Hoang 1

Hao Hoang

ENGL 1301-122

Dr. Sharity Nelson

9/21/22

The Breath of the Wild on Nintendo Switch Advertisement

Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (BOTW), a part of the Legend of Zelda franchise, is a

recent release game that caused Nintendo uproar to promote the game to the audience. First,

Nintendo announces the game through an advertisement video of the actor sitting on the couch

playing the game; then, the actor would need to travel and take the game console with him. At

first glance, one might think this is a BOTW promotion; however, a closer visual analysis of the

ad video will show that their promotion is biased toward the Nintendo Switch more than the

game. The ad promotes the Nintendo switch to Nintendo game enthusiasts by providing the

visual of the game console accessibility for audiences who love to travel, the transition between

the actor's facial expression and the graphic gameplay on the console, and the beautiful

open-world visual scenery of BOTW to invoke a sense of familiarity or provoke a person

adventure characteristic.

The Nintendo switch advertisement video visual accessibility attracts the user's attention to buy

the game to play the game on travel while maintaining the high performance of the game

experience without any difficulty for the user's comfortable gaming experience. For example, the

advertisement video has a scene where the actor plays BOTW on a couch(figure 1) and looks at

his watch to check on his task (figure 2). After he checks his watch for the task, he would stand

up and disassemble the Nintendo Switch from the dock, which will switch his game display from

the TV to his small and convenient console display with the same graphics performance(figure
 Hoang 2

3). Nintendo has displayed the convenience of the console to persuade the audience to buy

Nintendo Switch with the console accessibility for travel. the Nintendo Switch's capability of a

high-performance portable console would urge the audience who travel a lot and will not have

the time to be one place and play a game simultaneously to be attracted to the console to buy the

game by the end of the ad through a series of convenience display.

The transition of the ad between the actor (figure 5) and the console with the BOTW game

displayed (figure 4) attracts the audience through the actor's reaction to the gameplay. An

example within the advertisement would be the video depicting the moment of the actor on the

bus to the moment on the plane, with the transition focus on the actor's countenance and the

BOTW gameplay variation. The advertisement utilizes the human recognition of facial

expression with the transition allowing the audience to focus on the actor's reaction (figure 5). It

will enable the user to get a visual opinion of the person playing the game, which increases the

assurance of the audience with the product's entertainment. The ad further emphasizes this by

highlighting the actor's smile to be visible to the audience to indicate that the game will be

exciting and invoke the audience's desire to have fun to buy the Nintendo Switch with BOTW as

additional content. The advertisement also further attracts the audience's attention through the

Visual gameplay of BOTW.

The visual gameplay of BOTW displayed during the advertisement ensnare the audience to buy

the game and the Nintendo Switch by invoking a sense of nostalgia from the game to fans of the

Legend of Zelda franchise and inviting the new audience to explore the open world that the

gameplay displayed with an exciting, adventurous plot. An example is shown in the

advertisement video in the form of a short clip of the gameplay with the character in the game

experiencing multiple wonderous adventure plots, such as the character "Link" being chased
 Hoang 3

down by a desert monster (figure 6), Link standing on top of the tower looking at the beautiful

sunset (figure 7), and Link in the middle of gliding on the sky to doing a game main quest (figure

8). The clips were short yet captivating to get the audience's attention drawn to the game while

having the vision of themselves adventuring to the plain and experiencing these adventures just

like the main character. The game scenery would invoke nostalgia in a fan of the Legend of

Zelda franchise by transiting these clips to remind them of the franchise's game and urge them to

buy the game with a sense of familiarity. Furthermore, the game's open-world concept would

draw in any player that desires an open-world experience with a variety of choice and quest to

provoke the adventurous inner characteristic of the audience.

The game BOTW TV advertisement is a thriving attraction for the Nintendo Switch audiences

with the variety of choices and open-world map, an easy and convenient game to play on travel

with its exclusivity on the console. The transition of the advertisement clip to assures the

audiences of the exciting gameplay with a high-performance console. The audience can now see

this information as an additional reason to buy the Nintendo Switch rather than just seeing the

console as something that is not worth buying. It would also allow them to show off to their

friend the gameplay and achievement that they made in the game and enjoy BOTW with others.
 Hoang 4

Appendix

Figure 1

Figure 2
 Hoang 5

Figure 3
 Hoang 6

Figure 4

Figure 5
 Hoang 7

Figure 6

Figure 7
 Hoang 8

Figure 8
 Hoang 9

Work cite

Nintendo “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - UK TV Ad (Nintendo Switch).” Jan 18,
2017. Youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3XmVt27RI4. Accessed 29 September
2022.