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Can Nintendo Survive Gaming's Brave New World?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Jon Brodkin talked to indie developers (including the creator of Super Mario Bros. Crossover), former Nintendo employees, and a number of others about where exactly Nintendo went wrong over the past few years. Their conclusions? Nintendo made a number of mistakes, including a lack of an indie-developer ecosystem, a refusal to license out core properties such as Super Mario to other gaming platforms (or even iOS and Android), and platforms that don't appeal to hardcore gamers. While the developers suggest Nintendo is taking steps to broaden its horizons, such as by reaching out to smaller studios, it's questionable whether such efforts will succeed in a world where the PS4 and Xbox One are about to enter the market, and iOS and Android are swallowing up mobile gamers' time and dollars. What do you think?"
Nintendo has ALWAYS aimed itself at content more for younger target audiences than the other consoles. They fill that niche quite well, always have and always will...
all they need to do is continue to come out with smash bros. i know a bunch of ppl who buy an entire console just to play that ONE game.
*Looks at Pokemon X/Y sales and 3DS/2DS sales*
All signs point to yes. Dying companies don't sell 4 million games in 2 days and millions of consoles in a year.
Why should they have licensed out their core franchises to third parties? All that usually does id result in shovelware.
Release the 1DS. It's for toddlers and infants, this time.
Except for hardcore gamers, in my opinion there is no reason for "low-performing gaming consoles" when in 2-3 years a mid-priced smartphone with HDMI + bluetooth running Android will reach similar results. They can become a platform-agnostic seal, providing what users want from them: Mario stuff and fun family games.
Release Mario Kart and other Mario titles on the iPad\Andriod tablet platforms. Even at $29.95 they will sell faster than Apple can make digital copes to send to customers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Next...
I have a WII, didn't see the need to upgrade to the WII-U. I also have a XBox, had a PS3 but only because I wanted to watch BlueRays. Is it me, or has Nintendo just lagged a bit in terms of graphics? They revolutionized the controllers with the WII, but now I really feel the others have caught up. I do not know if the Nintendo catalog will be enough to keep people with the platform just to play those games. Time will tell.
...because, I mean, cash rich companies with great selling mobile devices, portfolios of valuable IP, and games that sell 4+ million copies in a few days go bust all the time... Just because the WiiU isn't the hottest selling console doesn't mean the 3ds isn't doing utterly stupendous numbers for them.
Then I don't care!
I bought an original Nintendo to play Super Mario Bros on. Then I bought the SNES for the next Mario/Zelda, then the GameCube to play Mario again and then Zelda Four Swords and 4 GBA's! I bought the Wii for New Super Mario Bros, and again the Wii U for NSMB WiiU (or whatever it is called). Currently I have 1 game for each of those platforms (Wii and Wii U), and its the Mario games!
As long as they make games that are so fun to multiplayer with my friends I will buy whatever console and game it takes to play it! The only game I play with friends on PS3 or XBox360 is the Rock Band games, and that was only because they didn't have it for Wii yet at the time.
The suggestion that Nintendo should release on iOS and Android would be suicide. The sales figures for the 3DS have already proven the nuts that keep saying Nintendo should release Pokemon the iPhone are insane short term thinkers. Their hand held dominance has yet to be killed. I'll believe Nintendo should start looking at selling on the iCult(Trolling Apple) when Pokemon starts selling less than 1 Million at launch. Since X/Y hit 4 Million I don't think they have to worry about that. Their console market, on the other hand, has been weak since the N64 days. The Wii's success was mostly a fluke caused by MS and Sony raising prices too much, and a couple of gimmicks that were worth some attention by some: motion controls, and wii fit.
Folks are probably too young to recall the clusterf*** that was the CD era in terms of licensing. Working with Sony, the fine print practically would steal the rights to Nintendo's bread and butter. And back with the CDi, the fine print there gave Phillips the right to use Nintendo's properties in a set number of games.
The result? A bunch of crappy Zelda and Mario games that are only memorable for just how B-Movie quality they were.
I think Nintendo should pull a SEGA and get out of the hardware business. they have plenty of software IP franchises to sustain them. I'd also _love_ it if they embraced SteamOS and started publishing to SteamOS (thus preventing Microsoft and Sony from getting their business)
I've said it before to people, Nintendo is too small and their core audience is not hardcore enough for them to compete with Sony and MS on hardware. They should get out of the console business and develop cross platform games. Maybe some accessories.
Let's pretend for a moment that Nintendo was to make a Mario game for iOS. Would it be in full 3D like Mario 64, or a classic platformer like Super Mario 3?
Neither, it'd be an endless runner where you simply tap the screen to jump on Goombas and over gaps, because touch screens lack the control for anything more sophisticated.
Sure, there are games on the App Store that are fully fledged platformers, but are they any good? No, because (in my experience) your hands are covering 80% of the screen making it impossible to see what's actually going on.
If this is the future of gaming, you can count me out.
Summation 2
...that they do little to capitalize on with modern consoles.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
They might be a big player in some Asian countries, but I think their mainstream appeal is over, frankly. It seems like they've developed themselves into a corner with titles for kids and Asian stuff, exclusively. I don't know anybody that uses anything Nintendo, and I've never seen any of their current lineup of gadgets.
I don't respond to AC's.
I think Nintendo should pull a SEGA and get out of the hardware business. they have plenty of software IP franchises to sustain them. I'd also _love_ it if they embraced SteamOS and started publishing to SteamOS (thus preventing Microsoft and Sony from getting their business)
Actually I think the reverse. Sega had to leave the hardware business because of the expensive (read Billions in losses) cost of hardware. Todays ARM devices can be profitable for a few dollars. They have a large back catalogue; great brand; experienced staff...with connections. Many companies are fighting for the ARM console. Sega has a better chance than most with little risk.
HD has made games inherently too expensive to produce. The only things that turn any profit at all are graphics-are-everything reskins of games developed back when it was profitable to focus on things that actually mattered, and those will only sustain the industry for so long. We're headed for another crash, one that Nintendo could have survived a generation ago when it resisted the HD gimmick. Now that it has fallen into that trap, though, it's as hosed as Sony's and Microsoft's gaming divisions will be.
Nintendo lost their way because of the "fad gaming" that was popular with the Wii. They tried to go somewhere with that because it was making them a lot of money, but the problem is that it was just that: a fad. If you want to ride that train, you need to see what's coming next and make sure your thing is the next fad, too. Nintendo didn't do that and lost most of that audience to Facebook and mobile gaming. That problem was compounded by the poor marketing for the Wii U (many consumers don't even realize it's a completely new system due to the unfortunate name).
This wouldn't have been such a big deal if they hadn't alienated their core fanbase in the process. A lot of former Nintendo fanboys have migrated to other platforms by now because Nintendo just wasn't putting out the volume nor the quality necessary to keep us interested (flops like Metroid: Other M especially didn't help matters). Plus, they didn't have the majority of popular cross-platform games. This, in turn, made a lot of their fans go out and get other platforms to play these games. And when the Wii U rolled around, there wasn't really any reason to get it because we could get more and better games on the other platform we were forced to get. I have no plans to get a Wii U unless it comes down substantially in price no matter what they release for it. I'm not going to spend that kind of money on a system just to play the new Smash, one or two new Zelda games, and possibly a new Metroid game that may or may not be good. I like those series, but it's just not worth it when I have a limited income.
Nintendo did not just survive the crash of '83, they were the ones that took the lead in resurrecting the industry.
Then again, they survived their mid 90's slump. And each time the XBOX/PS war is rekindled on a new generation of systems.
And even if Wii-U falters, Nintendo can survive on brand recognition alone from the mass of parents in their 30s and 40s that grew up with the NES. Now, perhaps in 10 years when the XBOX/PS generation gamers start having kids of their own, things might change.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
touch screens lack the control for anything more sophisticated.
True. But iOS 7 adds support for external gamepads that clamp onto the iPhone, and even before that, there were controllers that emulate a keyboard. Android has supported USB HID, Xbox 360, and PS3 controllers for a long time, though Android 4.2 and 4.3 broke Wii Remote support. But I'm not so sure people will buy a $40 controller to play a $1 to $6 game. Nintendo could try porting the touch-friendly games it has made in the Mario franchise on the DS, such as March of the Minis.
I've said it before to people, Nintendo is too small
At one time, Nintendo's market cap exceeded that of Sony Music, Sony Pictures, Sony Electronics, and Sony Computer Entertainment combined. But I'll admit that that was during the "Wii prints money too" era.
While I don't think it's reached that point yet, at least Nintendo has plenty of cash to float on. One of Nintendo's bigger issues is that they used to be a trend setter. They don't seem to understand that the landscape is drastically changing and that there is nothing they can do about it other then keep up or fall behind. They are no longer steering the industry, but apparently no one has told them that. Don't get me wrong, I love Nintendo and I want them to continue to succeed.
As an old timer, I can thing of a console I would paid a couple hundred bucks for: An all in one system that has every game ever made from 8-bit through Game Cube (or at least 64) pre-loaded and ready to be hooked up to my HDTV. I have been wishing for this for a long time.
BTW - if you have not yet played Super Mario Bros. Crossover, you have not lived until you have played SMB as one of the Contra guys.
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Or might it have been GTA5 instead of GT5?
The old joke is that a dinosaur was so big, and had such a small and 'distant' brain, that it could take it days to realise it was actually dead. We use the 'dinosaur' comparison to one powerful companies to recognise dominance and power, but also the fact that everything passes in time.
Japan lost its software base a while ago now, and THIS factor is what dooms companies like Nintendo. Rather than being a games-first company, and surviving on because they keep a flow of desirable unique software products, Nintendo converted to a hardware-first company when its hand-helds, and then Wii, became extremely successful.
Now the hardware game is over for Nintendo. It doesn't make enough quality games using its own forms of IP, and no quality developer wants to target games at the Wii U or Nintendo handhelds. Kids of all ages love tablets. Tablets are getting cheaper and more powerful at an astonishing rate. A projection into the near future shows no hope for Nintendo to hold onto its dominance in this area UNLESS it collapses the cost of the hardware, and even then they would only delay the inevitable by a little bit.
In the mains-powered console market, Nintendo is an embarrassment. Its Wii was putrid, but gained incredible fashion success on the back of hand-motion controlled casual games. The Wii U, for reasons no-one can understand, didn't build on the hand motion system, but sought another gimmick- the faux tablet. While everyone else understood that the entire point of such a portable device was to allow remote streaming of full power console games, giving the mobile device graphics that had never before been possible, Nintendo specifically DEMANDED that games companies used the faux tablet as a rubbishy extension to the big screen gaming experience.
This meant porting games to the Wii U became a mega-expensive NIGHTMARE to publishers. The Wii U is a weak platform with weak sales, and yet Nintendo DEMANDED that ported games would have to have mega-expensive work done finding a reason to place ADDITIONAL graphics on the faux tablet. Any game that did NOT use the display of the tablet controller would be seen as a 'shoddy' port by Nintendo, and the Wii U owners.
Microsoft and Sony, in the other hand, GOT IT. They both allow, with the Xbone and PS4, for you to "game in bed" with the Sony handheld or 'gaming' Android tablets (tabs with hard controls). Playing GTA 5, or Battlefield 4, as the FULL games, on a handheld is a whole new world.
Nintendo will collapse to the nucleus of its gaming IP, like Sega before it. I must admit, I don't get it why nerds have such a difficult time accepting that companies rise and companies fall. The age of the home computer has had so many examples of this across its short history. Microsoft and Intel are in terminal decline, with Intel having no apparent solutions at all in its future. But then building your own chips is just about the most expensive enterprise there is, and when you can no longer defend obscene levels of profit, your company cease to be viable.
Nintendo fantasised that it could simply 'invent' an endless stream of fashion gimmicks, and ride them forever. But the triviality of the motion controller made Nintendo ignore the idea of QUALITY in gimmick, a mistake Apple avoids. The Wii U was a shoddy piece of total garbage, with insanely underpowered GPU and CPU systems, a tiny amount of memory, and the tablet gimmick being as under-cooked and wrongly directed as possible. Nintendo isn't going down fighting- Nintendo bought a shovel and dug its own grave.
Will Nintendo survive?
Sure. Remember that they were founded in 1889. They had a business before video games, and if necessary, they'll have a business after video games.
I think that's where some of their behavior actually comes from. There's a certain level of autonomy that I don't think they're willing to give up, even if that means their video game business tanks.
I wonder why the Nintendo board doesn't do exactly as these utterly clueless reportless say.
After all, they are reporters, so they are right. And nintendo? They've just been in the market for a century. And succeded with a class and consistency that is completely unmatched in the industry. Who the hell are they to think they know what they are doing?
Protip: yes, it is sarcasm! no need to point it out, thank you very much.
http://www.vgchartz.com/ Nintendo sold over 4 million copies of Pokemon and 423 thousand 3DS the week of Oct 12. I see no reason to think they are going away any time soon.
Nintendo is in an interesting spot, The Wii U is not a great success. The answer is not going to be found by an Xbox 360 owner...the loser of the last generation (arguably a draw with the PS3)
The answer is not going to be Hardcore gamers (pick your definition of what one is) they never did, they produce great first party titles as the draw...something the article claims is there failure.
The answer is not going to be making software for the 13% of the smartphone market with an iPhone either!!! (although I would imagine Cook would shit himself)
This article was wrote from an iPhone/Xbox owner and draws stupid conclusions because of it. Nintendo has a problem and its the (dumb) hardware
>> indie developers (including the creator of Super Mario Bros. Crossover)
How is a guy who writes "Super Mario Brothers Crossover" an "independent developer"? Seems like he's a leech on the core brand: Mario and the extended Nintendo world. Furthermore, as long as the core brand is compelling enough and has enough followers to inspire leeches, I don't think it's in any danger of fading away.
Let's say you use a succession of Android phones [...] . If it's also extremely cheap...
I don't see how it'll become "extremely cheap" in Slashdot's home country as long as upgrading from a dumbphone to an Android phone costs hundreds of dollars per year on the major carriers. Verizon and Sprint don't use CSIMs for CDMA2000, instead programming the CDMA2000 subscriber identity directly into the phone. They decline as a standard practice to activate service on a smartphone without an expensive data plan. AT&T is known to cram a data plan onto a voice-only SIM inserted into a smartphone. Or should people buy and carry two phones: a feature phone to make calls on and an Android phone to play games on over Wi-Fi?
and your TV has a ChromeCast attached to it
That might work for turn-based games, but real-time games are far more sensitive to latency than the noninteractive movies and television series for which the Chromecast was designed. How much display latency does the Chromecast add?
and some particular bluetooth controller becomes a de-facto standard
This is likewise easier said than done. How would this come about?
This is a continuation of a chain of events that began when the N64 was released. Whether it was the cart vs CD debate, or whether it was something else, the result was that the majority of third party developers stuck with the Playstation. It's been the same story ever since: Third parties are hard to come by, and Nintendo's first party games are criticized for being too childish. The first Wii was a huge success because it filled a casual gaming need that is now being fulfilled by iPads and phones.
Nintendo's handhelds seem to do well, perhaps because the same people who talked up the "childish" nature of Nintendo's games were also self-selected out of the handheld gaming audience.
Nintendo made a number of mistakes, including a lack of an indie-developer ecosystem,
True. Nintendo hardware is very nice. An indie-developer program would attract talent and open the door to great games and a profitable future. They just need to find the right branding, probably something like a "Mario Labs" where the gamers also play the role of 'investors', deciding if projects deserve a grant or deserve to get canned.
a refusal to license out core properties such as Super Mario to other gaming platforms (or even iOS and Android), and platforms that don't appeal to hardcore gamers.
False. Core properties (Super Mario, Zelda, et al) are what make a Nintendo console what it is. If you want to play Super Mario, you know what console you need to have in order to play it -- A Nintendo. As soon as Mario makes an appearance on iOS or Android, that's the end of what makes Nintendo special. In essence, they'd become another SEGA; a popular system when I was a teenager, but now just a hit or miss game studio. That's not the road Nintendo wants to go down.
While the developers suggest Nintendo is taking steps to broaden its horizons, such as by reaching out to smaller studios, it's questionable whether such efforts will succeed in a world where the PS4 and Xbox One are about to enter the market, and iOS and Android are swallowing up mobile gamers' time and dollars.
Nintendo knows what the other companies don't:
- $250 entry point
- Make very reliable hardware, but do NOT make it a loss leader
- Curate available titles very carefully to ensure maximum revenue
The gamers looking for the high-end PS4 and Xbox One experience aren't Nintendo's core customers.
The games playing casual games on iOS and Android aren't Nintendo's core customers either.
Nintendo should not be the dog who lost his bone to a reflection.
They know their customer base and they serve them well, which is why they keep making a profit.
Game consoles are just stupid bricks that don't evolve. Looking at the speed that the PC industry has evolved it's easy to see that the game consoles are quickly left in the dead behind when it comes to performance.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I don't have exact figures, but I've read that Apple's 13% of activated smartphones account for far more than 13% of the dollars spent on paid applications, especially paid games. This is true especially in the anglosphere, where you don't even have to redub your game's voice acting into multiple languages to get it into Canada, USA, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
Release Mario Kart and other Mario titles on the iPad\Andriod tablet platforms. Even at $29.95 they will sell faster than Google can make digital copes to send to customers.
I am not sure if Mario Kart could compete effectively against $1 games(or even free) many of which are incredible fun, That is without 30% cost selling in a third party store.
Pokemon X and Y called... they said yes.
Game consoles are just stupid bricks that don't evolve. Looking at the speed that the PC industry has evolved it's easy to see that the game consoles are quickly left in the dead behind when it comes to performance.
The irony that the PC market is taking a serious kicking from both Microsoft and Apple who are both racing to turn these powerful/upgradable/ General Purpose Machines into dumb electronic devices, killing these devices, while slavering at the jaws for the console market, marketed at a larger audience...they call it Smart TV....Google is already there....and they are about to launch a console too.
what if Nintendo had actually bought [Valve]
Not so sure that would happen. Valve is embracing a copylefted operating system called SteamOS for its entry to the hardware market, and Nintendo is known to be anti-copyleft.
Valve/Steam would get a huge library of old Nintendo titles (or well, could get, I guess they would be bundled with an emulator or whatever, an already done one may not work for licensing reasons but maybe Nintendo got the know-how to make one themselves ..)
Nintendo already made official emulators even before Virtual Console started printing money. Animal Crossing for GameCube, the e-Reader for Game Boy Advance, and the Classic NES Series for Game Boy Advance all included an NES emulator.
Hardcore gamers play all kinds of games.
"Extreme" gamers are the ones that flock to the FPS of the month while sipping energy drinks.
WTF is "brave" about the world of gaming platforms?
Ummmm... didn't Wii sales pretty much dominate last round?
Nintendo is in a great position and they know it. Last round of consoles, they learned that the best way for them to compete was to not compete. They made a console that was totally different from the other two. While Sony and MS were fighting it out over who could make the best of the traditional consoles, Nintendo was cleaning up with their weird system, because people often get multiple systems.
Wii U? Not so much. But then again, they haven't leveraged any of their own properties yet.
This article's premise is incredibly flawed:
-a lack of an indie-developer ecosystem?
Why would they want an indie developer ecosystem? Consoles are built on their huge exclusives. What was the last major game that came out of an indie studio that could've sensibly come out on a Nintendo system first?
-a refusal to license out core properties such as Super Mario to other gaming platforms and platforms that don't appeal to hardcore gamers?
Yes, this makes sense. License out one of the things that truly make your console unique. Oh wait, no. By not licensing out their products, they keep full quality control in their hands (does anyone want to revisit the Phillips CD-i Zelda games?). They can also keep people coming back for the stuff that is uniquely theirs and if they want to bring a new studio in, that can happen too (Retro with Metroid Prime is a good example).
Heck, this article even seems to think that them licensing out their properties to platforms that don't appeal to hardcore gamers is some kind of a solution. The Wii's success rode on the back of the fact that the console wasn't made for the hardcore gamer.
This whole article reads like a solution to a problem that someone doesn't have.
4 million units in 2 days suggests that yes they (including me) will.
I wonder why the Nintendo board doesn't do exactly as these utterly clueless reportless say.
I don't agree with the article, but a quick look around just at the massive missteps made in the gaming industry that have bought down great companies. Nintendo currently have a lemon on there hands with the Wii U, and the console market is going to get busy again, threatened by Nintndo and Sony for Power...and Android *everywhere*. The Nintendo board clearly have made a mistake. I agree this article is probably not it, but it exists because Nintendo is with its console in trouble, and stupidly just as everyone gets used to having a smart device under there TV.
nobody will have the confidence to develop proper games for the system apart from shovelware
I've seen that 10-letter word tossed around, but nobody appears to be able to agree on a proper definition. (And without a proper definition, discussion goes nowhere.) In the early 1990s it meant selling a bunch of demos of indie games on a single CD because they were so small, originally having been developed for floppy or BBS distribution. Now that BBS distribution has grown into a broader paid download market for sale of lower-budget games, I'm not sure from Wikipedia's article what "shovelware" even means. Is there even a line between "low budget" and "shovelware"?
Here is a response I wrote for Game Zero about the whole "Nintendo is gonna fail" stupidity... back in 2000... still relevant.
The Future of Console Gaming: Part 2 - The Five Year Plan
maybe with apple releasing the MFi controllers
There had been previous attempts to put controllers on iOS by having controllers emulate the keyboard, such as the iControlPad and the iCade. Perhaps their lack of uptake can be attributed to few people wanting to buy a controller that costs as much as 10 to 20 games.
Or should people buy and carry two phones: a feature phone to make calls on and an Android phone to play games on over Wi-Fi?
or, get an iPod touch. problem solved
In that case, how many people are willing to buy and carry a feature phone to make calls on and a 4" tablet to play games on? It'd have to be a brand-new iPod touch, as used ones will probably be fourth-generation and thus unable to use MFi controllers.
Pokemon X/Y were being released the last day of the convention.
The Nintendo Booth was mobbed with lines of people who wanted to play Pokemon X/Y on both Thursday on Friday. I even heard people talking about it on the train ride home.
So people were waiting in line for to play a few minutes of an RPG at a major convention that they paid to get into, to play a game that would be generally available a few days later.
Yeah, I'm sure Nintendo'll be irrelevant any day now.
*looks at watch*
What and where I find a "problem" with Nintendo is if you look at Sega's missteps. Sega, you remember Sega right? That company with the Hedgehog for a mascot, that puts out too many poor quality games with their IP.
Nintendo has yet to make any real missteps with their IP, however the worst non-step they've made is not putting Pokemon on iOS. Pokemon's success relies on everyone having it on all of their devices. Unfortunately Nintendo only releases one pokemon game per handheld generation, and as a result most of the time people are buying the console to play one or two games, and then the console collects dust.
Like I'd love to play Nintendo's games, but I'm not justified spending 200-300$ to buy the console for the maybe 4 games I'll ever own on it. I seriously wait until there's about 10 games that I want before I'll consider the console. This also applied to the Xbox 360, I waited until there were 10 games I wanted on that platform, AND a redesign before I bought it due to the horribly build quality. I'd have gone with the PS3 if it had retained PS2 compatibility but I missed the boat. Neither the PS4 or XBoxOne have backwards compatibility so I'm just going to stick with the PC, until I can justify any of those consoles.
Nintendo's biggest weakness is clearly their complete distain and disregard for supporting online play. From tedious friend codes, to a lack of headset/mic support, to their stubborn insistence in "going their own way" with an online marketplace, their online/connectivity factor is woefully neglected and abused.
How can Nintendo make a billion dollars tomorrow? A Pokemon MMO.
How can Nintendo sell a million Wii U consoles? Give Smash Brothers, Mario Cart, Mario Party, and Starfox the same kind of online matchmaking that you would find in CoD or MoH from any LAST GENERATION console.
Will they? Who knows. But the market for a console that doesn't extend past the living room is drying up, and while there will always be a dedicated band of single player or local multiplayer based fans eager for whatever remake from ten years ago Nintendo wants to produce, the rest of the market has expanded their horizon beyond the four walls of their living room, and demands their console do the same.
And they still haven't used that PennyArcade idea?
Maybe they're not desperate enough.
Sure I knew you could.
I almost exclusively game on my Android smartphone nowadays. My kids mostly use their Android tablets (with occasional DS usage).
That being said, Nintendo would be idiotic to release "Super Mario Brothers" for Android or iOS. People know that the place to get Nintendo titles (Mario, Zelda, etc) is on a Nintendo system. They will (for the most part) buy a WiiU, 3DS, or 2DS just to get that game. If they release the games on Android/iOS, they become just another Android/iOS developer. Perhaps they would dwarf all others, but they'd still get lost in the crowd.
All that being said, if they release a Mario Kart, Zelda, or similar game for Android, I'd buy it. (I'm not holding my breath, though.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Up through the N64, Nintendo's software was state of the art. Games like Super Mario Bros.3, Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, etc. Their software wasn't just fun, it turned heads and changed the industry.
They've given up on that element, and it's just not the same anymore. It's not just that they're constantly retreading old ground and squeezing more money out of existing properties. Even their newest, flagship stuff plays it safe and relies heavily on nostalgia. Handheld titles ported to the big screen, big screen titles ported to handheld. Hardware that's heavy on gimmicks and doesn't leverage itself well ("which controller does this game work with?")
Personally, I think all of the consoles are doomed. More flexible and ambitious companies are going to steal their lunch. Apple, Google, Steam, whatever. Somebody needs to come in and kick some asses. After 2 broken PS3's and a Wii that fails to boot the first 20 times I turn it on, I'm giving up on these old stalwarts. They've all overstayed their welcome with sub-standard manufacturing quality, and in Nintendo's case, half-hearted software development.
Considering it still hasn't had all of it's "house names" make an appearance on the Wii U yet, the death knells are premature.
But making their exclusives non-exclusive would be the end of them.
See, in your own comment you pointed to a big problem talking about how you "warez" Nintendo releases. If you aren't going to buy them, why should they care about you and your kind? Nintendo sells consoles and games, no reason to shoot themselves and let other platforms have their golden geese.
Unfortunately Nintendo only releases one pokemon game per handheld generation
They've actually been releasing about one game per year, and that's only counting main-series games. The DS generation saw Diamond & Pearl, Platinum (special edition of DP), HeartGold & SoulSilver (remakes of GBC games), then an entirely new "generation" with Black & White, then Black 2 & White 2 (which were full-blown sequels as opposed to special editions or remakes).
The other two console makers are surviving almost exclusively on FPS games. Eventually that market will saturate and simultatenously the innovations in the games will be so minimal that the profit will start to disappear. Neither Sony nor Microsoft seem to have a plan for what to do when the Halo / Battlefield / Medal of Honor / Call of Duty franchises start to lose their appeal. While Nintendo isn't turning in mega bucks selling these games they do have a much broader pallet of gaming genres making up their title sales.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Here is where I think the Big N is missing the boat:
* Lack of new IP's - Almost everything you publish is a remake of one of their core titles (Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Kirby and Metroid in that order.) Many of these IP's are getting close to their 40's.
* 2D is a good thing - Most of Nintendo's successful titles lately has been nostalgic 2D versions of title that went the 3D route. I call it 'simply gaming.' People want simple games that are easy and fun to pick and play. Go beyond causal gaming by adding a gradual increase in skills and plot. Look at how indepth and dark the original Pokemon got (Many of the Pokemon were the result of genetic and physical experiments.) 3D often offers way too many distraction for many gamers.
* Get some power - You're innovation have been great (Wii's unique controller, SNES's graphics, sound and controller, and NES's simplicity and clean gaming experience.) But look at your under powered system and see how they fair. The GameCube and WiiU have their unique characteristics but the GC lacked storage (mini-dvd's) and raw 3d power. The WiiU has confusing specs and an under powered GPU. Really the WiiU is just a $150 tablet with thumb sticks and a $100 Linux server with an HDMI jack.
* Be Bold - When you do a Nintendo Direct you seem to be apologizing for everything you say. I know it's partially culture difference but I see Sony speaking boldly in their products.
* Make your title more ubiquitous - I want to play on something like Pokemon on my HD TV.
* Get a serious online strategy going - Why can I get 10X the in-game online interactivity with a free app on my phone then almost anything you have in your library now?
* Listen to what your customers want - Where is the frog suit? How long did it take to get a tanooki like suit back? Where is Earthbound 3?
[Personal Request] Can you bring back the Gameboy, or a limited edition system? The DS series is nice but I miss having a simply game system that plays fun game and the batteries lasts for days, not hours.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Even just the old ones red, blue, and yellow. its the perfect game for the system and would sell like crazy
they dont make what id like them to make (i love to see a modern day ultra 64 pathos) but the quality of their stuff is still good and sells well.
Nintendo needs to make their own cellphone capable of playing nintendo games. Would cell like hot cakes.
As far as missing out... if they make another system they better be sure its not an entire generation hardware wise. They need more strong new ips and get back to the roots of the feel of their current franchises... the last several scroller mario games have lost the feel.
Indie devs would be nice but they need tighter quality control on them than the competitors.
I love the game pad. I love the graphics. I can't wait until games are actually made for this hardware to use what it does best. This gives you things even XboxOne and PS4 cannot. It blows PS3 and XBOX360 out of the water for the small handful of games that are available on both.
If only they would have marketed better and not named it Wii..... anything.
Once people realize this isn't anything like the Wii, people will see that gaming with the WiiU is a very entertaining experience.
Pokemon X and Y have sold 4 million copies worldwide in two days.
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/10/15/pokemon-x-and-y-sales-figures-revealed
The retail price for those games is about $40.
If they license that content out to another platform, they lose a non trivial cut of that cash to the platform owner. If they release on the iPhone, I do not think the title would sell very well to an audience that expects everything to cost $1.
$40 * 4 million = $160 million in sales.
Do you think Pokemon would move 160 million paid sales on the iPhone?
Keeping that product on their own platform will give Nintendo the bulk of that profit, and it will help increase the size of the audience for other 3DS titles.
END COMMUNICATION
I think articles like these are bigger indicator of problems for Apple and Google. The IPhone was released in 2007 and and 6 years later consumers are still jealous of Nintendo properties. The only reason this article was written is because the author wants to play Pokemon. Meanwhile most IPhone success stories can be played on everything from browsers to the PSP Vita.
The #1 reason that I ditched Nintendo - no freaking adult games. You blew it Nintendo and didn't put out enough games for adults.
Secondly, as a hard core gamer I have no desire to be waving controllers around, motion control sucks.
If Xbox One would allow the use of a keyboard and trackball I would consider moving from PC gaming to Xbox One.
Good Question.....I'd mod you up if I had points..
Nintendo are indeed a great company when it comes to producing some of the more iconic games and devices they were played on although keeping up with the Playstation and Xbox giants (well, not really Xbox One) is getting more difficult with the newer consoles..... so.... I personalyl would like to see Nintendo porting their games to Steam and the new SteamOS and going for a platform that's automatically kept up to date with new pc models always being released and concentrate on the games once more :)
How would that work? Bundling controllers has worked with disc games for consoles, such as Dance Dance Revolution and Rock Band and Wii Fit. But the App Store for iPhone acts more like Wii Shop: people add an iTunes card and use that to pay for downloads. Would people buy the hardware and it'd come with an iTunes card to buy the game?
... after owning a succession of Nintendo systems over decades while raising three sons as a computer-geek adult gamer, Nintendo's stature as a gaming system peaked with the 64. The WII sucked (and continues to suck today). The new WII sucks worse. I own one of each, and here are a few of their manifold flaws:
* Expensive, especially for what you get.
* Game availability strictly limited, and the games that exist suck with literally only one or two exceptions. Like Zelda, Zelda, and Zelda. And maybe one or two more that aren't completely terrible, but compared to the PS-series? Major laugh (we have a PS3 upstairs too, and had a PS2 in its day and always have game-class PC's as well. We don't have a PS4 prepurchased at this point because my kids are all out of the house and nobody is bugging me to get one -- yet -- but I'm guessing that in a year or three we will for the next generation of grandchildren as they come of age if not my college-age kids coming home for Christmas).
* The Wii Mii actually managed to out-suck the Wii. It's toplevel operating system is insane. No, I don't want to have to generate an avatar that forcibly participates in a faked-out social media experience designed to convince an idiot or small child that the interface is somehow "cool". It is a total PITA to boot, get through the setup, and listen to its eternal background music with Zeldoid-chirps representing avatar communications until you actually start up an app to shut it up. Even children don't need that or find an app layout over/around a crowd of avatars to be "simple". Adults or teens find it absolutely mind-numbing.
* I'm still telling it to ignore an email loopback step in the network setup every time it reboots. Why? Why is this there in the first place? It will ignore it forever; it just forces me to hit one extra icon during startup over and over and over and doesn't in any meaningful way interfere with the only thing I want the damn thing to do, which is hook into my wireless network and function. I Do Not Need for it to validate some sort of marketing link with Nintendo that effectively gives them my email address as a target for an eternity of spambot activity. Nothing else it does needs to know about my avatar either. In fact, it doesn't need an avatar system at all.
* The secondary Wii Mii pad looks cool at first, but in practice it turns out to be a PITA. It has an active backlit screen and tiny battery, so you cannot run it for as long as one single evening of watching e.g. Amazon or Netflix (my primary use for it these days) unless it is permanently plugged into the USB cable. Apps tend to split functionality between the controller pad and the screen in an unusual way as well -- the Amazon app for example has you constantly switching between the pad and the screen to look for icons to click or functions to press. The old Wii with a basic nunchuk controller was far easier to use, as you only had to look one place and although that controller has ITS flaws as well, they are at least compensated for by being able to actually use swords or fish in Zelda.
* The MII operating system was initially a bugfarm with serious networking problems. That's gradually diminished with updates, but both Netflix and Amazon's movie app have serious buffering issues in spite of the fact that I've got 30 Mbps internet into the house.
In the end, I would have been better off spending the money on any of the following:
* A laptop to plug the TV directly in to. That way I could play the full range of PC games e.g. WoW, use the system to work in linux, watch netflix or amazon movies or DVDs, and so on.
* Almost any set-top box. Less than half the price and all I functionally give up is Zelda, and I've already DONE Zelda. I keep going to Best Buy thinking "Maybe today Nintendo will have released a halfway decent Wii/Mii game", and every time I am disappointed.
* An android tablet. My galaxy tab has an HDMI cable that lets me use it almost exactly the same way that the Mii pad works, o
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Sure the WiiU isn't a success as much as they would like. But it leaves Nintendo with what I consider a great position in the play field. MS & Sony spent a ton of money on their new "next gen" systems, which compared to current PC terms, aren't really next gen. Nintendo can spend the next 2 years designing a new console. They don't need to hurry, they can get it right. Cheap, powerful, and better then "next gen" consoles that will be here in a few months.
Build up a decent online market/hang out place. Make sure you have the correct games out at launch. Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Pokemon.
While controllers like a Wiimote are nice, make it so all the games have the ability to run with a normal gamepad, so games don't force you to use it for some gimmick move, when could play the game fine with a normal gamepad.
Backwards compatability won't be necessary because WiiU units can still be sold for cheap.
Be seeing you...
The Wii had more indie tripe on it then any other recent console. I can't see where they conclusion comes from.
We've heard this countless times.
Nintendo: Doomed since 1889
What nintendo needs to consider is going back to what i call the old school roots that made them successful. Make the next console to replace the Wii-U use cartridges again considering that nowaday's we have USB flash drives that can hold up to 512gb currently and in the future up to 1 or even 2TB. When you look at back in the N64 days the cartridges held maybe 64-128mb worth of data it's kind of mind-blowing what they can do now with the same size cartridges if not even bigger or smaller and how much data they could hold in them. And go back to the old school gamecube controller or update it but keep it comfortable to use.
The one main reason I haven't gotten a Wii-U is because of the insistence on using that silly IMHO mini-tablet controller and the fact that you apparantly can't reuse old gamecube controllers and even play Gamecube games on it something which the original Wii was quite good at with Gamecube compatability until it was removed in later models.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
fucking slashdot.
don't ever change.
if you're company stops growing, even for just a bit, the investors eat you alive. There's even a name for it: Bained, after former Presidential Candidate Mitt Rhomney's old company made the practice well known.
Nintendo is a Japanese company, so they might not be vulnerable to it though. But for us here in America we're wondering if they'll get cut to pieces by their investors.
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How about a Nintendo child safe smart phone, that you can purchase games that you know your kids will love? One that doesn't need a data plan
Would that be an Japan and Europe-only product? I don't think Nintendo of America would want to market something that no major U.S. carrier would be willing to carry, namely a smartphone intended for use with voice-only service. Yes, a 3DS/2DS with cellular telephony would still be considered a smartphone, as the current 3DS/2DS has a web browser based on NetFront.
It would be a sad, sad world without Nintendo. Especially for pre-teen children. Only exposing kids to games on iOS or Android is like only letting them watch things on Youtube. Sure you can get cheap games in app stores but that is like arguing you are not going to pay for your kids to see Star Wars VII at a cinema because they can watch Battle Beyond the Stars for free on Youtube.
Think about whether you want your kids to be in the 10% of the population that can complete the first level of Super Mario Bros or whether you want them to be one of the morons pouring money into the latest digital crack coin grind that Zynga and their ilk are selling.
Have you played Mario Kart? It would be horrible without hardware controls. If it ever made it to mobile phones it would be so retarded that it would no longer be the same game. There are plenty of Mario Kart rip offs on app stores now for you to experience how horrible it would be.
Plus, if they release to Android it will be pirated mercilessly.
I think it's hilarious every time people pretend Nintendo is down for the count and out of the fight.
As an outside observer (who watches journalistic sources like Gametrailers and Angry Joe, but not shills like Kotaku) I've noticed (and welcomed) how Nintendo is finally open to criticism. It's understandable that they were so beloved for so long that it took a while before anyone would deign honest reviews or criticisms.
But there we have it - the big N has finally hit a point where it's not viewed as being made of pure Holy Materia. That transition is huge and it might FEEL like a fall from grace, but it's more of a fall into grace.
In related news, the PC is still not dead ;)
Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
The one thing that nintendo has and still is dominating it is mobile gaming. Smart phone games are practically in a market of there own and will never have significant impact on handheld gaming consoles cause people don't buy smart phones & tablets for gaming.
I've been reading iterations of basically the same article since the virtual boy fiasco, and that was 18 years ago. You don't have to like or understand their games or their business strategy, but its working, it pulled the company trough the low selling game cube and to the wii cash cow. They been doing this for quite a long a time, maybe they know what they are doing.
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