We all know that although Nintendo is far from the financial dire straits of Capcom, Square Enix, and even Sony, the company has definitely seen better days. The 3DS is outpacing the Game Boy Advance but is far, far below the selling rate of the DS, the WiiU is a total disaster with very little to look forward to in 2014 even despite the higher-profile lineup, and the brand image itself has also taken a couple hits within the gaming community.
Super Mario isn’t quite moving as much hardware as in the past, the third-party companies are inches away from fully abandoning the WiiU ship, and even though the new system is going the same interactivity path of the Wii (which was a huge smash) the formula is definitely not working the second time around. The Mario franchise, the Wii Fit franchise, the Pikmin franchise have all come out for the new system but missing that essential fanfare that we had seen in the Wii when involving these games .
Pikmin 3’s sales are laughable. New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World lacks the initial launch success of not just Grand Theft Auto 5 but even Smash Brothers Brawl, a Wii game from multiple years back that managed to move plenty of hardware sales. The brand isn’t powerful anymore, as the gaming community has far too many other options and many of them at far cheaper prices. Flappy Bird, a phone game that uses sprites from the Mario games was selling at $50,000 a day. Donkey Kong Country, a franchise that once upon a time was the best in the entire business, has a new installment that is quietly coming out with barely any press.
With all the gloom and doom, Nintendo announced that they might become more lenient with their first-party brands and franchises. They are considering branching them out into non-video game ideas more often. The head honcho of Nintendo Iwata was quoted in a magazine recently discussing how Nintendo might need to remove some of their strictness to increase exposure and profits.
If it were up to me, Nintendo should look into the history of another company that ran down a similar path.
Marvel.
It might be harder to remember this now, especially with Disney running the show, but Marvel once upon a time was struggling to remain relevant when its main source of income was a medium that was being replaced by competition. In the mid-90s, because of struggling sales, bad decisions, and horrible bosses the company actually declared bankruptcy.
But Marvel was able to rise up and make a comeback because they changed their image, expanded its audience, and branches out their licenses to movies, more video games, more television shows, and much more merchandise. They licensed their IPs to an entire theme park, and the rest is history. Now the main Marvel characters are household names, and some of the biggest movies in history come from Marvel characters. The biggest worldwide smash of 2013 was Iron Man 3, and the third-biggest worldwide hit in history is The Avengers.
Marvel is worth far more than the 4 billion Disney spent on them. Nintendo can go down this same route too.
Nintendo is already worth 14 billion. They will be fine for a while. But if they truly expand their IPs into new directions, then their value would increase, their image would improve, and it could potentially become the necessary rebirth that would allow for companies to have newfound faith towards the innovative company.
Imagine Nintendo selling the film rights to Disney for that long-anticipated ACTUAL Super Mario movie. Imagine Dreamworks getting the rights to an Earthbound movie. Imagine cinematic versions of Metroid, Star Fox, Legend of Zelda, Kid Icarus, and F-Zero.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Pokemon reboot.
Imagine seeing television shows of Kirby, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Wario Land, Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, and other characters that already had their movies. I can see Disney XD and Adult Swim jump all over some of these IPs.
Imagine Marvel or DC working together with Nintendo and us being able to get comic book variations of massive franchises like Zelda, Metroid, Super Mario, and Pokemon.
Imagine finally getting more Nintendo merchandise. Most of the Nintendo-based merchandise is fanmade, and to an extent far more creative and made with much more craft than the usual shirts from the company.
Now, keep your imagination flowing. Imagine seeing Nintendo-based apps and small games for mobile phones, Apple products, tablets, and Galaxy devices. Nintendo has far too many IPs to have to resort to one of their heavy-hitters to be put in a phone. I can see bringing back some old-school SNES games to become the next Angry Bird or Flappy Bird. Tetris Attack is one of the most addicting games ever made, and giving it the smart phone connectivity features could give it a brand new audience for a new generation of youngsters. A slew of their handheld franchises like Professor Layton, Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, Wario Ware, and Advance Wars could also find new life in tablets and phones because of its accessible simplicity.
Nintendo has so many IPs, so many in-house franchises, so many ideas; it’s been foolish to not distribute them in multiple ways up until this point---especially when the company’s brand name is taking a few hits. With the movie industry and television industry being bigger and more available than ever, this is Nintendo’s chance to display its creativity to the world through more than just games—but other forms of entertainment like movies, television shows, internet shows, comic books, etc.
Just like Capcom and Square Enix, Nintendo must think outside the box to increase exposure and give their upcoming systems and games a chance to be in the limelight for a longer period of time. What better way to promote the upcoming Kirby game than a successful television show on Disney Channel? What better way to get us excited for the next Metroid game than to back it with a high-budgeted production hitting cinemas worldwide just the week before? Sometimes all it takes is a big movie to move units in the gaming industry. Toy Story 3 the video game sold 4 million copies across all platforms in 2010, and that game wasn’t even anticipated.
You are sitting on a gold mine Nintendo. Just because your games aren’t selling doesn’t mean that your IPs outside your usual industry will also fail.
Seriously, we would all pay good money for a Peter Jackson Legend of Zelda movie.
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