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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Is it really accurate to compare Nintendo to Disney at this point?

In the gaming community, Nintendo is often cited as "the Disney of gaming" and while that may have been true during the 90s or 80s, in 2019? The two companies couldn't be anymore different. Now yes, Nintendo and Disney share similarities. They're both known for family-friendly content, and both have an empire of well known characters in pop culture that they want to protect and look after as much as possible. That's where the similarities end however. Nintendo is a big, but not too big publicly-traded company that focuses exclusively on interactive software, accompanying hardware, and character licensing. With little experience, or even interest in anything else outside those areas. If anything, they're much more the "Sanrio of gaming". Similar to Nintendo, Sanrio (the Hello Kitty company) also specializes in creating iconic characters and selling licenses for them to willing clients for various purposes. Difference being that Sanrio is just character licensing, whereas Nintendo is also a software and hardware developer, allowing them to integrate their characters into their own homemade entertainment as well.

Disney, at least the modern Disney is a mass media conglomerate not dissimilar to that of Viacom or WarnerMedia. They have their hands in everything from film, to television, to radio, theme parks, sports, news, online entertainment, and yes, brand licensing. Disney in recent years has become (in)famous for its acquisitions. In recent times, they acquired Marvel, LucasFilm, Maker Studios, and just a few weeks ago, 20th Century Fox. With that on top of their other subsidiaries like ABC and Pixar, Disney has the largest empire of entertainment in the industry, and for some (myself included) that's a bit of a problem. The Disney of today is no longer just the family-oriented entertainment company that mainly stuck to film and TV, now it's just yet another faceless, emotionless, mass media entity that owns way more than it really should.

I don't see Nintendo making acquisitions of comic book companies, or acquiring other, equally large game publishers, or being involved directly in TV, News, or Film divisions. TBH, Sony is much closer to a Disney than Nintendo is, considering the division behind PlayStation, Sony Interactive Entertainment, is just one of many autonomous subsidiaries the Sony Corporation owns.



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In terms of there IPs, yes they are the only ones that are close to Disney. They wont be a big as Disney but Nintendo's reputation is basically on par.



Eventually Nintendo will be a part of Disney (in a few decades)



Conina said:
Eventually Nintendo will be a part of Disney (in a few decades)

Just like everything else .



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

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If you are still making that comparison due to Nintendo and disney being the companies with the most recognizable characters, absolutely!



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

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BasilZero said:
Conina said:
Eventually Nintendo will be a part of Disney (in a few decades)

That would be amazing.

If you don't like Nintendo and want them to go away, then sure. Really amazing indeed.



The only companies I can see Nintendo ever becoming a part of are Apple or Microsoft. Square Enix or Sony are more likely to become part of Disney.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Nintendo is a little piece io dust on the couch in the Disney HQ reception area. They're not even in the same ballpark.

Comparing the two is like comparing a minor league hockey team to the New York Yankees. They're in a sorta similar business, and maybe the hockey team has a couple guys that have played at the highest level.  But, the Yanks are watched by 3 million people every night, own a TV network, sell a hundred million hotdogs per year, have a giant stadium, etc.  The minor league hockey team plays at the local ice rink during slow times of day, and wishes they could get some coverage on the local cable access channel.    

Nintendo really only has Mario that's on a level that transcends gaming. You can maybe throw in Peach, Luigi, and..... that's really about all.  Beyond that, you have some characters that are significant in the gaming world. But they just don't make it outside of the space.  Disney either owns or controls a significant portion of the rights to a gigantic percentage the most iconic characters in the western world, and a lot of those outside the West.  They're in a whole bunch of tangentially related businesses.  They just much, much bigger.  Disney's second and third tier properties are massively more culturally important than all but the very top couple of Nintendo's.

Last edited by VAMatt - on 06 April 2019

NightlyPoe said:
KLXVER said:

If you don't like Nintendo and want them to go away, then sure. Really amazing indeed.

What do you mean?  Seems to me that Disney has done an incredible job of maintaining the properties they buy or absorb.  Part of Disney's success in all these acquisitions has been that they maintain a distinct brand.

The only example I can think of is, ironically, shuttering LucasArts when they got the rest of Lucasfilm.  But that was just Disney cutting off the crust of their Lucas sandwich.

Disney's success and the reason they seem so big is actually because there's an inherent corporate culture in favor of curation.  Sometimes it breaks down (Direct-to-video glut of the 90s, live-action remakes of today), but Disney's real strength is that they place a value on their IPs and look to make them something special in the long run.  To that end, the companies they acquire tend to maintain their distinctness.  Lasseter remained in charge of Pixar.  Feige took the point with Marvel. Dave Filoni was put in charge of Lucasarts Animation.  Kennedy (for good or ill) was left to oversee Lucasarts.  And so on down the line.  Disney's acquired a lot of properties, but most of them have retained distinct from the Mouse in the years since and have continued to thrive.

Obviously, Disney won't be buying Nintendo.  But if they theoretically did, Nintendo would likely continue to remain a distinct entity and continue with a certain amount of freedom.

Disney doesn't really care about video games. That's why they think EA is doing a great job with the Star Wars license. You think Disney would give a shit about anything except Mario and Pokémon? Maybe Zelda if every game sells 10 million plus. Disney doesn't allow for freedom, that's why Warren Spector had to tone down Epic Mickey and then his studio was shut down shortly after Epic Mickey 2. Its like saying From Software will have their freedom and can make whatever they want if EA or Activision buys them. They would have a chance or two and then be dissolved if they didn't make a huge profit.



Conina said:
Eventually Nintendo will be a part of Disney (in a few decades)

I know you're joking. But just in case somebody thinks you're serious.

Disney is an american company. And Nintendo is part of japanese culture. Even if Disney was willing to whip out the cash, the japanese government would do whatever it takes to make sure an acquisition like this doesn't happen. So, it's very far fetched..