Nintendo courts non-gamers in 'about-turn' strategy

Once confined to rectangular screens, chirpy plumber Mario and pointy-eared Princess Zelda are popping up in theme parks and toy stores as Nintendo tries to win non-gamer fans. It wasn't always this way: the Japanese company stopped promoting products or creating media other than video games for many years.

However, its push for broader brand recognition over the past decade has reached the point where even Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto describes Nintendo as something of a "talent agency" for its colorful characters.

Map of the Donkey Kong Theme Park at Universal Studios JapanIGN

A new area based on the "Donkey Kong" games was unveiled at the Universal Studios Japan amusement park on Tuesday. This expands Nintendo's zone, which is already a major tourist draw. Its doors open on December 11, following last month's launch of the first-ever Nintendo museum in a renovated factory in Kyoto.

At the box office, "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" was 2023's second-highest grossing title. A sequel is due in 2026, and a film based on Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda" is also on the way. "Over the past decade, there has been an about-turn" in Nintendo's strategy, said Florent Gorges, an expert on the company's history.

Reclusive

The gaming giant started life in Japan's traditional former capital of Kyoto in 1889, producing playing cards. For a long time, it took a "conservative" and "somewhat reclusive" approach to cashing in on its intellectual property, said Gorges. "There was a certain culture of secrecy, taken to extremes within Nintendo, that made it squeamish about trying new things," he told AFP.

Gorges added that Hiroshi Yamauchi, company president from 1949 to 2002, "hated" the idea of a company mascot. An early foray outside of the gaming world also proved tricky. In the 1990s, Nintendo entrusted its Mario IP to a Hollywood production team, which made a live-action movie that was roundly panned. The flop may have contributed to Nintendo's cautious approach until disappointing sales of the Nintendo 64 and GameCube consoles in the following decade forced a rethink.

Wii success

The two next consoles—the portable DS with two screens and the remote-controlled Wii—were designed to attract non-gamers. Each sold over 100 million units and remains among Nintendo's most significant commercial hits. However, when updated versions of these two consoles did not perform well, the company decided to venture again beyond video games. Fast-forward to today, and Nintendo is "selling soft toys and sweets, allowing its characters into consumers' everyday lives", said Hideki Yasuda of Toyo Securities.

Nintendo is sometimes compared to Disney, but its business model differs from that of the US giant, which acquires and develops existing franchises, such as Star Wars, said Kensaku Namera of Nomura Securities. Instead, the Japanese company "is focused on what it can do on its own" and collaborates with external studios and creators for its films and other projects. In the future, the firm may draw inspiration from the success of Pokemon, which began as a Nintendo game but now spans movies, playing cards, and a merchandise empire controlled by several entities.

That has "really pushed Nintendo to exploit its franchises further," Namera told AFP. "Many children love Pikachu and buy soft toys even if they have never played the game," he said, referring to Pokemon's famous electric mouse. Game and console sales account for over 90 percent of Nintendo's revenues, so Namera said exposure to characters such as Mario or the friendly dinosaur Yoshi could be "a trigger" to attract more people to consoles.