Nintendo Live Interview: Doug Bowser Talks Switch Demand, Charles Martinet, and More [IGN]

Instead of making judgments based on the console’s age, Bowser points to Nintendo’s strong first quarter where Nintendo Switch sold 3.91 million units, propelled by the huge success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Times are good at Nintendo right now, as the company is continuing to release a steady cadence of first-party software while also giving more attention than ever before to entertainment experiences beyond its video game business.

Even with a global box office hit and a theme park grand opening in the books, Nintendo is still not done pushing into new entertainment spaces in 2023. On the first day of the company’s Nintendo Live fan event in Seattle, Washington, IGN sat down with Bowser to talk about the mission behind bringing Nintendo Live to the United States, the decision to make longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet a new Nintendo ambassador, and the continued focus on making Nintendo’s brand approachable to everyone — even folks who haven’t picked up the controller yet.

“And if I think about folding [Nintendo Live] into the bigger strategy, this year has really been a very unique, and I dare say banner year for Nintendo in a lot of ways,” Bowser says in his opening remarks. “It started with the opening of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in Hollywood, which follows the opening of the park two years ago in Osaka.

“We launched The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which very quickly became the second-largest box office grossing animated film of all time at $1.3 billion. We launched The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which, 18 million units later after a very brief period of time, it’s one of our fastest launch titles ever, and then the event today. So it’s really this drumbeat of activities, entertainment-based activities where we’re trying to find ways to continue to introduce more and more people, not just players, but people to Nintendo IP… So that’s what we’re excited about.”

Read on for IGN’s full interview with Nintendo’s King of the Koopas himself, Doug Bowser.

IGN: Let’s talk about Nintendo Live a little bit. Is this the start of something new in the west, or is it just putting the pin on this banner year that you mentioned Nintendo’s had so far?

Doug Bowser: Maybe I’ll answer the question a little differently. Nintendo Live started in Japan in 2019, took a little bit of a break for obvious reasons, and then re-engaged in Tokyo in 2022. And as we’ve looked at it — and I’ve attended two of the three events — I’ve always been considering what could we do with Nintendo live in the U.S. and how might we want to apply it? Because I think giving your fans and consumers an opportunity to engage in content with a fan-forward type event like this, I think is meaningful and can be very, very impactful.

And so we made the decision this year to bring it here to Seattle, in particular, since it is our backyard and our hometown. But it’s a little different. There are some things that have been modified and are slightly different than what we’ve executed in Japan, a little bit different competitive games, a little bit different structure around some of the concerts, and some other features are slightly different, but we think it’s appealing to players in our marketplace.

IGN: You brought Super Mario Bros. Wonder for fans to play here. Do you ever see growing that strategy and having Nintendo Live be a place that could be a vehicle for new product or game announcements?

Doug Bowser: I think, first of all, I’ve said this to a few folks, we’ve got to get through the next three-and-a-half days, because what we really want to learn from this is, I think I’m seeing it on the floor and the smiles that we’re seeing and just the delight folks are having as they walk around the show floor, we really want to make sure that this is resonating with consumers and it’s the experience that they’re looking for. Then that allows us to assess how we want to go forward.

Obviously we’ve used a lot of different venues when it comes to talking about our content or announcing content — whether it’s our own Directs, whether it’s been, in the past, E3 — so we’ll always look at various opportunities that we think are unique, that will allow us to showcase content and/or talk about new content. The fact that today we didn’t announce to anyone that we were going to have Super Mario Bros. Wonder downstairs to play, I think that was a great example of the surprise and delight moments that we try to create.

IGN: That was a great surprise. I’ve been sitting here the last month and a half saying, “There’s no way they’re not going to have Super Mario Bros. Wonder at Nintendo Live.” So I was very happy when I walked in and I saw it.

Doug Bowser: I’m glad. Did you enjoy it?

IGN: I loved it, yes. I think it’s shaping up really well. I do want to talk about that really briefly. Can you talk about the decision to make Charles Martinet a brand ambassador, and what that entails, and when we can expect Nintendo to unveil the new voice of Mario?

Doug Bowser: Ah, yes. Well, Charles has obviously been a voice actor with us for quite some time, and as we look for ways to keep Charles involved in Nintendo’s business, we thought this was a very nice transition for him. And Charles is very excited about it. I’ll let Charles speak to it himself if he’d like to, but we look forward to having him continue to represent Nintendo and importantly the Mushroom Kingdom as we go forward. I think people have recognized this when they see Super Mario Bros. Wonder, they’ll hear a different voice and we’ll let that play out and that’ll be within the credits, and people will learn who the new person is at that point in time, but we don’t plan to make any announcement in advance of that.

IGN: You mentioned that the Switch still has high demand as judgment by your first quarter results. So how surprised are you about the Switch’s ongoing strong performance despite it coming up on being seven years old?

Doug Bowser: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve stopped counting years. And the reason is, first of all, we talked about this when we launched Nintendo Switch. We really did believe this was a very, very differentiated model and device that people could play at home, like a home console, take on the go, like a handheld, and there’s a variety of different gameplay experiences somewhere in between. And so it’s maintained that point of differentiation, quite honestly, over the years quite nicely. The other way I look at this is every year there are millions of households that have children reaching the age of six or seven or eight, and they’re making choices about how they want to engage their family in gaming and what platform they want to bring their family in with. And I really believe Nintendo positions itself very well because of that versatility of the device and of equal importance.

Obviously the content in the games that we have. Whether it’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder that you play downstairs, some of the other games that are playable downstairs, and a number of the other games that allow for more family engagement and co-op play at home. And so I think, as a result, you can really think about every year there being an opportunity, if you will, to regenerate and bring new players into gaming, and then leveraging things like the movie or maybe an experience they had at Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios. I think there’s this opportunity to keep building every year.

IGN: Where are we in the Switch’s lifecycle?

Doug Bowser: We are where you said we were. And I’ll leave it at that. Nothing to talk about there.

IGN: Changing gears a bit. With Nintendo Live, can you talk about some of the ways that maybe Nintendo has changed under Shuntaro Furukawa’s leadership, and if Nintendo Live plays into any of that at all?

Doug Bowser: The idea to begin expanding our IP beyond just our video game experiences is something that’s been in the works for a number of years. I think that as we look at leaders, leaders’ responsibilities are to shepherd these strategies forward, which has been Mr. Furukawa’s role overall. I think that the idea of being able to carefully take our IP and put it into other places such as movies or theme parks or partnerships with companies such as LEGO was something that was started many years ago. And really it’s just been our responsibility to shepherd and bring them forward. And Mr. Furukawa continues to encourage what all leaders at Nintendo encourage, which is to look for new and unique ways to surprise and delight consumers, and provide something that maybe is unexpected. And that’s been very consistent in our leadership.

IGN: How do you expect The Super Mario Bros. Movie to continue to impact sales of Super Mario games? And did that impact at all the development and announcement of the untitled Princess Peach game that’s coming next year?

Doug Bowser: I’ll answer the Princess Peach portion first. I try not to speak on behalf of the developers, so I don’t know. I have nothing to say about an affiliation or a connection, if you will, between the Princess Peach game and the movie itself. But Mr. Furukawa talked about this in our last earnings announcement. We absolutely did see a bit of a halo effect, if you will, from the movie on our video game business in a number of ways, whether that’s players re-engaging in content, or whether that’s players purchasing new software, Mario software and games, or whether it’s even at our Nintendo store players purchasing attire and plushies and other things. We definitely saw that halo impact, and it’s continued since the movie itself.

IGN: And back to Nintendo Live, everything on the floor besides Super Mario Bros. Wonder is out, and in some cases has been out for many years. So what leads to the decision-making of what experiences you provide? You have Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the show floor, but as you said, most people have Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. So what’s the value of coming here to experience it in this setting?

Doug Bowser: I think it’s what you just said, it’s experiencing it in a different setting itself. And again, with some of the characters there and some of the photo opportunities there, maybe someone, while they may have played Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, maybe they haven’t played Pikmin 4 yet, or maybe they haven’t experienced The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. So there’s a whole host of entry points where they can come in, not just the games they may have already played. And so I always look at our catalog, for someone who just recently purchased the Nintendo Switch, as being a completely new catalog, and there’s an opportunity to bring new players in. And we saw last year how many people came into the platform. This is an opportunity to engage them in that content.

IGN: Do you see Nintendo Live as something that could grow across the country and go to other cities around the U.S., or expand beyond Seattle and Japan?

Doug Bowser: Yeah, I think it’s a strong concept for certain, but like I said, I’d like to get through the next three days to really learn how players are engaged, understand how we might want to adjust and maybe tweak the model a bit. And then we can make decisions on where we might go next overall. But we definitely want to continue to find ways to engage consumers in different ways, like we are downstairs right now. For certain. But nothing to share in terms of where it might go or speculate on what city it might be in next.

IGN: I think that’s all I have for you, Doug. Thanks so much.

Doug Bowser: We really appreciate you spending the time. Thanks for coming out.

Image credit: Kholood Eid/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.