The Wonderful 101 Direct and Demo Set the Standard for Wii U Marketing

Nintendo Life - The Wonderful 101 has had a slightly peculiar route to the Wii U, in terms of visibility and awareness. At E3 2012 Nintendo used its live conference to make peculiar jokes about zombies liking French food and provide a rather thorough walkthrough of Luigi's Ghost Mansion in Nintendo Land. That presentation had good moments, but the pacing was arguably off, and we were talking about the main presentation in Nintendo Life HQ when Nintendo produced footage where Satoru Iwata stared at a banana, for example, and some crazy game called Project P-100 was shown off. It was colourful, looked gorgeous and was bonkers, which made its omission from the main presentation a head-scratcher.

[Rikitatsu]

Yet we get comments like "NINTENDO'S GREAT MARKETING WILL SERVE PG GAMES WELL!" or "SEGA's SENT PG GAMES TO DIE!1!!!"

This is what SEGA's marketing for Bayonetta was: http://platinumgames.com/20...

Wonderful 101 got debuted in the backstage, after Nintendo's E3 conference. Yet a Nintendo Direct and some trailer is suddenly "GREAT MARKETING", when every little company in the world takes this for granted for their games.

[KonsoruMasuta]

You heard of the game, right? They must be doing something right with marketing.

[Rikitatsu]

No one said they aren't.

But to shit on SEGA for not marketing well, and then praise Nintendo for doing the same thing is called hypocrisy and pure fanboysim.

[guitarded77]

All I know if that the Nintendo Direct for The Wonderful 101 got on my nerves from them saying "The Wonderful 101 releases September 15th" EVERY TWO MINUTES!!! It made the Direct feel like a crappy infomercial... really annoying, and kinda insulting. It's like those radio commercials where they say the phone number or website address three times in a row at the end.

[TripC50]

@rik

PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE SCUM OF THE GAMING COMMUNITY!

Who are you doing this for? Do you think you are smart or cool? Shut up you child! You little ugly troll child that nobody, not even your troll mother, loves! AHHH!!! >:(

Ranting aside :) I thought the direct was great, showing off the mechanics and story really got me excited for this one. The demo itself convinced me to definitely pick it up when it eventually releases. I think nintendo will do this nintendo direct/demo release with future games.

[Rikitatsu]

...lol

[LOL_WUT]

@ Rikitatsu Just bubble him down for immature and get it over with ;)

[yalltrippin]

@lol_wut , look who talking. public troll # 1 , i mean use the force luke , a jedi's power flows wit the force.

[BullyMangler]

not saying yur wrong but yur taking nintendos NORMAL current situation too serious no?

(:

[dark-hollow]

Sega did a horrible job marketing bayonetta.

[Rikitatsu]

If Bayonetta's marketing was horrible, then what makes Nintendo's marketing for W101? How is it any better?

Do you like to blindly throw words around? I'd like to believe you have an argument to back it up, other than pure fanboy bullshit.

[PopRocks359]

Considering the game got its very own Direct which has invigorated at least a portion of gamers on the internet, and now it's seeing an ad campaign in Japan apparently, I'd say it's a lot better than much Sega's advertisement.

All of those Bayonetta images are all in Japan. We're talking about a game that came out on the XBOX 360 and was half-assedly PORTED over to the PS3. So gee, no wonder the game didn't sell well when Sega didn't even bother to properly market the damn game in the country where the 360 was doing best.

Had they taken the Atlus approach, maybe, JUST MAYBE, Bayonetta would have done better.

[Rikitatsu]

Nintendo Direct is just a bit more elaborate Dev Dairy, how does that make it great marketing? Did you even see the number of viewers on the live-stream? You'd be a fool if you think it had any huge impact in terms of advertising.

Also, no, SEGA's marketing for Bayonetta wasn't exclusive in Japan, it got TV ads in the west ( http://www.youtube.com/watc... Promotional events with Maddonna (And even Playboy), as well as things we take for granted like Web Ads, Magazine Ads, Trailers, Dev Dairies...

How the FU*K is Nintendo's direct "A LOT BETTER" than this? How the hell does this translate to "Sega didn't even bother to properly market the damn game in the country where the 360 was doing best. "

Also, you talk about the PS3 port, you realize PG never intended to make a PS3 port themselves? They intended for it to be a X360 exclusive, SEGA had no choice but to work on a PS3 version themselves, even though its not their code.

"GUYZ ...GUYZ... SCREW ALL THE MASSIVE POSTERS IN TOKYO ON FAMOUS LANDMARKS, SCREW ALL THE TV ADS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE.... NINTENDO HAD A DIRECT!11!! IT MAKES IT A LOOOOOT BETTER THAN SEGA'S MARKETING. HURRRRRRRR"

[PopRocks359]

You're oversimplifying the issues for one thing.

Sega's marketing was fundamentally flawed because there way of going about it had next to nothing to do with gamers in the right regions. What the hell is an event with Madonna going to do? Do you know many Gears of War fans who were into Madonna? I didn't think so. You can only do so much just by plastering your main character on a wall. You need to convey a message that catches peoples' interests and gets them talking.

Furthermore your excuse on the PS3 port only further strengthens my point that Sega's handling of Bayonetta was shoddy at best. Had they focused their efforts on making it look like a cool game for gamers and not some glorified Japanese playboy game for the masses, they might have garnered the same audience that made Catherine so unusually successful.

You know what this Nintendo Direct did? It showed you what the game was about, made it explicitly clear what you could do, when it was coming out and what system it was for and it made people excited. Now people are talking about The Wonderful 101 and it has a chance at success.

[zugdar]

I thought it was great. It sets it apart from the million trailers that other games have.

[Dunban67]

The problem w Nintendo Direct being the primary marketing chanell is it is focused soley on Wii U owners- obviously that is THE target market but most existing Wii U owners have nown about this game for a while- but non core gamers/families considering a console purchase this holiday probably have never heard of W 101

So Nintendo directs are GREAT marketing - but not complete marketing

[brewin]

Do you not see these plastered all over gaming sites and various internet outlets after they are shown?

Do you also realize that thse are used as marketing tools for Nintendo investors and business partners?

You are seriously on here acting like current Wii U owners are the ONLY audience that sees these Direct presentations.

One other great thing about these game specific Directs is that they focus on the game develoepr speaking to the consumers about the games directly. This is one of the things I have wished was different about gaming. In music and movies, the actors and musicians are famous icons, but in gaming, nobody knows about the poeple behidn the games. This provides a great chance for developers to shine and sell their games with a personal touch.

This is the future of games marketing in my opinion. And I am in college almost done my Bachelors Degree in Marketing.

[falcon97]

Yes Directs do focus on wiiu gamers/owners but with wiiu selling steady at least every person that buys a wiiu will find out all they need to know about most games on the actual console....it's why software sales are quite amazing on wiiu even with a small worldwide install base...

[ozzybooboo]

So I downloaded the demo to see whether or not I should keep the system. It's ok, I just can't find myself getting into this style of game anymore. Oh well, time to cash in on the wii u.

[TripC50]

Troll pretending he has a Wii U

[LOL_WUT]

I downloaded it and played it and just as I had imagined it wasn't all that good. ;)

[TripC50]

lol Wut you are one of the biggest trolls here. I've seen your posts around NFG and they reek of troll. You and Rikitatsu should get off the internet. Please.

[Theyellowflash30]

LOL_WUT, you don't have a Wii U.

[Whymii]

Fairs fair. Lol_wut doesn't have to like the game. I have accused him of trolling many times, but that doesn't mean he hasn't downloaded and disliked the game. Hell, I called him Trol_wut once and accused him of not owning a wii u.

I would imagine that if he did download it and disliked it was because he was predisposed to dislike it, as I quote "as I had imagined it wasn't that good". I personally think it's brilliant, but then I loved Viewtiful Joe and so was predisposed to like it.

He is free to choose what he likes and doesn't like and I support his right to free choice. Different strokes for different folks. However, if he doesn't own the system and has taken to pretending, then he needs help and everything I've accused him of stands ;)

[PopRocks359]

@Whymii

No, he really is a troll. Bubble him down and be done.

[Kevlar009]

There's already two TV spots for Japan made, there will be ads for other regions as well. The game got a 20 minute Direct dedicated to it. They had a showing and demo at Comic Con and E3. The game is getting hyped up on this site and others for it's depth and creativity

I'd say that's a good start for one game. It's one month from release so maybe it's too much too early. But seeing how it's pretty much NIntendo's only major release in September you know they will keep talking about it until it's released

[young7yang]

after playing the demo this game is a day one buy. It's like a mix between pikimin and bayonetta.

[brewin]

I am surprised by the blowout presentation! They showed so much of the game and so much of it was unknown, thats what blew me away! And then to release the demo right after... its like Nintendo is finally listening.

Trust me, that is something every Wii U owner who has watched these Directs has wished they would do.

I was utterly pissed that I couldnt get my hands on those Wii u demos around e# when they had them in Best Buy, but this is an acceptable solution.

The bar has definitely been raised for what to expect form a Direct presentation, and I expect the same treatment for the other 1st party games as well! Anything else will be a major step backward.