At the end of 2016, nothing is going well with Nintendo. The Wii U, launched four years before, is not sold. A commercial failure that will damage the company’s financing from Kyoto in Japan, and that will lead him to innovation, even if that means sacrificing the career for the power that he had begun to leave in the past.
Nintendo in front of his future
Above all, the 3DS, the last real portable console in Nintendo, sees its sellers weakening in sight with the change in consumer habits, which now play more easily on mobile devices.
In Nintendo, then we imagine a console that will finally break the wall that separates the consoles from the living room, more traditional and the one we transport with you. The concept of change was born.
It is a euphemism to say that the company plays its future. In red, Nintendo’s finances are afraid to see. But more is needed to kill the fork of the mustotium, Mario and his friends.
“Every time we look at the evolution of Nintendo in its financial results, we see this type of abysmal hole between 2014 and 2016, where it does not go at all,” adds Guillaume Leviach, a journalist and streamer specialist in Nintendo. “The 3DS was fine, but nothing more, but the switch had this side,” he goes or breaks. “
When Nintendo invites the press around the world to discover its future, one morning in January 2017, we are far from imagining that the company will present a device that will sell, eight years after its launch, more than 160 million copies.
In its great conference, which takes place live from Japan, we discover a well -touched marketing and media plan. Nintendo has planned everything to reassure players and investors.
The abandonment of the “Wii” brand in question
“The announcement of the first change was unexpected in particular in its form, we left the Wii brand that was dominated, and the launch games were not synonyms for evidence,” explains Alvin Haddadène, consultant of the Boocloop agency.
In October 2016, we had already been able to discover the contours of change in a trailer. This hybrid console can be transported everywhere and without limits, if not its battery.
But the conference records in marble all the promises of Nintendo. It is not all to present an ad, now it is necessary to show that there will be games, characteristics … That success is still possible!
Therefore, for more than an hour, Nintendo will present the great game, with selected partners. The brand will also explain the details of its switch, including the fact that it can be transported or placed next to television at a base at any time, then say a little more about the joy-with, the console handlers.
At the top point, Zelda’s legend: Breath of the Wildwhich is announced for a worldwide launch on March 3, 2017, just two months later, at the same time as the console.
Then comes the price: 329 euros. A blow to a console that is not as powerful as we do not believe it: “It would have to be 300 euros, because the psychological price is always very important in the chief of consumers,” says Guillaume Leviach, “the price remained honorable, because it was in line with the price of the Wii U, which was logical for a console whose technical sheet was similar to the previous one.” “
“All lights are red”
However, Nintendo wants to demonstrate his good faith by inviting journalists and influential to demonstration sessions. But with a launch catalog that only changes a single real scale and an award that is considered prohibitive for time, the press is skeptical. The proof of this is, in the specialized Gamekult site, we will remember a phrase dyed of catastropism, “all the lights are red.”
Obviously, in retrospect, the statement makes you smile, but they were not much to believe, even in third -party editors, who had not shown great support in Nintendo.
And yet, when the switch ends up seeing daylight on March 3, 2017, the public is there. Nintendo offers with its console a very new concept, and can also boast of having a game that will really alter the entire industry: Zelda’s legend: Breath of the Wild.
To understand why it was an event, it should be remembered that the saga Zelda’s legend It has never been what is called a “sellers console”, in other words, a way of selling consoles. But for this new episode, Nintendo plays his avant -garde: he shakes the foundations of the franchise, and goes through the domino effect, transforming the vision of the players into the games into an open world.
“Zelda’s legend: Breath of the Wild It is a great success, because it is a very good understanding of the open world, and it was the genre that had worked long before the change comes out. Nintendo had not yet ventured. But when this game comes out, they manage to do something phenomenal, “recalls Alvin Haddadène.
Tea Zelda Legend: Breath of the Wild It is quickly followed by another surprising Nintendo title, Mario Kart 8 Deluxethat is still the best console game … although it is a reissue of the Wii U version.
Yet, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Go sell as Hotcakes: Know, there are more than 66 million copies sold worldwide, and it is a game that has been, every year for 8 years, in the 5 best video game sales in France without discontinuity.
A beginning, which in fact is only the beginning of a relentless adventure for Nintendo, which will reign supreme about the kingdom of consoles for several years.
Source: BFM TV
