Pachter feeds on attention. This Nintendoon article will get a lot of attention, so he wants in.
The Death Of Nintendo Has Been Greatly Under-Exaggerated
- Thread starter Tripon
- Start date
Pachter feeds on attention. This Nintendoon article will get a lot of attention, so he wants in.
In pretty sure we concluded in that thread that those numbers aren't accurate.
If you take a long view, Nintendo is the only consistently profitable company, when compared against Sony and MS' respective gaming divisions. Xbox in particular has been a hugely failed experiment, if profits and money are what you care about. 6.7 billion in the hole as of 2011, and I assure you that number's getting worse after all of this next gen money hatting. Maybe they should write an article about the death of MS.
It confuses me how people always say Nintendoomed and yet the seem to ignore that Microsoft's Entertainment division has lost $3 billion in the 10 years its been around.
http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-in-10-years
Why don't I see discussions about how Xbox is dead?
http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-in-10-years
Why don't I see discussions about how Xbox is dead?
peanutbutterlatte
Member
People were saying exactly the same about the 3DS, and it's doing just fine now. The Wii U has a much longer way to go, but I'm not counting it out yet, personally.
Wii was a Blue Ocean product with competitors that were sleeping at the wheel, it's evident why and how it was a success.
Ask companies that made blue ocean products how it went for them.
WiiU is simply Nintendo returning to the Red ocean and making an unappealing product.
With the 3DS it was clear Nintendo wasn't interested in following BOS and disruption anymore, they reap what they sow.
Ask companies that made blue ocean products how it went for them.
WiiU is simply Nintendo returning to the Red ocean and making an unappealing product.
With the 3DS it was clear Nintendo wasn't interested in following BOS and disruption anymore, they reap what they sow.
If you take a long view, Nintendo is the only consistently profitable company, when compared against Sony and MS' respective gaming divisions. Xbox in particular has been a hugely failed experiment, if profits and money are what you care about. 6.7 billion in the hole as of 2011, and I assure you that number's getting worse after all of this next gen money hatting. Maybe they should write an article about the death of MS.
Makes sense then that investors, who actually have a stake in things (unlike most the people yelling about Nintendo being dead), are optimistic about Nintendo. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/07/23/five-reasons-why-nintendos-stock-is-surging/
I really want that updated, even if these past two years haven't been the best for Nintendo the point still stands, who is more in trouble in this industry?
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
PS2?
plagiarize
Banned
it's got a longer way to go, and things aren't looking as slam dunk with the $50 price drop and this winter's line up... but we'll see, as you say. I'm not counting it out, but I'm saying a turnaround looks a lot less likely than it was for the 3DS.
Still, the late PSP turnaround in Japan... it's still plausible. It's just never going to be massive.
Or to put it another way, we aren't going to be talking about a Wii U within 20% of the Wii's sales at any point. They need to get it to a gamecube profitability level, and coast along for a few years until they can try something else.
DS was much, much more successful from a business perspective.
Dreamcast bombed because of stubbornness, and carpet bombing the market with Sega CD, 32x, and Saturn, none of which had any focus. I had quite enough of Sega after all that. By stark contrast, Sony was not only doing everything right, but had an easy time of taking all the disgruntled Sega developers and customers away.
Personally I don't find that this argument holds much water. 3DS I don't think had nearly the same level of competition in it's market that the Wii U has to contend with (Partly because I also don't think the PS4 and XB1 are going to struggle the same way the vita has). I also think the 3DS is much more marketable, with it's gimmick's appeal much more obvious (3D without the glasses). You could argue the Wii U will be more marketable once these next slew of releases come out, but then again these releases/console are directly competing with the launch of the next gen consoles, unlike the vita which came out several months later.
In my opinion I really don't think the Wii U is going to pull a 3DS
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
What would the Blue Ocean be post-2010? There isn't one for the gaming market any more. Mobile gaming saturates the non-core gamer segments.
Huh? Why?
TIGER-COOL
Banned
Don`t people get bored of saying this? What's the obsession? I just don't get it.
Wyndstryker
Member
Wii U is doomed? Most probably.
Nintendo is doomed? Been said for many many years and still hasn't happened.
People need to wait another 5 or 10 years to see what happens next to see if Nintendo is treading the doomed path. One console isn't going to say anything.
Nintendo is doomed? Been said for many many years and still hasn't happened.
People need to wait another 5 or 10 years to see what happens next to see if Nintendo is treading the doomed path. One console isn't going to say anything.
H_Prestige
Banned
Gameboy made most of that money, not their consoles.
GC was not in any way more profitable than the ps2. This is an urban myth that for some reason never dies.
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
It´s so funny that these graphs end up at 2010 to hide up the losses that Nintendo incurred in 2011 and 2012
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/24/4260062/nintendo-2012-earnings
They also weren't selling 50,000 units a month.
To put things into perspective the wiiU, just to match the gamecubes total hardware sales, would need to sell roughly 300,000 units a month for the next five years. And every month that the wiiU doesn't sell that the average goes up. Maybe they hit that number this holiday season but do they really have the software output to keep that momentum going for five years??
If I were a betting man I'd say the safe money is on betting that Nintendo won't make that goal and I'd even go so far as to say that Nintendo won't be heavily supportig the wiiU 4-5 years from now.
The problem I have with the "Nintendo is doomed" articles from attention whoring analysts and journalists is that it stops normal people from talking about serious problems for Nintendo without a whole bunch of "nintendoomed lol" reactions from hardcore Nintendo fans. I made a prescient thread about Nintendo's decline a while back with similar responses eventhough I ultimately turned out to be right.
Whether that's truly the reason or not I think you are proving my argument. Software matters, it matters a lot, but it isn't the only factor and you can have great software and still fail.
Nah. Their home consoles are the only interesting ones the past two generations. The other two have just been weaker PCs.
It's possible that 3DS sales are buoyed by good experiences people had with the original DS. If their 3DS experience doesn't fare quite so well, they are going to be far less likely to buy the successor in a few years. I think this is a legitimate concern.
By making the 2DS, Nintendo are inadvertently confirming what many already knew, the 3D gimmick was a bit of a failure and didn't have a big impact on the game experience. Packaging an extremely low-resolution screen and only one analog stick further limits the ways the 3DS game experience can surpass the one had on the original DS.
This wouldn't be such a big deal if Nintendo was competing against themselves and a few non-threatening gaming handhelds as they historically were. But things have changed. The competition from tablets and phones will only get stronger and stronger as time goes on. One misstep (and 3DS is, if not a misstep, a missed opportunity) is all it takes for a market shift in a different direction.
As a dedicated gaming device, consumers are investing additional money for a superior experience. If that experience isn't consistently excellent, there are zero risk alternatives for gaming that people already own. Good luck getting those consumers back if they aren't thrilled with the 3DS.
tldr; I don't think this guy is completely off base. Wii U is a disaster obviously, and the successor to 3DS could have some problems if people weren't completely satisfied with their 3DS purchase. 3DS will be fine, but what's the plan 3 years from now? Better blow some minds.
By making the 2DS, Nintendo are inadvertently confirming what many already knew, the 3D gimmick was a bit of a failure and didn't have a big impact on the game experience. Packaging an extremely low-resolution screen and only one analog stick further limits the ways the 3DS game experience can surpass the one had on the original DS.
This wouldn't be such a big deal if Nintendo was competing against themselves and a few non-threatening gaming handhelds as they historically were. But things have changed. The competition from tablets and phones will only get stronger and stronger as time goes on. One misstep (and 3DS is, if not a misstep, a missed opportunity) is all it takes for a market shift in a different direction.
As a dedicated gaming device, consumers are investing additional money for a superior experience. If that experience isn't consistently excellent, there are zero risk alternatives for gaming that people already own. Good luck getting those consumers back if they aren't thrilled with the 3DS.
tldr; I don't think this guy is completely off base. Wii U is a disaster obviously, and the successor to 3DS could have some problems if people weren't completely satisfied with their 3DS purchase. 3DS will be fine, but what's the plan 3 years from now? Better blow some minds.
Apophis2036
Banned
I don't disagree with your opinion on WiiU sales but what console has Nintendo 'heavily' supported after 4-5 years since the SNES ?.
opticalmace
Member
It's a reference to a well-known Mark Twain quote, IIRC.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Outside the 3D aspect (which, name aside, is not the biggest thing about the 3DS), I can't see people being disappointed with the 3DS really. The first party games, for example, are bigger and objectively better (first 3D Pokemon after all).
Gonzo The Great
Banned
Profit matters, not raw sales. The PS2 could have sold 250 million units, but that doesn't matter if Sony wasn't making any money.
Interesting or just poorly designed?
I'd rather Nintendo's great software teams not be held back by god awful hardware.
Well that's my point really.
WiiU hitting gamecube level of hardware sales at this point looks like a dream, an untouchable ceiling.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
The news over the past and current month is not going to get better, unfortunately.
Even I'm starting to lose hope
Even I'm starting to lose hope
Because people just look at sales numbers, not profit margins.
The news over the past and current month is not going to get better, unfortunately.
Even I'm starting to lose hope
Never give up, never surrender.
In a year, we'll be laughing about all this
I like the little jab about the gamingindustry being in trouble. It's not just Nintendo, but Sony and MS need to watch and change their direction or else!!!
I did read the entire article, but I regretted it after finishing. Everything reads like an angry teenager desperately crying out for attention. On the other hand, I've read he's an Apple fan? Oh, well that explains certain aspects. Calling the 3DS a failure because they're introducing the 2DS is a horrible, horrible argument. To be more acurate, the 3D aspect of the 3DS as a systemselling feature wasn't the success Nintendo hoped it would be. Selling over 30 million machines, 20% less than your most succesful handheld ever in the same timeframe seems pretty okay to me.
As for the rest... it's the usual iOS gibberish. Forget about Nintendo overhauling their business model (and in the process losing out more money than earning it) and the murderous competition in the iOS market. You can only make money there! Do it! Please you to see this for yourself! Bucketloads of money!
Urgh.
I did read the entire article, but I regretted it after finishing. Everything reads like an angry teenager desperately crying out for attention. On the other hand, I've read he's an Apple fan? Oh, well that explains certain aspects. Calling the 3DS a failure because they're introducing the 2DS is a horrible, horrible argument. To be more acurate, the 3D aspect of the 3DS as a systemselling feature wasn't the success Nintendo hoped it would be. Selling over 30 million machines, 20% less than your most succesful handheld ever in the same timeframe seems pretty okay to me.
As for the rest... it's the usual iOS gibberish. Forget about Nintendo overhauling their business model (and in the process losing out more money than earning it) and the murderous competition in the iOS market. You can only make money there! Do it! Please you to see this for yourself! Bucketloads of money!
Urgh.
yongeandcollege
Member
The 3DS is a 'failure' in Nintendo's own eyes. When's the last time they hit their sales forecast for the 3DS? Have they ever?
Yeah, because hardware is everything that matters?
Their sales forecasts were ridiculous though. They were expecting it, and the Wii U, to be successes akin to the DS and Wii
Blue Ocean isn't about motion control or whateverthefuck gaf believe it is.
It means seeking a market of overshot "crappy" customer with a "crappy" product.
It means changing the value proposition to something that your "crappy" customer value more than the current value proposition.
It doesn't mean continuing the race to better gfx that they did with the 3DS/WiiU.
Wii was a crappy product for the high value customer, but absolutely perfect for the crappy low value customers and an even better value for non customers.
The value proposition was so foreign that unless they embrassed the values they proposed with the Wii they would never come back.
Considering how Nintendo treated their customers anyway I'm not sure why they thought it was in the bag this time around...
FalsettoVibe
Member
So everyone should only develope for the Highest End PCs then.
We've discussed this before. The Xbox division is rolled into the entertainment division that is home to some pretty spectacular Microsoft failures. Xbox certainly had a rocky beginning and clearly some waning support from investors but I don't think anyone truly knows what the xboxs financials are at the moment.
yongeandcollege
Member
Well there you go. By their own admission, 20% less than the DS is a failure then.
I'd say the software sales disparity was probably the bigger problem.
Though the trend for digital sales is not really measured, while it offers far more margins.