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Cultural Blinders Lead to Nintendo Fallacy
obchrisj writes "A week long, unscientific poll on FileFront found 61% agreeing with the notion that Nintendo will soon be "going the way of Sega." In an editorial on their website, they ask Nintendo reps and industry analysts what the future of Nintendo really is, taking a glance at the DS, GameCube, and Revolution consoles. Slashdot recently reported on poor sales performance for Nintendo's GameCube. From the editorial: 'According to O'Rourke, Nintendo's U.S. market position has conditioned North American gamers to believe the company's global fortunes are equally down. Such "Nintendo is dying!" hysteria is largely a product of this cultural tunnel vision.'"
Nintendo has made some really great games, the only thing lacking in their console as far as I'm concerned is internet multiplayer, but that's why I have my PC anyway.
Abroad, I think people are much more concerned with a good core single plater experience or in-the-same-room multiplayer. With titles like Mario Party, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and Metroid Prime 2, I still can't think of a console I'd rather use to play against 3 of my friends.
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Is it "beleaguered" already?
I am really glad that I invested in the shares of a certain "beleaguered" company a few years ago, when their shares were around 18$ (now around 70).
Maybe I should buy Nintendo stock now.
I don't need a signature.
Nintendo got caught in the middle of two of the world's largest hype machines, Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo is big, but those companies are huge in comparison. They had the ability to come out and market their systems in ways not possible before. And if you still believe the cube is for kiddies, then you too fell for the hype.
That being said, I don't think Nintendo is going the way of Sega. They are still way to profitable, for that to happen.
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I would have thought the percentage of Xboxes sold just to play pirated games or use as media centres is pretty small. At a guess, I'd say less than one percent. The attachment rate on the Xbox is somewhere around 7-8 titles*, which is pretty good, so certainly it doesn't seem that the chippers and mediacentre folks have made a particularly big impact.
* http://www.silicon-fusion.com/news/2350/
Aside from a few games, namely Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime 2, and that last Zelda game (4 swords or whatever), you don't see too much mainstream marketing for GameCube games. And even then, I think sometimes they miss the mark. The ads for MP2 were pretty lame. They focused on the fact that Samus is female and then showed like 5 seconds of actual gameplay. It's one thing to try to sell Extreme Beach Volleyball by playing up the naked chicks, but Metroid? Yeah she's a female, but its not really obvious in the gameplay and you never really see her in the game since its in first person perspective.
For the PS2 and Xbox, though, I see ads for even the most obscure games. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that those consoles have more third-party support. But as far as public perception goes, it just makes it seem like the GameCube isn't as good. Not to me, but I know a lot of people who just assume because they hardly see any commercials that there aren't any good games.
Everyone I know has a PS2. I know 2 people that have Xbox and (now) 2 people that have GameCube. After 2+ years or raving about Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Zelda, and the Resident Evil games, I finally convinced one other person to get a GameCube. I think Resident Evil 4 was the one that did it. And deservedly so... It's an amazing game. But I can't blame Capcom for probably regretting the decision to go exclusive with the GameCube. You can safely assume that RE4 would sell twice as many copies on the PS2... which is why it's eventually coming out on Sony's console.
Even the game publishers/developers don't seem to have faith in the GameCube. And I'm not sure I do either. I have complete faith in Nintendos ability to make great games. I've consistently had all around better experiences with more GameCube games than anything else in the past couple years. But I'm really starting to agree that they're heading in the wrong direction and if they go too far, won't be able to come back.
Sinch
Yeah, it will be coming out for the playstation, but only a year after it came out for cube. The release date according to gamefaqs.com is Q4, 2005. So I guess GTA: San Andreas isn't a PS2 exclusive, since it will eventually come out for X-Box?
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X-Box is on life support..
Actually, I think you're right. Locally, local movie/rental shops are about to drop the X-Box from their shelves. And local sales of X-Box games are fairly..well..slow.
But X-Boxes themselves still go fast. Why? They're cool. But you might only have 2 or 3 games for it..Halo maybe Halo 2 and a Madden game. And that's about it.
And the profit comes from game sales. From what I can tell, Nintendo is making more money than Microsoft. So I doubt Nintendo is going to go the way of Sega. As well, there's a lot of people who are happy with their little cube...
The biggest problem that Nintendo has it this. In order to compete on Nintendo's system, you have to beat Nintendo itself. And that's hard. You have to beat Metriod Prime 1 and 2, you have to beat Smash Brothers, you have to beat Wind Waker, and so on. It's hard. So either you do a multi-platform series, just to make it a must-play, a big title.
But what the Gamecube is lacking is the big 3rd-party exclusives. But the ones that are there..well..they tend to be either big or small. Big games, like Resident Evil 4, or little games like Ikaragua seem to get the best return.
Why would they trade in that part of the market share? They're making money off each console being sold. That's more than you can say about Sony and Microsoft.
Nintendo's biggest enemy seems to be Nintendo. One of the things that Nintendo did very well was market to kids. The problem is, now they have a bunch of people trained to equate Nintendo with kid's games. PS2, on the other hand, went after the late teen and young adult market. So many people are stuck with the Nintendo=Kids, PS2=Adults mentality. While this isn't really true anymore, Nintendo is stuck trying to undo the marketing of the past. Plus, the Nintendo 64 was a dud. I was one of the people to get one early on, I liked Super Mario 64, and had seen some adds for some interesting 3rd party games. Nintendo was screwed by the third party developers in some cases, and the games just didn't materialize for the N64. In the end, I think I owned about 4 games for thr system, because I couldn't find anything on the system which appealed to me. I finally bought a Playstation used, and got more games for it than I did for my N64. When the time to choose between the PS2 and the GameCube came along, I wasn't willing to touch another new Nintendo product, I got a PS2, and have been very happy with it.
Funny aside to that. I went to the E3 where Nintendo and MS were announcing their respective systems. At the time the PS2 looked like it was in trouble. All it had were a bunch of remakes and sequals to show. Then we walked into the Nintendo area, which was a teaming mass of people. We got to see such wonderful titiles as Super Smash Brothers, Pikman, Star Fox Adventures, Rouge Squadron (whatever incarnation), and Luigi's Haunted Mansion. It looked pretty good, though mostly aimed at kids. Lastly we hit the Xbox area, and got to see very little. They had some sort of skiing game and a water based shooter. The graphics were pretty but I just didn't see a killer game on it. The GameCube looked poised to win the war. Now I own a PS2 (which I thought to be the worst in show), the Xbox still has zero interest from me, and the GameCube is only now a consideration since I've watched a friend play Metroid Prime.
Somehow I don't think Nintendo is going anywhere, they've got a ton of cash, lots of brand recognition, and they are finally starting to win the battle against their previous image. Sure, they may go through a few slow years/systems, but I'm expecting that they will end up beating Microsoft in the end.
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I tend to agree that people equate Nintendo with kids. Hell, I think that the perception is actually somewhat correct. True, Nintendo has its grown up games, but not many. GTA3 is the reason why I bought my PS2. I want a grown up game complete with violence and cursing. As cute as Mario and a cute little cartoon Zelda is, it simply isn't what I want.
Maybe I should look a little harder, but as far as I can tell, Nintendo promotes cartoons. The few exceptions to the rule are FPS - which I would never buy on consol because I have a perfectly good computer with superior controls and graphics. When I think Nintendo, I think Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and a whole host of other cartoon games. Hell, each one of those games DID have a cartoon follow up on TV.
Games used to be for kids, but I think what has been proven in this new centaury is that games were for kids because kids picked them up the faster then anyone else. Now those kids are adults, and unlike normal toys, they didn't throw them out. People who grew up with games still like them. Not only do they still like them, but now that have a paycheck each week and the ability to spend significantly more on video games. I am not saying that video game markers should abandon the kids market, just that you would be a fool ignore all of the adults with too much money in their pockets when you make your games. If you want to appeal to adults, you need to make games for them. If people think of your consol and could never imagine playing GTA or some violently and vulgar game, chances are you have been branded a kids consol.
This is the exact same cultural blindness the article's talking about.
Here's some numbers, taken from the-magicbox.com:
First # is the sales for the week, 2nd number is for all of 2005.
PlayStation 2: 65,837/189,238
PlayStation Portable: 62,052/126,654
Nintendo DS: 53,527/162,088
GameBoy Advance SP: 18,289/89,140
GameCube: 7,475/27,178
GameBoy Advance: 588/2,307
Xbox: 506/1,685
In Japan, also known as the LARGEST GAMING MARKETPLACE IN THE WORLD, the XBox is losing to the GameCube by more than a factor of 12.
There are 4 GameCube titles in the top 30 sales chart. There are *0* XBox games in the top 30. I'm not going to say the XBox is on life support, but they're definitely 3rd in the world.
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Now - this is the definition of target deomgraphic. all age 18-25, Male
I'm sick of this target demographic bullshit. As if other people don't buy games. I have more games than probably anyone in your dorm, yet I don't fit your stupid demographic so I guess I don't count.
I'm also sick of this bullshit idea that girls don't play games. I asked my dad for a video game for christmas, and he gave it to my boyfriend. When I play my SP in public, people assume it a book. How the fuck does someone confuse an SP for a book? I don't fucking know. I just wish people would wake the fuck up and realize that not all gamers are "age 18-25, Male".
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FileFront had a poll and produced a result and I am supposed to take it as gospel why exactly?
I've never heard of FileFront before and I'm quite the internet junkie so how in any way what so ever do they represent Nintendo's marketshare? Nintendo's target market isn't Slashdotters and the like and I'm sorry folks but we're in the minority, just think Pokemon.
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