Promotional Consideration: 'You know, for adults!'
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
Long before Nintendo began its international Touch! Generations campaign to beckon casual gamers with promises of trained brains and improved vision, the company was putting its marketing money behind the original Game Boy to expand its audience to adults.
The resulting commercials were cringe-inducing productions, so much so, it's hard to believe they captured anyone's interest at all. Of course, with Tetris leading the push, the handheld sold like hot cakes anyway, nullifying the ineffectiveness of the ads. But that doesn't mean we still can't dig them up and have a laugh at their expense!
Business men. Architects. Block droppers.
While you kids were breakdancing and raising the roof to the Zelda rap commercial, grown-ups were treated to this terribly uninteresting piece. It's about a zillion times more boring than any of the dozens of Brain Training spots Nintendo has been airing.
Bus stop basketball. Pajama putting. Airplane gaming.
"Have you had your fun today?" was one of those Nintendo marketing slogans that went in one ear and out the other, like "The best play here (1991–1992)!" and "Too much fun (2002–2004)!" It certainly didn't have the weight of "Now you're playing with power (1986–1992)!" or even "Get N or get out (1996–2000)!" That sort of ultimatum doesn't leave any room for compromise. If you want to stay in, you're gonna get N.
It's over 40,000!
Tetris wasn't a phenomenon restricted to courthouse stairways and board rooms in North America; no, these "power games" made it all the way to the elevators of Australia's office buildings! Back-stabbing businessmen and ruthless executives, all competing for a high score! The early 90s were crazy, barbaric times.
