Nintendo has certainly been more open to collaborating with companies nowadays in realms outside of gaming. It wasn't always like that, and there's only recently been a change. It seems Nintendo's standoffish nature stemmed from their very bad experience with the Super Mario Bros. movie, according to Reggie Fils-Aime.
"That Super Mario movie from the 1990s ... left a really bad taste in the mouth of our developers. I wasn't with the company [at that time], but as I joined I heard some of the horror stories. It was a situation where, unfortunately, we did not have a hands-on role. We did not play a key brand champion type of role in [the making of that movie], which worked out so horribly."
Reggie also talked about why Nintendo is more open to partnerships outside of gaming today, after those early terrible results.
"What's different is that as we do these relationships today, we very much are the brand steward. That's what makes these so special. When you have that care, it really shows in the execution. Our approach is to do [these licensing partnerships] in a way that, when the consumer sees it, they say to themselves, 'Wow. I didn't expect that, but isn't it cool.'"
A couple examples are the partnerships with Uniqlo and Vans that Nintendo had, and it seems like the merch line was a huge success.
"It was so shocking to them (Vans) that they actually went back and restarted the production lines to do more, which they have historically never done. There was anticipation of a certain level of [sales]; what actually happened blew away all of their expectations, [so] they went back and produced more."
from GoNintendo
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