By Steve Peterson
Is there really such a thing as ‘winning’ E3? There is the external victory of being the thing most talked about in the mass media, in the game media, and on social media. Those are really three different audiences: The broadest possible audience of anyone who sees, hears or reads news; the audience of gamers who are always interested in game news, and hardcore Nintendo fans. Then there’s victory internally for Nintendo, by whatever standards it chooses to set. Ultimately, it’s the votes cast by consumers in the form of spending that counts.
Nintendo is heading into this E3 in a difficult position. Sales of hardware and software have not been meeting the company’s projections. CEO Satoru Iwata has gone on record that he intends to deliver a billion yen in profits for Nintendo this fiscal year, and implied that he may step down if that’s not achieved. This puts Nintendo in a difficult position for marketing strategy, since any marketing spending has to return a profit within the fiscal year. No long-term brand-building here; Nintendo will be looking for marketing efforts that can produce solid short-term results.
