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?"

Comments

Yes, They Can

[rsmith-mac]

*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.

Re:smash bros

[Strawser]

Damn. Meant GT5. Maybe I should have bought a pair of glasses to proof my posts with, instead.

Re:Nintendo is here to stay!

[TWX]

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.