Mario and Other Nintendo Characters Marching On

Nintendo's Mario, Pokemon, Kirby, etc. are now out of the game machines into a new arena of activity - joining in car races in the theme parks, holding concerts there, etc., living the dreams of the late President Satoshi Iwata of Nintendo. These characters are going just as strong in the IP sector as in the sale of family games.

At the ground-breaking ceremony, July 6, of a new area in the Universal Studio Japan (USJ), Nintendo's creative fellow/director and the founding father of Super Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto told the press the company would now bring its IP strategy forward in the company's overall business picture - the sector that had so far been kept behind so as not to affect the main game sector.

The Super Nintendo World will offer a stage for Mario and other game characters to join in vehicle-type attractions featuring Mario Kart races. The area is scheduled to open by summer 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics.

Takao Suzuki, deputy chief of Daiwa Securities' company research department, says the USJ is meant to be the first step to rear Nintendo characters up to the level of Disney characters like Micky Mouse to draw customers by just being in their presence.

Mario is, of course, Nintendo's well-known game character. They had, kept the charming characters predominantly within the game sector until January 2014 when the late President Iwata proposed a more effective use of those game characters in sectors other than games.

President Kazuo Rikukara of Character Databank comments:

"Nintendo does not yet stand out in the license business market but its game characters enjoy worldwide fans. Those popular game characters should help boost its business performance if they should be utilized on a fuller scale." (Nathan Shiga)

Source: Nikkei