Nintendo Could Base Comeback On Improving Peoples' Health

Nerval's Lobster writes: "It's no secret that Nintendo faces significant challenges: revenues are down, rival platforms such as Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 are attracting a lot of buzz, and iOS and Android have made significant inroads into mobile gaming. Rather than double down on its core business, however, Nintendo reportedly sees its salvation in new, nongaming segments such as... monitoring your health? 'We have now redefined entertainment to mean making it fun for people to improve the quality of their lives,' Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata told a company strategy meeting, according to The Wall Street Journal. But he refused to part with more detail about Nintendo's plans, except to claim that whatever's in the works isn't a wearable device along the lines of Nike's FuelBand or the FitBit, and it isn't an iteration of the Wii Balance Board, an accessory that measures the user's weight and center of balance while playing games."

Comments

Game System for Improving People's Health

[korbulon]

It urges you to go out for a walk and then turns itself off.

Re:Great plan Nintendo

[Sockatume]

Nintendo released Wii Fit about five years ago, Walk With Me for the DS about four years ago, the 3DS with a step counter three years ago, were discussing a Wii pulse reader until two years ago, and just last year released a new version of Wii Fit that incorporates an upgraded version of Walk With Me.

I know that's a bit much to go over but you've been so spectacularly counterfactual that I have to wonder if you just hid away from gaming entirely for the last half decade to have drawn the conclusion that it was "the latest bandwagon" for the company.

Anything to not admit they screwed up

[MikeRT]

Nintendo's management seems incapable of admitting that their current situation is the direct result of them seeing if they can make a human ouroboros by shoving their heads so far up their asses they're nibbling on their stomach lining. Their hardware is woefully underpowered, they are not embracing small developers even remotely as well as their competition and no one wants to admit the obvious. They didn't have to release the Wii U when they did. They could easily have afforded to release a new console around last Christmas with similar specs to the XBone PS4. They could have even released one that was a bit weaker, but broke even and gotten third party support by waving most of the licensing costs for the first two years for anyone willing to make a game for their system. Heck they could have create a Nintendo quality Ouya-like system and turned the console market on its head.

But Nintendo did what Nintendo does. They pretended that their brand is still so strong that they can do what they've always done and ignore the fact that Microsoft opened half of the seals of the video game apocalypse by creating the XBox which is a steady progression from gaming toy to a powerful, dedicated and cheap entertainment PC that is open to developers. The fact that Super Mario World 3D sold so poorly when it came out should have been an indicator to Nintendo that they need to clean house and hire people who seem to actually understand what is going on in the market today. This isn't 1992. Nintendo faces real competition with much stronger backing than Sega ever could have brought to bear.

Re:Anything to not admit they screwed up

[Sockatume]

The WiiU's performance has little to do with it launching 18 months before the PS4 and Xbone. They could've launched a system maybe 80% as powerful as either of those using the parts available, as opposed to something that's 120% as powerful as a PS3 or 360. The low performance is a design trade-off that was necessary if they wanted to have that touchscreen controller in the box and a price south of $500. Nintendo did well betting on low prices, new input methods and low performance on the Wii; unfortunately, they bet wrong by attempting to repeat the trick in an era where mobile pricing has put cheap gaming into a "race to the bottom".

They should've staked out the high end with Sony and MS where mobile is less disruptive, but the WiiU would have been too far along in development by the time that issue became clear. (Sony have recently remarked that they could tell the Vita was going to have problems with mobile well before it launched in 2012, and have had to try to change the console's goals without the opportunity to change actual product.)

Re:Anything to not admit they screwed up

[blackraven14250]

Still not quite on the money. They fucked up, yes, but it has nothing to do with where they positioned the console on price and performance. Their main issue, which has been an issue for every single Nintendo console since the SNES, is the timing of their first party games, combined with their third party developer support. Nintendo has a history of weak third party releases, with games that aren't quite up to par on their console and general lack of releases, which means they rely heavily on first party development. However, where's the first party support for WiiU? It was there for Wii and heavily pushed consoles out the door, it was there for the 3DS and outright saved the console, and on and on. On WiiU, excluding remakes like Winwaker HD, they're lacking games from many of their major franchises right now, with no release dates in sight. There's no Mario Kart, no (new) Zelda, no new Metroid, no new Donkey Kong, no new Smash Bros., no Pokemon, and I could rattle off many more franchises that just don't have games for the new console, and don't have any announced entries with a release date to fill the void. Nintendo has this terrible habit of releasing a console with weak first party support when that's what sustains their entire business model, and with WiiU, the future doesn't look bright specifically because of their lack of announced titles with release dates.

Given all this news about Nintendo lately, I bet their stock is tanking. If I knew there was a Pokemon coming in the next year, I'd buy as much stock as I could, because everyone knows that Pokemon alone outright sells consoles.

Re:Anything to not admit they screwed up

[Xest]

To be fair I think Nintendo could've pulled it off fine with the Wii U, I think they still could. The games they do have on it are actually really good.

I'd argue the problem is the price point. They were charging £280 for a console underpowered enough to justify only £150 (which is what I got mine for).

I remember I used to pay £130 or so for a Nintendo console, I know inflation and all that but if they went for the £130 - £150 price point as standard I think they'd do far better.

The issue all along has been that they've entered the pricing realm of premium hardware and software (£250+ console, £40 games) with budget offerings.

Even with the Wii it was quite cheap and they made all their money on the accessories - Wii Motes, Nunchucks, Classic controllers, Balance borders - it all stacked up to make the Wii more expensive than the 360/PS3 yet people are more comfortable buying their experience a la carte because it lowers the upfront cost. If they had a bunch of games supporting two of their touchscreen gamepads and sold those separately they'd do much better selling the console for £130 and selling those separately at like £60 each or whatever.

People would far more happily pay £130 for the Wii U with a pro controller, and Super Mario Bros etc. then add up the touchscreen game pads later on and so forth for things like Pikmin and Lego City Undercover.

People weren't going to pay markedly more than a 360/PS3 for something no more powerful and with far less games, and that's where they really fucked up - their price point. They got greedy.

Re:Anything to not admit they screwed up

[Gravis Zero]

Their hardware is woefully underpowered, ... They could easily have afforded to release a new console around last Christmas with similar specs to the XBone PS4.

this is nothing new. from the very beginning, nintendo has always gone with slower and inexpensive hardware. how were they so successful? they are marketing geniuses, they have always focused on graphics versus cpu speed and sell their systems for less.

- They made a ton of money selling Gameboys because they came out with a zillion flavors of it. Gameboy was released later in several different colors.
  Then they came out with Gameboy Pocket. Then Gameboy Color which was a small hardware/software tweak (4 shades of gray turned into 4 different colors).

- NES/SNES/GB/GBA/NDS/GC/WII were all slower than their competitors but they focus on graphics abilities

- The rest of their consoles were cheap-o crap parts and so they could sell their systems for less. They got burned with the N64 because put in much better
  hardware which made it more expensive. the playstation was cheaper and the games too because CDs are much cheaper to make than carts.

hardware capabilities have less to do with selling units than good marketing strategies.

Re:Anything to not admit they screwed up

[bluefoxlucid]

Nintendo has shot for low-price high-value. I am consistently impressed with Nintendo, and unimpressed with Sony and Microsoft catering. Old Sega also was impressive--the DreamCast was fantastic, the games on it were iffy though; third-party vastly outperformed first-party, contrary to Nintendo's habit of releasing impossibly awesome first-party games like Zelda and Metroid.

Nintendo always had the best controllers. The dog bone on the SNES was slightly more ergonomic than Sega's croissant; the N64 mis-step wasn't so bad, and brought plenty of improvements over older designs; the Game Cube had the best handheld controller in history (Dual Shock is close, hence why Sony abandoned the banana); and then they just completely jumped to a new platform with the Wii. Wii U was a mis-step like N64: interesting concept, but... this time I think the multi-screen thing is "a nice idea that we can't make work". Meanwhile the competition has the Kinect: an upgraded EyeToy, not really a new platform; it gets a lot of talk but I don't know of anyone who really uses that as a primary controller for any reasonable amount of play (remember: the Wiimote is THE controller); I liken the Kinect to the Wii Balance Board in that respect, maybe even the WiiU game pad--intended to be primary, but let's face it... we all prefer the Wiimote and use it wherever possible.

Nintendo has put out some of the best games--they even started entire concepts like the MetroidVania style of gameplay present in Zelda and Metroid (and Castlevania, eventually). Microsoft has put out Halo--a session game, not a play-through game. Sony put out a platform, and occasionally Crash Bandicoot--the same bargain-bin shovelware as all the other no-name LJN shit. Nintendo platforms have hosted the greats--Capcom, Square, Enix, even Sega came to Nintendo after their downfall, although they make shit games now.

And what have they fallen to? XBox One? Don't kid yourself. Nintendo falls to... Android. To iOS. None of us saw this coming; we all saw the writing on the wall, commented about it in jest, but who really expected cell phones to break Nintendo? People don't want epics; they want time wasters, amazing graphical eye-candy or stupid little Angry Birds shit. Square-Enix isn't solidly fixed on Nintendo as they were ages ago; Capcom is still the top-of-the-line, but now people have lost interest--Capcom still does exactly what they did so long ago, but people have moved on just as they had from fighting games to RPGs to racing games to FPS. Once upon a time, the Playstation was shiny and exciting; but people lost interest by PS2... Final Fantasy and Gran Turisimo drove people to the PS2 (I hated racing games, but was in the RPG crowd). Now Nintendo faces the same, but all the shiny things are on cell phones.

Thus Nintendo does what it always has done: they do all they can, the best they can, and await results. They also cheat a little. Nintendo emerged from the smoking wreckage of the 1984 Video Game Crash with Rob the Robotic Operating Buddy, selling their game console as a "robotic toy" because KB Toys wouldn't stock a "Video Game". Now they're selling "Fitness Trainers". They've gone to digital distribution, but they'll have to open their distribution channel more so that more indie developers can get on it, and so rolling patches don't cost $3000 a pop. Indie games are crowd-pleasers: they're the last vestiges of the powerful and brilliant hand of the market, the one motivated by creativity and idealism and need rather than profit and security. People just put whatever they think would be awesome in indie games; they often fail--you don't hear about those--but once in a while you get a black swan like Hell Yeah or Braid.

If I were Nintendo, I would open the franchises. I'd create the new genre of NonCan, non-cannon third-party use of assets. Metroid SR388, Rockman X Infinity, Super Metroid Invincible Edition, etc. Stamp official permission on any damn thing with your own name on it, let people invent new game play elements for you, take a royalty if it's sold and pay one if you redistribute. That will draw some serious attention.

Re: Anything to not admit they screwed up

[LocalH]

GBC was more than turning the grey into color. It surpassed even the Super Game Boy in total color count (excluding the SGB OBJ mode which almost no games used). It also increased the CPU speed. It certainly wasn't a four-color system unless you were playing legacy GB games.

NES/SNES weren't really slower than their counterparts. Sure, the number of CPU cycles per second was lower. However, the 6502-based architecture had lower IPC than the Z80 and 68000, and if you analyze that you'll see that the NES/SNES were a lot more competitive in performance than you might think by CPU speed alone.

Guru Meditation error...

[VVelox]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

When I here the Wii balance board mentioned, that is what I think of.

Re:Feels pretty backward

[Trepidity]

I don't really see a "match Sony on poly-pushing" strategy being a good idea, though. Nintendo's audience has never been people looking for max poly count and photorealistic graphics, and their strong franchises haven't gone in that direction either. They could well lose out anyway, but I don't think the console's CPU or GPU is really their problem.

I think health and fitness are important

[aiadot]

and profitable. Nintendo making things like VR based fitness arcade centers or interactive rehabilitation training methods using all their gaming hardware and software expertise is not a difficult thing to imagine. Let alone education. There is so much they could do without being the cheesy shit that are most edutertainment games. If they are willing to take risks and develop their own medical devices they could, but they could also partner with Japanese medical equipment start-ups(or even sony, as they also make medical equipment).

But ignoring the core problems, in particular with the home console divisions, is far from ideal. If want to ignore their home console problems, might as well go third party.

One thing that bothers me is that, while the WiiU is not selling well, the 3DS is selling like crazy, including hardware and software. The only reason I can see them not making good money are internal management/administrative problems. Another is thing is that you don't need to have the absolute majority of the market to be profitable. They know that first hand from the N64 and Gamecube eras. Seeing all this negativity and lack of confidence coming from inside the company would be really bad if I were a shareholder. I'm much more bothered by this than the bad revenues.

Reinventing a fad

[Akratist]

When the Wii came out, people who were not typical gamers embraced it because they saw it was a way to have fun and stay active. However, the novelty wore off and most of the people who bought them at that point have not done much with them since. I don't see another round of trying to tap into the same market as going anywhere at all for them, this time around.

Re:Lol

[CastrTroy]

Speak for yourself. As far as games go, Most of the games I enjoy are more cartoon than real life. Not everything has to be about ultra-violence to be fun. I play games to relax, and traditional Nintendo games like Mario and Zelda titles allow me to do that.

Bring back the NES Track matt!

[BisuDagger]

Nothing has given me a better work out then running on that old NES track matt and the one I own is still function. The best part is, when you get tired or can't run fast enough you get on your knees and start smacking the pad with your hands for that extra boost. It's been 20 years now but I'm sure I'll finally beat cheetah this time!

Repeating another failure?

[HockeyPuck]

I seem to recall a few friends of mine that purchased Wii Fit and that balance board. The balance board was used the day they unwrapped it and now while the wii fit sits in the closet the balance board continues to sit under the TV where it has sat since the day it was unwrapped.

So now Nintendo's strategy is to push Wii Fit again? Is their market the elderly in retirement homes?

Well.. i guess their next move is to release yet another version of Mario...

Re:Kind of serves them right

[Nyder]

Nintendo's problem is and always has been they put the bare minimum spec hardware in their devices, make a big fanfare of some gimmick, charge an arm and a leg for it and hope they can coast far enough for the next gimmick to show up. ...

Actually, you are very wrong. Nintendo put out a bunch of successful consoles, without gimmicks for decades. NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, Nintendo DS. During that time only 1 gimmicky item, the Virtual Boy. I wouldn't call most of those consoles bare minimum hardware specs either.

The Wii was the first "real" console with a gimmick, the wiimote. And underpowered hardware. And it did well. And Nintendo has been behind the curve since then.

IMO, Nintendo needs to get back to it's roots. A lot of it's fan base is older now. We don't want to jump around, or wave our arms to play games. We want to use a controller and have fun. We got big TV's that can really support 4 way and 2 way gaming at the same time. So you know, our kids (not that I have any) can play with us, and have fun with us.

And I'm going to keep saying this, where the fuck is my Pokemon MMORPG? The fact that there hasn't been one only shows how Nintendo doesn't understand the gaming market anymore (IMO).