Nintendo out of the video game business by Fall. You heard it here first on NeoGAF, folks!
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Media Create Sales: Week 8, 2014 (Feb 17 - Feb 23)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Nintendo out of the video game business by Fall. You heard it here first on NeoGAF, folks!
You have mixed Japan with USA. If I say only 2K14 it's only 2K14. And yes, software is bad.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
I think you have to give the 10 years because Nintendo could technically produce 2 failing handheld generations more and run on bank before hitting a total dead end. Although I have to assume investors would mutiny or something after the first failed 3ds successor, doubly quick if QOL is the non-starter most are expecting.
Dragon Quest 11 (although that seems a bit up in the air) and respective Pokemon and Monster Hunter follow ups? That seems about all thats left, and not sure thats going to grow the hardware beyond current owners.
Terrible analysis. Actually it has little to do with phones and much more to do with hardware saturation. 3DS is a mature system than has sold a lot of units and released a lot of Nintendo stable franchises. Software is selling pretty well. If Nintendo wishes to continue growing 3DS hardware they have 3 options: upgrade model (not necessarily a successor, but even a 3DSi that gave people reasons to upgrade), lower price (more likely this means 2DS release), or release games that appeal to an audience they don't already have a large amount of.
Hellraider
Member
You think? I'm pretty pessimistic on 3DS' future in Japan. You think DQ11 will be enough to ride the console for another year? Unless I'm missing something else.
vicissitudes
Banned
I'm getting my games from wikipedia's list of PS4 games available in Japan. I'm looking for a better source right now but do you have one other than "I say so"?
Edit: Another link with a list of PSN games that's clearly more than just "2K14".
1st Course
Member
None of those are available at retail in Japan atm.
Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule
Member
Zelda 
That's pretty obvious
We know it did - but Vita also didn't launch with a dozen+ DD-only titles and bundled 1 retail & 2 digital games along with a slew of F2P software.Chris1964 said:
Given that everyone's argument is that software lacks appeal to begin with - the free & bundled stuff should have that much more impact on early buyers...
michaelius
Banned
What's the point of getting people to upgrade to new model if it won't expand userbase ?
I think unless Nintendo has gone whole hog and devoting most of their resources to Wii U then yes, we are missing something. They haven't announced everything for this year. I do think that these eShop experiments like Darumeshi and Steel Diver at least will become more prominent at the very least though.
People are looking at pure hardware and that's how you raise your hardware sales. I mean yes they do get some profit from hardware and upgrade models create a cheaper market for previous models which would be the answers you're looking for but in terms of how badly hardware sales affects them overall it's based on how that impacts software sales. New machines drum up interest overall.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
Well he's right about all Sony systems launching in Japan with low (<1) attach rate (at least in Media Create charts). Including PS2 IIRC.
But if people used "Matrix was part of the attach-rate" excuse on PS2, we could argue "all those PS3 cross-gens are probably upgrade-purchases" for PS4
damn, and i want to believe the above quote too!
vicissitudes
Banned
That's part of the point - now there are digital games for sale, and Knack is bundled. There is no perfect 1-to-1 comparison. But if we take software from the top 20 retail list, and compare it to past Sony systems, even excluding Knack, it's comparable if not better. It's not a perfect comparison, but it would be a stretch to say PS4 software is "performing badly."
It will pick up. It always has.
Devilgunman
Member
3DS dropping 7K with 7 games on the chart compared to Vita dropping 100 with no games on the chart at all. Yes, Nintendo should be panic right now.
It's entirely possible that some of the ps4 sales had to do with ffxiv as well. Don't know what the active userbase is for Japan, but we could have a few hundred thousand ps3 players salivating at the chance to play an almost pc-port.
I know in the US a lot of people are upgrading solely for the console mmo, so some people might've been securing a console early for the beta access. Remember, FFXI still has a large console following in Japan.
I know in the US a lot of people are upgrading solely for the console mmo, so some people might've been securing a console early for the beta access. Remember, FFXI still has a large console following in Japan.
all of this on top of there being probably strong digital sales (on average at least 20%) compared to PS3 launch with zero digital sales.
And_Gignac
Member
Considering 3DS has most of the bigger franchises in Japan except for mainline Final Fantasy hitting "saturation" at 15 million is worrisome by itself.
3DS is suffering due to smartphone penetration, no way to spin it.
Vita is a non factor.
First you list titles that don't exist in Japan and then you move to PSN when you clearly compare retail titles in the beginning. Good.
Hellraider
Member
We can't be missing something for the past 4 years. It's pretty safe to assume whatever output Nintendo currently has is their maximum output. Not to mention what resources QoL is probably also eating.
I'm with you there on e-shop and maybe more f2p releases. Those are pretty irrelevant when it comes to hardware numbers, though. That's my problem.
1st Course
Member
Problem is that you're comparing a top 20 from Dec to a top 20 from Feb.
Lots of Vita games are missing in your comparison.
A better comparison is to wait for Dengeki report, they include total sw sales for the platform. Here how much sw the Vita actually sold in it's first week according to Dengeki:
PS4 total retail sw sales excluding Knack will definitely be lower than the vita overall.
Software is where the profit is and is the whole point of the vidya game biz. Is Vita not having any games on the chart AT ALL somehow an enviable position to be in? Or are you just being sarcastic?
1st Course
Member
Nope, if anything Mario Party is going to underperform heavily going by Amazon and Comg preorders.
No, actually that's part of the problem. 3DS is mostly built on existing franchises which has also made it hard to meaningfully expand gaming populations. That was the 3rd thing I mentioned.
It's not a matter of the number of games but how they hit the market. ACNL did more than several teams combined could have. Having a large existing user base actually makes those successes a bit easier. This is also why eShop expansion is important because it's low cost but utilizes the big current userbase.
bigmit3737
Member
As much as I love my Vita, I don't think this month s (March)sales are going to beat last year 's. It would have really helped to have a high profile game in Feb, just to start some momentum.
Presumably what retailers care about is sell-through, and it appears to have been fine.
Oh sorry, I don't have a problem with you truncating his post. I misunderstood what you were writing. I understand now that you were not criticizing him for omitting the raw numbers. You were criticizing him for omitting the titles outside the top 20, which is a legit criticism in my view.
PS3 also had digital games at launch in Japan.
Hellraider
Member
Yeah, IntSys could create the next Minecraft or the next Pokemon tomorrow, sure but that's way too far fetched and not really plausible. The truth is there is nothing like ACNL on the horizon.
I'm also confused what you are trying to say on the second part of your post. I'm talking about ways to increase the hardware numbers what does userbase and eshop expansion have to do with it?
Graphics Horse
Member
By the end of March, Vita could be back below last year's YTD.
I agree, but i think there's more to it. When you say, the people who bought the system a year ago, i think most of them moved on, specially because of that drought last year till Pikmin.
But in the last 3 months and a half, the wiiu moved more than half a million units. These people never experienced a huge drought and had a lot more games available than the people who bought the system on 2012 and the first half of 2013. These people had no reason to give up on the system yet, unless they bought only to play Mario 3D world.
Nintendo had a good holiday with the system, but it still didn't translate in more sales. I don't know if those other games are unwanted, since not only DK but Mario and Sonic bombed hard too, and in the middle of holidays to boot, or if Nintendo is not marketing well those games for its audience, but wiiu hardware sales is not translating to better software sales and that's pretty worrisome.
Sylverstone14
Member
Some of the analyses in this thread are just hilarious to read.
Talk about jumping the gun.
Talk about jumping the gun.
eighty(one)
Member
Considering last weeks #'s only included 3 days, I'd think so.
Shame, the game is excellent, too.
pieatorium
Member
it most likely will but I doubt it will stay behind for too long
Relaxed Muscle
Member
When you talk about market saturation you talk that 3DS reached all the possible marketshare in the current conditions, which is hardly "there no way for 3DS to sell more hardware" because DS SOLD way more hardware before reaching market saturation. The market is there, Nintendo just lost it and that's a big problem, because he could losing more marketshare....
Neither new models are gonna fix that.
And no, software isn't selling so well....
Hellraider
Member
Relax, it's all about the legs.
PhantomOfTheKnight
Member
How the hell did Yo-kai Watch go up 50%? Stop teasing us and just gives us the game, dammit!
I don't think there's much doubt that it will be. The question is, what then? Will it stay behind? I suspect not, but it depends on the software lineup in the second half of the year.
Devilgunman
Member
I was pointing out to stead decline of 3DS compared to stabilizing Vita. 3DS is Nintendo's only money-making product in the market right now, and to see it has sharper decline than its competitor, which have much thinner libraries, is serious concern. If you think Nintendo is satisfying just from getting a cut from software sale while seeing their hardware dropping, you can't be more wrong.
pieatorium
Member
maybe? and no.
It probably went trough the first shipment by now, if we assume it was 350k. Second shipment, well, it depends on how big it is. Most likely, it's a no.