Why Nintendo Isn't the Next Disney (And What It Will Be Instead) — Naavik

An interesting question to ask is: what does the 21st-century Nintendo look like? And how does the next era of iconic IP take shape?

The next big movie franchise/theme park/toy line will likely come from games. Players are spending thousands of hours interacting with game characters. Many developers are moving away from a publisher-led financing model to a VC model that enables them to maintain ownership over their IP.

In the battle for capital right now, the brands and intangibles and user bases and networks are winning by a landslide against the things that used to be important. And the companies that are rich in those old fashioned things, like Walmart, Disney and McDonalds, are spending all of their time and attention to transform themselves into the spitting... See more

History is littered with examples of incumbent leaders who do not adapt to shifts in innovation from its competitors. Nokia’s failure to respond to Apple’s smart phone technology is an example.

Nintendo continues to find success—last year, during the pandemic, Animal Crossing broke Nintendo’s first-year sales record with 31 million copies sold. Today, Nintendo is the 3rd-largest gaming company in the world, behind Sony and Tencent, with $12 billion in revenue.

All the major gaming platforms are getting crowded. Unexpected success stories where games become viral are becoming further apart. Gaming founders need to be data driven even in their early creative iterations, have marketing professionals embedded in their team from the get go and carefully and ensure a healthy CAC-LTV formula from the early days... See more

While there is definitely a creative element to gaming, the tech/data side is just as important to constantly iterate until you find your “game-market-fit”.