Nintendo made several attempts to advertise GameCube to video game consumers with mixed results. An early ad in Japan seems cluttered and a bit manic:
Advertisements that ran in the UK and US took a bit more serious and surreal tone. While beautiful, this series of commercials may have been too weird to capture a wide audience:
Even game-specific ads made some bold attempts. Admiral Ackbar was called back to active duty and given a lame catch phrase for a series of Rogue Squadron ads:
And finally we see a near-cinematic masterpiece for Metroid Prime. If the Metroid movie is half as cool as this ad, we’re in for a treat:
So despite a few good commercials and ad campaigns, Nintendo’s promotions for the GameCube were mostly failures. How can Nintendo get it right when promoting Wii?
“So long, GameCube” is an Infendo GameCube salute and five-part series celebrating the final month before the launch of Wii. Part 1 – Part 2
I liked the US GCN commercials with the weird glass boxes.
The Metroid movie looks to be canned for now. John Woo, who was supposed to put the film together, has projects into 2008 with no mention of Metroid. No news has surfaced since 2004. I wouldn't be too excited about seeing this film anytime soon.
The japan ad was way sweeter than that cubed cages… I don't go for that type of advertising. The Japan one wanted me to get up and go play… the US one made me just want to watch the commercial again to see what the heck it was about and what I missed.
I guess I should say that Nintendo didn't necessarily have a commercial failure with GameCube. As I understand it, they were always profitable. It just didn't necessarily match the success of some of their previous offerings.
"Nintendo's promotions for the GameCube were mostly failures."Er, says who? How do you measure the success or otherwise of a promotion? By sales/units sold? If that's the case then we know that promotion of the GC was the least of Nintendo's woes.Or put another way, you can promote your console til you're blue in the face but if the content/games/genres/3rd parties aren't there it's not going make much of a difference.
"How can Nintendo get it right when promoting Wii?"Simple. Do anything other than what we saw here.
Oooh, I love that Metroid Prime one! That was definately cool.The japanese one was too obnoxious and the american one was too ominous and creepy.And, as for the Star Wars one, well…that was odd.