Damon Baker on Nintendo Direct content, third-party Wii U support, more
Nintendo Life has now published its full interview with Damon Baker, Nintendo of America’s senior manager in marketing and licensing. You can find the full thing here, though we’ve grabbed some excerpts below. Topics include how the content for Nintendo Direct broadcasts is chosen, third-party Wii U support, and more.
On any plans to update the 2DS infrastructure to reflect the New 3DS hardware…
We have nothing to announce at this time, but it’s still geared toward a younger audience. The 2DS did really well over the Holiday season, paired with the Pokémon message. There’s still a very active market there, where [parents] might find it a little more robust structurally.
On what factors go into some promotions like last year’s E3 programs…
I think what’s brilliant about Nintendo is that we’re full of ideas. Last year, we felt challenged to be more conservative in our spending, and we’ve seen that the way things have been done in the past aren’t leading to any results, so what can we do with a more conservative budgetary approach while still being impactful? So we thought about what we could with livestreaming. So we thought about doing Treehouse Live, doing the Smash Bros. tournament, doing these things that really open the audience to E3. When I was growing up, the only way I found out at E3 was to read about it in magazines. You’re finding out about it in print, delayed. And now information is instant, but you’re still confining E3 to people who pay for a ticket. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw more companies doing similar programs next year so we are going to continue to innovate and expand.
On Zelda Wii U’s appearance at The Game Awards…
The way that Geoff Keighley did that show was really great. He has great relationships with people in the industry, and having that collaborative environment was really impactful. He worked with us on it for some time. It was great to see Reggie get some face time, and to show Zelda. We approach every opportunity with who we want to reach and what we want to achieve from it and go from there.
On how the real estate of the Nintendo Direct broadcasts are decided…
It’s constant. There’s a committee. We collaborate with Japan and Europe, we try to figure out what the messaging is, what makes the most sense, how to create consistencies in the regions… even in terms of maximizing the delivery of it. Every Nintendo Direct has been at a different time of day. We’ve tried to figure out which time is best to launch in which region. So it’s a constant thing. That team works all the time. It’s almost full time on Nintendo Direct. It’s a powerful thing for us. I feel very fortunate that licensing has been involved. I’d love more opportunities for us to promote relevant third party content. We’re constantly evolving the program.
On third-party Wii U support…
We’re in a unique position. Some of our more popular content this past year was from Warner Bros. with the LEGO games, Skylanders from Activision, Disney with Disney Infinity, Ubisoft with Just Dance, even Sega with Sonic. We also want their shooters, sports games, but we want them done right on the platform. So we are going to continue focusing on quality and things that make sense with our audience. I think one of the most interesting things is toys-to-life. Everyone sort of thought it would be a three-way war with Skylanders, Disney Infinity and amiibo. But we’ve actually promoted as a company that in order to play all three toy platforms, you need a Nintendo system.
