A few days before, Nintendo released two products. First one, the video game Super Smash Bros., yes, the update to the top-selling franchise for a next-gen console. The second one, however is a collection a toy figurines that will interact with the game. This brings the company into an already flourishing market, the one that allows it to make more advantage of popular game characters like Mario and Luigi. Literally a concern, Nintendo needs a new sales hit for sustaining its place in the market. The company reported a profit in its most recent quarter, but losses are no less in recent years as consumers have switched over to less expensive games on smartphones and mobile devices. And comparing the stock sales of consoles by Nintendo and Sony; the former’s Wii U stretched to only 7.29 million consumers since November 2012 while the latter’s for PlayStation 4 has hit a sale of 10 million unit, which was also released a year later.
Well, the company understood it need to move over to some other similar product line. With the figures, Amiibo, Nintendo will be entering the toy-to-life market that grew 22 percent in the year up to October 2014- according to NPD group (a market research company). Although Disney and Activision rules the market for this purpose, but analytics says that there is a chance for Nintendo to prove its purpose. “You have this third player entering the market, with a huge stable of characters that are iconic,” –Liam Callahan, a games industry analyst at NPD. “They may actually grow the category by targeting a slightly older consumer,”- he added. Clearly, he is in the favor and remember his old days growing up with Nintendo craze! Toy companies have been trying for years to bridge the gap between physical and digital toys, applying their own strategies, but till now none have succeeded as their expectations:
Mattel’s Apptivity, in which players used toys to interact with mobile games, ahd a short run. Hasbro had better luck by working with the Finnish game developer Rovio on Telepods, an app that tied up Hasbro’s toys with Rovio’s Angry Bird Franchise. Lego, the world’ largest toys company by revenue, recently introduced Lego fusion, which allows children to construct plastic brick buildings that are then incorporated into a mobile app.
But to kick a triumph in this field of fusin is won by Activision. In October 2011, Activision introduced its first Skylanders game, Spyro’s Adventure. It was a huge success and led to the release of the sequel version each year from since. In 2013, Activision announced that Skylanders franchise topped $1 Billion( approx. Rs.6,173 crores) in revenue, with more than 100 million toys sold in the United States alone!
“We are not a “me too” company. We’ve been thoughtful; e wanted to make sure we had differentiation,” said Cindy Gordon, vice president for corporate affairs at Nintendo of America.
