Nintendo/Commercial Tags

Main Logo Variations

Tag: At the end of the commercial, a illuminated white floor is seen showcasing the Nintendo Entertainment System with the contents of the Deluxe Set in the front (with R.O.B. in the center of it all), along with all of the first-party Nintendo games behind them. Above these products, a giant chrome Nintendo logo (an oblong racetrack-like shape with the name "Nintendo" in its trademark font and a trademark symbol inside) is seen with a blue glow and constantly shines. After a few seconds, light streaks emerge from the bottom of the screen and cover up the showcase, causing it to fade out as the background fades to black with zooming stars. The light trails eventually reveal themselves to be the stacked text "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER." with a hazy glow around it, in the same font as the NES logo.

Variants:

The product showcase would be different for most other commercials.
A short version just has it start with the slogan streaking in.
A longer version had the logo flash in before the rest of the animation played.
A commercial for the Deluxe Set had the Nintendo logo in white on a black background. The oblong shape isn't seen around it, but draws around it a second later.
A variant just had the chrome Nintendo logo shining on the space background with no slogan. It's centered here.
In later commercials (like one for Rad Racer), R.O.B. is removed and the showcase is lower. The rest of the animation is the same.
On the commercial for the Power Set, the animation plays out as normal on a black background before a pair of feet jump down and shatter the slogan, causing "BODY POWER" to zoom in into its place. The footage then cuts to a showcase of the Power Set's contents, though the Nintendo logo remains.
On the commercial for Anticipation, the logo is already formed as "WORD" flashes in-between "WITH POWER.", forming "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH WORD POWER.".

Technique: Scanimate effects.

Music/Sounds: The end of the commercial's music, which sometimes contains an orchestral hit at the end, with an enthusiastic-sounding man saying "The Nintendo Entertainment System! Now you're playing with power!" The way he says it varies from commercial to commercial, as well as the announcer and proceeding speech, but the slogan always remains.

Music/Sounds Variants:

The Power Set commercial has the announcer say "Body power!" after the regular slogan.
The Anticipation commercial has the announcer instead say "Now you're playing with power. Word power!" as a cover of The Trashmen's Surfin' Bird plays in the background.

Availability: Extinct. It was seen at the end of most of their NES commercials with their first-party content at the time.

2nd Tag (1986-1998)

Famicom Disk System version

Tag: On a blue background, the Nintendo logo is seen in sky blue, with a slightly smaller wordmark, and appears to be in 3D. The logo shines from left to right.

Variants:

Sometimes, the logo would zoom out first before shining.
On commercials for the Famicom Disk System, a 2D version of this logo (with a registered trademark symbol present) would appear on a white or white-blue gradient background after the Disk System logo is shown, without any shining. This was the first full appearance of this tag.
A commercial for the Super Game Boy has the logo set higher than usual to make room for the text "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH SUPER POWER" zooming out below with a red trail. This is possibly the only time a Japanese Nintendo commercial used the American tagline.
On the commercial for Kirby's Dream Land, after Kirby has inhaled the game cartridge, the Game Boy, the logo, and all of the text, Kirby spits out the Nintendo logo, as it cuts to the normal logo.
On the commercial for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, a hand writes out the logo in blue crayon on a piece of paper. It then cuts to the normal logo.
Most commercials from 1996 to 1998 have the logo in silver and with the correct proportions, along with a brighter shine.

Technique: Simple Scanimate animation.

Music/Sounds: The coin sound effect from Super Mario Bros..

Music/Sounds Variant:

The 1996 variant plays a rearranged coin sound effect.
Some commercials, such as the one for Super Mario Bros. 3, play the end of the commercial's music instead.

Availability: Extinct.

The regular version can be found on most Japanese commercials of first-party Famicom, Game Boy, and Super Famicom games such as Yoshi (Yoshi no Tamago), Super Mario All-Stars (Super Mario Collection), and Kirby's Dream Land 2 (Hoshi no Kirby 2). It has also appeared on early commercials for the Nintendo 64 and its flagship launch title Super Mario 64. It has last appeared on a commercial for Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (Super Donkey Kong 3: Nazo no Kremis-Tō)
The 1996 variant can be seen on Japanese commercials for Mario Kart 64, Blast Corps (Blast Dozer), Star Fox 64, the Shindou Edition rerelease of Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Yoshi's Story, 1080° Snowboarding, and the Game Boy Camera (Pocket Camera). No Nintendo logo, however, appears at the end of the commercial for Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (Star Wars: Teikoku no Kage).

3rd Tag (1989-1991)

Tag: On a black background, a large blast of light fills the screen with multiple colors as it zooms out, and a gold object starts to fade in behind it. After a second, the object flashes light blue and sucks in the light, revealing the Nintendo Seal. It consists of a gold oval shape with sharp points on the edges, a small inner circle, and the text "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality" on it, with the Nintendo logo in the middle. The background then changes to a dark blue/black gradient and the "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER." text from the 1st tag, but stacked in two lines and smaller, appears below. The seal shines.

Variants:

At the end of later Hudson Soft commercials, it crossfades to the seal on a space background. The seal has a bevel effect and appears metallic as it simply shines.
On the StarTropics commercial, after the screen flashes to white, it dies down to reveal a purple-gradient background with the Nintendo seal on it. It appears to be made of sparks as it shoots off some and is missing the white colors, and below is "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER." in white and on fire.

Technique: Scanimate effects.

Music/Sounds: The end of the commercial, now with an announcer usually saying "Nintendo, now you're playing with power!"

Music/Sounds Variant: The Hudson Soft variant has a two-note synth fanfare as an announcer says "For Nintendo".

Availability: Extinct. It appears on later first-party NES commercials starting with Tetris.

4th Tag (1991-1994)

Tag: On a black background, the silver text "NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER." is seen at the top of the screen, along with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System logo below in a darkened state. It consists of the tall text "SUPER NINTENDO" above a rectangle with "ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM" cut out of it, and all of the logo is in red. In the large space between then, two bars of electricity then appear and wipe in the text "SUPER POWER" in red, and sparks fly off of it as well. The text continues to trickle with lightning bolts until the end of the tag.

Variants:

A variant has the SNES logo appear via the electricity effects, and said effects then disappear after a second.
At the end of the Donkey Kong Country commercials, the text "PLAY IT LOUD" appears in a wide white font one-by-one before suddenly slamming itself into the screen briefly. It then fades out to have the SNES logo, now with white in the "ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM" text box, fade in its place.
- A subvariant has the text appear higher than usual, and a photo of the game's box art appears below as well.
On the commercial for Super Mario Kart, parts of the logo fly into place with chyron trail effects.
On the commercial for the Super Scope 6, the logo is shown at the beginning as the Super Nintendo logo variant before it zooms out to reveal the logo being inside the Super Scope 6's barrel. The SNES logo is also replaced with the Super Scope 6's logo as well.

Technique: Early CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: The end of the commercial, with an announcer usually saying "Now you're playing with power! Super Power!" The sounds of electricity can also be heard as well.

Music/Sounds Variant: For the Donkey Kong Country variant, three slams are heard for each word appearing, followed by a Tarzan yell.

Availability: Extinct. It appears on first-party SNES commercials before the introduction of the "Play It Loud" campaign.

5th Tag (2016-)

2016-present
2022

Tag: Simply the Nintendo logo in white on a red background.

Variant: On the Nintendo of America video "Deep Cut: Anarchy Rainbow - Splatoon 3 - Nintendo Switch", the background is a different shade of red.

Technique: None.

Music/Sounds: None or the end of the commercial/video's audio.

Availability: Seen at the end of most official Nintendo videos and commercials since 2016.

Nintendo/Commercial Tags

Contents

1st Tag (1985-1991)

2nd Tag (1986-1998)

3rd Tag (1989-1991)

4th Tag (1991-1994)

5th Tag (2016-)