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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?"
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.
...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.
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.
always have and always will...
And it's that attitude at Nintendo that has been their problem for 20 years now--blindly assuming that since they were on top once that they'll always have a guaranteed place in the console world, no matter how much the competition (or world) passes them by. Many a company has followed that kind of arrogance right into bankruptcy.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
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
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.
You could have said the exact same thing about the PC vs consoles for the past 30 years, and yet, consoles keep on kicking.
The PC didn't kill consoles for the same reason that smartphones won't - People don't want to screw around with variable configurations and unknown levels of performance and controller compatibility. They want a known-working machine such that they can buy a game, put it in, turn it on, and have it work exactly the same way as it did last time, as it does for everyone else, as the manufacturer intended it to work.
Ironically, I see modern consoles as their own biggest enemy in that regard - Forced upgrades that break older features, forced online play even for simple single-player games, DRM that (especially for new releases) fails to authenticate the player as often as it works, for-pay premium content in games you've already bought... The console companies have done their damnedest to shift the experience as far as possible away from their one and only edge over general purpose devices: "it just works". Until... It doesn't.
On the other hand, it's also premature to declare a company dead when their console one generation back was a huge success, and their handhelds are still extremely popular. On top of that, it's easier than ever to not be "locked in" to a policy of not supporting indie developers with everything being on the cloud now.
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.
Nintendo also found a way to appeal to old people and fairly infirm people. Nintendo was the first to make a practical break from the up-down-left-right-a-b controller to something that worked without needing to push buttons, depending on the game. Yes, Nintendo is now going to have to compete with other nontraditional controller systems, but they're up for the task.
There's a lot of money to be made in appealing to non-hard-core gamers, in appealing to those who might casually game, but aren't going to play every day or even every week. There are lot more of those than there are hard-core gamers, and if you can get significant market penetration in a group that probably shouldn't even care, then you can make a lot of money.
Nintendo appears to be able to do that, moreso than other companies. Sega's position was what the other game makers' positions are today, and it ultimately cost them when they slipped and their hard-core gaming clientele left, and they didn't have a casual gaming business to sustain them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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 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.
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
Since the ps4 and xbone aren't out yet, it would be rather unfair to show that the Wii U is outselling them.
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.
The Wii only achieved an odd form of success though. While lots of people bought it and Nintendo profited on the sales of the consoles, nowadays they're just sitting on people's shelves unused. Even with that kind of market saturation is it successful if the average Wii owner has, what, less than 5 games? Less than 2? I don't know the answer but if something is purchased but then rarely used it's only a partial success. They have to sell games too.
Actually, unlike Microsoft and Sony, all Nintendo has to do is sell the system and they've already made a profit, even on launch day.
As far as selling games goes, well let's take a look at the top selling games across all consoles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#All_Consoles
If we disregard Wii Sports (since it was included for free) and all previous generation consoles, then we have the following:
Mario Kart Wii
Wii Sports Resort (some of these were included, but some were purchases separately
Wii Play
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Wii Fit
Wii Fit Plus
GTA V
That's 5 or 6 top sellers for the Wii (depending on if you count Resort), and only 2 for the competition. Looks like they aren't hurting too bad. But what about just the overall total of all games sold for the console, worldwide?
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/
Wii: 901 million games
360: 826 million games
PS3: 749 million games
Yep, that is indeed an odd form of success. Most hardware sold (with none of it sold at a loss), and most games sold. What a total failure.
Oh, and since you said you didn't know the answer about the tie-ratio:
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-Ratio/Global/
Wii: 8.99
360: 10.48
PS3: 9.35
So yeah, they are on the bottom of that metric, but still very respectable...only 4% lower than the PS3 and 15% lower than the 360. Not bad at all considering all those system supposedly sitting unused on shelves.
The Wii sold almost 50% more games than the PS3 over its lifespan. This stereotype that everyone bought it for Wii Sports and then chucked it in a closet isn't reflected in the sales numbers at all.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.