Nintendo Treehouse Log opens on Tumblr

In the past, Nintendo of America’s Treehouse group was well-known for being closed off. But that started to change in recent years thanks to somewhat regular live streams, beginning with hours of video content during E3.

Things have now been taken one step further. Today, the Nintendo Treehouse Log opened on Tumblr.

What is this all about anyway? Here’s a quick overview from Nintendo’s Bill Trinen:

“I realize that we can’t yet really say with certainty what exactly the Nintendo Treehouse Log will become. What I can say is that it will be a place where we’ll post content periodically, rather than on a set schedule. The content will offer insight into games and franchises you love, presented from a unique Treehouse perspective. We may not cover every game or every IP, and we won’t pull the curtain all the way back, but our hope is that the Nintendo Treehouse Log will evolve into something fans will enjoy”.

And below is the first full entry:

“Welcome to the Nintendo Treehouse Log. For those of you who follow Nintendo closely, you may know the Treehouse name, and you might even know the names of some Treehouse staff members. You’re also probably familiar with Nintendo Treehouse: Live from events like E3 and our Nintendo Switch preview event, but you may not have a very clear picture of everything the Treehouse does.

The short answer is we do a lot. The long answer is that there are groups in the Treehouse localizing the games, which Nate will talk about a bit more in the future. There are individuals working directly with our development teams, providing feedback on content and features. We have an internal evaluation team that tracks trends and news across the industry and provides in-depth evaluations of all of our products. The Product Marketing team is a small group of product evangelists working with teams inside and outside Nintendo to help get the word out about our products. They also work together with our internal Treehouse media lab, where we create many of our videos, screen shots, trailers and other game assets. Together, Product Marketing and the Treehouse media lab collaborate with the rest of the Treehouse on Nintendo Treehouse: Live productions, and work with other teams within Nintendo on Nintendo Direct. We also work closely with other teams across Nintendo on overall E3 planning, among other things.

We’re a much bigger group than when I joined the Treehouse in 1998, and over time the work has expanded and evolved, too, but at its core the Treehouse remains true to its roots: a team of individuals with a tremendous passion for Nintendo and its games, and an incredibly deep knowledge base that comes from years of working on projects together with our developers in Japan and elsewhere.

Over the last several years, we’ve continued looking for new ways to communicate with Nintendo fans and get them the product knowledge and insight that Treehouse staff are uniquely positioned to share. What we’ve seen from Nintendo Treehouse: Live is that there is a hunger for deeper details from people who know and love the games. Sometimes it makes sense for that information to come in the form of a Nintendo Treehouse: Live broadcast, but what we’re finding is that there is more to share over the course of the year, and it may not always make sense to do it in a live stream. That’s where the Nintendo Treehouse Log comes in.

But as I write this post on the tail end of a whirlwind tour across the globe that started with the Nintendo Switch preview event, I realize that we can’t yet really say with certainty what exactly the Nintendo Treehouse Log will become. What I can say is that it will be a place where we’ll post content periodically, rather than on a set schedule. The content will offer insight into games and franchises you love, presented from a unique Treehouse perspective. We may not cover every game or every IP, and we won’t pull the curtain all the way back, but our hope is that the Nintendo Treehouse Log will evolve into something fans will enjoy—a place where you can get details on games you’re looking forward to from a variety of different people who are excited to talk about them. Here’s hoping you’ll be looking forward to our posts, and coming back for more.”

You can keep track of the Nintendo Treehouse Log here.