AHC: Make Nintendo as big as Disney.

With a POD, of say 1985 would it be possible for Nintendo today be around as big of a corporation as Disney?
 
One area would be to undermine Sega. The NES dominated the world in the 1980s. It was the only game in town, outside of some upstarts that failed to break into the market (Sega included with their Master System console) and it became huge and crossed cultural barriers. You could probably ask your grandma in 1988 who Mario was, and she would know. And then came the Sega Mega Drive, otherwise known as the Sega Genesis in North America. While the American market did not know it, the Sega Genesis was the most popular system globally. The SNES came shortly after, and while the superior system, it's sales were outpaced by Sega. North America was Nintendo's economic fortress, but Sega nearly beat Nintendo even in the United States. It took until Donkey Kong Country for the SNES to make a dent in the United Kingdom compared to Sega, and that was near the end of the system's life. Sega could have beaten Nintendo into oblivion, save for a few bad business decisions near the end of the Genesis.

So keep Sega to a minimum (say the Genesis only does Master System sales numbers) and let Nintendo reign supreme, and it can conquer the world. So many competitors had failed to best Nintendo, and there are so many companies that failed to break into the gaming market. It isn't necessarily hard. It takes business failings and failing to win over a demographic and to properly market the product. Give it a few more years, and Nintendo is the Coca-Cola company of video gaming. Even if a worthy competitor comes, it will be in a much stronger position.

The only problem with that is how much does Nintendo innovate if not confronted with a major competitor? Could we be stuck with 8-bit graphics longer than we should have?
 
Diversification. Nintendo needs to merchandise its products into other mediums, like toys, movies, etc. This would increase their profits. It also needs to be very successful in order for this to be effective.
 
Diversification. Nintendo needs to merchandise its products into other mediums, like toys, movies, etc. This would increase their profits. It also needs to be very successful in order for this to be effective.

It did that to a big degree as it was. Mario was everywhere. There were toys, trading cards, the Super Mario Bros Super Show, and even a cereal. They can go heavier on that, and a successful film would help. I've brought that up before. And I've learned more about it since that time. Apparently, the directors were trying to go even more outside of what Mario actually was before Nintendo caught wind, and they had to actually do a Mario-Mario movie with the costumes and sets that they had. Ideally, a Mario film should have been Alice in Wonderland rather than a Cyberpunk dystopia for no one.

And I do feel that if you let Nintendo run free without Sega as a major competitor, they'd get in that position. As it was, Nintendo conquered the world. They just needed to get that more set in stone to keep it long term.
 
Diversification. Nintendo needs to merchandise its products into other mediums, like toys, movies, etc. This would increase their profits. It also needs to be very successful in order for this to be effective.

They're doing that now to some degree Pokemon plushies are massive money makers, as are Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Fire Emblem figures and plush.
 
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It did that to a big degree as it was. Mario was everywhere. There were toys, trading cards, the Super Mario Bros Super Show, and even a cereal. They can go heavier on that, and a successful film would help. I've brought that up before. And I've learned more about it since that time. Apparently, the directors were trying to go even more outside of what Mario actually was before Nintendo caught wind, and they had to actually do a Mario-Mario movie with the costumes and sets that they had. Ideally, a Mario film should have been Alice in Wonderland rather than a Cyberpunk dystopia for no one.

And I do feel that if you let Nintendo run free without Sega as a major competitor, they'd get in that position. As it was, Nintendo conquered the world. They just needed to get that more set in stone to keep it long term.

They're doing that now to some degree Pokemon plushies are massive money makers, is Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Fire Emblem figures and plush.

I suppose I should added "Larger Scaled diversification." That's how Disney managed to create its empire.

I suppose Nintendo had the makings of that in the 80's, so, yeah, like Norton said, if you eliminate Sega, it could become a full media empire.
 
Diversification. Nintendo needs to merchandise its products into other mediums, like toys, movies, etc. This would increase their profits. It also needs to be very successful in order for this to be effective.

Besided that, My TL(shamesly self promotion, see sig, XD) maybe is not that massive but Nintendo is Far Bigger OTL(specially thanks to help of Sony) and OTL Nintendo wanted to buy Harry Potter IP(co-own with Rowling, she would keep her book royalties but share videogames and other media one) and expand IP, besides Mario and Zelda, Nintendo still will need to wait for Pokemon and Fire emblem(and just nintendo make FE big thanks to japanophilia)

So yeah bigger Nintendo(no Sega or Sega as third party early, making Nintendo Arcade here,XD, Sucessful CD-addon,etc) would help, maybe getting more second party(square, enix) as full studio and push Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Mana IP for diversification
 
Nintendo did beat Sega otl, maybe if they diversified in the late 90's and Square stayed with Nintendo and released Final Fantasy VII-IX on the N64. As well opened their own anime studio and focused heavily on producing anime for their ip's that could by this decade turn out to be live action movies or shorts?
 
Nintendo did beat Sega otl, maybe if they diversified in the late 90's and Square stayed with Nintendo and released Final Fantasy VII-IX on the N64. As well opened their own anime studio and focused heavily on producing anime for their ip's that could by this decade turn out to be live action movies or shorts?

Yeah all that, maybe winning harry potter ITTL and alongside Nintendo Big Three(Mario,Zelda,Pokemon) and Lesser Three(Metroid, Kirby, Fire Emblem) being their flagship, alongside yours idea would do it.
 
Nintendo did beat Sega otl, maybe if they diversified in the late 90's and Square stayed with Nintendo and released Final Fantasy VII-IX on the N64. As well opened their own anime studio and focused heavily on producing anime for their ip's that could by this decade turn out to be live action movies or shorts?

If Nintendo owned the Final Fantasy franchise and it was at least as successful as OTL, that would be an extremely massive boost in prestige.

I also think it's not impossible for the Legend of Zelda to become an anime at least as successful as Pokemon's anime.
 
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