Nintendo does stuff like this because you can't say No to your boss in a Japanese company.

If you look at the last few decades you can see horrible ideas executed at a professional level.

Whenever I see a Nintendo Ad, I'm thinking to myself, those poor regional Marketing department have to sell this. Then again, Nintendo knows to advertise primarily to children, so maybe it's not that hard.

Lots of companies branch out into strange areas, Japanese or not. I don't think it's anything cultural.

The Japanese culture basically prevents bad ideas from being stopped.

If your boss says to do something, you don't disagree.