The 100-player battle royale shooter “Fornite” has a very high frequency of cross-border cooperation. A large number of ACG characters such as Kuiye, Geralt, Wukong, Solid Snake, and star Neymar have all appeared in Skin, and they are even targeting Nintendo. IP linkage, but senior management has recentlydisclosed to foreign mediaNegotiations with Nintendo are not going well.
Documents related to the lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple in 2021 revealed the future cooperation IP list of “Fortress Heroes”, including Samus Aran of “Metroid”. This linkage plan has not yet come true. .
In an interview with Axios, Saxs Persson, the head of “Fortress Heroes” business, in addition to talking about the three DLCs (Lego,rocket racing、Concert audio tour), and also talked about cross-border cooperation with Nintendo.
Persson used the term “making diamonds” to describe the luxury linkage, trying to attract Nintendo’s nod, but in the end there was no consensus. “Nintendo has their strategy, and Epic also has its own strategy,” leaving opportunities for future cooperation, hoping that it will be possible at some point. reach a compromise.
Fortnite has Kratos and Master Chief
So I asked Epic’s exec in charge of the game’s ecosystem how hard the company has tried to get Nintendo characters.
His reply: “I don’t know what the word for, like, making diamonds is.”
Item 2: pic.twitter.com/VJtAPJH566
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) December 9, 2023
Nintendo is known for treating its IP with caution and strictness, and linkages with other works are rare. On the other hand, if well-known characters such as “Super Mario” are moved into the world of battle royale, the gun shooting scenes will be very abrupt. The emergence of memes on the Internet similar to “Sasuke, listen to me, this thing is better than ninjutsu” may undermine Nintendo’s concept of operating IP.
“There is no reason to cooperate.” Kit Ellis, a former Nintendo of America publicist, commented on this. He believes that Nintendo has spent decades developing and cultivating IP and characters. Now that “Super Mario Movie” has become a trend, Switch is still selling… Laoren IP is obviously bigger than “Fortress Heroes” and does not need such linkage.
As mentioned before, Kit Ellis believes that shooting Nintendo characters damages the image. Today, the value of Nintendo’s IP is more global than in the Wii U era. No matter how hard Epic Games tries, it is difficult for linkage to happen.
What’s the upside for Nintendo to bring its characters to Fortnite? These aren’t the Wii U days anymore. pic.twitter.com/ddGZdA23pb
— Kit & Krysta (@KitandKrysta) December 10, 2023
Judging from what the former publicist said, Nintendo, which currently has good IP development, does not seem to need to launch new challenges by cooperating with others. However, this century-old game manufacturer has a wide range of works. Recently, “The Legend of Zelda” has also A movie is about to be made, and even if it’s not Super Mario, other characters may still have a chance.