The same effect the Pokemon animé has on the selling of video games and merchandise. Media has always been seen as a marketing mechanic for video games, which is why the Megaman Battle Network series has an anime, and so did the Star Force series (but I think that was a special).
The movie is also because Nintendo now has a theme park.
From a Marketing point of view, the end effect will still be a consumption of Nintendo’s brand, which is why Apple’s innovations are centered in their ecosystem of devices:
• Need a phone? iPhone
• Need wireless earphones? AirPods
• Need a Smartwatch? Apple Watch
We can’t compare accessories to media and theme parks, but the idea is the same: hook and maintain the hook. Hook consumers via media/theme/games and keep them there with your products
Guess it depends on the overlap between the moviegoers who own a Switch and those who don't, which I assume is still big. Mario is a household name and there are kids out there who will have money to spend, as well as adults who are nostalgic for the brand and haven't touched a Nintendo system in years.
I get that, but like the Nintendo switch has over 125 million users and it is over six years old. If it were 24 million, or 37 million, or 48 million, and it was like 2 to 4 years old in range, I could see an affect that’s worthwhile. But the system is not new and it’s already with a very large market. Exactly how much of an affect does the movie have for people buying a platform just for a one game?
We don’t even know if there’s a new game this year (yet), so this is hypothetical.
Currently on the switch, there’s a million Mario games but only 2 (well technically 3) that matter for the general audience: Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Bros Deluxe and
Mario Kart.
The first two are the main series games and the rest are spin-offs.
If a new Mario game of the 2D and 3D variety were to release this holiday (doubt both at once, would be a MESS), it would sell absolute gangbusters within the first few weeks.
But, it does not necessarily mean it translates to a lot of hardware sales.
If there’s an OLED Mario for the holiday it can give a temporary boost, but like I said the switch is not a new system and it is not a small system (hehe). It has a massive install base right
now, when a hypothetical Mario game with a Mario OLED release in the fall, the system will be over 130M consoles on the market.
I do think that what you two are alluding to does work though for something such as a PlayStation 5 in this scenario, where a Spider-Man movie releases, and the Spider-Man game hits this fall. Why? Because, the PlayStation 5 is still pretty new, and its install base is pretty small. Relatively speaking, of course.
I don't think there will be many cross-gen games on the Switch U because of the file size that Switch U games will have. It's not like PS4-PS5.
I don’t really think that’s a limiting factor. Plus, we don’t know what the file sizes are going to be. And Nintendo games are pretty small.
Wii and Wii U were a wider gap than Switch to Switch 2.
And they were fundamentally different concepts that made it incredibly awkward for a cross gen to work for that. A wiimote for one, and a tablet for the other as a controller.
You have to make two very bespoke versions of the same game for that to work out.
That’s really not comparable here to the switch and presumably the switch 2 that is supposedly similar (not the same) to the switch.