Week One:
For this project I’ve decided to choose the Japanese gaming company Nintendo. With news of their new Nintendo Direct releasing over these past few weeks, I figured it’d be an interesting company to center around. I followed their Nintendoamerica on Instagram since it’s the only social media platform I use, and took notes of the trends I saw. In their newest post as of September 14th, 2023, fans, and myself, are excited to see their new Paper Mario game being added to their Switch gaming console. The comments were all positive in feedback, though none of them got a response from the company themselves. On top of them posting about their new Paper Mario game, they will also be releasing Princess Peach: Showtime, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros Wonder, the second part of the Splatoon3: Expansion Pass: Side Order, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Trombone Champ, and TombRaider I-III Remastered, which all but one received amazing feedback from fans as well. For their releasing game Trombone Champ, a few disgruntled commenters had things to say about its relationship with Tomodachi Life- a 2013 game on the 3DS that many fans want remastered on the Switch. “this and not tomodachi life is going to be my last straw nintendo” one person complained.
Week Two:
Over the course of the second week for the Nintendo Instagram account, things are not looking good amongst fans. Nintendo has, for fans of Pokémon, notoriously never catered to what fans desire in their newer games. This rings true amongst their fans when they posted about the new Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC to release in November. There have been comments flooding about how the new game sucks, one commentor going as far to say, “Someone wake me up when a new company takes over and actually make’s fire and functional Pokemon games that we’ve always dreamed would be on Home Console.” Amongst other news, they posted more information about their upcoming Mario game, Super Mario Bros Wonder. Even more spiteful fans rushed to the comment section when Nintendo announced the return of another Detective Pikachu game. “The largest IP in the world NEEDS to do better. We know they have the money to make better games yet they choose not to” One fan carps.
Week Three:
What I’ve begun to notice is how Nintendo has begun to switch up which posts they’ve had pinned on their Instagram. When the most recent Nintendo Direct originally dropped, they had three different posts pinned about their upcoming Mario games; but now they have three different ones pinned about their upcoming Mario games. Over the course of this week, they posted about their upcoming Detective Pikachu game, which per usual with fans of Pokémon, didn’t receive the best feedback. The game design is ugly and lacks drive compared to other Nintendo games that have been given more love, and the comments on that post prove my point. On October 4th, Nintendo posted about this past release, Tears of the Kingdom. Most of the comments were positive with a few complaining of the game not getting a DLC- but in that classic Nintendo style, they didn’t respond or cater to the fans’ requests.
Week Four:
Nintendo has disappointed fans yet again with their low-effort release of games that many fans never wanted in the first place. In their upcoming release of Lego Animal Crossing, many fans have already flooded the comment sections with how unsatisfactory and lazy their recent games have been. “y’all will do ANYTHING but update the game” one fan remarks on Nintendo’s common pattern of releasing new games from the same franchises without updating ones that have needed it more. Two more posts about their Super Mario Bros Wonder game haven’t left fans as disgruntled, however. Most of these comments prove happy about the character designs and newer power ups that this game will have to offer. Another Detective Pikachu post left even myself feeling empty inside as one fan commented “me when i take the plot of a 4 year old movie adapt it into a bad game and slap a 60-70$ price tag on it”.
Week Five:
This past week with the new Super Mario Bros Wonder release, Nintendo fans are quite elated. I was at my friend’s dorm playing it with them over this weekend, actually. But first, Nintendo posted a promotional post of their Pikmin 4 game with colorful character designs catering to adults and children alike. They then went into posting about their newest Splatoon figurines that are releasing, and another short video on how fun Super Mario Bros Wonder is. They posted two more times about Super Mario Bros Wonder, but fans seem disappointed by the multiplayer factor. “The multiplayer is really annoying because of the camera centering itself around one person.” One person said, “This game is honestly mid. Idk why the budget was so low but it doesn’t even feel like a Mario game.” Another commented.
Week Six:
These last few days with the hype surrounding Super Mario Bros Wonder as rampant as ever, Nintendo has finally catered to fans by adding additional, harder levels in a new secret world that fans have been begging for for years now. On top of this, Nintendo has decided to bring back Mario Party 3 to the Nintendo Switch in their newest post. But fans in their comments seem to be displeased, saying things like “Do not let this distract you from the fact Nintendo has effectively killed community run tournaments” and “When are we getting updated to superstar??????”. Not only are fans disappointed in this post, but also in their lack of effort put into the new Detective Pikachu to be released. In a recent post, fans are extremely upset. “please start putting love and care into the Pokemon games, your consumers deserve better” and “Nintendo you are a plague on the gaming industry” two frustrated fans commented. Finally, they’ve yet again advertised their new Pikmin 4 game with a silly little promotional post about the different treasures a player is able to collect throughout the game.
Week Seven:
WIth Halloween approaching and happening through this week, a lot was going on amongst Nintendo fans. In one post, Nintendo talks promotes their Scarlet and Violet Pokémon game with a picture of their playable character making a scary face. But like usual, Pokémon fans are annoyed with Nintendo. “Glad I skipped the dlc. Shame how lazy the franchise has gotten” One commenter says, “scariest part of this game is the framedrops 😱” Another remarks. They followed this up with another Halloween-themed post: a drawing of a character from a Mario game, fans seem to really love her design. After Halloween’s hype has ended, they made a post promoting Pikmin 4, and another Pokémon one. You guessed it, Pokémon fans are yet again angry. “Nintendo I love u but you have to check on game freaks quality control on there games because the last installment was horrible…I had fun but the performance and graphics where terrible that I think the series needs another year of development for polish like tears of the kingdom did…that game looks amazing and it’s performance was amazing even though it did have small performance issues it was solid and an amazing game….learn from tears of the kingdom and make a good pokemon game with end game content worth playing the game after the post game.” A sad-hearted fan commented. Nintendo barely gives any love to Pokemon fans, and rarely caters to them either.
Week Eight:
This week Nintendo displays a post about a Lego Pirahna Plant figurine from Mario, “Can you sell some sets for broke people please i cant justify buying any kind of legos because of the prices… but i want them so bad…” One user commented about the prices amongst Lego figurines. They followed this with more promotion for Pikmin 4 in which they ask users to caption a picture of one of their characters for the game. One user commented on how expensive the game was, saying “When you port WII U games to the switch and still charge $60”.
Week Nine:
Nothing too new from Nintendo this week, they posted a casual Pikmin 4 promotion with no response to their audience- not that that’s new from Nintendo. People in the comments ask for a DLC, Pikmin 5, and seem to be enjoying the cutesy character designs and vibrant colors that come with Nintendo’s Pikmin franchise. Their next post was about promoting their new Super Mario Bros Wonder game with some commenters complaining about the lack of the Mario character Wario, and others preferring their character Daisy and Luigi.
FINAL:
