Nintendo to Transition to a Company with Audit/Supervisory Committee, Officer System

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dmaul1114 said:
IDK, Sony is ran like a business and the PS1, 2, 3 and 4 have all had great libraries.

If they end up having to go third party, so be it. I don't buy the arguments that they'd diminish like Sega. Sega had far bigger issues like screwing over fans with the 32x, Sega CD and 32x, having too many of their games being arcade type games that largely died off as people moved onto narrative driven games and competitive online games vs. replaying short games to try for high scores etc.

Nintendo's biggest games like Smash, Mario Kart, mainline Mario and Zelda games, Metroid etc. would do fine on other platforms. Things like Pikmin would do fine as $40 releases ala the new Ratchet & Clank. Smaller titles like Captain Toad would do fine as $15-20 download only titles and so on.

Plus with the business folks pushing them to expand mobile, expand licensing of their IP etc. just brings in more revenue that can be used to fund more games.
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Nintendo isn't going to willingly just go third party. Shit will have to be rather fucked for that to happen...just like Sega. The Nintendo that survives that change will not be the Nintendo everyone just assumes it will be. This pie in the sky idea that 3rd Party Nintendo would now be free to release all the games people want is unrealistic and naive at best. For Nintendo to go third party, that means their war chest is gone , perhaps super far into the red. That will mean they also have begun to leak their talent elsewhere. Third Party Nintendo is more of a Mario/Zelda (and perhaps AC) factory than it is now. Those are guaranteed sellers and thats what they bank on. Look at every other 3rd party, they rely on known properties to stay afloat. Capcom has none; they are dying. Ubisoft has AC; Doing pretty good. Sega has fuck all; might as well be dead (;_;). This idea that third party Nintendo would just be Japanese EA isn't based off of facts. It just doesn't work that neatly.

NOW I will say, I don't think Nintendo would flop and die (even if being at the edge is probably the only reason for going 3rd party IMO) but I don't think it is the sunshine and roses people are making it out to be. Being a third party isn't exactly poppin for people right now. Many former titans are leaking right now and are having a tough time keeping up...especially the Japanese Ones
 
Starchasing said:
I totally agree. This has been the most important piece of news of Nintendo lately and nobody is paying attention.

I see 3 possible outcomes in this

1) Nintendo doubles downs on being weird and quirky and Nintendo. They disappear in a few years.
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This is literally impossible. Nintendo can't just disappear in a few years. Even if they've depressed a little the past 5 years, they're still in a very strong financial position. They have no debt so they literally can not go bankrupt, given the current circumstances, and they still have a sizable pool of liquid assets that far outweighs their total liabilities.

It would take at least a decade of continuous bad financial decisions to put the company in any sort of position were they're at risk of collapsing. The company simply has too many options available that it could act on before that happens (Eg downsize, major restructure, go third party, pursue a different business venture altogether, etc).

And even in some hypothetical future were Nintendo takes out a big loan which they eventually defaults on and file for bankruptcy, I still don't see the company just straight up disappearing. The brand holds too much value. Whoever acquires their assets would very likely resurrect the company in some way or form.
 
Mik317 said:
Nintendo isn't going to willingly just go third party. Shit will have to be rather fucked for that to happen...just like Sega. The Nintendo that survives that change will not be the Nintendo everyone just assumes it will be. This pie in the sky idea that 3rd Party Nintendo would now be free to release all the games people want is unrealistic and naive at best. For Nintendo to go third party, that means their war chest is gone , perhaps super far into the red. That will mean they also have begun to leak their talent elsewhere. Third Party Nintendo is more of a Mario/Zelda (and perhaps AC) factory than it is now. Those are guaranteed sellers and thats what they bank on. Look at every other 3rd party, they rely on known properties to stay afloat. Capcom has none; they are dying. Ubisoft has AC; Doing pretty good. Sega has fuck all; might as well be dead (;_;). This idea that third party Nintendo would just be Japanese EA isn't based off of facts. It just doesn't work that neatly.

NOW I will say, I don't think Nintendo would flop and die (even if being at the edge is probably the only reason for going 3rd party IMO) but I don't think it is the sunshine and roses people are making it out to be. Being a third party isn't exactly poppin for people right now. Many former titans are leaking right now and are having a tough time keeping up...especially the Japanese Ones
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Agreed. Mostly. I think Nintendo has seen what happened to Sega and wouldn't wait until that point to make a change away from hardware. Especially with the business restructuring and input investors have.

Anyway, I also think consoles and exclusives will be a thing of the past in the next 10-15 years anyway. Everything will move to cloud based and/or digital store front based and just having different streaming apps/PC store fronts that work with a variety of controllers.

So I don't think it's really essential for any of the current big 3 to keep succeeding with hardware. What they really need to succeed on is building strong IP libraries and development team so they can succeed with their own streaming apps and store fronts in that future and not have to go third party and sell on Steam and the other digital store fronts where they lose a cut and have to price lower due to the competition vs. having their own successful closed store fronts and apps.

So focusing on a unified software platform is a great idea for Nintendo. It gives them a better chance to do ok with the NX short and it's sucessor(s) shorter term, and better ables them to build a stable of relevant IPs to support a digital storefront/app future. Or to have a lot to pull from if they're forced to go third party.
 
Didn't Kimishima say earlier this year that they would start giving more focus to their younger devs? The success of Splatoon has been good for them and I honestly doubt it will just be nothing but Mario going forward.

That would also go against the plan of evolutionary consoles and having a greater focus on library.
 
Movalpolos said:
I'm reading that creative freedom will be even more restrained now. They are going for low-risk.
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nick-young-confused-face-300x256_nqlyaa.png
 
Movalpolos said:
I'm reading that creative freedom will be even more restrained now. They are going for low-risk.
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You're reading into shit that isn't there clearly. But an emphasis of Mario or inhibiting creative decisions through the decision of the Board is not really what this new formation is. It's not like stockholders hold that much power in this new process.
 
Surprised not a lot of outlets are discussing this. I guess it is hard to convey the importance in a single headline to get clicks.
 
I mean, you usually don't restructure if things are going well.

You probably don't turn a $500mm investment into cash if things are going well.

Obviously, you don't delay a console launch by 6 months if it's all going as planned.


Hopefully Nintendo makes it through all of this in one piece and is able to stay solvent as a 1st party. 3rd party would be fun for a few years, and then it's Sega-zombie status.
 
Elfforkusu said:
I mean, you usually don't restructure if things are going well.

You probably don't turn a $500mm investment into cash if things are going well.

Obviously, you don't delay a console launch by 6 months if it's all going as planned.


Hopefully Nintendo makes it through all of this in one piece and is able to stay solvent as a 1st party. 3rd party would be fun for a few years, and then it's Sega-zombie status.
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I honestly feel that this restructuring was a long time coming that needed to happen. Their structure has been slow and largely the same for years. They've needed to look at things more globally, be more agile and that would require some restructuring of the company. As they went more insular they lost good pieces of their market, especially NA which was their biggest market.
 
This won't have as much impact as people think. Should help reduce wasteful expenses and activities, but likely won't majorly change the direction of the company. Couldn't get much worse anyway.
 
Nanashrew said:
I honestly feel that this restructuring was a long time coming that needed to happen. Their structure has been slow and largely the same for years. They've needed to look at things more globally, be more agile and that would require some restructuring of the company. As they went more insular they lost good pieces of their market, especially NA which was their biggest market.
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I think the restructuring will make them less insular. Not convinced they will become agile tho
 
bachikarn said:
I think the restructuring will make them less insular. Not convinced they will become agile tho
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They simply have to, or they'll fail.

Being behind on industry trends has killed them after the SNES.

Carts instead cd-roms for the N64.

Stupid mini-discs rather than DVDs for the GC during the start of the DVD movie craze.

Stupid slow to enter online gaming, much less catch up to the competition in online features.

Wii not being HD.

And on and on. In a future of VR, iterative consoles and all the other evolving tech, not becoming more agile will hurt them even more than all those past mistakes.

Fortunately, if the NX is just a platform rather than single console/portable, that will make being agile more easily as they can put out hardware more often, develop apps to stream their games on non-nintendo hardware (maybe just VC games) and so on since they're not tied down to needing to support a specific console and portable for 4-5+ years each.
 
It's easy to be doom and gloom about this, but things at Nintendo aren't exactly awesome right now. As much as I love my Wii U, I won't pretend I'm getting everything I want out of it. There's every possibility that their corporate structure is at least partly to blame for their present woes. I'll choose to be cautiously optimistic.
 
Movalpolos said:
So even more focus on Mario then.
Fuck.
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Just wanna note that the last mainline Mario game was released in 2013. We don't even have an inkling of any future announcement of a Mario game, either. This is actually on the higher end of in-between time for Mario games (the next release may very likely take longer than the time in between releasing Super Mario Sunshine and New Super Mario Bros., which was about 4 years).
 
dmaul1114 said:
They simply have to, or they'll fail.

Being behind on industry trends has killed them after the SNES.

Carts instead cd-roms for the N64.

Stupid mini-discs rather than DVDs for the GC during the start of the DVD movie craze.

Stupid slow to enter online gaming, much less catch up to the competition in online features.

Wii not being HD.

And on and on. In a future of VR, iterative consoles and all the other evolving tech, not becoming more agile will hurt them even more than all those past mistakes.

Fortunately, if the NX is just a platform rather than single console/portable, that will make being agile more easily as they can put out hardware more often, develop apps to stream their games on non-nintendo hardware (maybe just VC games) and so on since they're not tied down to needing to support a specific console and portable for 4-5+ years each.
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They are just so bad at reading the market.How many times have they asserted something with complete confidence and it was completely wrong. Even with the Wii, they admitted they didn't do any focus testing to see how good it was. They just released it and hoped for the best. They did the same for Wii U and it was a miserable failure. They really need to get a better analytics department.
 
Poltergust said:
Just wanna note that the last mainline Mario game was released in 2013. We don't even have an inkling of any future announcement of a Mario game, either. This is actually on the higher end of in-between time for Mario games (the next release may very likely take longer than the time in between releasing Super Mario Sunshine and New Super Mario Bros., which was about 4 years).
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They have about a 3 year dev cycle now with Mario so I could easily see a new one in 2017. Not at launch though, but holiday season.
 
Elfforkusu said:
I mean, you usually don't restructure if things are going well.

You probably don't turn a $500mm investment into cash if things are going well.

Obviously, you don't delay a console launch by 6 months if it's all going as planned.


Hopefully Nintendo makes it through all of this in one piece and is able to stay solvent as a 1st party. 3rd party would be fun for a few years, and then it's Sega-zombie status.
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They are making money while sitting on a alot money. As long as they are not getting hit by a asteroid, they will be longer around than our kids will live.


malfcn said:
Do fudy dudy have to approve everything now?
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Fudy dudys should always ask for approvement.
 
Fine Ham Abounds said:
This is basically me and everything announced today

I have no clue where Nintendo is headed right now, but it will be a different direction than they've been on :p
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this is pretty much where I am at. Can't get too up or too down about any of the choices made today. It is at the very least different that what ever the fuck they were doing...

lets wait and see before losing our shit for once.
 
Mik317 said:
this is pretty much where I am at. Can't get too up or too down about any of the choices made today. It is at the very least different that what ever the fuck they were doing...

lets wait and see before losing our shit for once.
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NEVAR! EVERYONE INDIVIDUALLY CREATE A NEW THREAD AND STATE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT NINTENDO AND THE STATE OF THE GAMING INDUSTRY NOW!
 
Business jargon can be tough sometimes to boil down, but man, some of the doom and gloom in this thread that is pulled out of nothing is quite amazing. I guess it is a Nintendo thread...

Again, for a new page:
  • The Audit and Supervisory Committee does not make the board more "powerful", but rather it separates some of the board's functions (audit, supervision) and delegates to a committee made up of quite a few outside directors. Audit committees help make sure internal controls such as financial controls are adequate.
  • The creation of the executive officer system is simply removing the "execution of operations" from the board's responsibilities and giving it to executive officers. These officers are generally all already part of Nintendo (so they're not bringing more suits in), and they'll more than likely be in charge of a specific area of the business such as hardware or, in the case of someone like Reggie, NoA. This might lead to more power to the officers, but it might not as well as they are accountable to the board.
  • This is a move to make Nintendo more agile and responsive to their business environment. It would make them less Kyoto-centric and more of a Western business.
 
bachikarn said:
Wait, so how is this restructuring changing things. It seems like he was complaining about 'design by committee,' but this restructuring is creating more committees?
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I think what Alderman was complaining about wasn't so much "design by committee," but on many things being run by a committee of guys in Kyoto, any one of whom could instantly kill an idea from the outside because they didn't understand it (like online infrastructures and whatnot).

Think about it, how many companies headquartered in Kyoto have as much global relevance as Nintendo?
 
So half the thread says this is good and half the thread says this means "Nintendoomed"


I'm just going to pretend like what MajorMane is saying is right and this will be good.
 
RedSwirl said:
I think what Alderman was complaining about wasn't so much "design by committee," but on many things being run by a committee of guys in Kyoto, any one of whom could instantly kill an idea from the outside because they didn't understand it (like online infrastructures and whatnot).

Think about it, how many companies headquartered in Kyoto have as much global relevance as Nintendo?
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I can't think of any. Kyoto business is seeped in too much tradition and too insular.

MajorMane said:
Business jargon can be tough sometimes to boil down, but man, some of the doom and gloom in this thread that is pulled out of nothing is quite amazing. I guess it is a Nintendo thread...

Again, for a new page:
  • The Audit and Supervisory Committee does not make the board more "powerful", but rather it separates some of the board's functions (audit, supervision) and delegates to a committee made up of quite a few outside directors. Audit committees help make sure internal controls such as financial controls are adequate.
  • The creation of the executive officer system is simply removing the "execution of operations" from the board's responsibilities and giving it to executive officers. These officers are generally all already part of Nintendo (so they're not bringing more suits in), and they'll more than likely be in charge of a specific area of the business such as hardware or, in the case of someone like Reggie, NoA. This might lead to more power to the officers, but it might not as well as they are accountable to the board.
  • This is a move to make Nintendo more agile and responsive to their business environment. It would make them less Kyoto-centric and more of a Western business.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this clear summary!
 
This mostly sounds like a good thing. It seems like the only "risk" is that Nintendo might end up taking a more conservative direction with development, but it's not like they weren't really doing that anyway with Mario this and Zelda that (and now mobile development).
 
bachikarn said:
They are just so bad at reading the market.How many times have they asserted something with complete confidence and it was completely wrong. Even with the Wii, they admitted they didn't do any focus testing to see how good it was. They just released it and hoped for the best. They did the same for Wii U and it was a miserable failure. They really need to get a better analytics department.
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As I said, they've either finally learned from all those mistakes and all the restructuring they've done is a result of that, or they'll fail again.

Hopefully with the new President having spent a lot of time in the US and been president of NOA, he'll see more value in prioritizing the western market where the vast majority of game sales occur. And I don't mean they start poppping out western style AAA games, just that they finally get online on part with the competition, do their marketing in a way that appeals to westerners who aren't already die hards etc.
 
Sounds largely positive to me.

Of course, everything has bad and good effects. Nintendo's staunch traditional approach to stuff has certainly been horrible for a ton of things, but in some ways, its insular setup and industry lag has also kept it behind some of the bad trends in the industry.

Here's hoping it's largely positive!
 
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