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Nintendo Running Itself into the Ground?
ZephyrXero writes "That is the question asked by N-Sider.com in their article "Playing it safe". The article talks of how Nintendo's reliance on tried and true franchises may contribute to their lack of innovation and low sales numbers. Although most have already seen this problem brewing within Nintendo for quite some time, it is also becoming a problem for many other game developers throughout the industry." A nice counter-point to Sticking up for Nintendo from earlier this month.
Whine about the resaons why Nintendo isn't the dominant player in the industry gets old. Listen, just because the big N isn't number one in console sales, doesn't mean that they are not a successful company, or that they are on the brink of failure. BMW isn't the number one auto company, but hey seem to be doing all right. Apple might not even hold a candle to the other PC manufacturers, but they service a niche. I love Nintendo, and it doesn't matter if they dominate the market. They meet a particular market need, and they get by just fine. They will proabably never again rule the console roost, but they will continue to be a profitable, successful game company.
...wasn't this year's Christmas season made up almost entirely of top-notch, blockbuster, super-selling sequels? Judging by what the general video-gaming masses throw their money at, doesn't adherence to the tried-and-true actually make financial sense?
The guy goes on and on about how these franchises aren't attracting new gamers. That's bullocks. The problem is that the GameCube as a whole wound up becoming the Dreamcast of this generation. Not enough AAA-rate games to keep gamers happy: No Burnout 3, no GTA, limited sports support. Simple as that. Metroid Prime got attention, but for many reasons (lack of deathmatch being one), it wasn't the Halo that pulled Microsoft's similarly-shitty XBox release schedule out of the crapper. If Nintendo had gotten their crap together by snagging more third parties earlier, or perhaps by getting Mario Kart DD online, the console wars would've been completely different. As it stands, Nintendo blew the console wars again.
Then again, on the bright side, their profits are pretty damn good. What they lose in licensing, they've made up for by never selling their console for less than a profit and by making more profit for their first-party games. MS and Sony couldn't say that for years and lost more money in their deep pocketbooks than they'd ever care to admit, and paying for exclusivity deals with third parties takes its toll, too. Nintendo, as shortsighted as they are in getting American gamers' attention, have always been pretty good with the pocketbook. That might not mean much to gamers in search of a good system, but it does mean that Nintendo is going absolutely nowhere in the console wars. They won't fall like Sega anytime soon, but they do need to shape up with the new Revolution system, because they won't survive a third N64-style last-place finish, and two bad systems in a row is not a good reputation to go into the next generation with. Can we say Atari?
Welcome to bizzaro-world. Nintendo is the one console I've seen where non-franchise games seem to do well. I Ninja, Viewtiful Joe, Pikmin, P.N.03, and Tales of Symphonia are the majority of the games I've played on my GameCube lately, and they're all non-franchise as far as I can see. Compare this to Playstation 2, for example, where the games of choice at the moment are TOCA 2, Gran Turismo 4, Grand Theft Auto 3 San Andreas, Star Ocean 3, and Elder Scrolls 3, Final Fantasy 12... Maybe that's just me, but franchises certainly aren't what I was thinking about when I bought a GameCube.
If anyone needs to invest in non-franchise games, it's the other two consoles. Hell, even the non-sequels that show up on Playstation 2 and X-Box seem to mostly be things like movie franchises. Ugh.
Random and weird software I've written.
As opposed to... what? Who's pushing the boundaries like Nintendo is at the moment? Sure, the Big N uses familiar franchises pretty often (which is the only gripe I could find the author had). That's to build on established brands, a common marketing strategy.
Despite familiar characters and storylines, Nintendo's in-house games are some of the most original and interesting available today, whereas Sony and Microsoft will play host to the latest multiplayer futuristic shooter or various racing games. Sony practically produces nothing in-house, yet the worldwide PS2 sales are well above GameCube, a distant second place, and Xbox.
The author of the article claims that Nintendo doesn't try new things, and then mentions Super Mario Sunshine. Sunshine tried a new concept, and the fact is that it wasn't well-recieved. EAD tried a new approach to the genre, but it's not their fault people didn't like it.
And that's the thing about innovation. New ideas usually don't start a revolution; they can often backfire, as did the Virtual Boy, or (to a far lesser extent) the graphical style of the new Zelda. For every hit, there are a number of misses. For every DS, there is a Virtual Boy, and an innovator must be prepared for that. Most take the easy, tried-but-true path and use a proven formula to produce a mediocre game, where success of some degree is guaranteed.
The problem with the article is that the author is trying to directly relate innovation with market domination, but if that were the case, Sony wouldn't be in the position they are today.
I think the article might have a point about Nintendo overdoing some of it's brands, this post from Game Matters puts it more succinctly than the article.
"new bulky hardware for a genre that mostly runs off one game, DDR"
Though DDR has overshadowed most games in the Rythmn/dance genre, a most underrated game that hardly saw American shores was Samba De Amigo (here and here). It started off as an arcade game with maraca controllers (something you wouldn't likely see in American arcades), and was then ported to the Dreamcast. They even had maraca controllers for the 'real' experience. I guess it was the failure of the Dreamcast (Despite the many good games released for it), or the strangness of shaking maracas to latin beat with a dancing monkey, but it's one game you aren't likely to see in stores again, despite the enormous enjoyment one can get out of it.
Perhaps if the monkey had been Donkey Kong it would have taken off?
It's also worth noting that the article about the PSP was submitted by its own author and blatantly ignored the complaints about the system, whereas this article was written in October and ran on IGN, where most of the readers of this section of Slashdot had a chance to see it.
Am I the only one bothered by this?
Goo goo g'joob.
No, nintendo went for exactly the right market when they first started making video games. The NES became what it is because of kids. Over time, the demographics have shifted, and a lot of those kids have become teenagers/young adults.
But you have to remember a couple things. First off, there's still plenty of kids being born every day. Which means that that market that Nintendo still has a grasp on is just as lucrative now as it was in the late 80's. Probalby more so.
Also, the teenager demographic that's so big now is going to continue to get older. And they'll still want to play games as the become more mature. I'm 24, and I don't find mario games to be insultingly childish. I don't find them childish at all really. I do feel some nostalgic connection with mario and link and whanot, but that's hardly a negative thing.
And let me also mention that I've got friends my age who are having kids of their own now. If I currently had children, I can think of a lot more nintendo games that I'd sit them down in front of than PS2 or Xbox games. When the day comes, I'll be happy to give Nintendo some more money in exchange for some fun games to play with my kids.
And your whole argument loses a lot of ground when you consider the fact that Nintendo's games aren't all aimed at the youth market. There's stuff like metroid (which came with your DS) and resident evil and whatnot. Plus if you pick up a controller and play most of their other games for more than a minute, you'll find some pretty deep and cool gameplay. Mario Tennis for example. Do you honestly think there are many seven year old gamers that understand the difference between top spin and back spin?
One time I threw a brick at a duck.