The Nintendo Strategy That Worked, But Was Never Repeated

Back in 2002, Nintendo tried something unique, something different, and it worked.



And they haven’t done it since.



November 2002 would be the Month of Metroid, as we saw two very different Metroid games on two different systems release in the same day. They each had high-budget commercials, they each had the attention of the gaming community, and if it weren’t for the astounding controversy and success of Grand Theft Auto III/Vice City (as well as the mammoth year of the Playstation 2 overall) it would have been the most-talked about gaming-related thing in the entire holiday season.

Metroid Prime opened to spectacular reviews and sold over a million copies for a system struggling to actually do the same. Metroid Fusion also managed to sell a million, despite being part of a franchise that had been dormant for nearly a decade up to that point. Overall, it was a nice success and bit of good news Nintendo had needed during the rough opening year of the Gamecube.

But this idea was never duplicated again.

To this day we haven’t seen any of the Nintendo franchises have a special day of this magnitude. There was no special Wii/DS combination, there was no special Wii/3DS combination, and to this day we haven’t seen anything of that sort between the WiiU and 3DS. The concept of simultaneous release dates on different platforms should be an idea further explored by Nintendo, for releasing them at the same time creates lots of good marketing, and would prevent from one game hindering the sales of the other.

Take Smash Brothers 3DS for example. It had a release date in late summer, and its bigger brother counterpart had a release date of November. The 3DS version ruined the momentum of the other game because a) both games were eerily similar which was a poor choice I must add and b) way more people owned a 3DS as opposed to the WiiU—prompting the classic question of why taking the next step into getting the new console when I already own a system that has the game I had been yearning for years. 3DS Smash Brothers sold nearly 6 million copies—quietly making it the most successful fighting game in the history of handhelds.

The WiiU version? 3.2 million. The cheaper 3DS is now outselling the WiiU by over 80,000 every single week on average, with the spike attributed to software like Smash Brothers 3DS and Mario Kart 7. Now, there are much bigger issues than just software not receiving the same release date, but it definitely doesn’t help that the 3DS is chewing away at WiiU’s momentum.

Nintendo needs more moments like Month of Metroid. We need to see a day in which the next-gen system gets the brand new 3-D, not Skyward Sword Zelda and the handheld gets a 2-D counterpart. The games not only have to be same franchise, they also stylistically and texturally have to be different. Prime was a 3-D adventure with heavy first-person shooter elements---Metroid Fusion was a Super Metroid-influenced action horror handheld with 2-D gameplay. Same franchise, different games.

It is all about generating the hype, as opposed to spitting games in different release dates all over the year---prompting potential momentum kills. New Super Mario Bros. 2 definitely hampered the sales of the WiiU launch since we saw the more expensive but similar-looking New Super Mario Bros. U be the big launch title. Not a good sign. The 3DS sequel scored 8 million, while the WiiU version around half of that. If they had come out on the same date, we could have seen closer sales. If we saw a Super Mario 64-2 or a Mario Galaxy 3 as opposed to a New Mario U, that also could have helped the launch.

Nintendo in the future needs more Month of Pokemon, Month of Mario, Month of Zelda, etc. These types of events would be fun, and would motivate the fanbases. Month of Metroid resulted in sales of nearly 4 million after an 8-year hiatus and missing an entire generation. They need to invade the news of the gaming world at least temporarily with simultaneous releases of their heavy-hitting games. Random day in August to release a game won’t do you any good. Multiple sequels won’t do us good, we are willing to wait for that one big incredible game (Just ask Rockstar and the results after a 5-year development cycle of GTA V). You need to build the hype, you need to get people excited.

Unlike Microsoft (and Sony technically because the Playstation handhelds are irrelevant) Nintendo has the advantage because they own the handheld market and despite the limited sales of the current console, has a good history in the console wars. Their best franchises have done well in both platforms. Nintendo should further utilize this fact and do these special events more often. Cluster the games more often. Show the world why you should own BOTH the handheld and the console. But spitting random games in random dates won’t do the trick, it does more harm than you would like to believe. The WiiU is in third place, and that’s WITH having a version of Mario Bros., Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and even Zelda.



Month of Metroid back in 2002 was a game-changer, and was quite fun. I did buy both games. We would love to see more of these.