DeNA expecting at least 150 million people to try Nintendo's mobile games, talks advertising

A portion of an AListDaily interview with DeNA CEO Shintaro Asako...

A: DeNA has entered into a historic partnership with Nintendo to create mobile games based on Nintendo's IP. What's the potential for these games in a mobile marketplace that's already crowded with titles?

SA: Hundreds of millions of people have bought Nintendo consoles. Those are people who decided to spend a minimum of $200 just to get access to Nintendo IP. That number is already twice as big as the Candy Crush total user base. Not only that, every single person buying Nintendo devices spends an average of about $100 per year on software. So I have no question that when Nintendo's mobile games come out, at least 150 or 200 million people will try it. These people are super core Nintendo fans who used to spending $150 to $250 just to access the content. Let's say only 10% end up playing, and then those users pay $3 a month, that's still perhaps a $60 million dollar a month game.

A: What marketing strategy do you think will be necessary for Nintendo's mobile games?

SA: We know Nintendo IP is powerful, but we need to let people know the game is coming out. From that perspective I think mass marketing makes sense for Nintendo games. Usually you have more on digital marketing and later on the mass marketing kicks in, because you don't want to start mass marketing until you've evaluated LTV (long-term value), because otherwise you might be wasting money. When you have strong IP like Nintendo you can kind of predict what kind of installs you can get, so to reach the level of mass-marketing isn't that much of a risk.