Mario and Shigeru Miyamoto
For decades Mario, your favorite Italian plumber, has played a major role for Nintendo and entertainment for millions around the world. With Nintendo’s hardware sales dropping from 100 million in the first five years to only 13 million in the past five, Nintendo’s most popular game creator, Shigeru Miayamoto, refused to go into the mobile games market. Miyamoto was afraid of the use of their characters by third-party developers would dilute the characters’ value. He was also against taking advantage of families, the addictiveness of Nintendo’s products, and the “freemium” revenue model for mobile games. The “freemium” revenue model allows a free trial period for consumers with in-app purchases for in-game items or more levels to play.
Nintendo realized that they were missing out on a generation of potential consumers and gamers, losing billions of yens according to games consultant Serkan Toto. Just last month, Miyamoto announced the company’s first Mario mobile game to follow up Pokemon Go’s success of 500 million downloads in only two months within its release date. After the announcement Nintendo’s shares skyrocketed up by 38% since January 2016. Nintendo hopes to reel in potential and new fans through the mobile games –hoping to increase their hardware sales, which makes 50% – 60% of their yearly revenue.
The question is, “what makes Nintendo’s games so addictive?” The answer lies in their strategy. Nintendo has used the differentiation strategy since the creation of Mario and future game titles. However, their games do not necessarily have unique attributes from other game developers. Their games uniqueness lies in the Nintendo’s intellectual property. Their unique characters that many children, teens, and young adults whom have built their childhood with draws them back in when new products like Pokemon Go. Pokemon and Mario will not be the only characters planted easily accessible phones and tablets of millions – Nintendo has plans to bring five more free-to-play mobile-games by next year, including well known titles Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing. Nintendo’s decision to move to the mobile platform focuses on the sentimental and reminiscent aspect for past fans and makes space for potential fans to join the Nintendo family.
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