You guys gotta realize how easy it is for a company like Microsoft and how hard it is for Nintendo to pay for everything Rare needs. Nintendo doesn't have that type of money, Microsoft does. An entire gen, and finally some Rare games are coming out for the Xbox? oh wait, Conker came out last month, MB.
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Bad business decisions this gen?
- Thread starter Wollan
- Start date
MightyHedgehog
Member
Biggest business mistake this gen?
Nintendo letting Rare go.
Nintendo letting Rare go.
ThunderEmperor
Banned
you all have got it wrong, nintendo has not made a bad business decisions. they made bad market share decisions.
MS made the worst businees decision, in making the xbox. 4 billion dollars in loses says it all.
MS made the worst businees decision, in making the xbox. 4 billion dollars in loses says it all.
fortified_concept
Banned
jj984jj said:
Great post. I agree with each and every point in it.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
connectivity.
I can't help but think it was a big experiment that may have helped with the wireless drive for the rev though.
I can't help but think it was a big experiment that may have helped with the wireless drive for the rev though.
radioheadrule83
Banned
Speevy said:
They split marketshare scraps with Microsoft. Nobody cleaned up except Sony.
And while their 3rd party support remains the worst, they still gained developers and development on Gamecube.
Gamecube has 3 TIMES the amount of third party software than N64. I'll try and find a comparison for you.
jj984jj said:
Agreed
Disagreed. MGS:TTS would have been lauded in its existing state on any other console. It'd of been a big deal for Metal Gear fans, whether they prefer the original OST etc or not.
And connectivity was a worthwhile attempt to leverage the businesses even if it failed. Its gonna continue in future Nintendo products and it'll happen with PSP and PS3 too.
It may have paved the way for wifi in DS and Rev as previously mentioned...
Business accumen aside: Pacman VS and Zelda: FSA rule
Agreed.
Factors I'd also say seem loathingly self evident about this poor transition would be GBA vs GBA SP, the fact that the Gamecube launched in purple, No-online VS No-line Nintendo Wifi Connection, Gamecube and GBA VS Revolution and DS. Its a different Nintendo now, but it was ugly getting there.
He hasn't directed a game for years... and some of the 'other' talent is pretty good. Takeshi Tezuka (direction) with Kensuke Tanabe (writing) on Zelda was killer. Aonuma is about to show his true mettle. The Tokyo studio is showing promise...
Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0 met expectations. Viewtiful Joe met expectations.
Resident Evil 4 was ported but nowhere did that imply that the Gamecube support wasn't worthwhile too. Capcom will support Revolution, DS and GBA next just as much..
Yeah. SEGAs definition of "platform agnostic" left something to be desired. They basically split the best games among three different platforms... where really, the best games should be multi-platform.
Again, infuriating. I agree.
Truly fucking stupid.
Not bad ideas really when you think of them as long term investment. I mean 2 billions pissed away in the first couple of years, nice exclusives and the best online plan ever conceived -- and they were barely keeping toe to toe with the Gamecube? Imagine if they'd put less into it.
Money hats?
radioheadrule83
Banned
True. Good point.
Chittagong
Gold Member
My top ten:
1. Capcom 5 - absolutely horrible business decision that was disastrous for new franchises and even for RE. Capcom could have ruled the PS2 and sold tons of its games.
2. MS buying Rare for $375 million cash - My god, for that money MS could have commissioned between 10 to 30 AAA exclusive games. More than Rare will make in the next 2-3 generations.
3. Nintendo's confused approach with GameCube - was it a me-too console, or was it innovative? Was it mature or was it kiddy? Console with a bad positioning based on price only.
4. Original Ngage and the bad initial game lineup - one has to wonder what would have happened if Nokia would have launched with QD and the AAA exclusives they had later.
5. PSP - that shit bleeds money like a bad business plan infected with a financial ebola.
6. Whatever happened in Retro studios - when you kill three of your four games, something is going horribly wrong.
7. Square Hawaji studios - just because you can make beautiful animations doens't make you Pixar.
8. Investing in Gizmondo - essentially only to fund Ferraris and blowjobs to a British and a Swedish bloke.
9. Sony dropping the ball with digital distribution - having potentially the access to tens of millions of homes, PlayStation and PSP could have become what iTunes and iPod are today. Now it's too late. Even on the console side, Nintendo and Microsoft are leading the race.
10. Sega missing the mainstream - much like Capcom, too much love for niche audiences, leaving Western developers collect the money on PS2.
1. Capcom 5 - absolutely horrible business decision that was disastrous for new franchises and even for RE. Capcom could have ruled the PS2 and sold tons of its games.
2. MS buying Rare for $375 million cash - My god, for that money MS could have commissioned between 10 to 30 AAA exclusive games. More than Rare will make in the next 2-3 generations.
3. Nintendo's confused approach with GameCube - was it a me-too console, or was it innovative? Was it mature or was it kiddy? Console with a bad positioning based on price only.
4. Original Ngage and the bad initial game lineup - one has to wonder what would have happened if Nokia would have launched with QD and the AAA exclusives they had later.
5. PSP - that shit bleeds money like a bad business plan infected with a financial ebola.
6. Whatever happened in Retro studios - when you kill three of your four games, something is going horribly wrong.
7. Square Hawaji studios - just because you can make beautiful animations doens't make you Pixar.
8. Investing in Gizmondo - essentially only to fund Ferraris and blowjobs to a British and a Swedish bloke.
9. Sony dropping the ball with digital distribution - having potentially the access to tens of millions of homes, PlayStation and PSP could have become what iTunes and iPod are today. Now it's too late. Even on the console side, Nintendo and Microsoft are leading the race.
10. Sega missing the mainstream - much like Capcom, too much love for niche audiences, leaving Western developers collect the money on PS2.
Chittagong said:
I think a good example of a correct business decision this gen is Nintendo's intervention with Retro. Yes, Retro was going down the toilet, but forcing them to kill three games and ending up with one of the masterpieces this gen and an able first-party developer is definitely a good business decision. The same probably had to happen to Rare, but Rare was probably too big to handle and I think it's still is.
As for Capcom 5, I think Capcom's reasoning was that if they succeeded (which they obviously didn't) in expanding GC's install base, they could enlarge the gaming market as a whole (or curb the shrinking in Japan's case). It's easy to say they could have made a lot more money in hindsight, but it's a calculated risk and even if it didn't pull off, Capcom didn't lose too much. In many cases, it's not a bad decision, but just bad execution. It is important to distinguish the two. Nintendo's worst mistakes are made in the N64 days, which the GC inherited, but the intention to recover was there. They wanted to diversify their portfolio and have mature content but ended up disappointed by their second-parties (SK, Rare and pre-Metroid Prime Retro) and pulling short themselves with EAD. They shouldn't exactly reverse all those decisions with Revolution.
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
Personally, I think alot of good JRPG's could come stateside and sell fairly well but companies have balked on doing the work.
typhonsentra
Banned
I'm really confused by all the "Capcom 5" answers. Even with this minimal support for the Gamecube of mostly lower-cost projects (Barring RE4 and the animated cutscnes/voice work for K7), PS2 still got the vast majority of the support, most of which underperformed too. And of the Capcom 5, 3 have been ported and 2 of them bombed hardcore on the PS2 (We have yet to see how RE4 will perform). Are you saying they should've made PN 03 for the PS2? Would that of made a difference?
scarybore
Member
typhonsentra said:
I was just about to post something similar to this. As far as I remember, Capcom expected alot better sales from their PS2 projects and just didn't get them. From that viewpoint the Gamecube games did reasonably well considering the size of the userbase compared to the PS2.
SolidSnakex
Member
radioheadrule83 said:
It wasn't just a bad decision to move it exclusively to the GC, it was also a bad decision to move it exclusively to the DC, even if it was for a short amount of time. This is what they were accustomed to with each RE
in 2003 and 2004, Capcom only met their overall platform sales projections on GameCube and GBA. PS2 and Xbox both failed to hit their targets by significant margins and GameCube just barely made it's targets at that. Capcom's big problems this generation haven't been GameCube centric, they've been spread among all consoles really.Deathcraze said:
C- Warrior
Banned
One thing I can say is that everyone keeps using the "PS2 has a bigger install base!" tag-line to glorify sales of a title on a GC.
Some things to note.
A lot more casuals own a PS2.
10,000x's as much piracy on the PS2. (the millions sold in Asia, yeah, only 3 people buy games over there)
Repeat purchases (broke ones, slim-line)
Maybe Need for Fuckin Speed might benefit from PS2's "omg larger install base." But a hardcore-esque oriented game like Resident Evil, or PN03, or Viewtiful Joe, wouldn't (maybe RE would, but not as much as some expect/say).
Some things to note.
A lot more casuals own a PS2.
10,000x's as much piracy on the PS2. (the millions sold in Asia, yeah, only 3 people buy games over there)
Repeat purchases (broke ones, slim-line)
Maybe Need for Fuckin Speed might benefit from PS2's "omg larger install base." But a hardcore-esque oriented game like Resident Evil, or PN03, or Viewtiful Joe, wouldn't (maybe RE would, but not as much as some expect/say).
These would be my picks, but for Gamecube I'd say the specific problem was the decline in how popular their console games are (look at Mario/Zelda sales on Gamecube vs. N64) and not doing more to get third party support. RE4 was their biggest third party exclusive but it didn't really move too much hardware and is ending up on the PS2 anyway. They would have been better off trying to get games more in tuned with the userbase as exclusives.
Comfort_Eagle
Banned
Sega XBOX stuff plus most of the GC.
SolidSnakex
Member
C- Warrior said:
How's the PS2 any different from the PSone in terms of fanbase that ate up RE? The last time I saw a chart for the RE (back in June), RECVX and REOutbreak were the 2 best selling RE's this gen. Both of which are PS2 games. To top it off RECVX is a port and Outbreak isn't even a real RE, yet they still sold well on the system.
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
SolidSnakex said:
I think the biggest thing is confusing the playstation RE fanbase, by making the RE exclusive yet not exclusive, really jerking it's fanbase around but despite that CVX and Outbreak show it's still there at some capacity. Since RE5 is multiplatform from the get go, it seems avoid all of that.
Ninja Scooter
Member
MightyHedgehog said:
because the Gamecube would be in much better shape with Grabbed by the Ghoulies and a Conker remake?
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
typhonsentra said:
jarrod said:
i was going to say both of these things. its funny, people are acting as if the gamecube should never have received any exclusives. some odd point of views here.
RE4 GC has outsold Outbreak by now. It's also on track to outsell CVX PS2 at full price... that's game's big sales came from bargin bins. Which is really PS2's main advantage over other platforms strategically, it's gigantic budget aftermarket fueled by casuals.SolidSnakex said:
As for RE's PS2 sales potential, Outbreak 2 is the worst selling RE this gen (not counting ancient DC/GC ports) barely limping to 500k worldwide. RE's sales decline actually started on PS1 though (with RE3), the series "stabilized" on GameCube (every RE now sells around 1.2-1.4 million, expcept Outbreak 2).
SolidSnakex
Member
quadriplegicjon said:
Some of their GC exclusives have been right, RE just wasn't one of those right decisions.
Exclusives are fine for smaller games (like Steel Batallion for instance) but all large brand IPs really should've been on all 3 consoles (Resident Evil, DMC, Dino Crisis, Onimusha). Some smaller brands likely would've been helped by ports too (Dragon Quarter, MegaMan X, Maximo, Ookami etc).... it did help Viewtiful Joe a little.SolidSnakex said:
DS support is happening anyway evidently.Speevy said:
SolidSnakex said:
Resident Evil Zero: 465,054 (LTD)
biohazard 0: 400,750 (as of Jan 1, 2004) - doesn't include Pure Evil 2-Pack or BioHazard Collector's Box
Total: 865,804
Resident Evil: 541,341 (LTD)
biohazard: 267,470 (as of Jan 1, 2003)
Total: 808,811
Biohazard Outbreak: 437,779 (as of Jan 1, 2005)
Resident Evil Outbreak: 406,213 (LTD)
Total: 843,992
BioHazard Code Veronica Kanzenban 337,755 (as of Jan 1, 2002)
Resident Evil CODE: Veronica X: 888,439 (LTD)
Total: 1,226,194
Really, ever since RE2's release, the series' sales have dropped enormously. Sales of the outbreak games and Code Veronica also reflect this, not just RE0 and REmake. In fact, RE4 is the first game where sales have INCREASED over the previous Resident Evil game since RE2. You can't confidently say that the series being on the cube is the reason for the sales decline, especially when the sell-through rate is higher on the Cube.
See? It's not so hard to twist statistics around.
See? It's not so hard to twist statistics around.
With the exception of RE4 and maybe the N64 version of RE2, the entire series is unplayable. Any self-respecting casual sees this, and if the entire series were given updated graphics and rereleased on Sony systems, it would disappoint terribly. The fact is that no one wants to move tank man around the prerendered hallway anymore. No one. And if you do, you have incredible tolerance for pain.
GaimeGuy said:Really, ever since RE2's release, the series' sales have dropped enormously. Sales of the outbreak games and Code Veronica also reflect this, not just RE0 and REmake. In fact, RE4 is the first game where sales have INCREASED over the previous Resident Evil game since RE2. You can't confidently say that the series being on the cube is the reason for the sales decline, especially when the sell-through rate is higher on the Cube.
See? It's not so hard to twist statistics around.
Too be fair, Resident Evil 3 was released in a downturn year for the PSX in the US and Code Veronica was initially released as a DC exclusive.
SolidSnakex
Member
GaimeGuy said:
Look at RE3's sales and then look at the current RE sales. People are bragging now about how RE has sold 1m units world wide, while RE3 sold a million units in its first week in Japan. You and others can spin it however you want, but when RE4 is announced for the PS2 before the GC version is released and RE5 is announced for the PS3 early on (even if its not exclusive) it seems pretty obvious that Capcom understands where the series needs to be.
SolidSnakex
Member
CVXFREAK said:
I don't think a survival horror game makes sense on a handheld at all. Glad Team Silent seems to be completely against the idea.
Doom_Bringer
Banned
1. Capcom's decision to make RE GC exclusive
2. Final Fantasy Spirits Within
3. Sony just dropping the ball with PS2 (lack of HDD, crappy online services and the hardware)
4. Microsoft buying Rare
5. Square Enix merger, since then Square hasn't produced enough games. They kicked ass last gen
6. Letting Matsuno and crew develop Final Fantasy XII.
7. Bringing FFX2 to NA
2. Final Fantasy Spirits Within
3. Sony just dropping the ball with PS2 (lack of HDD, crappy online services and the hardware)
4. Microsoft buying Rare
5. Square Enix merger, since then Square hasn't produced enough games. They kicked ass last gen
6. Letting Matsuno and crew develop Final Fantasy XII.
7. Bringing FFX2 to NA
Doom_Bringer
Banned
Mooreberg said:
They lost about $150 million but soon after Sony purchased 16% company stock for $150 million.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Speevy said:
PDZero is BARELY going to be ready for this gen, what makes you think they could have made it for GC (and worth a shit) while the gamecube needed it?
={<SMOKE>}=
Member
Ninja Scooter said:
yeah, but it went from gamecube to xbox to xbox360... besides, nintendo really needed a quality, exclusive fps this gen and i think rare could have delivered. they really messed up there. and when they did go looking, it was too late. and they found geist... lol
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
={<SMOKE>}= said:
from everything ive read, i really dont think pd0 would have been ready. hell, one of the reason why nintendo supposedly sold rare was because they were a mess internally . i think the roller-coaster impressions of pd0 kinda show this. MS seems to be trying to whip them back into shape though. kameo looks good.