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[Cyberpunkd]

Nintendo never wanted to be anything else than a videogame company. Only recently they branched into movies and theme parks, but this is just a means for them to get more people playing their games.

Both Sony and especially Microsoft have much larger plans for their respective divisions, for better or worse.

 

[Nigel]

Microsoft in particular are going to become more software and service oriented. Akin to Netflix. They want their games on as many platforms as possible. PC gaming is really popular too. Consistently growing. Plus imagine the cost of which is a lot lower for them.

 

[apple_of_enlightenment]

Going third party was always the gold standard barometer for the console maker failing.

It still is. Except they're trying to make good of it by doing it in piecemeal. I don't think it'll end well for them.

 

[Esppiral]

Wait for their next flop and we'll talk again

 

[FunkMiller]

I do love how ‘make great exclusive games to be successful’ has become some sort of alien and strange concept in the video games industry.

Oh no, wait. I mean I hate it.

We ended up here OP, because the other games companies decided that making money off everybody was more important than making games.

 

[Wildebeest]

Nintendo believes in retaining in house expertise and knowledge. If they hit a bumpy patch, they don't panic, fire everyone, and hire some BS artist who tells them to follow the most expensive trends for new products.

 

[Scotty W]

Isn't this factually incorrect? Did he not direct Ocarina of Time?

Even if it is true, it is misleading. Miyamoto’s ego is non existant. The man could be raking in obscene amounts of money, but instead chooses to earn a comparatively small sum, compared to what he is worth. I would be surprised if such a thing exists anywhere else in the entire industry. He seems to have graduated to a sort of position fairly common for successful Japanese men of his age, that of the Grey Eminence operating in the background, guiding the company.

Also, doing the concave and convex worlds of Super Mario Galaxy was done at his insistence. Unfortunately most gamers are too stupid to see that these are the most revolutionary games of the past thirty years.

 

[Toots]

I saw this on a different forum and while it was a Nintendo fan site, they raised a point that I thought was very interesting

I wish i could be so casually disparaging

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

I saw this on a different forum and while it was a Nintendo fan site,

As expected from a Nintendo fan site, the argument is pretty blind.

Yes, Nintendo has come back and is in a very strong position but there have been two big sacrifices for that to happen:

- No more Nintendo 3DS, so Switch has picked up that audience.

- Nintendo is no competition for PS or XBOX. They found their blue ocean (been looking for it since Wii). Nobody can enter their space but they can't enter PS/XBOX turf either.

As for games, Sony is funding as many games as Nintendo releases as first party so it's also a moot point. Nintendo sits comfortably in a safe spot but it took them Gamecube and Wii U to lose the mainstream home console battle.

 

[AV]

Sony and Microsoft don't have a Mario, Pokémon, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Smash Bros. or even Metroid.

Their franchises are immortal.

 

[RaZoR No1]

The higher the res / fidelity or fps, the higher the dev cost.
Switch runs "mobile" games on a mobile platform.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Fruit of the poisoned tree.

Your first problem, and what ultimately stains this entire thread, is the suggestion, that "going third party to varying degrees" is a bad thing.

Some perspective, regardless of Sony going third party to varying degrees, the PlayStation platform is making more money than Nintendo each year. And why should Xbox not go multiplatform, what has playing the traditional console game done for them over the last 2 decades? Going multiplat will not just make them become profitable, they stand to become the most profitable publisher on the planet. And why shouldn't the HD twins find ways to expand their markets? With the average triple-A 4k game costing over $200M these days to make, you need all the sales you can get.

And before you praise Nintendo, lets wait and see what happens when they have hardware that means they can actually make games with the fidelity of what we find with the HD twins. Lets see what they do when their own budgets skyrocket. Or if they ever even take that route. I mean, BOTW, including marketing, cost Nintendo around $100M to make in comparison. And that's their idea of a high-budget game. And that's pretty much "mobile game level fidelity running on mobile hardware". Lets see what happens when mainstream mobile hardware can run games with the fidelity of the HD twins games.

Point is... there are different ways to measure success and things change.

 

[GigaBowser]

Fruit of the poisoned tree.

Your first problem, and what ultimately stains this entire thread, is the suggestion, that "going third party to varying degrees" is a bad thing.

Some perspective, regardless of Sony going third party to varying degrees, the PlayStation platform is making more money than Nintendo each year. And why should Xbox not go multiplatform, what has playing the traditional console game done for them over the last 2 decades? Going multiplat will not just make them become profitable, they stand to become the most profitable publisher on the planet. And why shouldn't the HD twins find ways to expand their markets? With the average triple-A 4k game costing over $200M these days to make, you need all the sales you can get.

And before you praise Nintendo, lets wait and see what happens when they have hardware that means they can actually make games with the fidelity of what we find with the HD twins. Lets see what they do when their own budgets skyrocket. Or if they ever even take that route. I mean, BOTW, including marketing, cost Nintendo around $100M to make in comparison. And that's their idea of a high-budget game. And that's pretty much "mobile game level fidelity running on mobile hardware". Lets see what happens when mainstream mobile hardware can run games with the fidelity of the HD twins games.

Point is... there are different ways to measure success and things change.

switch highest profits

 

[Fahdis]

Nintendo has executives that know what the fuck they are doing.

Nintendo is an archaic company that lives on Legacy IP and remasters/remakes that takes chances by reinventing older IP and plays it safe.

 

[BlackTron]

THIS! Only stupid people or trolls thought Nintendo was going 3rd party.

To this day people say it would be a "mistake" for Nintendo not to go third party, and miss out on the amazing secret that MS and Sony figured out.

I think these are mostly PCMR users who refuse to own a Nintendo hardware, and think N is dumb for passing up the opportunity to let them buy Mario 128 on CDkeys.com in exchange for blowing up their entire business philosophy that made them rich.

As a person who enjoys Nintendo games, I would prefer they don't take such steps that would ruin their influx of development resources.

OP is discovering that games cost alot of money to make. A single console isnt profitable at this stage. You cant sustain a large amount of studios with a single console.

If Sony had the studios that MS had, they would have gone 3rd party too. Look at the cost of Sony games. Now expand those cost to a large amount of studios. Its not going to be sustainable at all. Even with 120m console sales.

Its just the reality of operating a huge business like that.

Edit: AAA games for Sony and Xbox doesnt cost the same for Nintendo. That is their saving grace. Their low end devices allow them to reduce the cost, while raking profits from their extortion price tag.

I think that if you look at the sales numbers of heavy hitter Switch games, they could have been titles with higher quality assets, maybe even larger scope, and still supported themselves with their own sales. For example I think Nintendo could have made a version of Spider-Man 2 for $80-100 million less (on better hardware such as Switch 2) and people would be less guarded about the next one because it wouldn't be stuffed with woke weirdness. Speaking of which, TLOU 1 has racked up over 30 million sales on PS3/4, while part 2 just broke 10 million this year...I'm assuming 2 cost more than 1 to make. I wonder what the difference is, it's really interesting isn't it.

While I think what you are saying is true to an extent, I think we also need to account for simple failed strategy and trajectory of these platform holders as well. They can fail to make the right moves, but then 100% of the reason ends up being "it's impossible to do today", which isn't really the full story IMO.

 

[GymWolf]

Thank god we have some diversification and not everyone followed the nintendo way is all i'm gonna say.

 

[Radical_3d]

Spoiler

Thanks to John Linneman for discovering me this marvel.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Nintendo has issues with transitioning from successful consoles to the next. Hang on tight, the next Wii U could be around the corner, or do they break the curse?
In all seriousness, you need to applaud how Nintendo runs it's business, a true underdog story. I hope they can keep it up for several generations.
The Switch success caught everyone offguard, even Nintendo. No one saw something like Animal Crossing taking off.
Western companies like Electronic Arts are kicking themselves at missed opportunites on Switch and not taking it more seriously.
Nintendo's success is fickle and so is their third-party support.

Nintendo? Underdog? What?

Even when they were having flop home consoles they always had successful portables on sale at the same time (Gameboy Advance for Gamecube, 3DS for Wii U etc).
Switch is basically a portable console that also allows you to play in your TV.

Nintendo won't flop with their next console release because it's still going to be a portable device, all of their teams are focused on a single piece of hardware, everything points to it being backwards compatible, etc...

 

[darrylgorn]

Too much time on gaming forums and not enough time

 

[jufonuk]

I saw this on a different forum and while it was a Nintendo fan site, they raised a point that I thought was very interesting, which is that ten years ago Nintendo was failing so badly with the Wii U that their going third party wasn't just demanded from the rest of the industry but basically treated as a given. Ten years later we have ended up not only with Nintendo at the strongest it has ever been, but also the only true first party while both Xbox and PlayStation have gone third party to varying degrees (Xbox releases every game on PC, and some also on PlayStation and Switch, several major ones are even released on other platforms day one and often even before Xbox. PlayStation releases live service games on PC day one and also late ports of most of their major single player games and IP. They also release some games on rival consoles under contractual obligation, such as MLB, Lego Horizon, and Marathon with Bungie acquisition).

And in the funniest ironic twist, not only did Nintendo stay first party and exclusive while the others didn't, but games and IPs from both others have shown up on the Switch (Xbox: Minecraft, Pentiment, Grounded, Ori, Hellblade, Bethesda stuff post-acquisition; PlayStation: MLB, Lego Horizon).

How did we end up here? Nintendo managing comebacks isnt really a new thing, but how did the rest of the industry get to the point where even PlayStation and Xbox had to go third party to varying degrees, and how did Nintendo stay immune?

Because Nintendo has been in the game the longest.also they are trying to keep gaming fun.

 

[Fabieter]

As expected from a Nintendo fan site, the argument is pretty blind.

Yes, Nintendo has come back and is in a very strong position but there have been two big sacrifices for that to happen:

- No more Nintendo 3DS, so Switch has picked up that audience.

- Nintendo is no competition for PS or XBOX. They found their blue ocean (been looking for it since Wii). Nobody can enter their space but they can't enter PS/XBOX turf either.

As for games, Sony is funding as many games as Nintendo releases as first party so it's also a moot point. Nintendo sits comfortably in a safe spot but it took them Gamecube and Wii U to lose the mainstream home console battle.

Nintendo is getting more and more of the console base. Playstation had so many Japanese third party exclusive in the past and 99% of them are gone or will be gona when switch 2 launches.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Nintendo is an archaic company that lives on Legacy IP and remasters/remakes that takes chances by reinventing older IP and plays it safe.

And Sony and Microsoft aren’t playing it safe?

 

[schaft0620]

There was never any real talk of Nintendo going 3rd party and that wasn't even something that was on the table.

Meanwhile at Xbox there are people working there running to all the influencers saying, "Hey we are going 3rd party after next gen." Then you have Xbox saying basically everything that's leaked.

I wouldn't compare the two.

 

[Fahdis]

And Sony and Microsoft aren’t playing it safe?

How? At least they have new IP every few years taking risks. Tell me about Nintendo?

 

[AV]

And Sony and Microsoft aren’t playing it safe?

Game Pass is just about the least safe thing the gaming industry's ever seen. It's been a massive gamble and we still don't know the end result.

It only feels "safe" because Microsoft have an infinite money pool, so it doesn't really matter if it's ultimately a failure.

 

[RoboFu]

Naming pc as third party porting is still the dumbest thing ever. It's more like the open frontier. Anyone can ship a pc game how they want.

At most you could say MS owns windows so it makes total sense for them to port day one games.

Even in that sense Sony porting games makes total sense as well as they wouldn't want MS to have total majority of that market and they don't have to pay MS anything to do so.

 

[Hudo]

ten years ago Nintendo was failing so badly with the Wii U that their going third party wasn't just demanded from the rest of the industry but basically treated as a given.

Was that really the case? I don't remember a public demand like that other than from some retards on some niche forums like GAF. Remember that the 3DS was actually doing well.

What happened internally is that they took the right lessons from the Wii U, saw that their handhelds are consistently popular and that a hybrid approach is the safest way to go forward, if they also want to cater to the home-console crowd.
And afaik, this was Iwata's strategy. And apparently it works.

 

[mhirano]

Nintendo makes freaking good games with not many bugs and little DLC

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

Nintendo are smart, they’ve been doing this dance a lot longer than the other companies. Nintendo will be the last one left standing when it comes to consoles.

 

[Robb]

How? At least they have new IP every few years taking risks. Tell me about Nintendo?

What is the baseline here? Something like LABO definitely seemed very high risk.

Ring Fit Adventure and ARMS didn’t seem like very safe games either. Neither did Game Builder Garage, which I’m not even sure how well it has sold..

 

[Ozzie666]

Nintendo? Underdog? What?

Even when they were having flop home consoles they always had successful portables on sale at the same time (Gameboy Advance for Gamecube, 3DS for Wii U etc).
Switch is basically a portable console that also allows you to play in your TV.

Nintendo won't flop with their next console release because it's still going to be a portable device, all of their teams are focused on a single piece of hardware, everything points to it being backwards compatible, etc...

I don’t think my sarcasm came through. Don’t disagree with anything and it would take a massive amount of mistakes for them to mess things up.

 

[Ceadeus]

OP is discovering that games cost alot of money to make. A single console isnt profitable at this stage. You cant sustain a large amount of studios with a single console.

If Sony had the studios that MS had, they would have gone 3rd party too. Look at the cost of Sony games. Now expand those cost to a large amount of studios. Its not going to be sustainable at all. Even with 120m console sales.

Its just the reality of operating a huge business like that.

Edit: AAA games for Sony and Xbox doesnt cost the same for Nintendo. That is their saving grace. Their low end devices allow them to reduce the cost, while raking profits from their extortion price tag.

OP is right above you why would you talk to him at the third person, just like if you were laughing at him. Like, "look at this dumbass, guys lolol". I read you posts you are often up there on first couple replies and you're rarely positive. Very often either sarcastic or quite negative.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Nintendo are cost effective. They make cheaper hardware and their games cost much less to make too. No need for expensive voice actors, mocap and costly visual fidelity. Just good games that are fun to play, that leave you smiling as your playing. This has always been Nintendo at their core.

 

[SmokedMeat]

How? At least they have new IP every few years taking risks. Tell me about Nintendo?

What ip is taking risks? Spiderman 4? Last of Us Remake of the Remaster? Gears of War?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Game Pass is just about the least safe thing the gaming industry's ever seen. It's been a massive gamble and we still don't know the end result.

It only feels "safe" because Microsoft have an infinite money pool, so it doesn't really matter if it's ultimately a failure.

We’re talking ip not services.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Conflating Xbox's industry pivot for exclusives to Playstation's unique situation with two games just to suck Nintendo off is certainly a choice. So it thinking adding games to PC is somehow a failure on their part.

 

[Kokoloko85]

OP is discovering that games cost alot of money to make. A single console isnt profitable at this stage. You cant sustain a large amount of studios with a single console.

Arent Sony and Nintendo having there most profitable generations ever… (yes they are)
Both Playstation and Nintendo have many studios and are doing fine.

Lets stop with this talk that consoles arent profitable, Journalists and posters can keep repeating it but its not true.
All this talk is since Xbox has gone multiplatform and thats because MS fails to sell enough games and consoles.

They decided to buy big publishers while their own platform and studios were struggling.
This is an XBox issue, Playstation and Nintendo sales are fine

 

[AV]

We’re talking ip not services.

Then Hellblade 2 as a good recent example. The sheer time, money and resources dedicated to an inherently polarising 5 hour narrative game is bonkers and it probably hasn't paid off at all. Not playing it safe.

But really, all three big players do a little of each. Nintendo have their safe IPs, but they were still out there doing cardboard peripherals and physical Mario Kart AR games.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Well, we have yet to see Nintendo drop the E-word. Experience. That's when you know an 8 year dev time title abput Mario's struggle with mental health and his sexual identity in a ruined world is coming.

 

[mckmas8808]

To this day people say it would be a "mistake" for Nintendo not to go third party, and miss out on the amazing secret that MS and Sony figured out.

I think these are mostly PCMR users who refuse to own a Nintendo hardware, and think N is dumb for passing up the opportunity to let them buy Mario 128 on CDkeys.com in exchange for blowing up their entire business philosophy that made them rich.

As a person who enjoys Nintendo games, I would prefer they don't take such steps that would ruin their influx of development resources.



I think that if you look at the sales numbers of heavy hitter Switch games, they could have been titles with higher quality assets, maybe even larger scope, and still supported themselves with their own sales. For example I think Nintendo could have made a version of Spider-Man 2 for $80-100 million less (on better hardware such as Switch 2) and people would be less guarded about the next one because it wouldn't be stuffed with woke weirdness. Speaking of which, TLOU 1 has racked up over 30 million sales on PS3/4, while part 2 just broke 10 million this year...I'm assuming 2 cost more than 1 to make. I wonder what the difference is, it's really interesting isn't it.

While I think what you are saying is true to an extent, I think we also need to account for simple failed strategy and trajectory of these platform holders as well. They can fail to make the right moves, but then 100% of the reason ends up being "it's impossible to do today", which isn't really the full story IMO.

First Bolded: The bolded are the same PCMR users that say every PS5 game should come out on PC day one also. It's port begging in it's highest most pathetic form.


Second Bolded: This just ISN'T true and I'm not sure why people keep pushing this lie around. It's purely a LIE that TLOU2 just passed 10 million this year. Can you guys PLEASE stop pushing this lie just to add to your anti-DEI narrative. With the numbers we have, TLOU2 is closer to or around 15 million units sold. That we know!

 

[Rudius]

Ballooning dev cost in exchange for high fidelity or high fps.

Nintendo games cost lest but in exchange for low fidelity and low fps.

You can easly play all of Nintendo's games in 4K, many with 60+fps.

 

[mckmas8808]

And Sony and Microsoft aren’t playing it safe?

How could you think making and putting out PSVR2 and PS Portal being safe?

 

[Sleepwalker]

Its cheaper to make games when all you have to aim for is 720p 30fps on a tablet from 2015. At this point there are phones capable of emulating the switch lol.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Nintendo is getting more and more of the console base. Playstation had so many Japanese third party exclusive in the past and 99% of them are gone or will be gona when switch 2 launches.

Ever heard of Korea or China? Sony already has more console exclusive of those than Nintendo has Japanese non-Nintendo exclusive games.

And Sony is funding those games with the China and India hero project plus exclusive deals with devs like Shift Up. Sony even has appointed a CEO to manage those kind of games.

So no, this mantra is wrong too.

 

[lh032]

You can easly play all of Nintendo's games in 4K, many with 60+fps.

yea but the fidelity is trash. And those games are not AAA like Zelda, which runs trash

 

[BlackTron]

Second Bolded: This just ISN'T true and I'm not sure why people keep pushing this lie around. It's purely a LIE that TLOU2 just passed 10 million this year. Can you guys PLEASE stop pushing this lie just to add to your anti-DEI narrative. With the numbers we have, TLOU2 is closer to or around 15 million units sold. That we know!

Well excuse me, I didn't know that 10 million was a lie. Even if it is, and it stands at 15, I understand that the game enjoyed a sales surge after the popularity of the TV show. Which means that Part II accomplished half the sales with the help of being cross-promoted by TV as the first game did on PS3/4 based on its own merits as a brand new game.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Never count out Nintendo. Never bet against them. They have the “family” market all to themselves and have dominated in that sphere for almost four decades. There will always be a fan base for their franchise classics.

As for handling one generation to the next, let’s fair. Everyone has struggled with that: Atari, Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. The only “repeat champion” was PlayStation 2, and that’s because Sony had the global market largely to themselves, as the competition was scattered.

Switch 2 could have similar success, but it’s impossible to say at this point. We’ll see what happens in the coming year.

 

[Fabieter]

Ever heard of Korea or China? Sony already has more console exclusive of those than Nintendo has Japanese non-Nintendo exclusive games.

And Sony is funding those games with the China and India hero project plus exclusive deals with devs like Shift Up. Sony even has appointed a CEO to manage those kind of games.

So no, this mantra is wrong too.

I do! Can you tell me how many noteworthy permanat exclusive games you have played from china and korea?

Its highly like that even rebirth and xvi is gonna land on switch 2 so the only exclusives left over is Astro bot and gt7.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Wait for their next flop and we'll talk again

Innovation requires taking chances. No one can stay on top for the duration without trying new things. Probably a good part of the reason this industry is in the state it's in.

 

[Little Chicken]

Can we also talk about Nintendo's horrendous anti-consumer business practices?

Timed digital releases? What the fuck is that all about and why do they get away with it?