Nintendo Reaches Far Beyond Video Games

Nintendo’s success transcends the video game realm with hundreds of licensed products being sold in stores across the country. Nintendo fever doesn’t stop there. Not only has the NES been the best selling toy every year for the past three years, the now famous characters are seemingly everywhere you look. From backpacks to sleeping bags, underwear to t-shirts, cartoons to cereal – even if you’ve never picked up a video game controller in your life you probably know who Mario is. This wave of success isn’t about to peter out either, you can expect even more cross media marketing as Nintendo shows no signs of slowing down.

The latest conquest for Nintendo is heavily sponsoring and being featured in a new theatrical released called The Wizard, starring Fred Savage. The premise is that a small group of kids run away cross country to take part in a video game championship. Reality will soon ape fantasy next March when Nintendo holds a real competition for kids to enter to see who can become the best player in the country!

The Nintendo World Championships will test the skills of players across the nation where they’ll play a special Game Pak containing small snippets of Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris. The highest of scorers will proceed to the finals later in the year for a chance at the grand prize! The event itself will also have plenty of interactive game stations so attendees can play some upcoming NES and Game Boy software. More details will be announced in the coming months as the nationwide event begins to roll out in March. Stay tuned!

Craig Majaski

Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.