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Nintendo's Iwata Skeptical of In-Game Ads, Episodes
Next Generation reports that Nintendo President Iwata has expressed skepticism about the benefits of in-game advertising and episodic content. From the article: "He added, 'Asking customers to pay something monthly, or something periodically, we can never expect that kind of revenue to become the significant, main resources for Nintendo.' Despite Nintendo's adherence to disruptive-thinking, the company is clearly wedded to the concept of up-front single payments for product as its main revenue source."
The interesting thing about Pokemon is that, while the current marketing behemoth it has become is unquestionable, it started off (at least in Japan, possibly even in the US) with virtually no advertising - it became popular through word of mouth. So it is not quite analogous to Viva Pinata. With Pokemon, Nintendo started off by trying to make a good game, succeeding, and then setting the marketing machine to work. Viva seems to be trying its best to get the marketing machine going first, and hope this translates into people buying the game ...