Nintendo - Money, Announcements, Comeback?

Thanks to GameSpy for their new 'Sole Food column, which discusses Nintendo's recent announcements and their prospects for the future. They point out that "Despite the large number of 'Nintendo-is-doomed' articles written over the last few years, the company still has a ton of cash (around six-billion USD by most reports)", and speculate on the 'big announcement' Nintendo are promising early next year ("Initially, the buzz was that it will be announcing a new console to be released in 2005. Lately, the buzz has shifted to a new handheld announcement.") Finally, the opinion piece ends on an upbeat note: "If any company is capable of making a comeback, it's Nintendo. It has the money and the talent. It just needs to strategize better to ensure that its future consoles appeal to a broad audience."

Comments

gameboy

[lostinchicago]

nintendo should work less on the gameboy and work more twards revolutionary gamming consols. Im sure if they put money into somthing that is far better than anything else there will be millions of people to buy it. But with release after release of the gameboy they arent doing anything new (wooptie dooo its color or small or foldable. who cares.

Graphics and Demographics

[David Wong]

It's all about Demographics, really. Sony struck gold by marketing to 20+ year old gamers, making games they wouldn't feel silly playing (it's hard for a 27 year-old welder to play a cartoon peter pan running around rescuing a cartoon princess. But let him play a mobster capping other mobsters...)

This is what Nintendo never got. Adults don't feel silly watching action movies and thus don't feel silly playing action movies. Adults do feel a little silly watching peter pan cartoons, and thus do feel silly manipulating a little guy with his green hood and tights.

That market exploded; video games moved into the mainstream with the playstation and PS2, and Sony played it perfectly. It didn't hurt that they included DVD capability right at the upswing of the DVD boom.

Nintendo has continued to market to the kiddies. A PS2 looks like a piece of entertainment hardware like a VCR or DVD player; a GameCube looks like a toy, it's purple plastic and cute shape and cute little lunch box handle on the back.

That little kid audience is limited; they're not where the frontier of this market is. It's about making video games as common as watching videos at home, about convincing the older guys that it's not just a kiddie thing. Sony knows this, MS knows this. I doubt Nintendo ever will.