Turns out, you can teach an old dog brand new tech

Klue

It’s a win for Nintendo: Here’s how Nintendo is making a comeback by investing in smart partnerships

It’s your classic surge and purge. The New Big Thing drops, dominates and then, once every channel becomes saturated by analysis and analogy, the tide turns and in comes a new wave of counter-programming.

Pikachu, we hardly knew you. Just kidding. Fear not, little guy, you will live long and experience popularity and dissection for years to come. Because the partnerships behind your breakout are likely not planning to close up shop anytime soon.  This article from Contently wonders if “Pokémon can survive until August?” and, hyperbole aside, they make excellent points about the obvious gaps in the experience, including but limited to: the lack of multi-player play, a trading network, chat or push alerts. These are all expected features in mobile gaming and developers will have to catch up quick. And they will.

Niantic Labs began as an internal startup at Google, helmed by John Hanke, whose company, Keyhole, was acquired in 2004 and became the jump-off for Google Earth. In 2014, when Google reorganized as Alphabet, Niantic was then spun out independently. After that, it raised $20 million from Google, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company (of which Nintendo owns 32%). Nintendo is going to make a lot of money from Pokémon Go. But. That’s not the big win here.

Just two weeks after the launch, Nintendo is valued at $38 billion. That’s a jump of more than 50%. But. That’s not the big win here.

The big win is a mic drop entry into the global mobile gaming market the company has spurned for years. Nintendo’s baffling resistance to a a mobile move has hurt in the last decade. Life is lived on the go—and on smart phones—so it was noteworthy when, last year, the company announced a partnership with mobile game developer DeNA. This partnership and the stake in Niantic, signal—in a big way—Nintendo’s intentions. They’ve effectively introduced augmented realty to the masses. That’s an Apple-level move from a company few have thought about in the ten years since its last big release, the Wii home-gaming console, which was not unlike Pokémon Go, actually. It was interactive and got people off the couch. Pokémon takes it an average of 10,000 steps further and gets them out into the world.

So, while Nintendo may not be the winner in actual dollars made, it will surely benefit in other ways. The company’s value doubled within a week of the launch. This is Nintendo’s first play at mobile and it is, undeniably, a success. The numbers are mind-boggling: 20 million daily users; spending more time on the app than on Facebook, Snapchat, Tinder and Klue combined; over $1 million in-app purchased daily and at least one report of a Vaporeon spotted on Mars during the wedding of two crazy kids who met at a popular Pokéspot in Sydney*.

Nintendo very quickly followed Pokémon Go’s release with news of NES Classic, it’s reworked gaming console due out in time for holiday wish lists and loaded with ‘classics’ like Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Pac Man and The Legend of Zelda. They’ve got brand equity, cutting-edge software covered with partnerships, they’ve adapted their well-known hardware for re-entry and Pokémon Go cash should keep them afloat for a while. Nintendo is suddenly in great shape to lead AR mobile gaming. It’s a win for Nintendo.

*didn’t happen

Blog > Competitive Enablement