Nintendo details its new marketing program that will replace SpaceWorld this year.
Today Nintendo announced that it will begin a new marketing program to replace SpaceWorld, in order to reach more gamers across Japan than it annual showing because of this year’s big lineup of games. However, Nintendo didn’t make it clear if SpaceWorld was cancelled for good. Instead of a big event, there will likely be smaller showings similar to the Pokemon Festa 2002 promotion which kicks of July 20th. Here’s the scoop from Bloomberg:
Nintendo to Start Nationwide Marketing Program for GameCube
By Hiroshi Suzuki
Tokyo, July 2 -- Nintendo Co. said it will start a nationwide campaign to promote its GameCube console and software to a larger number of users, part of a strategy by the world's second-largest video-game maker to unseat bigger rival Sony Corp.
The new marketing program will replace ``Nintendo Space World,'' a game show the company held annually in an eastern suburb of Tokyo, and reach far more than the 140,000 fans who visited the show on an average every year, Nintendo said. It did not specify if the show would be scrapped for good.
``This year we want as many as users as possible to experience our games,'' Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said in a telephone interview. ``We can't afford to hold big promotional events everywhere in the country.''
Besides highlighting the features of the GameCube, the campaign will also provide a preview of the game titles that will be available for the console later this year, he said.
After debuting in Japan in September, GameCube reached shop shelves in the U.S. in November and in Europe in May. By the end of March, Nintendo sold total 3.8 million GameCubes in Japan and the U.S., falling short of its 4 million projection.
Nintendo expects to sell 12 million GameCubes globally by March next year. Sony, which has sold more than 30 million PlayStation 2s worldwide after releasing the game console in March 2000, plans to sell 20 million PlayStation 2s in that period.
Separately, Pokemon Co., a unit of Nintendo, said it will start promotional events in five cities, including Tokyo, Sapporo and Nagoya. Starting July 20, the events will allow fans to test Pokemon video games and card games and watch Pokemon movies.
