Nintendo Returns to Best Global Brands List in 2018

The Wii U years were rough on Nintendo. The company basically all but disappeared from the market, losing not just market share, but also important cachet with customers, and relevance in the zeitgeist. This was, perhaps, best reflected in their loss of standing as a brand: Global brand consultancy Interbrand releases a list of the best brands every year, and Nintendo stopped ranking on that list after 2014.

That changed in this year’s report. Following a resurgence with the Switch, and strong marketing, advertising, sales, and releases, Nintendo returns to the list, currently ranked at 99. This is behind Microsoft (at number 5), and Sony (at 59), but it is important to remember that Microsoft and Sony’s brands include everything they do, not just Xbox and PlayStation. Nintendo, in fact, is the only purely video game company to rank in the list. Every other company is a technology, automobile, fashion, food and beverage, or lifestyle company. As for the top three, those are, obviously, Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Nintendo’s resurgence here reflects their similarly ranking ahead of Xbox in brand recognition rankings in the UK, a few months ago. So I suppose we can conclude that things are on the upswing for them for now.