Nintendo designer and legend Shigeru Miyamoto says he wants to expand Nintendo’s IP outside of video games to include “new characters” beyond Mario and Zelda.
Speaking at Nintendo’s recent investor Q&A (the official the English translation has now been published), one of the 19 questions put to Nintendo’s board asked about the company’s strategy of expanding its brand and IP through movies, theme parks, and non-gaming products. One investor asked how this initiative to expose more non-gamers to Nintendo characters had worked so far and how it may develop in the future.
NCL president Shuntaro Furukawa first outlined that “this basic policy will not change in the Nintendo Switch 2 generation,” before Miyamoto added a lengthier response, detailing his initially “cautious” approach when he first discussed the strategy with then-president, the late Satoru Iwata.
Here’s the question and Miyamoto’s response:
Q14: Regarding the basic strategy of ”expanding the number of people who have access to Nintendo IP,” how does Nintendo look back on the initiatives it has undertaken so far, and how will you develop this strategy going forward?
Shigeru Miyamoto (Executive Fellow and Representative Director, Member of the Board):
For more than 15 years, I had been discussing with Mr. Iwata, who was President at the time, what Nintendo should become in the future. At first, I was cautious about Nintendo expanding its business to smart devices and using characters created for games outside of games. I was concerned that, depending on how the characters were used, it could impose unwanted limitations when creating games.
However, as we developed Wii, I realized that while there was a limit to the number of people Nintendo’s dedicated video game platforms alone could reach, it is possible to reach a much larger audience through smartphones, movie theaters, YouTube, and other channels. I also thought that the purest reason for consumers to purchase a Nintendo dedicated video game platform was not because it was inexpensive or had certain features, but because they wanted to play a particular game, or wanted to play Super Mario or The Legend of Zelda. From there, I thought that introducing Nintendo characters to regions and consumers unfamiliar with them would also lead to game sales in the future, so we made a significant shift toward expanding points of contact between the consumers and our characters. This strategy of “expanding the number of people who have access to Nintendo IP” began more than a decade ago.
Today, I feel that IP related initiatives have a high profit margin and have grown as a business. They have also come to play a major role in expanding Nintendo around the world, so we will focus even more on this area going forward.
Miyamoto went on to highlight Pikmin Bloom as another success (“Particularly in Asian regions such as South Korea and Taiwan”) and that “we view these initiatives as activities that sow seeds around the world.”
“Going forward, we will expand these initiatives and would like to bring not only Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, but also new characters, to the world. We will expand these initiatives through a variety of methods, including movies and videos.”
Elsewhere in the Q&A, Furukawa mentions the Pikmin short Close to You as an example of experimentation that Nintendo is keen to pursue, but Miyamoto’s comments suggest exploration of possibilities that may not include familiar characters.
As with most of the answers, they are deliberately vague on specifics. It could be interpreted as new characters that we haven’t seen on the big screen yet, Fox McCloud being a recent example after his key role in the Mario Galaxy Movie.
The comment also comes directly after discussing phone app Pikmin Bloom, and technically Nintendo did recently introduce a new character on mobile in the form of Pictonico mascot Masky. The mention of Mario and Zelda suggests he’s thinking of movies, though.
So, the prospect of a Nintendo movie or series including totally new characters? Sounds intriguing. Let us know below if you’d be interested in non-gaming Nintendo media with original IP below.
