A three-minute video focused primarily on cardboard, string and rubber bands added nearly $1.4bn to the corporate value of Nintendo on Thursday as the Japanese console maker championed arts and crafts as the next frontier in gaming.
The unveiling of Nintendo Labo, which combines elaborate DIY cardboard models with game controllers, the base unit and specialised software, is to be released for the Switch console in April. The move fits with a well known Nintendo habit of unorthodoxy that has not always paid off. On this occasion, however, pre-orders for the cardboard-themed games jumped to the top of Amazon rankings, and led Japanese social media as Thursday’s most discussed topic. Shares in the company climbed 2.4 per cent to close at a seven-week high. Analysts said that the move likely represented an attempt by the Kyoto-based company to broaden the market of the Switch, a hybrid handheld and home-based machine that has already broken records as the fastest-selling console in the United States. So far, the Switch has appealed most strongly to hard-core, adult gamers. The marketing of Labo suggests Nintendo will now push for the five- to 15-year-old market who currently form just 10 per cent of the user base. The original promotion of the Switch, which went on sale in March last year, broke with decades of Nintendo tradition by not featuring any children. Serkan Toto, an independent games industry consultant, described Nintendo’s move as a critical “repositioning” of the Switch as a family-targeted device. “You have to remember that, at its core, Nintendo is a toymaker,” he said. The Labo models, which will take between 15 minutes and two hours to assemble, transform the handheld Switch console into a range of working toys, from remote control insects and a piano to a fishing rod or motorbike. The video offered a brief glimpse of a full-body cardboard suit, that would convert a child’s arm and leg movements into the on-screen rampaging of a giant robot. Labo will be sold as two separate $70 packages – one of general interest, the other robot-themed - each containing a variety of flat-pack cardboard models and the game chips that accompany them. As many pointed out, the Labo idea echoes an episode in the mid 1970s where Nintendo broke away from its then core business of trading cards to foist a series of 39 intricately designed origami models on Japanese children. “This is exactly the kind of crazy idea that Nintendo are known for which be believe will help expand the company’s audience,” said Macquarie analyst David Gibson in a note to analysts in which he predicted that Labo would initially sell between 1-2m units – a figure equating to around Y5-10bn in operating profits. Among “concerns” listed in the note, Mr Gibson cited “durability of toys, given they are made of cardboard”.
