OSAKA — Gaming giant Nintendo Co., Ltd. brings Super Mario and other popular video game characters to the real world. Mario’s creator even describes the company as being like a talent agency, and the characters attract a lot of customers.
What is the character business that the company is focusing on recently as the popularity of “Nintendo Switch” continues?
On November 11th, a new official Nintendo Osaka store opened at Daimaru Umeda Department Store in Umeda, Osaka’s downtown area. About 2,000 items such as clothing and miscellaneous goods with the theme of game characters such as Splatoon, The Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario series are lined up in the 800 square meter sales floor on the 13th floor.
There are huge model figures in the store, and it’s a fun space just to look at. Nintendo Osaka will be the second store in Japan following the directly managed store in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, which opened in 2019.
On the other hand, the theme park “Universal Studios Japan (USJ)”, which is about 10 minutes by train from Nintendo Osaka, will open an area called “Super Nintendo World” in March 2021. It is popular for attractions that incorporate the world view of Nintendo’s images. game.
This is the first Nintendo-themed area in an amusement park, and a Donkey Kong series area is scheduled to open in USJ in 2024. There are also plans to open Nintendo-themed attractions at theme parks in the United States and Singapore.
Since the release of the “Family Computer” console in Japan in 1983, Nintendo has created many of the world’s most popular video game characters. “Nintendo is like a globally recognized agency full of talent,” Shigeru said proudly at a management strategy meeting on November 9.
In fact, it was only recently that Nintendo began to seriously engage in the character business. Video game makers are currently doing very well, but things changed around 2014 when the smartphone game boom took off. Recorded a consolidated operating loss for the third consecutive year.
Therefore, then-President Satoru Iwata (passed away in 2015) took the initiative in actively utilizing character intellectual property. In 2015, Nintendo entered into a capital and business tie-up with DeNA Co., Ltd., a major IT company for smartphone games.
Nonetheless, game consoles and software remain Nintendo’s main source of revenue, with intellectual property-related revenues such as in-app purchases accounting for 3.5% of consolidated net sales of ¥656.9 billion, or ¥23.5 billion (approximately 1.5 billion yen). $68 million). Yen (approximately $4.7 billion) in the six months to September 2022.
President Shuntaro Furukawa explained the significance of emphasizing the character business, saying, “We are continuously creating points of contact with customers who have just started Nintendo outside of games, and customers who have distanced themselves from games.”
(Japanese original by Naomichi Senoo, City News Department)
