Haven’t heard from me in a while have you? I’ve been flying, doing different things and all. But now I have my schedule set, and ready to start writing again. I’ve decided to restart my weekly column, which I previously hosted on Gonintendo, but stopped. I can talk about ANYTHING I want, but, following the name, most of the time it will be Wii related. Prepare for the 1st edition… Of Juano’s Wiikly Column. And my debut start with a topic on many people’s mind. Advertising

Now, Nintendo is great and all that, but it has its flaws, just like everybody else. No HD graphics, which I can live without. No 5.1 Surround Sound support, which I can also live without. Subpar online, which I can handle as long as they fix it. But, there has been one big flaw ever since the Wii’s launch. Minimal Advertising. The Wii is in a battle for the no.1 spot this generation, but without advertising, who’s gonna know it even exists? Word-of-mouth isn’t always the solution. I’ll tell you what the solution is, and it’s not Japamen in a Wiimobile going to your house saying “Wii would like to play”

Recently here in America the Metroid Prime 3 preview channel was released. Great advertising? NO. Why? Because most Wii console owners already know about MP3 and have already decided if they’re going to buy the AAA title. What do we really need? We need that freaking amazing trailer that came with the channel to air on Primetime TV, that’s what we need. Not just for Metroid, but other games too. One of the possible reasons for which Twilight Princess didn’t sell as well as expected was lack of advertising.

Now, you might be asking yourself, but Juano, what about those people who only like stuff like Halo and GTA who won’t like this game? You want to know why the Halo games and Grand Theft Auto games sell well? Hype. Most of the people (not all) who play these games, are the people who buy into hype. What creates this hype? Word of mouth. And what creates word of mouth? Advertising of course!

So these are my thought for the week. Nintendo needs to tighten up on their advertising, showing off more gameplay and less Japamen. One prime example would be follow Ubisoft’s way of advertising. Comedy. Like in the Rayman Raving Rabbids commercials, or the Red Steel one.