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[ElectricBlanketFire]

A lot of Nintendo fans believed in what this GIF says up until the launch:


Delusions of grandeur seem to run deep in the Nintendo camp... all the way to the top executives.

I would hardly say "a lot" of fans believed this.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Their next handheld needs to be a tablet targeting young children. I would drop the physical controls. They will be a nuisance to children. Sell an add on pack with them controls if you want. The tablet market still has room for a large player. Right now its essentially only Apple. Nintendo could sneak in at least for the family market.

 

[Somnid]

So what would change then? If I look at the 3DS, that already happened. No more Hotel Dusk, Elite Beat Agents, or other niche stuff. Just more of the same old titles with a few small eShop games which some Nintendo fans bring up when it comes to innovative new IPs.

Uh, the things I said would be likely to change under that model. Not assuming that model those things are not as likely to change.

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

I don't even know what possessed him to say 9 million in the first place. Nor do I understand why it took so long to revise that ridiculous number either.

It certainly didn't help that Nintendo delayed a lot of stuff.
Still, I'm pretty sure Nintendo thought they had another wii-like phenomenon on their hands and that zelda and mario would drive sales. Turns out they were mistaken.

 

[Tutomos]

They need to go from "How do I make people buy our console to play our games" to "How do I make my games to be played by as many people as possible".

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Oh my, I should have paid more attention today. :O

 

[Pie and Beans]

From a "remaining first party" perspective, is "Nintendo is doomed" no longer a joke?

At this point it feels like a matter of time. They could half-ass another decade and still be drawing in "survivable" money as their next dedicated handheld brought in 40-50 million, and then the next down to 20-30 million and so on, but the downward slope has been established for their once unassailable market fortress, and since investors and stockholders don't exactly like hearing "we've peaked, its all downhill from here", they'd be putting big ol' changes into play forcefully before Nintendo tried a "going down with the ship" routine.

I think this could have been avoided for a lot longer before some theoretical total tech convergence in 15-20 years if Nintendo had been making the right moves 2 years ago buying up the right tech, making wise software house pick ups in the west and generally globalising, and just... not releasing the WiiU as it was. They weren't doing any of that however, Iwata was doubling down on a "do nothing different" plan, and its now essentially too late for Nintendo to remain first party only. Its also going to get a whole lot worse before it can get what one side would consider "better" and most probably the fans consider "totally fucking the worst" since chasing fads and easy answers like "MOBILE!!!!" is all thats left since Iwata and co clearly dont have any alternate answers ready to field.

 

[Fourth Storm]

So what would change then? If I look at the 3DS, that already happened. No more Hotel Dusk, Elite Beat Agents, or other niche stuff. Just more of the same old titles with a few small eShop games which some Nintendo fans bring up when it comes to innovative new IPs.

Ha, this gets me every time. Friggin Pushmo. (I need to download it, btw, now that I have a 3DS).

 

[FourMyle]

A lot of Nintendo fans believed in what this GIF says up until the launch:

Lol

Oh man the hype leading up to that "re-reveal" at E3 2012 was hilarious.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

Sell Wii U at $200.00 or less and focus the marketing dollars at families and kids. It's the only way to save face.

 

[Fourth Storm]

I'm no market analyst, and 9 million was definitely a bit high, but Wii U did sell decently at launch, and they likely chalked the Jan-March numbers last year up to lack of software and the usual buying lull.

I think they revised their numbers at the right time. There is still almost a full quarter left in the fiscal year and anyone who followed their sales should have seen it coming. Admitting defeat prior to the holiday buying season could have impacted sales/stock at just the time when they needed to keep up that brave face.

 

[ibitegirls]

I did not even know the Wii U existed until I heard about the Thanksgiving bundle sales that were going on. When I did finally see it, I thought the Wii U was a hand held device. LOL

 

[tehrik-e-insaaf]

But Nintendo is a platform holder. It is their duty to provide a wide range of software to suit the needs of all their potential customers.

Also, I disagree with your implication that Nintendo just "lost" the western markets out of no fault of their own. For example, no-one has forced them to adopt such an archaic network system. Nor did anyone force Nintendo not to prepare themselves adequately for a jump towards HD development. Nintendo's current situation is no-one's fault but their own.

I totally agree. I never said what you think I did. Read the post of the person I responded to. I just said that the assumption that somehow Nintendo resented their own success in the West and plotted to screw themselves is like tinfoil hat conspiracy talk.

Regardless of whether it is Nintendo's fault is also besides the point - they are in the situation they are in - assigning blame to them, to cows, to the grass, or anyone is pointless - now Nintendo needs to dig itself out of the hole they are in.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having - and unlike what a certain group of people think it doesn't start by making even more expensive AAA games for other consoles with features most children who play Nintendo games have little interest in. That's just Nintendo pissing away their money in much the same way Sega did trying to find an audience for their content on the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Nintendo's audience is on tablets right now. The Grandmother who played Brain Training the eight-year old who loved Nintendogs.

So it starts by recognizing that people don't want to pay $40 dollars for your average 3DS title, and releasing a SKU that contains 10 great F2P titles to drive hardware sales. My modeling of the original DS shows that close to 33% the people who bought a DS bought it to play pirated games - and those people didn't mind paying $130-150 dollars when they got 20-30 games for "free." Nintendo can't just give away their software for nothing - but they can go back to the drawing board, bring titles like Tetris Axis and stuff into the F2P realm, and create a compelling value proposition for the audience they lost to tablets even with the current 3DS hardware (though I think Nintendo is better off making their own tablet).

Nintendo betting the farm on packaged high-end software was great for enthusiast gamers - but enthusiast gamers aren't the segment that are going to return Nintendo to profitability. Parents are the ones walking into the store and paying full price for a Pokemon game on day one and dropping $200 on 3DS hardware because their kids want it. Those parents are buying their kids an iPad Mini now because the price of software is too high and the tablet provides other functions. A new low-end tablet or a 2DS for example with 15-20 high-quality F2P games built-in would begin to make a mass-market appealing product and help to change the dynamic to attract back that audience that paid big amounts of money for the hardware just to play pirated games.

 

[10k]

Did anyone else read the title and automatically play the death song from Super Mario 3D World?

 

[Log4Girlz]

I totally agree. I never said what you think I did. Read the post of the person I responded to. I just said that the assumption that somehow Nintendo resented their own success in the West and plotted to screw themselves is like tinfoil hat conspiracy talk.

Regardless of whether it is Nintendo's fault is also besides the point - they are in the situation they are in - assigning blame to them, to cows, to the grass, or anyone is pointless - now Nintendo needs to dig itself out of the hole they are in.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having - and unlike what a certain group of people think it doesn't start by making even more expensive AAA games for other consoles with features most children who play Nintendo games have little interest in. That's just Nintendo pissing away their money in much the same way Sega did trying to find an audience for their content on the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Nintendo's audience is on tablets right now. The Grandmother who played Brain Training the eight-year old who loved Nintendogs.

So it starts by recognizing that people don't want to pay $40 dollars for your average 3DS title, and releasing a SKU that contains 10 great F2P titles to drive hardware sales. My modeling of the original DS shows that close to 33% the people who bought a DS bought it to play pirated games - and those people didn't mind paying $130-150 dollars when they got 20-30 games for "free." Nintendo can't just give away their software for nothing - but they can go back to the drawing board, bring titles like Tetris Axis and stuff into the F2P realm, and create a compelling value proposition for the audience they lost to tablets even with the current 3DS hardware (though I think Nintendo is better off making their own tablet).

Nintendo betting the farm on packaged high-end software was great for enthusiast gamers - but enthusiast gamers aren't the segment that are going to return Nintendo to profitability. Parents are the ones walking into the store and paying full price for a Pokemon game on day one and dropping $200 on 3DS hardware because their kids want it. Those parents are buying their kids an iPad Mini now because the price of software is too high and the tablet provides other functions. A new low-end tablet or a 2DS for example with 15-20 high-quality F2P games built-in would begin to make a mass-market appealing product and help to change the dynamic to attract back that audience that paid big amounts of money for the hardware just to play pirated games.

7 inch Android based tablet, with exclusive E-Shop availability for Nintendo tablets. All classic VC games are cheap and often on sale for a $1. Their new games can start at a good price and the $1 nostalgia games will entice people to buy the hardware.

 

[RE_Player]

Activision and Ubisoft have to drop Wii U support this year right? Other than Just Dance and Skylanders I can't see them bringing their next batch of AAA games to the system in order to flop again.

 

[Hrothgar]

Sell Wii U at $200.00 or less and focus the marketing dollars at families and kids. It's the only way to save face.

Dropping prices is only going to increase their losses, and previous retailer-specific price cuts or the WiiU have surely shown that a price drop will not lure many more people to the system.

I am really curious what changes Nintendo is going to implement, but for the WiiU it seems to be too late.

A lot of Nintendo fans believed in what this GIF says up until the launch:


Delusions of grandeur seem to run deep in the Nintendo camp... all the way to the top executives.

And then this happened:

 

[Pie and Beans]

I totally agree. I never said what you think I did. Read the post of the person I responded to. I just said that the assumption that somehow Nintendo resented their own success in the West and plotted to screw themselves is like tinfoil hat conspiracy talk.

Regardless of whether it is Nintendo's fault is also besides the point - they are in the situation they are in - assigning blame to them, to cows, to the grass, or anyone is pointless - now Nintendo needs to dig itself out of the hole they are in.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having - and unlike what a certain group of people think it doesn't start by making even more expensive AAA games for other consoles with features most children who play Nintendo games have little interest in. That's just Nintendo pissing away their money in much the same way Sega did trying to find an audience for their content on the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Nintendo's audience is on tablets right now. The Grandmother who played Brain Training the eight-year old who loved Nintendogs.

So it starts by recognizing that people don't want to pay $40 dollars for your average 3DS title, and releasing a SKU that contains 10 great F2P titles to drive hardware sales. My modeling of the original DS shows that close to 33% the people who bought a DS bought it to play pirated games - and those people didn't mind paying $130-150 dollars when they got 20-30 games for "free." Nintendo can't just give away their software for nothing - but they can go back to the drawing board, bring titles like Tetris Axis and stuff into the F2P realm, and create a compelling value proposition for the audience they lost to tablets even with the current 3DS hardware (though I think Nintendo is better off making their own tablet).

Nintendo betting the farm on packaged high-end software was great for enthusiast gamers - but enthusiast gamers aren't the segment that are going to return Nintendo to profitability. Parents are the ones walking into the store and paying full price for a Pokemon game on day one and dropping $200 on 3DS hardware because their kids want it. Those parents are buying their kids an iPad Mini now because the price of software is too high and the tablet provides other functions. A new low-end tablet or a 2DS for example with 15-20 high-quality F2P games built-in would begin to make a mass-market appealing product and help to change the dynamic to attract back that audience that paid big amounts of money for the hardware just to play pirated games.

What you're talking about is chasing the absolutely fickle "extended market" again that can just run off in their 100 millions at the drop of a hat. The sort that will spit in the eye of an Angry Bird soon enough while pledging all allegiance to PAD and so on. Betting the farm on them is never a good idea, especially if it means totally changing their business. Its also a totally entrenched market where iPad and Nexus and Kindle are king and worse still, people are invested heavily into those ecosystems. Its far too much of a gamble and doesnt even play to any of Nintendo's software strengths. You're expecting them to go Zynga and Popcap when even those companies aren't setting the world alight as much anymore either.

 

[SwiftDeath]

And then this happened:

Wow that is a super long gif but well worth watching lol

 

[Subaru]

The biggest problem is NoA.
When NoA lost key staff (Arakawa, Howard L, etc) and lost some partners (Factor 5, RARE, Left Field, etc), things went down.

C'mon, the two biggest studios from west are Next Level and Retro, that are making games that Japanese people could do.

But that's not the only problem. NoA being powerless - or just stupid, Nintendo lost contact with western publishers. It's strange that, except from Ubisoft, nobody rode the Wii sales train. Even japanese companies didn't invest on Wii when it was the biggest thing ever.

NoA is terrible with consumers too. Why should I buy a Nintendo console if I even don't know if some great japanese games is coming west? While I understand why Captain Rainbow wasn't released on USA (sadly), there is no forgiveness about what happened to Xenoblade, Last Story and Pandora's Town. 3DS have this problem too, I know that Dragon Quest VII is a Square-Enix game, but Nintendo should be forcing Square-Enix to at least ANNOUNCE the game in USA. (Let's not talk about DQX, please).

Wii U have BIG branding and marketing problems, this should be addressed.

And Nintendo should be moneyhatting wester publishers too, not just Platinum.

I really expect that will be a desperate Direct next week (usually we have before these meetings, right?) and I really want to see some progress on games like SMTxFE, Yoshi's Yarn, X, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart and Smash. Bros. And, of course, TONS of new announcements.

There's no time to lose, Nintendo should put all cards on table and build some HYPE. It's already too late =/

 

[Shion]

I totally agree. I never said what you think I did. Read the post of the person I responded to. I just said that the assumption that somehow Nintendo resented their own success in the West and plotted to screw themselves is like tinfoil hat conspiracy talk.

Regardless of whether it is Nintendo's fault is also besides the point - they are in the situation they are in - assigning blame to them, to cows, to the grass, or anyone is pointless - now Nintendo needs to dig itself out of the hole they are in.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having - and unlike what a certain group of people think it doesn't start by making even more expensive AAA games for other consoles with features most children who play Nintendo games have little interest in. That's just Nintendo pissing away their money in much the same way Sega did trying to find an audience for their content on the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Nintendo's audience is on tablets right now. The Grandmother who played Brain Training the eight-year old who loved Nintendogs.

So it starts by recognizing that people don't want to pay $40 dollars for your average 3DS title, and releasing a SKU that contains 10 great F2P titles to drive hardware sales. My modeling of the original DS shows that close to 33% the people who bought a DS bought it to play pirated games - and those people didn't mind paying $130-150 dollars when they got 20-30 games for "free." Nintendo can't just give away their software for nothing - but they can go back to the drawing board, bring titles like Tetris Axis and stuff into the F2P realm, and create a compelling value proposition for the audience they lost to tablets even with the current 3DS hardware (though I think Nintendo is better off making their own tablet).

Nintendo betting the farm on packaged high-end software was great for enthusiast gamers - but enthusiast gamers aren't the segment that are going to return Nintendo to profitability. Parents are the ones walking into the store and paying full price for a Pokemon game on day one and dropping $200 on 3DS hardware because their kids want it. Those parents are buying their kids an iPad Mini now because the price of software is too high and the tablet provides other functions. A new low-end tablet or a 2DS for example with 15-20 high-quality F2P games built-in would begin to make a mass-market appealing product and help to change the dynamic to attract back that audience that paid big amounts of money for the hardware just to play pirated games.

So, your vision for Nintendo is that of a Japanese Zynga.

Excellent.

 

[Roshin]

Amazing post. Makes me wonder if Nintendo can ever really recover from this or are we watching a self inflicted mortally wounded company in it's slow death throws.

What's worrying is that they have so much catching up to do. They're behind in hardware, HD production, internet infrastructure, etc. Is it even reasonable to expect them to catch up?

 

[Father_Brain]

What you're talking about is chasing the absolutely fickle "extended market" again that can just run off in their 100 millions at the drop of a hat. The sort that will spit in the eye of an Angry Bird soon enough while pledging all allegiance to PAD and so on. Betting the farm on them is never a good idea, especially if it means totally changing their business. Its also a totally entrenched market where iPad and Nexus and Kindle are king and worse still, people are invested heavily into those ecosystems. Its far too much of a gamble and doesnt even play to any of Nintendo's software strengths. You're expecting them to go Zynga and Popcap when even those companies aren't setting the world alight as much anymore either.

So, your vision for Nintendo is that of a Japanese Zynga.

Excellent.

Yeah, I'm sympathetic to where tehrik is coming from here, but I think NCL may be in an even worse position to compete directly with iOS/Android than they are to compete directly with Sony/MS for the Western core market, and that's saying a lot.

 

[tehrik-e-insaaf]

So, your vision for Nintendo is that of a Japanese Zynga.

Excellent.

No. They should have a good balance of F2P content along with their traditional packaged content.

I'm not really sure how you even got that out of my analysis?

Assuming Nintendo does this for 2DS/3DS - the system comes with some great F2P games that fill key genres - and you can still buy packaged software. It fills two key needs and Nintendo can upsell the packaged games to an audience that buys the hardware. The value of buying the device isn't simply linked to buying expensive packaged software, which means you have a shot at winning customers who never bought games in the first place.

This is really no different from where Sony and MS are headed with their consoles. Nintendo should get with the program so that people perceive the 3DS as offering more than just expensive games you can buy.

Also F2P doesn't mean the games are junk. Nintendo could do a great job doing F2P - this at least gets the userbase for their devices up which is what matters right now - Nintendo can't keep taking a huge loss to get hardware in peoples' hands. There are good studies that show the reason people pay so much for tablets is that they perceive the cheap or F2P games as making up for the additional cost. This is actually why Nintendo was able to keep the DS price so high for a long time - a lot of people were buying it to pirate software. Instead of embracing piracy, they should show people that buying a 3DS does infact give you access to a variety of free content.

I can almost assure you this is exactly what Nintendo is thinking about doing. Games like Brain Training, potentially Nintendogs, and others are ripe for F2P. They can still sell Pokemon for full price for example. They have a better shot at customers buying a 3DS with 3-4 F2P games and paying for 1-2 packaged games than just trying to drop the prices on everything and devaluing their premium software altogether.

Yeah, I'm sympathetic to where tehrik is coming from here, but I think NCL may be in an even worse position to compete directly with iOS/Android than they are to compete directly with Sony/MS for the Western core market, and that's saying a lot.

Well, this is one idea. I really think Nintendo shouldn't do it on 3DS although they probably will. My sense is that they should attempt to do it on a brand new tablet platform such as I had proposed earlier, then merge the 3DS/Wii U lines into a premium handheld device eventually.

I do think Nintendo can compete very well with iOS/Android - if they get Nintendogs, Brain Training, etc F2P and then give people the possibility of buying Pokemon and Super Mario 3D Land, the 3DS suddenly becomes a very interesting platform for a lot of people that bought the DS, bought a game or two, and pirated everything else.

But yes I agree with you - nothing is easy here - Nintendo is going to have to work extremely hard to target their audience correctly again. Nothing is easy but I think Nintendo's appeal to family is their strength and that's the market they should be going after...

 

[airmangataosenai]

By the way, my theory on these numbers, especially with the weird unrounded number for Wii U being so specific, is that these are numbers Iwata knows they can (Slightly) surpass in order to save face. I put forward that they actually intend to sell 3 million Wii U's and 14 million 3DS. Both numbers are still bad keep in mind.

 

[Skyzard]

Nintendo is in a rut but I think Wii U will pick up but it's not going to be during the next-gen launches. Nintendo do need a decent amount of advertising bux though and I really hope they have some special big projects already in the works for Wii U for 2015 though.

I don't think the fans ran away, they're just in hiding. Make good enough games, drop the price low (handheld low), have a good marketing campaign. Next-gen go third-party.

If Nintendo actually made a fun-joy-box for the family, people will want it, if it seems new and next-gen. Low effort games are not that, they need to blow our minds.

 

[cascardian]

So, Iwata, now that you're finally forced to realise that your fantastic software this console cycle is for ever bound to the minuscule install base of a dud, be bold and set it free: Put it on Steam.

 

[I H8 Memes]

This is Nintendo fans fault. Their cognitive dissonance on the Wii U made them enablers the entire way.

 

[lefantome]

From a "remaining first party" perspective, is "Nintendo is doomed" no longer a joke?

It has never been a joke completely since the gc years, they saved themselves(or delayed the inevitable depends on the povs) now it's really serious. Their pillar of the last 3 generations took a serious hit and it's not going to return to its orevious state.
In addition to that their second pillar of the past generations is doing worse than awful.

 

[Griss]

From a "remaining first party" perspective, is "Nintendo is doomed" no longer a joke?

Of course not. It's not quite an inevitability, but it's no joke.

 

[QaaQer]

No. They should have a good balance of F2P content along with their traditional packaged content.

I'm not really sure how you even got that out of my analysis?

Assuming Nintendo does this for 2DS/3DS - the system comes with some great F2P games that fill key genres - and you can still buy packaged software. It fills two key needs and Nintendo can upsell the packaged games to an audience that buys the hardware. The value of buying the device isn't simply linked to buying expensive packaged software, which means you have a shot at winning customers who never bought games in the first place.

This is really no different from where Sony and MS are headed with their consoles. Nintendo should get with the program so that people perceive the 3DS as offering more than just expensive games you can buy.

Also F2P doesn't mean the games are junk. Nintendo could do a great job doing F2P - this at least gets the userbase for their devices up which is what matters right now - Nintendo can't keep taking a huge loss to get hardware in peoples' hands. There are good studies that show the reason people pay so much for tablets is that they perceive the cheap or F2P games as making up for the additional cost. This is actually why Nintendo was able to keep the DS price so high for a long time - a lot of people were buying it to pirate software. Instead of embracing piracy, they should show people that buying a 3DS does infact give you access to a variety of free content.

I can almost assure you this is exactly what Nintendo is thinking about doing. Games like Brain Training, potentially Nintendogs, and others are ripe for F2P. They can still sell Pokemon for full price for example. They have a better shot at customers buying a 3DS with 3-4 F2P games and paying for 1-2 packaged games than just trying to drop the prices on everything and devaluing their premium software altogether.



Well, this is one idea. I really think Nintendo shouldn't do it on 3DS although they probably will. My sense is that they should attempt to do it on a brand new tablet platform such as I had proposed earlier, then merge the 3DS/Wii U lines into a premium handheld device eventually.

I do think Nintendo can compete very well with iOS/Android - if they get Nintendogs, Brain Training, etc F2P and then give people the possibility of buying Pokemon and Super Mario 3D Land, the 3DS suddenly becomes a very interesting platform for a lot of people that bought the DS, bought a game or two, and pirated everything else.

But yes I agree with you - nothing is easy here - Nintendo is going to have to work extremely hard to target their audience correctly again. Nothing is easy but I think Nintendo's appeal to family is their strength and that's the market they should be going after...

I like your posts, but how to you get people to want to carry around two devices? Or buy their kids 2 devices? And no, a gaming handheld is no replacement for a phone or a tablet.

 

[Box]

Of course not. It's not quite an inevitability, but it's no joke.

Doesn't the word "doomed" imply inevitability? If Nintendo is actually doomed then it means they have literally no opportunity to change their fate.

 

[Griss]

That's the conversation I'm interested in having - and unlike what a certain group of people think it doesn't start by making even more expensive AAA games for other consoles with features most children who play Nintendo games have little interest in. That's just Nintendo pissing away their money in much the same way Sega did trying to find an audience for their content on the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Nintendo's audience is on tablets right now. The Grandmother who played Brain Training the eight-year old who loved Nintendogs.

Look, I've watched Nintendo lose their market to iOS for three/four years now on my morning commute, as every little kid on the train plays with their phone, and a 3DS is rarer than fairy dust. It's clear to me that that has happened, and Nintendo has to deal with that reality. Your F2P ideas are a good way of doing that.

What I can't agree with is that Nintendo can't leverage their two or three best teams that already have experience making AAA quality home console content and turn that into profit on the PS4 and XB1. A title like Knack has sold, what, 500k? worldwide on an install base of 4 million. You're telling me Mario Galaxy 3 wouldn't shatter that when the install base of PS4/XB1 combined is 15-20 million or potentially much higher? You're telling me they couldn't get 3 million out of Zelda in that situation, or that they couldn't make a profit on those titles at those numbers? I can't buy that.

And what is the point of letting this particular industry-leading expertise go to waste? You can have 80% of the company focussed on where it should be - kids and casuals; F2P and cheap software, possibly on mobiles. Take all your handheld guys and put them on that. But there's still money to be made with a couple of carefully chosen AAA console games by your most talented teams, and I feel like if it's there is they should pursue it.

It would also be great cross-promotion for their mobile stuff, and help their IPs keep an element of prestige to them compared to the likes of Angry Birds and Candy Crush etc.

 

[Osiris]

Doesn't the word "doomed" imply inevitability? If Nintendo is actually doomed then it means they have literally no opportunity to change their fate.

Nothing is ever inevitable when it comes to predicting future events, all you can do is track trends and plot the trajectory.

If they continue on their current path, then Nintendo as you know them now are indeed doomed, but predictions and trajectories are just that, they are not immutable outcomes..

Will the changes they make slow their descent into oblivion, accelerate it or will they catapult them to unimaginable highs? - That remains to be seen.

All that you can say with any certainty is that absent any major game-changing events, the future doesn't look rosy for them.

 

[spwolf]

Look, I've watched Nintendo lose their market to iOS for three/four years now on my morning commute, as every little kid on the train plays with their phone, and a 3DS is rarer than fairy dust. It's clear to me that that has happened, and Nintendo has to deal with that reality. Your F2P ideas are a good way of doing that.

What I can't agree with is that Nintendo can't leverage their two or three best teams that already have experience making AAA quality home console content and turn that into profit on the PS4 and XB1. A title like Knack has sold, what, 500k? worldwide on an install base of 4 million. You're telling me Mario Galaxy 3 wouldn't shatter that when the install base of PS4/XB1 combined is 15-20 million or potentially much higher? You're telling me they couldn't get 3 million out of Zelda in that situation, or that they couldn't make a profit on those titles at those numbers? I can't buy that.

And what is the point of letting this particular industry-leading expertise go to waste? You can have 80% of the company focussed on where it should be - kids and casuals; F2P and cheap software, possibly on mobiles. Take all your handheld guys and put them on that. But there's still money to be made with a couple of carefully chosen AAA console games by your most talented teams, and I feel like if it's there is they should pursue it.

It would also be great cross-promotion for their mobile stuff, and help their IPs keep an element of prestige to them compared to the likes of Angry Birds and Candy Crush etc.

obviously, when their WiiU is not doing well, and they cant do much about it quickly, then response would be to actually sell software wherever you can.

In fact, Nintendo could have done what Sony has with PSNow and probably be far more accepted from the start, simply because they are not direct competitor.

 

[Synth_floyd]

Nintendo has been on a long, steady decline since the N64 when they started going with proprietary formats and spurning 3rd parties. The Wii was an outlier but every time they have followed the same formula of "release a system with a proprietary game format and 'different' controller, focus heavily on 1st/2nd party software and hope that 3rd parties come along." But their 2nd parties which used to produce quality stuff have dried up, hardcore Nintendo fans have slowly decreased and the casuals that made the Wii the lightning-in-a-bottle success that it was went to smartphones/tablets.

Unfortunately the Wii U's tablet controller never caught on, and Nintendo isn't really sure what their target audience is besides Nintendo fans. The 3DS is still doing well because it is going for the formula that the NES/SNES went with: a combination of high quality 1st party and 3rd party releases that cater to both the hardcore and casual fans. But the console landscape is totally different and they can't do that anymore.

 

[titusandronicus]

Surely they will be nowhere near the 2.8 mil either? If they are only about half a million this FY.

 

[Lesiroth]

Only Ken Kutaragi in place of Iwata will bring salvation to Nintendo.

In all seriousness though, the next Direct better not disappoint.

 

[titusandronicus]

I can't imagine the next direct being much more than Donkey Kong info, Smash Bros. info, Mario Kart info + release date, Yoshi info, and maybe a Zelda tease.

Nintendo have very little to show, because they have basically no third parties now. There are gonna be a lot of disappointed people come next ND. Nintendo never delivered all those E3s were they desperately needed to show new Wii games, and they were in a MUCH better position then, than they are now.

 

[Griss]

What you're talking about is chasing the absolutely fickle "extended market" again that can just run off in their 100 millions at the drop of a hat. The sort that will spit in the eye of an Angry Bird soon enough while pledging all allegiance to PAD and so on. Betting the farm on them is never a good idea, especially if it means totally changing their business. Its also a totally entrenched market where iPad and Nexus and Kindle are king and worse still, people are invested heavily into those ecosystems. Its far too much of a gamble and doesnt even play to any of Nintendo's software strengths. You're expecting them to go Zynga and Popcap when even those companies aren't setting the world alight as much anymore either.

See, this is how I feel. They have to find out if a cheap handheld with low priced software and F2P options would succeed before they go chasing the dangerously fickle mobile crowd.

 

[tinfoilhatman]

This is sad

I can't believe are actually suggestion Nintendo make their own tablet...............good luck

No amount of advertising or marketing is going to save Wii-U not even good games, people in the west have been over Nintendo since GameCube.......Wii was saved by causaul but that ship has now sailed.

Apple or Microsoft next week is time to start the hostile take over and once complete give every valuable Nintendo employee an insane giant retention bonus allow them to make whatever games they want(as well as Mario+Zelda) and give them total freedom........as long as it's on the the ownership's platform of choice.

 

[Aaron Strife]

I can't imagine the next direct being much more than Donkey Kong info, Smash Bros. info, Mario Kart info + release date, Yoshi info, and maybe a Zelda tease.

Nintendo have very little to show, because they have basically no third parties now. There are gonna be a lot of disappointed people come next ND. Nintendo never delivered all those E3s were they desperately needed to show new Wii games, and they were in a MUCH better position then, than they are now.

Eh... E3 2010 was pretty good. DKCR, Zelda, Mickey, Goldeneye

 

[zerokoolpsx]

Wow, from 55B profit to a loss. I misread the title and though it said 25B profit. The Wii U is the bulk of their net loss?

 

[AzaK]

9 million might have made sense initially. Then games got delayed and sales were awful for the first 6 months of the fiscal year and that has basically set the tone for the system. It should have been revised sooner with Iwata being straightforward - the games aren't ready, and we can't sell a system without the games.

Then it didn't help that the games that did come out bombed.



I think a lot of people feel like Nintendo is already doing this, at least to a greater extent than a first party probably should. Focusing on too few IPs and not delving deeper into their catalog for more variety to appeal to more types of gamers.

They would have known of game delays and no third party support well before launch. For them to still consider 9 million is disingenuous.

 

[Game Guru]

I think Nintendo will have to start making F2P games, but a F2P game from Nintendo would not be the same as a F2P game from someone else... Nintendo could theoretically make a F2P digital version of a game as well as a $40 physical version of a game, but the $40 physical version... actually has $40 worth of content already available for the player, meaning that you could have the exact same stuff just by buying $40 worth of stuff in the F2P version. I suppose Nintendo could use microtransactions in tandem with their Super Guide to allow people to skip levels in their games for a nominal fee, though that might be getting into P2W, which is undesirable. Nintendo could even experiment and make New Donkey Kong, a direct sequel to Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, with all that entails... meaning that it is F2P game where you buy four credits to play the games for a buck, essentially making it a new age arcade game.

Nintendo has options to at least make F2P enticing to people and fit in with Nintendo's nostalgic slant. I mean when Nintendo did DLC, they really made DLC you wanted to buy. If Nintendo does F2P and microtransactions, they will make microtransactions which people will want to buy. What Nintendo shouldn't do is go third-party, because I seriously doubt that game controllers for iOS and Android will meet with any real success, and that the Sony/Microsoft contingent won't eventually end up like the comic book industry has, irrelevant save for being a source medium for film and show adaptations, especially if the next generation of gamers are growing up treating video games as being cheap and disposable as iOS, Android, and even PC generally do.

 

[jroc74]

So they haven't even SOLD/SHIPPED 2.8m Wii-Us? O_O!

I swore I saw places mention about 5 million. WOW.....

 

[Ty4on]

I swore I saw places mention about 5 million. WOW.....

It's this FY so from March 2013 to March 2014.

 

[Sneds]

From a "remaining first party" perspective, is "Nintendo is doomed" no longer a joke?

I honesty don't think it's been a joke for a while.

 

[Mr. RPG]

You guys forget that the vast majority of all of these losses from the Wii U, not the 3DS.

I'd say the 3DS is doing better than the DS was doing at this point, but I don't have numbers with me. Anyone know for sure?

 

[Aaron Strife]

You guys forget that the vast majority of all of these losses from the Wii U, not the 3DS.

I'd say the 3DS is doing better than the DS was doing at this point, but I don't have numbers with me. Anyone know for sure?

No I think we're at the point now where DS really took off. So 3DS has been left behind.