the wii saw sin & punishment, punch-out, the last story, xenoblade, excite trucks, and a ton of other shit. i don't know where you were. the wii is a really poor example of a system where nintendo played it safe.
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Lets talk about Nintendo going 3rd party (from an economics perspective)
- Thread starter MercuryLS
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the wii saw sin & punishment, punch-out, the last story, xenoblade, excite trucks, and a ton of other shit. i don't know where you were. the wii is a really poor example of a system where nintendo played it safe.
Crash Station
Member
Look past the AAA and you'll find a ton. Unless of course you only look at the major EADs, but that doesn't represent all of Nintendo.
In fact, those non-EAD teams would be totally gone outside Game Freak if Nintendo were to go 3rd party.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
Nintendo would make a fraction of the games they currently make, I hope it does not happen.
Also, one page and people already saying Nintendo only does Mario/Zelda/Pokemon? lol
Also, one page and people already saying Nintendo only does Mario/Zelda/Pokemon? lol
Apophis2036
Banned
After seeing MK8 on WiiU, I salivate as to what they could create on PS4 (a console with a GPU 10x as powerful and 8x, much faster RAM). It would be as close to Pixar visuals in real time as anyone has gotten.
At this point it's a chore to boot my WiiU up and deal with that fucking tablet lol, if there was the option I would just play MK8, Smash, Bayo 2, X and Zelda on my PS4 even though I bought WiiU on day one...
I'm a massive Nintendo fan, have been playing their games and owned their hardware since '87 but at some point you have to say enough is enough. WiiU is drastically limiting their own potential software sales. How many copies is Zelda U going to sell on a less than 10 million install base in late 2015 when Skyward Sword sold less than 4 million copies on a 100 million install base ?.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
No compelling reason to do so. WiiU's current difficulties is not enough for them to change their entire, core business model and identity. It's one slump in a string of consoles and handhelds that have managed to do well in one shape or another.
JordanN
Banned
Well I'm kinda confused now because some of those games, I don't understand why they would be gone as a third party. For example, Wii Chess.
Well someone said "you're not getting metroid when they're a third party" but I don't see much metroid around today. Then it was "Nintendo makes other games too" (in response to there being less metroid/star fox etc) but they could still make those games as a third party.
were you planning on having a point sometime today?
To say Nintendo hasn't been focusing hard on big titles such as Mario/DKC/Pokemon as their main sellers at this point and taking risks as done in the Gamecube days is wrong in my book.
I dunno, maybe I was used to the Gamecube/N64/Gameboy days where games from tons of franchises were shown releases, but it seems nowadays this has changed with the Wii U in particular.
Nintendo, semi-rightfully so, has been releasing games such as Mario, DKC, and Pokemon, (nearly annual-izing them at this point,) in hopes to produce games that will sell to the masses.
Sadly Nintendo has been getting to the point where names such as "Mario" are selling lower and lower as we've seen through overuse of the name.
We've seen 19 games featuring Mario since the beginning of 2012. In comparison, we've seen Mario featured in 14 games from 2009-2011. We've been seeing more Mario games than we did in the 90's when we had tons of spin-offs such as educational games and things like Mario Paint. As a result of Nintendo's mishandling of Mario, brilliant games like "3D World" are being outsold by Knack. Fucking Knack.
I think the argument for Nintendo to go fully third-part is dumb however and goes against the whole point of Nintendo itself. Nintendo, through EVERY CEO, has always been about the "experience" of consoles and games they provide. Not being on a Nintendo console, imo, takes away from the experience you'd normally get.
That said, if Nintendo went third-party,which I don't want, you'd be seeing the same exact amount of games you got last and this year, which weren't a lot. They'd continue to be the same size, or perhaps larger, and focus on multiple games in small groups. Sure, we won't see the same things like PushMo. Steel Diver, or e-shop games, but Nintendo would put out FE sequels as much as they normally do,
rarely
never
googleplex
Member
I think Nintendo is done with the traditional "Home console". Nintendo in its current incarnation cannot compete against Sony or MS on features, services or power. They've completely screwed the pooch when it comes to third-party relationships and there are not enough people that are willing to box a "Nintendo only" box.
I think they should create a Nintendo skinned Android based gaming Tablet, Ah la the Kindle fire. Give it TV out and make it compatable with the Wiimote.
I think they should create a Nintendo skinned Android based gaming Tablet, Ah la the Kindle fire. Give it TV out and make it compatable with the Wiimote.
TheOnePercent
Member
What happens when the next console does as badly (or worse) than the Wii U? And the one after that? How long can they realistically stay exclusive?
Apophis2036
Banned
Considering the money they have lost in the past three years, I would say they have at least one more home console left in them, maybe two.
The restructuring that would need to be done to make them 3rd-party would kill all of the things we actually like from Nintendo, so it's not even worth entertaining academically.
You say "attempts", I say token gestures that had enough effort put in to fool the user base into thinking Sony wanted a wider market.
Let me be clear... Sony is chasing the same audience as Microsoft at this point, and there's no sense denying it. But it would be foolish to think that permanently locking in the hardcore audience that labels all-ages Nintendo-ish fare as "teh kiddeh" hasn't been their game plan since day 1. They blatantly choreographed such ambitions.
I'm sure that next, as a counter-argument, you'll tell me how you saw the Wii as competitive with PS3 and 360 back in its first year, too? Because I do so love a good revisionist spin.
You say "attempts", I say token gestures that had enough effort put in to fool the user base into thinking Sony wanted a wider market.
Let me be clear... Sony is chasing the same audience as Microsoft at this point, and there's no sense denying it. But it would be foolish to think that permanently locking in the hardcore audience that labels all-ages Nintendo-ish fare as "teh kiddeh" hasn't been their game plan since day 1. They blatantly choreographed such ambitions.
And this will be the... what, 11th or 12th year in a row that's been true in the eyes of a certain subset of gamers? I can never keep track.
I'm sure that next, as a counter-argument, you'll tell me how you saw the Wii as competitive with PS3 and 360 back in its first year, too? Because I do so love a good revisionist spin.
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
Hardware is over half their revenue but nearly invisible to their margins. Console hardware only makes big money on third party licensing and network paywalls - both of which are alien to Nintendo as it is today. At the end of the day they can certainly do it if they wanted to but I'm uncertain it would end well for them.
Nintendo's hardware woes aren't the problem, they're a symptom of the real issue. Their biggest problem is creative stagnation. Nintendo churns out beautiful, polished and nearly perfect platformers in a world where they're increasingly a niche genre on home consoles. By cranking out Mario, Yoshi, Kirby and Donkey Kong games year after year, Nintendo appears to be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. Where's the diversity to expand and grow the audience? More importantly where are the signs they're growing up with their audience? That home console audience is older and increasingly demands more complex games. Sony in particular has been incredibly adept at getting the same studios that were churning out Nintendoesque platformers like Sly, Crash and Jax to make complex, adult oriented and still amazing games like Infamous, Uncharted and The Last Of Us. Nintendo's problem isn't that the Wii U isn't powerful enough for what they do, its that nothing that they do needs more powerful hardware.
Nintendo isn't going to fare any better as a publisher then they did as a platform owner if they don't start increasing the diversity of their games.
Nintendo's hardware woes aren't the problem, they're a symptom of the real issue. Their biggest problem is creative stagnation. Nintendo churns out beautiful, polished and nearly perfect platformers in a world where they're increasingly a niche genre on home consoles. By cranking out Mario, Yoshi, Kirby and Donkey Kong games year after year, Nintendo appears to be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. Where's the diversity to expand and grow the audience? More importantly where are the signs they're growing up with their audience? That home console audience is older and increasingly demands more complex games. Sony in particular has been incredibly adept at getting the same studios that were churning out Nintendoesque platformers like Sly, Crash and Jax to make complex, adult oriented and still amazing games like Infamous, Uncharted and The Last Of Us. Nintendo's problem isn't that the Wii U isn't powerful enough for what they do, its that nothing that they do needs more powerful hardware.
Nintendo isn't going to fare any better as a publisher then they did as a platform owner if they don't start increasing the diversity of their games.
As a point of fact, Knack didn't even come close to outselling 3D World. Unless only a week's worth of sales in the UK count.
JordanN
Banned
But see, this is where the problem lies.
Nintendo is never going to make more mature IP's like Sony has done. The argument from third party is that the games they currently make, would see more success when that audience is either doubled or tripled.
There's no doubt Wii U is going to have the lowest market share this gen. The money sunk catering to a 7 million audience could be better served against an audience of 20 or 50 million.
As always, people are far too adamant that Nintendo couldn't survive or even thrive as a 3rd party.
1) They don't make that much money on third party royalties. They could live without that money.
2) The massive revenue streams generated by hardware are not that profitable. They have only really made a huge difference during the Wii / DS era. With cheap tablets and phones around, this will most likely never be an area of large profitability ever again. Shut down the hardware side of the business and you lose nothing financially.
3) The big problem would be losing 10-20% of their first party software sales to a platform holder. That's what would hurt like hell, and that's what makes having their own platform worth it, even if it has be sold at a minor loss. You can say that they might make more money overall due to more game sales on bigger install bases, but that's far from certain. I believe this is the one big issue that would give them pause if they ever wanted to go this route.
But Nintendo's strength is in software development. They are the best company in the world at developing quality video games. If their hardware side evaporated into the air tomorrow, they'd still have their defining feature, and they'd survive. They'd still be Nintendo. They're not just a stable of IPs, they are a set of ridiculously talented dev houses. They'd still have the IP and the talent to succeed anywhere.
Also, a good chunk of Nintendo's hardware business has traditionally been controllers and peripherals. If they went third party there's no reason they'd have to shut this down, so they could retain a decent amount of their hardware R&D.
Look, they're not doing it anytime soon, and I don't think they should. I think they should focus on becoming a better handheld platform holder as this is their strength, and where they can make most money. It's the dogmatic nature of the people who say that they'd collapse utterly, or cease to be Nintendo entirely that bothers me.
1) They don't make that much money on third party royalties. They could live without that money.
2) The massive revenue streams generated by hardware are not that profitable. They have only really made a huge difference during the Wii / DS era. With cheap tablets and phones around, this will most likely never be an area of large profitability ever again. Shut down the hardware side of the business and you lose nothing financially.
3) The big problem would be losing 10-20% of their first party software sales to a platform holder. That's what would hurt like hell, and that's what makes having their own platform worth it, even if it has be sold at a minor loss. You can say that they might make more money overall due to more game sales on bigger install bases, but that's far from certain. I believe this is the one big issue that would give them pause if they ever wanted to go this route.
But Nintendo's strength is in software development. They are the best company in the world at developing quality video games. If their hardware side evaporated into the air tomorrow, they'd still have their defining feature, and they'd survive. They'd still be Nintendo. They're not just a stable of IPs, they are a set of ridiculously talented dev houses. They'd still have the IP and the talent to succeed anywhere.
Also, a good chunk of Nintendo's hardware business has traditionally been controllers and peripherals. If they went third party there's no reason they'd have to shut this down, so they could retain a decent amount of their hardware R&D.
Look, they're not doing it anytime soon, and I don't think they should. I think they should focus on becoming a better handheld platform holder as this is their strength, and where they can make most money. It's the dogmatic nature of the people who say that they'd collapse utterly, or cease to be Nintendo entirely that bothers me.
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
My point is they could go for that big audience but at the end of the day, their market would still be limited by the fact that their bread and butter games all target the same audience and we'd be back having this discussion in a couple of years except there wouldn't be a hardware business to throw under the bus. I'm not saying Nintendo needs to make Call Of Duty clones but how come we haven't seen one Metroid game or one Zelda in the same time we've seen at least 10 different platformers.
Nintendo's games business is struggling. This is why their hardware business is struggling. Its not the other way around.
the problem with this is that it acts like all that talent exists within a vacuum. there's a tendency to think that nintendo's competitively weak hardware is holding them back, but it's actually what lets their designers thrive.
Their games are plenty diverse. You're asking for a thematic diversity, which is an entirely different argument than how you're framing it.
Actually, he's asking for them to diversify by copying everyone else. Diverse!
Wouldn't it be nice if I could play ryse and killzone in full 1080p with real anti aliasing and not have to pay for online? I mean could you imagine how much better infamous would look on my gaming PC? And they could make so much more money if they sold their next halo and uncharted on steam too.
And I think I would like to install iOS on my android phone and android on my iPhone, too.
I've been thinking the bolded just might be the case for a long time. Which would be far worse news for Nintendo than just one failed console. I do think that price has a huge amount to do with it, both hardware and software price, but when you see what kids are playing today it always strikes me how little like Nintendo stuff it is. Nintendo has nothing like Minecraft or Candy Crush or League of Legends or any of this stuff that keeps taking off.
They have the same old experiences, year in and year out, at prices that are 10 times higher than competitors. That's their problem, really. If the game ecosystem was flourishing then people might be willing to pay the price to get a console to access their ecosystem. But people just aren't interested. It's scary how few kids I ever see with any knowledge of Nintendo at all, let alone playing Nintendo games, and just how much other video game related stuff I see among kids.
I don't want Nintendo to lose their relevance to a new generation but I'm afraid that in the last 5 years it has already happened.
I don't think that the hardware is holding them back, but to say that weak hardware lets them thrive is nonsense. Why couldn't they do 3D World on PS4 or whatnot? It's just game design, and they're better at it than anyone else. Limited hardware isn't the reason they're so good, talent is. Give them their full credit.
Why would it matter if they lose a bunch of zero- or negative-margin revenue? The only reason for it is to drive revenue that's actually profitable, and as the OP points out, they haven't been doing that.
Aquamarine
Member
Well there are differing opinions on that. Some people think that losing hardware revenue, immediately slashing the size of their company (and inevitably leading to at least some layoffs / what Iwata doesn't want), makes the company more volatile and sacrifices potential opportunities. There's no guarantee that their controller / peripheral R&D would continue to remain profitable if taken out of a Nintendo context.
Wii and DS happened once...some people say that kind of phenomenon could happen again.
Iwata in particular is adamant that mobile games won't lead to stable, significant profits.
I'm not necessarily saying this is the opinion that I believe in...I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
that's not realistic. they developed the wii u. they know its hardware in and out. that's intimacy they don't have with the ps4 and wouldn't have for a couple of years (or maybe ever). and they wouldn't be working on it from the start (it would be pcs and whatever dev kits sony has third-parties work on).
their game design comes from their freedom. there's times where they have to push games out the door (mario kart 7 was a rush job), but having their own hardware means, ideally, they'll have more financial freedom to take risks on ideas they otherwise wouldn't or couldn't because of time restraints.
and finally, weaker hardware demands less people, which in turn demands fewer financial resources. it's easier to make a mistake, start over, or outright cancel something that cost you a million dollars versus something that cost you 20 million.
Freeman
Banned
Third party would make sense for them, but not now when they still have hopes for the WiiU and will probably try again with a successor, if it fail again than I don't think they will even have a choice.
They probably make no money out of third party for the WiiU since there is hardly any that isn't published by Nintendo.
They would most likely make more money on software with the larger install base and could direct most of their efforts aside from their big franchises to their portable.
Their strengths combine really well with PlayStation. PlayStation historically does well on consoles, puts out better hardware, are successful at games targeted at a different demographic than that of Nintendo and have better online services. Nintendo does with their handhelds and their software, specially with games targeted at a younger audience and with a broader appeal. The problem is Sony financial situation, that likely makes Nintendo want to stay as far away as possible.
Nintendo is at a very delicate position, if they bet big on WiiU making a comeback (very unlikely by the looks of it) they risk getting into a worse place than they are now, if they don't they admit defeat and its another poorly supported console, making people less likely to buy their next offer and they are making the transition to HD development just now. They will also soon have to worry about their next handheld.
Who know who comes after Iwata, anything is possible at this point, MS has tried to buy Nintendo in the past, next time Nintendo might not refuse.
They probably make no money out of third party for the WiiU since there is hardly any that isn't published by Nintendo.
They would most likely make more money on software with the larger install base and could direct most of their efforts aside from their big franchises to their portable.
Their strengths combine really well with PlayStation. PlayStation historically does well on consoles, puts out better hardware, are successful at games targeted at a different demographic than that of Nintendo and have better online services. Nintendo does with their handhelds and their software, specially with games targeted at a younger audience and with a broader appeal. The problem is Sony financial situation, that likely makes Nintendo want to stay as far away as possible.
Nintendo is at a very delicate position, if they bet big on WiiU making a comeback (very unlikely by the looks of it) they risk getting into a worse place than they are now, if they don't they admit defeat and its another poorly supported console, making people less likely to buy their next offer and they are making the transition to HD development just now. They will also soon have to worry about their next handheld.
Who know who comes after Iwata, anything is possible at this point, MS has tried to buy Nintendo in the past, next time Nintendo might not refuse.
Sure, I get the other side of the argument. It's a fair one. But I disagree with it. I think:
1) When a company struggles long enough, changes have to be made and layoffs have to occur. It sucks, but a good CEO gets the company through it and gets morale back up as soon as possible. Ignoring it for as long as humanly possible is not the way forward.
2) The 'Wii and DS could happen again' theory. This is Iwata's holy grail. I believe everything he does is an attempt to get back to this situation, and that he'd rather nearly sink the company trying to do this than downsize, forget about this magical El Dorado, and have healthy profits again.
3) On mobile games not leading to stable profits: I agree here. That's a very volatile market, and one I'd be terrified of if I was Nintnedo.
4) On losing opportunities due to not having a hardware division. Possible, but again I don't see how Nintendo can compete with the big phone titans and myriad cheap Asian electronics manufacturers, all of whom would be better placed to capitalise on said opportunities faster than Nintendo as they are used to the extremely quick R&D turnaround times of the phone market.
JordanN
Banned
I just want to say if Nintendo does go through with another hardware, they better support it.
If they refuse to see the forests from the trees for the millionth time, they are stuck at a dead end. When third parties see it moves zero copies year in and year out, no one will be there. And a console without third party is always instant death.
Going third party isn't easy, but it's the one option Nintendo has no other software company does when faced with a crisis. That's the only reason why I'm mentioning it right now.
If they refuse to see the forests from the trees for the millionth time, they are stuck at a dead end. When third parties see it moves zero copies year in and year out, no one will be there. And a console without third party is always instant death.
Going third party isn't easy, but it's the one option Nintendo has no other software company does when faced with a crisis. That's the only reason why I'm mentioning it right now.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Why would they make those games? The only reason that we see games like Sin & Punishment is because Nintendo perceives them as increasing the value of the hardware; from a sales perspective, most of their non-core franchises bomb. And because sales are all that would matter if they went third-party, you would only see the franchises that sell well, ie Mario and Pokemon. You would never see them publishing games like Wonderful 101, because what's the point?
that's sort of the point- they probably wouldn't due to the financial situation they would have been forced into in, in order to stabilize. and just because you're not seeing metroid doesn't mean they aren't making games that aren't mario/zelda/pokemon. that's a tremendous leap in logic.
How about not going 3rd party for several reasons?
Has it ever occurred to you that N consoles and games don't sale bad because they are not Sony/MS but because they lost their appeal in the market? I mean don't get me wrong, i'm a WiiU/3DS owner and supporter, i have a ton of games for both but let's face it, people don't want these games anymore as they didn't want Puppeteer/Tearaway (the later being brilliant imo)
Also as a gamer i find the scenario of them going 3rd party nightmarish. As someone who cares more about their Kid Icarus than their Mario, going 3rd party would ensure hasty yearly Marios and no other wacky N titles. Thanks but no thanks.
But most importantly, whether you like it or not Nintendo games are now niche and they appeal to a niche market, i like them but the majority that consists the gaming market and does the numbers doesn't. Deal with it.
Has it ever occurred to you that N consoles and games don't sale bad because they are not Sony/MS but because they lost their appeal in the market? I mean don't get me wrong, i'm a WiiU/3DS owner and supporter, i have a ton of games for both but let's face it, people don't want these games anymore as they didn't want Puppeteer/Tearaway (the later being brilliant imo)
Also as a gamer i find the scenario of them going 3rd party nightmarish. As someone who cares more about their Kid Icarus than their Mario, going 3rd party would ensure hasty yearly Marios and no other wacky N titles. Thanks but no thanks.
But most importantly, whether you like it or not Nintendo games are now niche and they appeal to a niche market, i like them but the majority that consists the gaming market and does the numbers doesn't. Deal with it.
I wouldnt call it logic. More like axe grinding.
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
I don't really think it is price by itself- stuff like Skylanders and Disney Infinity are shockingly expensive. The problem is that they've been losing the kids to Skylanders for ages because dads can play Fifa and Infamous on the same box. At the end of the day it is the adults who decide what to spend money on. The Wii dominated not because of the kids but because of the casual gaming adults who now spend money on Clash of Clans and Candy Crush.
You'd have to hate gaming to want Nintendo to fail but they do need to evolve. They need to invest in new studios that have a different focus and give IPs like Zelda and Metroid as much resources as they give Mario and all the infinite spinoffs. I've always found the complaints about the Wii U's hardware to be ridiculous because Nintendo do not have a single studio that would know what to do with more power. Therein lies their problem.
Astral Dog
Member
I dont think Nintendo is that limited with the Wii U tech, but by time/development costs/team size, why NsmbU,Tropical Freeze and 3D World dont look as good as Mario Kart 8?
As Nintendo releases more powerful systems, they will be struggling to reléase polished games in time, and if they were third party without the benefits of knowing their hardware, just like a lot of developers these last few years, im wondering how they can solve this without dropping quality in the future, it seems they will be releasing new systems with similar architecture
Boomstick (Coffee Crazy)
Banned
Please stop making these threads. They always devolve into "why Nintendo is an awful company", no matter what the intent is for the OP.
On topic, there is literally no reason Nintendo should ever go third party. Its far less profitable, its very risk averse (nothing but Mario and Zelda from here on out), and you lose a ton of control over pretty much all your IPs. Let me put it this way. The retail price for Nintendo Land or Super Mario 3D was $59.99 (in the US at least). Now these titles have gone on to sell 2.6 million and about 2 million(?) respectively. Now to play these games you need to have bought a Wii U, which at retail following the September price drop is $299.99. So if we say that 2 million people bought the Wii U and these 2 games, that gives us a net revenue of about $840,000,000. Not too bad, although nothing special really. So lets look at Nintendo if they had gone third party. In comparison, assuming that for whatever dumb reason Sony/ Microsoft decided not to charge a massive fee for putting them on the console, the net revenue would be about $240,000,000. Now in order for Nintendo to be better off for going third party, they would need to increase their sales by a hefty amount, namely, the sales for Super Mario 3D World and Nintendo Land (which actually come to think of it wouldn't exist), would need to be roughly 14,000,000 copies sold. For comparison, there is only one game in the PS3 library that sold more than that, and that is Grand Theft Auto (16.85 million). And this is just considered to be a "good" mario game, and nothing revolutionary or ground breaking.
Now the obvious retort is "well Nintendo is cutting their costs from consoles by not making them!". Well it doesn't matter how low your costs are if you aren't making money to begin with. I haven't even mentioned the massive cost increase from working with Sony/ Microsoft in putting their games on the console. Besides, I don't think Nintendo's shareholders would be too keen on seeing a 75-80% revenue cut for really little good reason. Nintendo is, believe it or not, still overall profitable this past year. Their operational losses are definitely falling, and unless Nintendo bombs the next console as well, they are more than financially able to take a beating for a few years.
There is no reason Nintendo should go third party. Stop pretending that it would be anything but a terrible idea.
On topic, there is literally no reason Nintendo should ever go third party. Its far less profitable, its very risk averse (nothing but Mario and Zelda from here on out), and you lose a ton of control over pretty much all your IPs. Let me put it this way. The retail price for Nintendo Land or Super Mario 3D was $59.99 (in the US at least). Now these titles have gone on to sell 2.6 million and about 2 million(?) respectively. Now to play these games you need to have bought a Wii U, which at retail following the September price drop is $299.99. So if we say that 2 million people bought the Wii U and these 2 games, that gives us a net revenue of about $840,000,000. Not too bad, although nothing special really. So lets look at Nintendo if they had gone third party. In comparison, assuming that for whatever dumb reason Sony/ Microsoft decided not to charge a massive fee for putting them on the console, the net revenue would be about $240,000,000. Now in order for Nintendo to be better off for going third party, they would need to increase their sales by a hefty amount, namely, the sales for Super Mario 3D World and Nintendo Land (which actually come to think of it wouldn't exist), would need to be roughly 14,000,000 copies sold. For comparison, there is only one game in the PS3 library that sold more than that, and that is Grand Theft Auto (16.85 million). And this is just considered to be a "good" mario game, and nothing revolutionary or ground breaking.
Now the obvious retort is "well Nintendo is cutting their costs from consoles by not making them!". Well it doesn't matter how low your costs are if you aren't making money to begin with. I haven't even mentioned the massive cost increase from working with Sony/ Microsoft in putting their games on the console. Besides, I don't think Nintendo's shareholders would be too keen on seeing a 75-80% revenue cut for really little good reason. Nintendo is, believe it or not, still overall profitable this past year. Their operational losses are definitely falling, and unless Nintendo bombs the next console as well, they are more than financially able to take a beating for a few years.
There is no reason Nintendo should go third party. Stop pretending that it would be anything but a terrible idea.
MisterHero
Super Member
I don't think WiiDS success is replicable, but their foundation was based on the idea of sustainable console and handheld models. Those models are being thrown out the window by the other 2 for wanting to resemble PC hardware.
The console is still viable but it's been abused to hell over the years.
They're taking a loss on that $299 that would actually eat into their profit on the sales of those titles. In that scenario, it's possible that they'd make more profit on those titles on ps4/xb1. Royalties are $7, loss on hardware is higher than that most probably.
Because...?
Apophis2036
Banned
You can already play Killzone in 1080p... On PS4 but thanks for the smart ass answer ;-).
Nintendo are not making money on the few WiiU's they are selling. There is a very real chance of their games coming to a Sony and/or MS console in the next decade.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
I'm shocked nobody has quoted you!
This is the type of model I wish Nintendo would adopt moving forward.
Furthermore, Nintendo needs to enter the Chinese-Korean markets with such a model as they are greatly missing out on an immense revenue stream.
Ridiculous. These threads always have a ton of good, reasoned posts in them whether you agree with them or not. Look at Anihawk, Aquamarine or infinite's posts among others. This is a major topic in the industry right now, no reason not to talk about it on here.
Plenty of reasons have been given why it might work. No one is 'pretending', people are speculating. It really shouldn't bother you if you disagree.
The Maverick
Member
The handheld market is only going to shrink from here and Nintendo is almost irrelevant as a console maker. The revenue from both of those are going to slowly dry up, barring a miracle.
And we're not even talking about profits, in which the Wii U is sold at a loss. How long can handhelds carry the company. I think the day isn't too far away where leveraging their IP as a third party, giving up on R&D for the hardware, but paying out royalties will net them more than running their own platforms. Not like there's much third party royalties they are collecting now.
I think Nintendo games would obviously sell much, much more on platforms with larger install bases. Mobile is a different animal. And to be honest, Nintendo hasn't done much outside of Zelda/DK/Mario as of late anyways, much to the chagrin of those who complain that the game output would fall off. Yeah, maybe there's no Wonderful 101 or Dillon's Western. And?
My fear is that they won't go third party until it's going to be forced on them. Then they'll end up like Sega.
And we're not even talking about profits, in which the Wii U is sold at a loss. How long can handhelds carry the company. I think the day isn't too far away where leveraging their IP as a third party, giving up on R&D for the hardware, but paying out royalties will net them more than running their own platforms. Not like there's much third party royalties they are collecting now.
I think Nintendo games would obviously sell much, much more on platforms with larger install bases. Mobile is a different animal. And to be honest, Nintendo hasn't done much outside of Zelda/DK/Mario as of late anyways, much to the chagrin of those who complain that the game output would fall off. Yeah, maybe there's no Wonderful 101 or Dillon's Western. And?
My fear is that they won't go third party until it's going to be forced on them. Then they'll end up like Sega.
because the games would change. because nintendo wouldn't play an intimate role in hardware creation, which would alter their process of game development. because they would lose their self-sufficiency as a company - they would be dependent on other companies to get their games out - and this one big change would cascade into a thousand other little changes, and pretty soon nintendo's gone.
maybe a lot of people want change like that, but right now i like nintendo games just fine.
This is not true, their mature games are much more few and far between but I always preferred Nintendo's mature offerings over Sony's when they arrive (except for maybe Shadow of the Colossus). But Nintendo under the right circumstances and push can support games like Eternal Darkness and Bayonetta 2 in order to diversify their games-space, they just need more quantity honestly. Quality is key but it's hard to get excited for a console when there's only like a solid game every 4 months.
The Maverick
Member
I was under the impression that we were talking about what would be best for the business of Nintendo. Not the gamer.
then they should definitely go mobile.
whyreggielie
Member
Where were you when Sony was losing a massive amount of money per PS3 and almost every single hardware department they own? Nintendo barely losing money on one home console is not enough to take them down, they could go a very long time losing a little bit of money.
Lets do some research people.