were still tie-ins to their video game franchises. They haven't really done anything unrelated to their video game franchises since entering the video game market.

And if we don't count short promotional films that tie in to video games or Pokémon (which has grown beyond Nintendo), the last TV series that was based on a Nintendo game was Kirby: Right Back At Ya!, and the last film before the recent Mario movie was Animal Crossing; the final episode of the English Dub of Kirby was in 2006, and Animal Crossing came out that same year, and both were anime. This was almost 20 years ago.

So I can't really call Nintendo an entertainment company, since so much of their business is centered around video games, video game consoles, and related accessories. Once they can branch out further into TV and film, then I will call them that.

Goodness knows, I would love to see a Zelda series or movie (especially one done by Ufotable, if we go the anime route), a Star Fox series or movie, a Metroid series or movie, and a 3D-animated Splatoon series or movie (and have it air on Nickelodeon, since that kind of content is perfect for that channel; plus, the ink splats in Splatoon could be made to look like the Splat logo for Nickelodeon), and a Super Smash Bros. series or movie.

They’ve been a toy company up until now. Their interests have been sited in interviews, their tech approach, and etc. Iwata wanted it to become an entertainment company which is why he wanted the movie so badly.

@Tempestryke Ya just look it up on Goog. I won't share it on here since its NSFW.

I told many family, friends and colleagues about this… but I take it one step further. I do not think that Nintendo is an entertainment company or a video company or a toy company or hardware company or an IP company or an event company or a theme park company...

They do all of those equally well, but when it boils down, Nintendo is a design company through-and-through. They just happen to do their design work in entertainment.

I’d say it has but in the time I’ve known of them they have focused on video games. But they were producing Hanafuda cards years before this. So imo they have always aimed at the idea of entertainment and even the name nes and snes were classed as entertainment systems. All they are doing is expanding on what they have always aimed to be.

Warioware showed a lot of it's history. Think of the grabber, lego like blocks etc. And they still produce playing cards of multiple sorts to this day. The cartoons in the 80's/90's has always been a thing. And don't forget the plushies that have been a carnival staple for years now! (And the Monopoly!)

I haven't bought a Nintendo system for over 15 years now.

The reality is, many people, myself included, won't buy a Nintendo system just to play Nintendo content. If they put their games on a device i already own i.e PC/Mobile, then i'll consider buying their games. Sony and MS figured this out and release their games on PC.

It has always been primary videogames (since NES, before that it was a toy and cardcompany); all their IP started with videogames and till a few years ago 90%+ money has been made with videogames.

@Vivianeat Wow. Knew about the OnlyCards Nintendo dropped, but this is my first time learning about the vacuum lmao, that is a deep cut!

They were a toys company before a videogame company. They've breached the multimedia platforms before, now they're just doing it with the right amount of oversight.

@HeadPirate Huh. That's all interesting stuff. I knew of the cards and love hotels but not that much about it. Talk about a total 180 given ol Ninty was so gung-ho about censorship and presenting a squeaky clean image in the 80s and 90s.

@AstroTheGamosian the cards and toys predates the video game side of Nintendo. Video games both home and arcade became a natural extension for them as toy makers for the time. Nintendo has been around since the 1880s, they’ve been delighting and entertaining people for years with the cards, hotels and toys before they entered into video games in the 1970s. These weren’t just “tie-ins,” these items carried the company since it went public in the 1950s.

@Chlocean Ya the vac is seen in the Warioware games.

@Yalloo It's not about your self-interest. Nintendo is an entertainment company and now is the time to branch out into films, theme parks, hospitality, cruise ships, etc. Doug Bowser is not responsible for Nintendo's pivot to new businesses. All the decisions are coming from Japan.

Yeah. Since when did you have to do multiple things to be an entertainer? Most singers just sing (or lip synch in most cases these days) without huge choreographed shows, yet that's still entertainment. I don't see why digital entertainment should be any different.

@progx I am quite familiar with their history before they entered the video game market, including their failed attempt to get into the taxi and hotel business. But that wasn't just any hotel: it was a love hotel (as in, the kind of hotel you go to in order to do... certain things that are not to be repeated in polite company).

But after they started making video games, that has been their main product, more so than toys and cards. Sure, they license out their IP to other companies (toys, board/card games, TV/film, books, etc.), but they primarily focus on the video game industry now.

But if I had to venture a guess as to what Doug Bowser meant, I think he means that Nintendo is going to wade deeper into the TV and film side of things than they have before. After all, it's been almost 20 years since we last got a TV show or film based on a Nintendo franchise that wasn't Pokémon.

The recent Mario movie's success has given Nintendo the confidence to branch more into TV and film beyond just the aforementioned franchise. And maybe they could reconsider the hotel business, but make it based on their video games (similar to how Hotel Gracery Shinjuku has some Godzilla-themed rooms, complete with a life-sized bust of Godzilla outside the building that roars and breathes steam--which is lighted at night--to simulate his iconic atomic breath).

In their goal to become the next Disney, the fear I have is they become too influenced by Hollywood culture, itself, and start to self censor and sanitise themselves to cater to modern western ideology. For example, they may start to censor or remove games deemed too risqué from their platform, or they may censor niche fanservice, Japanese style games in the same manner Sony did.

I mean yeah considering their beginnings making playing cards, love hotels etc they’ve always been entertainment but I see them as a video game company really seeing as that’s what they’ve mostly focused on these last ~40 years…

@Vivianeat Woweeee! Warioware Mega Microgame$ was one of the few gc games I had and I never understood that reference! Thanks hoss

Cards, to toys, to other ventures people in the know know about before the NES. They did tv shows, merchandise, but focus on games primarily and other things as other options for revenue.

So have they always been one yes in other entertainment (or other consideration of non-entertainment options to).

Are they now I'd say yes but with a primary focus on games to reach other mediums.

Microsoft has always been a software company and services more than ever now with subscriptions and hardware in many directions.

Sony has always been a hardware company but has animation, live action tv/movies, no streaming service anymore (PS Vue for a time), made music players but has a music division, does cameras still, has phones but a niche audience. They always find some niche to make hardware for and do entertainment. Just their games are 'too much' like movies so people into them sure. People not well we go to the retro eras or Nintendo now or the few not pushing that direction games like Dreams/Astro.

While I understand that point of view and indeed Nintendo didn't start with video games. However, it has been mainly about video games for the last couple of decades. Everything is centered around their games. Even these new ventures are all about their games. So.. yeah.

They aren't making characters only for movies or figurines. The characters are created for the games then everything else follows.

The company is over a hundred years old, doing entertainment the whole time. Recently noobs and gaijin have seen the company only for games, but they've done a lot, and if video games ever go out of favor, they'll just move on to something else like they always have probably just as successful as ever, maybe more so. Whatever that is, it will be based on the century long data they've built working in the entertainment industry, a metric that few companies can boast which I feel has always given them a leg up on the competition.

@AstroTheGamosian the point of my post is these were all entertainment ventures. We've accepted the FYE/Borders viewpoint that entertainment is strictly books, music, movies, television and video games. It isn't confined to these areas. Theme parks, resorts, cruises, toys and anything that provides some form of laughter, sadness, happiness or any emotion can be entertainment. Even strip clubs are entertainment.

They did focus on video games, but they've always been an entertainment company regardless of what they've been making all these years.

@SuntannedDuck2 I think you mean to say Sony was an electronics company. Not a hardware company. They were an electronics juggernaut in their day, now they're a shell of what they used to be.