Vinci still being a bro in these Nintendo threads I see, excellent post. The thing I want to talk about most is how your idea for a "Wii 2" is interesting. I wonder why Nintendo decided to eschew the "Innovation -> Renovation/Evolution" route with Wii U for a concept that would probably have been better served in the generation after this one, assuming Nintendo would go the route you detailed of a "modestbox" that was better than Wii U and more easily/readily accessible to the development landscape.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Iwata implies he may resign over poor business performance
- Thread starter Cheesemeister
- Start date
That's the thing: I don't know why they went this route. Either (1) they wanted to have their cake and eat it too - i.e. sell the R&D for an upcoming convergence device as a unique proposition for a system in the interim, to commercialize their investment in the tech sooner rather than later - or (2) they truly thought this was a helluva interesting idea that the market would latch onto, even though it would once again burn any possible bridges for them with 3rd parties.
I'm not sure which it is. Or if it's something else I haven't considered. Whatever the case, I don't see how they expect this to sustain for five years.
nopenopenope
Member
.
Last edited:
peanutbutterlatte
Member
But the 3DS's start was incredibly hindered by the DS living long past its sell by date. I personally blame Game Freak for that.
It's probably due to the falling value of the Japanese yen. Nintendo makes most of its income outside of Japan and when the yen is weak, the money they make overseas is worth more.
yen depreciation may save iwatas ass this FY
tbh it was ridiculous last year 1 euro was like 90 yen or something.
Yen losing strength = much better situation for Japanese companies that export lots of their products.
Nikkei going back to pre-Lehman Brothers disaster levels too.
Aquamarine
Member
And Nintendo's success in hitting its next FY goals depends significantly on how the yen does. It's quite ridiculous when you think about it.
grimshawish
Banned
Well it was hurting it last FY so he should be relatively happy.
On another note; we know the only reason for Nintendo having a profit at the bottom of its accounts was other valuations changing - does anyone know if this includes money in US accounts? Just wondered earlier today.
I understand that. It's just the level of the rise -- 20% -- is somewhat striking to me given that other exporters such as Sony, Toyota, etc., have not seen rises of that magnitude, and, as far as I know, no major news would have led to this spike.
Exactly. The $100 cheaper is the best option imo.
afaik toyota has a very low ebit margin compared to other car manufacturers like vw or hyundai. while they sold a lot of cars they did not make much money while doing it. so that might be one issue why the stocks are not rising
for sony their financial credibility has been rated as "triple B (junk)" by Standard and Poors. This means standard and poors think that lending sony money is speculative. this means that anything sony does its going to cost them a lot more and they are going to be less profitable since they have to pay more interest to any creditor.
Aquamarine
Member
It's a perfect storm. A buyer's market + low US unemployment + rebounding markets + yen weakening + the nature of Nintendo's business = Nintendo stock seems lucrative at the moment = Sudden stock jumps.
I mentioned this during the Wii U's launch back on November 24:
The yen's depreciation during Q1 2013 means that nintendo gets more money from Wii U sales in non-yen markets now than they did during the WiiU's launch (despite the price staying the same).
$350 converts into more yen now than it did a few months ago.
me said:
The yen's depreciation during Q1 2013 means that nintendo gets more money from Wii U sales in non-yen markets now than they did during the WiiU's launch (despite the price staying the same).
$350 converts into more yen now than it did a few months ago.
SolarPowered
Member
He is absolutely killing it right now. Just killing it. I'm nodding my head so much that my brain may be coming loose. It really felt like Nintendo was innovating just for the sake of innovation when I saw the tablet. The Wii-mote set the world on fire and now it's not even in any of the SKUs. Even at it's inception there is no way the Wii-mote was anywhere near as expensive as the tablet solution Nintendo made for the Wii U either. I remember a lot of gaffers saying the Wii U would be the SNES to the Wii and I was genuinely excited by the prospect of taking the pointer further and making a nice piece of hardware that is competitive with the Sony/MS while simultaneously giving third parties a smoother development process. I guess I'll have to believe this Wii U is a step towards convergence because the system makes no sense if you look at it from any other angle.
Honestly? I think a lot of people talk about how Nintendo turned to the casual market because they couldn't compete in the core gamer circuit, but I think that ultimately Nintendo realized how much MORE work it is competing for the casual market. I mean, you rarely see that being discussed, but the casual market is a completely different ballgame that requires a way more aggressive strategy than anything Nintendo's used to. You're facing competiton from all sides, and with that comes pressure to constantly innovate, constantly put out new products to keep consumer interest, constantly DEFEND your products from competitors, and all of this at a MUCH faster pace than what is expected in the traditional gaming industry. And if you drop the ball even ONCE, casuals are on to the next big thing.
Hell, just look at Apple and how often they refresh and rebrand their product lines to see how true this is. Keeping casual interest is NOT easy. I'd say it's harder than competing in the traditional market.
Nintendo struck gold in one shot with the Wii and tapped this blue ocean that was all theirs for a short time. But, when competitors got wind of this and challenged Nintendo for this market, instead of defending their position Nintendo thought they could just go and create another blue ocean. Then poof - we have the failure that is Wii U.
^That post is fascinatingly good. Funny for how obvious it is laid out in text, I'd never have thought about how the alleged "casual" market was more vicious a circuit than the "core gaming" market.
Slight tangent: I think one of the sentiments I echoed the loudest here on GAF was my complete unadulterated love for pointer controls and how all Nintendo needed to do was guarantee they'd be around for this console to keep me excited. While Wiimotes still work, I think I'm sad that they didn't just go for Wiimote 2: Pointer boogaloo, especially with some of the cool break apart controller mockups I've seen here on GAF.
On-topic: At this point, anything extra I could add would just be beating around the bush that numerous other GAF members have done. It's really up to Nintendo themselves to show what the appeal in this system is to the populace and secure (or more prominently, produce) a steady stream of novel games and their bread and butters. What's done is done and they shouldn't get hung up on it, but rather move to the point in time where they support it and ride out whatever kind of generation they set up for themselves.
Response based off the last sentence there: Recently, I don't know how much I like about the idea of convergence happening regarding Nintendo. Everyone's suggesting that their endgame is one device while citing different happenings as more "proof", but I'm kinda left wondering if that's really it. I see this more as them acknowledging that one set of assets to create, maintain and utilize is better than two and they are attempting to go in a direction that will allow them to make do with this one master vault of assets. I don't think Nintendo (or their shareholders) are in the business of chopping off one of their money arteries between handheld and console unless they have some idea that's mindbogglingly world scorchingly hot or have to compromise from more contraction of their company.
Slight tangent: I think one of the sentiments I echoed the loudest here on GAF was my complete unadulterated love for pointer controls and how all Nintendo needed to do was guarantee they'd be around for this console to keep me excited. While Wiimotes still work, I think I'm sad that they didn't just go for Wiimote 2: Pointer boogaloo, especially with some of the cool break apart controller mockups I've seen here on GAF.
On-topic: At this point, anything extra I could add would just be beating around the bush that numerous other GAF members have done. It's really up to Nintendo themselves to show what the appeal in this system is to the populace and secure (or more prominently, produce) a steady stream of novel games and their bread and butters. What's done is done and they shouldn't get hung up on it, but rather move to the point in time where they support it and ride out whatever kind of generation they set up for themselves.
Response based off the last sentence there: Recently, I don't know how much I like about the idea of convergence happening regarding Nintendo. Everyone's suggesting that their endgame is one device while citing different happenings as more "proof", but I'm kinda left wondering if that's really it. I see this more as them acknowledging that one set of assets to create, maintain and utilize is better than two and they are attempting to go in a direction that will allow them to make do with this one master vault of assets. I don't think Nintendo (or their shareholders) are in the business of chopping off one of their money arteries between handheld and console unless they have some idea that's mindbogglingly world scorchingly hot or have to compromise from more contraction of their company.
Wickerbasket
Member
It's more likely just a temporary rise due to the falling value of the Yen.
Apophis2036
Banned
I wonder what the WiiU sales would have been like if everything else was identical except the Deluxe was $250, Basic $200.
H_Prestige
Banned
I think they should have done one of two things with their new console:
a) Make the Wii 2. A console capable of at least 360 level graphics that is super cheap to manufacture and can launch at $250 break even. Ultra streamlined hardware. Controller is updated Wiimote 2. The logic is to try to repeat the Wii. Make a console that can generate profit right from the get go, can significantly undercut the competition's price, and catch the public's attention again with motion controls. Third party support not part of the plan here. Very risky strategy, but potential payoff is huge obviously.
b) Get back into the core gaming race. Make a AMD Jaguar APU based console, but tweaked down enough to launch at $299 break even. Standard no frills dual analog controller. Ditch the Wii name and come up with an all new aesthetic. Idea is to get a console out there which is easy for third parties to include with ps4/720, but is cheaper than those systems. Goal is not to repeat the Wii, but rather become the ps2 of this gen. Safer strategy, but throws Nintendo's patented "innovation" out the window.
Not much different. People buy consoles to play games, not because they're cheap. GC was $99 for much of its life, but sales never took off.
After a rise there will be a fall thats normal
airmangataosenai
Member
DiscoStu.jpeg
Sales slow over time, it's tracking to do 15 million this fiscal year and next year has the last high profile release Nintendo has at its disposal for pushing systems. Expecting it to maintain the current level after the remodel seems unlikely. We still have Pokemon and a new Dragon Quest announcement could push hardware but I don't see it holding on to sales of 15 million for more than another year or two best-case scenario.
Wickerbasket
Member
I don't understand what you're trying to say
Most stocks of japanese exporters are rising due to the falling japanese yen making their revenue/profit greater when foreign currencies are converted back into yen.
Nintendo's stock being undervalued has nothing to do with it, if anything, if not for the falling strength of the yen, Nintendo's stock would likely have continued to fall for failing to meet projected sales targets.
There's other things to consider besides games though. Mainly the point that the 3DS still has not reached the critical mass price point of 99.99 for a handheld (which may be 129.99 instead today, we'll see).
Also there's Super Smash Bros 3DS to consider.
It's still very feasible for 3DS to reach 100 million LTD before all is said and done.
Aquamarine
Member
Well, in less than 2 years it already blew by the GameCube lifetime sales. People tend to underestimate just how successful the 3DS has been so far.
bequietdrive
Member
As much as I love Iwata, him resigning is probably best for Nintendo. I love their games and even the Wii U, but some of their ideas and approach to online etc just isn't good enough in 2013. A change leadership could give them the chance to finally deliver on all their potential.
Sorry for the late response, I've been out.
Basically, all I'm thinking is that software sells hardware. Wii Sports and Twilight Princess made the Wii a phenomenon at launch, the former coming about by motion gaming and the later the most hotly anticipated Zelda game since Ocarina. The fact that Nintendo Land and Mario are not as appealing of a combination does not mean that the Wii U will not find its legs. Rather, Nintendo will just have to find the right software to make it appealing. If they fail, then yes, it was a "failed" experiment. However, I would wait until we see what they do with NFC or the new "Wii" branded games before passing such devastating critique.
polyh3dron
Banned
Changing course in any kind of significant fashion now would involve scrapping the Wii U and being a Johnny-Come-Lately competitor to the PS4 and Durango. I don't see that happening. They're already locked in with this Nintendo Network and Miiverse and with some tweaks I think their online setup will work very well. Miiverse is already really great.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Smash, Zelda, Animal Crossing globally... it ain't even half time baby.
Perfectly reasonable angle that is diametral to where I came from. I believe they will reap what they sow now when it is ripe in the future and you basically hoped for fertilizers to be put into place for the big crop today. I'd be totally exstatic when they'd made all of that happen, but corporations move slowly and their fixation on acting out of strength (which can be fairly interpreted as ignorance) doesn't help either.
Second'ed. Great train of thought that clarifies the opinion.
It's not selling much software, the only territory it's selling hardware well in is Japan, and Nintendo is still losing money. It's down YOY coming into what should be the prime of its life. And it's doing all of this after a huge price cut, and a hardware revision.
I don't think it would have mattered very much. Even at $200, that's asking a lot for a Wii add-on.
I think the problem that Nintendo is running in to is that the Wii brand died around 2010. And they have no one to blame but themselves. Every system they've had from the N64 on has had a pretty bad final year or two on the market and the Wii was no different. The software just dries up.
Has any successful console's sales fallen off as fast as the Wii did? I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Even knowing this, Nintendo decided to leverage the Wii brand for the new console, designing the actual box to look almost exactly the same and using the Wii U name which doesn't really explain anything and could easily be confused for yet another Wii __ add-on.
On top of all of this, Nintendo took a big gamble with the Wii U tech. Back in 07-09 while it was being designed, I'm sure Nintendo thought the tablet/controller was going to make perfect sense. But by the fall of 2012 how many 10s of millions of tablets and smart phones had already been sold to consumers? The Gamepad is really cool tech but at a glance it doesn't look to do anything different then something everyone already has at home. Joe Public doesn't care about what the Wii U's tablet controller can bring to the table in 2013.
In hindsight, Nintendo should have had a Wii HD/2 ready to go for fall 2010. It should have been a console with 360-level graphics (maybe slightly better?), a wii remote plus and a pro controller packed in. Sell it for $300-350. That might have held on to those casual gamers and maybe even brought in some 360 or PS3 owners looking for a second console. Then the next console could have been ready for 2014 with same or slightly better PS4/durango tech for a cheaper price.
This could have taken Nintendo out of directly completing in the arms race but still not be too far behind as to be a lost cause. Always being an entire generation behind the curve doesn't seem to be a winning formula, especially if Nintendo wants to keep 3rd parties on board.
I hate to be so negative, but Nintendo just seems so determined to shoot themselves in the foot every time out.
This is usually because they're concentrating on the launch-window games for their next console. But who knows why it was this time - the Wii U is hardly brimming with Nintendo games either.
D.Lo
Member
3DS requires assets and development time like no Nintendo handheld before.
Sony has also learned this with their handhelds, it's hard to support handhelds that require console level assets.
And it would help if the 3rd parties would stick around to that point. They would really fill in the gap. But I feel like Nintendo really let the ball drop for the Wii. More than usual. The only really notable releases in its last 2 years was DKC Returns and Zelda. Where were the casual games? Was the last really big causal hit New Mario Wii? That came out at the end of 2009.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Funny, had Nintendo gone this route with a new Wiimote I never would have bought one. I day 1'd the Wii U hecause of the gamepad and seeing that Nintendo was going away from the Wiimote. I hated and still hate motion gaming. HATE. HHHHHATE. I don't mind the option being there but I need an actual controller with analog controls.
Innovation is over rated.
The console should be invisible and not be a burden or obstacle to A. Enjoy games and B. Easy to make games for.
By the looks of it, WiiU will be harder to work with than 720 and PS4...why waste your effort?
I kinda doubt this, considering the rumor is that Kinect is mandatory on 720 and PS4 requires Vita compatibility for off-TV Play. Nintendo is not forcing devs to use the Gamepad screen.
The "Kinect is mandatory" rumors on the next-generation Xbox are saying that you'll need Kinect the way the Wii needs a sensor bar, not that everything from Halo 5 to HD remakes on XBLA will require shoehorned-in Kinect functionality.
And I'm pretty sure that "Vita compatibility for off-TV play" just means requiring developers to include Vita control-mapping for certification--and the default configuration of "L2/R2 to rear touchpad, everything else the same" should work fine (if not great) for most things.
And even if this is the case, what makes Wii U harder to develop for? It has two screens, traditional button mapping, touch screen, sensor bar... all of which are optional and pretty standard nowadays.
Being PowerPC-architecture rather than x86 architecture, not to mention performance-constrained, might make it comparatively more difficult to develop for than PS4 and the next-generation Xbox.
Key word: might.
Just like the Xbox 360... developers have spent 8 years working with this architecture. Give them time.
Their FY ends on 3/31/13, so I would imagine maybe mid to late next month. On second thought, since this is their full year financial report, it will have to be audited before they can present the financials. They may give unaudited information, but that would obviously be subject to change if their auditors uncovered anything of note.
I thought the problem with the Wii U was that the console was invisible and everyone with less than half a brain thought it was just an add-on.
I agree with this, but there's a causal relationship here: Motion gaming had immense potential to get non- or lapsed-gamers into playing video games from the start. Advertising the Wii got people's attention but having gamers buy Twilight Princess and their families getting to try Wii Sports over the holidays basically helped generate word-of-mouth that unlocked that potential. There had never really been anything like this before, in terms of its potential, its quality, or in terms of a company with Nintendo's marketing muscle behind it.
In truth, from my perspective, the Wii became absolutely huge because of how enjoyable it was to play within a party or family setting. It wasn't a traditional system that felt like it zeroed people in on their TV screen, removing them from what was happening within the environment around them. They could still participate in a social setting; in fact, it was often more fun to do that while playing the Wii. Playing the Wii was a social activity, a bit of business for people to fiddle with while really doing what they wanted to do: Socialize. Like karaoke or the old game Twister. [No, these are not criticisms; this was the genius of the system.]
The Wii U does not seem to do that. Yes, NintendoLand may be a great party game, but the core concept of how you interact with the system seems more traditional in scope. I mean, they even made it easier for you to isolate yourself from others with this one via Off-TV Play. Now if people want to watch a movie or a TV show, you can just walk away or zone out while in the same room, staring into the screen on the controller. In addition, the 'hook' for the system is so normal at this point otherwise.
Everything has a damn touchscreen at this point - we're not impressed by this stuff - and the two-screen aspect works better in the handheld space because we don't expect people to focus on interacting with us while they're outside, on the train, and playing one. In the living room in our home? Yeah, we'd prefer a bit more interaction and the Wii made that possible because it also was just fun to watch someone play the thing: Swinging their arms around, looking like jackasses. I mean, people on GAF laugh at those videos and made gifs a'plenty, but to families? That's the good stuff, just like Twister was fun to both play and watch others play in the past.
Nintendo has always had great software; it has always produced fantastic games for people to play. What separated the Wii from Nintendo's prior systems was that it had a 'hook' with great potential for satisfying an aspect of domestic interaction. It wasn't a gaming system in a sense; it was a social system, and that was made possible by the ease of motion controls for people outside gaming's core demographic, was championed by Nintendo's marketing muscle, and was triggered by Nintendo's software.
Hook + Promise + Execution = Huge
royalan said:
Well, the service outputs are different and the segmentation of the customer base is less mature. The problem is that the gaming industry, by and large (outside of perhaps Valve and a handful of other companies), hasn't had to concern itself overly much with the analysis of data to discover insights about the addressable market - the whole market, not this small microcosm that gaming companies have been milking to death for decades.
One thing Nintendo did right with the Wii was bring people off the street to try it out and gauge their responses: The videos of people trying it for the first time became some of the earliest marketing the system received and helped those of us who hadn't tried the system directly get a sense for what potential it had. These clearly demonstrated the appeal to the device and its attitude. Plus, it gave them data to work with. I mean, it was focus testing. This is normal to do in most industries if you're looking at releasing a new product. [Compare this with how Sony and MS do things, where mostly the people who get put into focus groups are people already in the industry and it's no wonder most of what they do with each new iteration is so predictable and unappealing to anyone outside that area. There's definite selection bias there and it really puts limitations on what these companies can do to capture a wider audience.]
If they did focus testing with the Wii U, I haven't seen any videos. I would imagine, if they did any at all, they didn't do very well - or we would have seen them. Something at least.
Now, this is just basic marketing. Focus testing a new product or potential product is, for the most part (unless you're horribly resource constrained), normal. Part of me believes the reason why most gaming companies don't do this is because they haven't really needed to - the core is so rampantly loyal and dedicated that the important attributes for products have been clearly spelled out for a while to these companies - but also because it's hard. Also, there's a certain amount of ego to these companies and you really have to put that aside if you're going to do this sort of marketing research properly.
To this point: The biggest error Nintendo made with the Wii was that they didn't lock people into its ecosystem; there wasn't an account with valuable stuff tied to it and all future hardware. That's how you mitigate this need for constant, impressive innovation: You lock people in. Whether you do it through giving them shit or just getting them to buy something, you find some way to lock people in. Apple can make missteps because people have so much information and product and services tied up within the company's ecosystem. There are costs to change; there are costs to switch to another's ecosystem. People mostly don't want to be hassled to take on those costs, so they stick around.
Live does that for Microsoft; PSN does that for Sony. Nintendo's business decisions - understand, these aren't design decisions so much as decisions that should be mandated from on-high, from pure business units within the firm (if they exist) - are making its job much harder.
I don't for a moment believe that Nintendo felt the Wii U was a blue ocean product. Really, they would have to fundamentally misunderstand the concept of blue ocean to assume it was. I think they created the Wii U as a bridge to something else in the future and wanted to monetize it early, rather than wait for technology to reach a point where they could put all this together into a hybrid and not charge people an arm and a leg for it. In addition, I feel this strategy was an alternative to blue ocean... mostly because they couldn't find a new one. It's not that Nintendo didn't want another blue ocean product. They just had no idea what that product would be and they weren't sure if bringing out a sustaining innovation to the Wii [as in the 'Wii 2' I mentioned earlier] would really work. So they went with long-term initiatives, such as the alleged hybrid console/handheld.
That's my guess anyway.
Similar threads
- Locked