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How Can Nintendo Recover?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Nintendo's revenue and profits are tumbling faster than Mario into a bottomless pit. Company executives recently suggested the next-generation Wii U console would sell 2.8 million units between April 2013 and March 2014 — significantly below the 9 million units predicted in previous estimates. Contrast that with Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, which sold 4.2 million and 3 million units, respectively, in their first six weeks of release. In lowering its hardware and software estimates, Nintendo also expects to take a loss by the end of its fiscal year in March. Nintendo's attempt to carve a niche for itself as an ecosystem for casual gamers has also run into a massive obstacle in the form of smartphones and tablets, which quickly developed into popular gaming platforms. Nintendo is reportedly considering a 'new business model,' according to Bloomberg, with its CEO telling a gathering of reporters in Osaka: 'Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone.' While Nintendo could probably made some good money off legacy gamers by bringing its (much loved) portfolio of older titles to iOS, Android, and other platforms, that move to mobile might further weaken its hardware sales. So what do you think? If you were in charge of Nintendo, how would you turn it around?"
Its overpriced. Nintendos market is for those who want a cheap and cheerful video game system for the kids
not the people who want to pay $60 a game. If they had released something like an updated wii with a regular controller
for $100 less it would have sold like crazy. Basically their target market wanted an updated WII not the montrosity that
was the wii U.
Seriously Nintendo, upgrade your compilers! We're sick and tired of CodeWarrior.
Where I once saw kids play Mario on a Nintendo DS, today I see kids play Minecraft of iPads.
Apple crushed Nintendo by creating iOS devices and opening up it's platform to indie devs for a minimal fee. If I wanted to start coding for Nintendo.... how would I do it, and how much would I have to pay in licensing? I have no idea, and I wouldn't know where to look.
It would seem easier to go for the tablet ecosystem that most people have and is more easily accessible. I think not only did Apple destroy the Nintendo casual market with iOS devices, but also through leeching potential developers.
Also, if I were Nintendo, I would be grovelling to get Mojang to port Minecraft over (Mojang says that they're "too busy"). So far..... nothing... and it's so stupid as to why not because the game is really something Nintendo should have been able to create, and it's a perfect fit for the system. It's just a shame too that with all Nintendo's game dev talent, this something as much fun hasn't eventuated from them, and it's been Mario after Zelda after Donkey Kong.
Nintendo is also locked itself out of the hardcore market for this gen too. So unless they want to make a Super-Duper Nintendo like in the 16-bit war days and compete again, they're going to lose gamers there.
All Nintendo has left is good game devs and some great IP.... and perhaps more trust with parents than the Apple kids-ingame-payments-debarcle has done to Apple's platform.
READY.
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Nintendos market is for those who want a cheap and cheerful video game system for the kids not the people who want to pay $60 a game.
Nintendo's problem is that this isn't Nintendo's market anymore; it has become the App Store and Google Play market. The big advantage of a 2DS/3DS over an iPod touch or iPad mini is that iPod touch and iPad mini ship with only the positional control (a multitouch screen), not directional or discrete trigger controls (the Circle Pad, Control Pad, and buttons). And not everyone wants to buy a $40 Bluetooth controller that clamps onto a tablet just to play a $10 or cheaper game.
I don't think this is what you want.
Required reading for internet skeptics
odnetniN.
Dr. Mario Vs. Proctologist Simulator 2013
It's a winner no matter which way you look up it.
Silence is a state of mime.
I would argue that Nintendo's problem isn't that its market has moved to mobile, the problem they face is that the market they want and need (console gamers) has moved on without them. I can't think of a single third-party developed game on a Nintendo console that excited me since Capcom put a bunch of Resident Evil games out on the GameCube. Nintendo itself owns a nice catalog of IP but you can only make so many Mario and Zelda games before the golden goose stops laying eggs. They need other developers making new titles, and good ones. They need a 'killer app.' People stopped buying Nintendo consoles for Mario after the GameCube and quit buying them for Zelda after the Wii. Nobody has bought an N console for a third-party game since the '64. Frankly, the last one I owned was a Super and now I play the remakes of the great games of that console on Sony and Microsoft systems, or emulate the originals on my PC or mobile. Nintendo is not Sony or Microsoft; their problems will not go away eventually by propping up their game division losses with profits in other sectors. They need good games or they are done in a few quarters of bad losses.
Didn't even realize that Wii U was substantively different from Wii. In fact, based on this story and the context here, still can't tell.
What would have been wrong with "Wii 2" which offers a much clearer indication that it's a next generation console? (If, in fact, it is a next generation console.)
First thing that comes to my mind with "Wii U" is that it's the educational version of the Wii.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I would first crowdsource ideas over the internet to find the leaders of the future, those who can think outside the box. Then I would invest a million dollars into this bananaquackmoo, he seems to have smart ideas.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Sega's mistake was not having good hardware, it was having too much hardware. They were told that the Genesis was great, a few years later it was the Sega CD, then almost immediately after that was 32X, then almost immediately it was the Dreamcast. Customers who liked Sega had the original Genesis (not talking Master SYstem), but then two quick updates then a new console. Frankly, Sega broke the bank on the DreamCast by asking their customers to buy too much too fast. Too much hardware. That is a good reason for the Big N to stick with the U for a while, develop it, make it cheaper than the PS4 and the XBox One, still get 1080p @ 60fps, release some exclusives, wait several years in order not to burnout their core client base like Sega did. They can't bail on the U for financial reasons and for the games already in the pipe, and they can't make a U2 because it will burn current customers. Once Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash Bro, etc come out, it will be comfortable again... you doubters and haters
I like playing on my big screen with my kids, our handheld devices don't facilitate family interaction. Nintendo effed up.
I think you overestimate how quickly consoles sell. You point to the 4.2 million and 3 million figures as evidence of declining console sales, and yet, the PS4 and Xbone had the best launches in the history of the industry.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
And schools are feeding this full-force, many schools are moving away from computers to iPads in the USA (Lucky Apple and schools, because it isn't moving to tablets but specifically iPads).
Nintendo always had games very well targeted to children.
The current crop of kiddies see tablets as part of their identity and there isn't any reversing this for Nintendo. It is over for Nintendo.
The XBox is a different story because it is a "serious" casual gaming machine and not being devoured by such a market change. [But will probably succumb to a future market change, in 3 years or less smartphones will happen to have full-fledged game console capabilities, many efforts underway even 2-3 years back heading that direction particular with Android.]
In the end, only one device can win and it was always destined to be the smart phone due to portability --- laptop/desktop sales are falling very quickly which is a bit disturbing (Tablets +69%, computers 14% drop in units sold).
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
I'd go one step farther, and say that what's killing Nintendo is their tight-fisted control over their platform. If Nintendo made it easier and cheaper to develop for their platform, as opposed to (reportedly) charging thousands of dollars for an SDK under NDA, they'd be in much better shape right now.
All those potential developers who they've turned down over the years have moved on to develop games for iOS and Android, and are now Nintendo's competition. It's what I've been saying for years—the strength of a platform is entirely dependent on the size and vigor of its third-party developer community. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The answer is adult content.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
But the smartphone is a miserable gaming platform.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Excite Truck, Mario, Kid Icarus, Dr. Luigi, etc are not Japan-themed, and the only series that looks like anime is Fire Emblem and Pokemon, but the market seems to love those, especially Pokemon, and it has an actual anime attached to it! I think your theory is more than a little off.
Twinstiq, game news
The Secret Developers talk about how difficult it was developing a title for the Wii U.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
I was dismissive of the Wii-U at first. I thought it was a bone-headed move.
The truth is, a year later I looked at the system again. I looked at the games that have come out, and there were a lot of interesting games!
I decided to buy one last month, and gimmick or not, it is a seriously fun console. I much prefer to play my Wii U than my friend's PS4. It's not even just the 1st party titles either.
I feel like Wii U is a disaster not because it isn't a fun game system with fun games, but because of cynical, close-minded, jaded gamers who think they are too cool to play on a console that they believe is a kiddie console.
I still have my doubts about whether the extra tablet/screen was necessary, but it has added a lot to some games.