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First-Party Success or First-Party Failure? A Case Study on Audience Perceptions of the Nintendo Brand During the Wii U’s Product Life Cycle

2018; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 15; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1555412018813666

1555-4139

Ronen Shay, Anthony Palomba,

Digital Marketing and Social Media

The purpose of this mixed-methods case study is to examine the performance of the Nintendo brand during the eighth generation of home video game consoles and to assess whether the low sales of the Wii U can be attributed to a paradox in the relationship between the brand image of Nintendo’s first-party software and the perceived quality of Nintendo consoles. The results demonstrated that while the brand image of Nintendo’s first-party software does have a positive relationship with the perceived quality of Nintendo’s consoles, this relationship did not lead to a higher degree of consumer utility for the Wii U console. Despite this, Nintendo’s perceived quality and brand image remained higher than their competitors, reinforcing that positive brand equity can act as a defense mechanism from underperforming products.