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DigiTimes: Foxconn trialing production of NX, ~10m units expected annually

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...I can't believe we're taking the Paper Mario - Splatoon online ad as a sign that Nintendo is not capable of marketing, thus NX advertising will suck. I'm not saying they're infallible, they have ups and downs... just that taking one element to make it the representation of EACH AND EVERY possibility of Nintendo in the marketing environment is...jumping to conclusions way too MuchoMalo-ishly.

I'd take it (along with many of the other games Nintendo's put out lately) as a sign that Nintendo is approving too many games that don't really have a marketable vision, though.

Marketing can only work with what they're given.

If they continue to make un-marketable games, NX will be in trouble.

But so far the only NX game we know for sure they're putting out is very marketable, so maybe that's not something we should worry about yet.
 
I didn't know that the Apple conference was organised by Nintendo's marketing.

No, but the event would have been planned ahead, and it fits into their overall scheme of getting mind share about nintendo ahead of the NX release.

A good Zelda show, Olympics, Pokemon Go, and the Apple Conference as done that. And that is apart of their overall strategy moving forward. People are certainly talking about Nintendo.
 

Anth0ny

Member
When it comes to marketing, their presentation style is probably going to be entirely new when NX drops/during the build to launch.

It might be great. It might be shit. It might be somewhere in the middle. I'm not gonna judge them based on what they did with the Wii U... because SURELY they learned some lessons thanks to that experience.



Surely.
 

Retrobox

Member
Can you guys tell me why a decent chunk of you are so obsessed with marketing? Do you legit have stock invested in Nintendo or something?
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I'd take it (along with many of the other games Nintendo's put out lately) as a sign that Nintendo is approving too many games that don't really have a marketable vision, though.

Marketing can only work with what they're given.

If they continue to make un-marketable games, NX will be in trouble.

But so far the only NX game we know for sure they're putting out is very marketable, so maybe that's not something we should worry about yet.

The talent in marketing shows in selling products that are good but not selling by themselves like Zelda.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Like what recent marketing campaign?

Dragon Quest 7?

Commercials, overview trailers, infographic images. All been good.

Fire Emblem Fates marketing was good, as was Awakening, Luigi's Mansion 2, Mario & Luigi games. Plenty of old and new 3DS games where the commercials and marketing have been good and well liked.
 

Anth0ny

Member
Can you guys tell me why a decent chunk of you are so obsessed with marketing? Do you legit have stock invested in Nintendo or something?

Usually, good marketing = good sales.

Sales = one of the few ways to predict what types of games Nintendo will make.

and I think most people in these threads are pretty invested in Nintendo games
 

Maxinas

Member
Can you guys tell me why a decent chunk of you are so obsessed with marketing? Do you legit have stock invested in Nintendo or something?

Because nintendo absolutely dropped the ball with the wii u marketing? I haven't seen a legit wii u commercial since late 2013 tbh. Occasionally have seen some late night wii u game commercials on adult swim, but that's it.
 
Like what recent marketing campaign?

FE: Fates. They put Corrin in Smash and ran ads all over (the TV ads only ran on Cartoon Network/Adult Swim which is a problem). They did a great job and it took the franchise to the next level.
Even though I'm not particularly happy with its direction.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
FE: Fates. They put Corrin in Smash and ran ads all over (the TV ads only ran on Cartoon Network/Adult Swim which is a problem). They did a great job and it took the franchise to the next level.
Even though I'm not particularly happy with its direction.

Yeah, Fire Emblem games were indeed promoted generally well, I'll admit that.
 

Oregano

Member
I'm sure Nintendo's genius of showing up on stage at an Apple conference will be abundantly clear when they announce their flagship product in a flipping webstream.

I say that as a fan of Nintendo Directs. It's going to send the wrong message.
 

L Thammy

Member
Is the Spaceworld theory an actual theory? I thought it was just something I posted while I was putting off sleep until I finished a project. Are people who aren't mildly delirious thinking the same thing?

On the subject of marketing. People tend to think of marketing as synonymous with advertising, but it isn't. It also means analyzing the market, picking a target segment, and tailoring the product to that segment. I agree that the Wii U failed with marketing, but it isn't that the product was misrepresented in advertising. The real problem was before the advertising even came into the picture.

Nintendo seemingly made the product without deciding on whether they wanted the core or casual market, and the result was a product that was not specialized to the interests of either and so unappealing to both audiences. The Xbox One had a similar problem, but it was at least strong enough as a core gaming device that a marketing shift was possible with minor adjustment (removal of Kinect). The Wii and PlayStation 4, on the other hand, were both highly successful because they found one market and provided the best product they could for that market with little or no concern for the others.

Advertising isn't everything. Nintendo could give Pewdiepie a dump truck full of money to pimp out the Wii U and it probably still wouldn't be something people would actually want.
 

udivision

Member
^Really good points by L Thammy

Can you guys tell me why a decent chunk of you are so obsessed with marketing? Do you legit have stock invested in Nintendo or something?

A Nintendo console failing for whatever reason couldn't possibly go against the interests of Nintendo fans, could it?

Nintendo being in a less than favorable financial position for whatever reason, couldn't possibly affect their decisions regarding games... right?

I mean, it's not like a failing console could result in a shorter lifespan and less support (read: games) and an increase in rushed games... is that even possible?

Who really knows. :-(
 
I'd rather them take a bit of time and make sure they have everything they need ready for a epic reveal. They need to make sure whatever they do grabs people's attention and holds onto it with a death grip. They probably will end up revealing it in October, but I wouldn't expect a big push to start until January when all the holiday hubbub is over. If they go all in before the holidays and have nothing to push the console with afterwards, it's just gonna get lost in the mass marketing of other consoles and literally everything else people will be spending money on in Nov-Dec. This isn't like doing an unveiling in June and steadily unraveling the marketing and information until a November launch (when people aren't exactly buying things a lot in those months and have a "something to look forward to" state of mind) instead it's probably going to be a post-Holiday explosion type thing, leading up to timely release in March.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
...I can't believe we're taking the Paper Mario - Splatoon online ad as a sign that Nintendo is not capable of marketing, thus NX advertising will suck. I'm not saying they're infallible, they have ups and downs... just that taking one element to make it the representation of EACH AND EVERY possibility of Nintendo in the marketing environment is...jumping to conclusions way too MuchoMalo-ishly.

I thought thinking Nintendo sucks at advertising stopped when they showed at the freaking Apple conference to show Super Mario Run.

I don't think that Nintendo has earned the benefit of the doubt in that area quite yet. The Apple showing was more than likely Apple's idea as well. I'm not saying that it will suck, but rather that I'm not expecting it to be good. That ad is sign that they're still pretty hit-or-miss, so it's probably a 50/50 at best. They seem to hate the idea of advertising hardware, though. I don't think that I've ever seen a Wii U ad.
 

Gsnap

Member
Hmm. Based on decisions they've been making lately, I'm not too worried about Nintendo's marketing for the NX. Despite having no noteworthy games coming out and being in one of the worst droughts they've seen in a while, they've been making smart decisions lately. They don't have much to work with while we wait for NX, but pretty much everything they have had to work with has been on point. The press and general perception/word of mouth about Nintendo has been solidly positive ever since Zelda stole the show at E3. That was followed by Pokemon Go, the NES Classic, the Olympics, and the Apple press event with Super Mario Run. Despite the lack of major traditional holiday software, they'll be going into the holidays positively with products that are all but guaranteed to sell well and make some waves (Pokemon Sun and Moon, Super Mario Run, and the NES Classic). Add on to this the list of smart long-term decisions they've been making lately (Amiibo, Mobile, movie plans, changing their in-store displays to bring back classic red and remove the Wii name, complete restructuring in order to unify development, a Universal Studios theme park, and just general diversification), and I think it's pretty clear that they're on an upswing that should help carry good momentum into the NX release and first year.

I understand that it's easy to be pessimistic about Nintendo, but I also think we need to acknowledge the good decisions they've been making lately. In the past, Nintendo would keep saying "Yeah, we'll do better next time." But then they would proceed to not do anything, and make no major moves or changes. However, that's not how things are panning out this time. They've said they're going to do better, and they're actually taking the steps necessary to do so. And we've already seen some of the fruits of this labor in tangible form. So I don't see any reason to worry as much about the Nintendo of today as we would the Nintendo of 4-5 years ago.

I think many of us are just a little frazzled by how much we simultaneously do and do not know about NX.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
Is the Spaceworld theory an actual theory? I thought it was just something I posted while I was putting off sleep until I finished a project. Are people who aren't mildly delirious thinking the same thing?

On the subject of marketing. People tend to think of marketing as synonymous with advertising, but it isn't. It also means analyzing the market, picking a target segment, and tailoring the product to that segment. I agree that the Wii U failed with marketing, but it isn't that the product was misrepresented in advertising. The real problem was before the advertising even came into the picture.

Nintendo seemingly made the product without deciding on whether they wanted the core or casual market, and the result was a product that was not specialized to the interests of either and so unappealing to both audiences. The Xbox One had a similar problem, but it was at least strong enough as a core gaming device that a marketing shift was possible with minor adjustment (removal of Kinect). The Wii and PlayStation 4, on the other hand, were both highly successful because they found one market and provided the best product they could for that market with little or no concern for the others.

Advertising isn't everything. Nintendo could give Pewdiepie a dump truck full of money to pimp out the Wii U and it probably still wouldn't be something people would actually want.

I think what happened there is that Nintendo realized that they needed the casual market to survive, but since a lot of that had left they also needed the core market. Focusing solely on either wouldn't have worked out any better because the casual market was mostly gone and the core market would have only stayed with them for a few months until Orbis and Durango rumors started popping up. Their choices were to try and make an all-rounder, or drop consoles. It does seem like they wanted to make a hybrid after Wii, but found that they couldn't and used Wii U as a compromise.


At any rate, NX doesn't seem like a focused device either. It looks like another "jack of all trades, master of none." Thus, from the perspective you're talking about here, it's in big trouble.
 

GamerJM

Banned
On the subject of Nintendo's marketing campaigns, I think it's at a much better place than it was at the start of this gen but definitely not as on-point as the Wii's marketing campaign. That being said I predict that when the NX launches we'll see a reboot and a big paradigm shift with the way they market their games completely. After all, the Wii/DS Lite marketing quality basically seemed to come out of no where.
 

sphinx

the piano man
I came to this thread yesterday 10 pages back?

what's today's twitt/leak/rumor?

I am ready to post again "OMG IT'S HAPPENING".
 

Nanashrew

Banned
On the subject of Nintendo's marketing campaigns, I think it's at a much better place than it was at the start of this gen but definitely not as on-point as the Wii's marketing campaign. That being said I predict that when the NX launches we'll see a reboot and a big paradigm shift with the way they market their games completely. After all, the Wii/DS Lite marketing quality basically seemed to come out of no where.

I think it getting a bit better is in part due to not having Scott Mofitt since he left back in June of this year. He came on in 2011 and the one responsible for much of the Wii U marketing no one has really liked.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
giphy.gif
 

Retrobox

Member
At any rate, NX doesn't seem like a focused device either. It looks like another "jack of all trades, master of none." Thus, from the perspective you're talking about here, it's in big trouble.

This is definitely true, a handheld that is too bulky and a console that fails to deliver all in one is something that they don't need at all. However, if there is one company out there that knows what it takes for a hanheld to succeed, it's definitely Nintendo. So for the handheld aspect of NX, I'm not really worried.

At the end of the day though, I still think there is a key aspect of the NX we either haven't hard about yet or think it's not realistic for Nintendo to implement because the tech isn't there yet / makes no sense etc. So we aren't even talking about it anymore even though they do have something up their sleeves. This may be why our speculation always goes back to this "jack of all trades, master of none" problem.
 
I feel as though Nintendo's waiting until the holiday buying season has begun or is about to begin to announce the NX and possibly a late game 3DS booster (price drop?) to indicate that it'll be the bargain family machine for the next year while the NX is slightly more premium. Whether that's late October or mid-November I'm not sure, but I know the two will coincide. 3DS is due for another price drop that isn't the 2DS (Or an official price drop across the board)

I also think it'll be a much more traditional handheld console than the previous 'rumors'. PS4 scaled it back with the ingenuity and just focused on providing a better customer experience than can be had with it's competitors, and blew the competition out of the water. Wii was also a great success, but a lot of it had to do with it being an above par entertainment device that looked very inexpensive compared to its main competition.

Trying to take a stab at forcing innovation could go either way, but these 'rumors' of convoluted devices with different components and emulation of the entertainment to be had with cheaper or more ubiquitous devices sounds like something destined to fail, no matter how much messaging you throw at consumers. I wouldn't be surprised to see them return to a Game Boy/Advance/DS style form factor.
 

L Thammy

Member
On the subject of Nintendo's marketing campaigns, I think it's at a much better place than it was at the start of this gen but definitely not as on-point as the Wii's marketing campaign. That being said I predict that when the NX launches we'll see a reboot and a big paradigm shift with the way they market their games completely. After all, the Wii/DS Lite marketing quality basically seemed to come out of no where.

Call me a pessimist, but I think that the reason why the Wii/DS marketing came out of nowhere is because Nintendo didn't fully understand it. Iwata clung to this idea that casual gamers can be made into core gamers, which I don't think has ever been proven true. The two have fundamentally different relationships with games; the one who wants to schedule games around their lives ("Since I'm stuck in this bus for a few minutes, I might as well play something") and the ones who want to schedule their lives around games ("Now that I'm free, let's play some Dark Souls").
 
Call me a pessimist, but I think that the reason why the Wii/DS marketing came out of nowhere is because Nintendo didn't fully understand it. Iwata clung to this idea that casual gamers can be made into core gamers, which I don't think has ever been proven true. The two have fundamentally different relationships with games; the one who wants to schedule games around their lives ("Since I'm stuck in this bus for a few minutes, I might as well play something") and the ones who want to schedule their lives around games ("Now that I'm free, let's play some Dark Souls").

It's not like people are born core gamers.

They become core gamers through exposure to video games. And usually their first point of contact is a more approachable game rather than a game for video game experts.

You won't convert all new gamers or lapsed gamers or casual gamers to core gamers, but without attracting those folks, your audience stagnates.

That's definitely something Nintendo understood very well.

What ultimately happened, though, is that their game quality started to dry up as the Wii era went on. We went from Wii Sports to Wii Music, from Twilight Princess to Skyward Sword, from Metroid Prime 3 to Metroid: Other M, and from the excellent Wii Play to the "why does this exist?" Wii Play Motion.

I think a lot of this has to do with having misguided ideas about how to attract casual gamers to these new games and to more advanced applications of their Wii motion technology. (Skyward Sword is a particularly good example, because Aonuma was very open about their belief that a more linear game would be more appealing.)
 

Jubenhimer

Member
It's not like people are born core gamers.

They become core gamers through exposure to video games. And usually their first point of contact is a more approachable game rather than a game for video game experts.

You won't convert all new gamers or lapsed gamers or casual gamers to core gamers, but without attracting those folks, your audience stagnates.

That's definitely something Nintendo understood very well.

What ultimately happened, though, is that their game quality started to dry up as the Wii era went on. We went from Wii Sports to Wii Music, from Twilight Princess to Skyward Sword, from Metroid Prime 3 to Metroid: Other M, and from the excellent Wii Play to the "why does this exist?" Wii Play Motion.

I think a lot of this has to do with having misguided ideas about how to attract casual gamers to these new games and to more advanced applications of their Wii motion technology.
It really is amazing how poorly Nintendo handled the Wii's last few years.
 

udivision

Member
It's not like people are born core gamers.

They become core gamers through exposure to video games. And usually their first point of contact is a more approachable game rather than a game for video game experts.

I do wonder though. Maybe it's more likely that you'll become a core gamer if your first exposure to gaming is a core game. I guess it depends on what the definition of core is though, but there are many people here who first got into gaming because Mario or Pokemon or whatever.
 
I do wonder though. Maybe it's more likely that you'll become a core gamer if your first exposure to gaming is a core game.

My first exposure to gaming was Pac-Man (and a terrible version of it that was on PCs at the time), then Mario.

Didn't get into Zelda until I was 10 (Ocarina of Time), Metroid until I was 14 (Prime), or PlayStation until I was 16 (Final Fantasy X).

I think it has much more to do with whether the games you try encourage you to try more games, moreso than which kinds of games you try first.

You have made a powerful enemy today. :mad:

I secretly really love Skyward Sword.
 

NateDrake

Member
I'm with you. This is so lame what this topic has turned into now.

The topic's theme is fine, but now dissecting a minor online marketing campaign for Paper Mario or the lack of PGW as failures on Nintendo's part is stretching. It's just another cycle on the 'rinse and repeat' of NX threads.
 

udivision

Member
The topic's theme is fine, but now dissecting a minor online marketing campaign for Paper Mario or the lack of PGW as failures on Nintendo's part is stretching. It's just another cycle on the 'rinse and repeat' setup of NX threads.

I chalk everything up to lack of goodwill, in addition to typical internet mentalities.

The difference between the frequency of "So? I don't buy games for X feature" and "This effing company!" posts has as much to with the "bad thing" Nintendo did as it has to do with the general positive/negative feeling towards them. Or that's what I feel.
 
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