Yeah, I was hoping for something futuristic in building design.
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The Real Possibility of Imminent Change to Nintendo's Strategy (at Q3 Results)
- Thread starter Aquamarine
- Start date
Yeah, I was hoping for something futuristic in building design.
Father_Brain
Banned
I'm not going to say it's outright impossible for Nintendo to catch lightning in a bottle again, but I think the ever-increasing popularity of all-in-one smart devices, including the rumored upcoming set-top boxes from Amazon et al., will make it considerably more difficult for a dedicated gaming device to disrupt the market in the same way as Wii did.
Secondly, gambling on being able to catch lightning in a bottle again is not a smart or healthy business model. It's sort of like increasing one's personal budget tenfold with the expectation of winning the lottery.
The problem with casuals is that you can never be quite sure what will "click" with them. Dedicated console buyers want certain genres and it is pretty obvious what kind of games will cater to them. But what about casuals? Wii sports was a huge hit, but can you keep making motion based sports games and expect to knock it out of the park? Brain training style games? Doggie games? Mobile games seem to throw everything at the wall and see what stick, and the risk is very low as the budgets are nearly non-existent. But Nintendo throws real money into projects...its very risky to appeal to casuals IMO, as we see with the Wii U.
Remember, the people who thought the Wii was a great idea that the Wii U would do just as well :/
Thunder Monkey
Banned
In the Wii's case it wasn't the SD stuff that made the difference. It was how esoteric the core hardware design was. Both the PS3 and 360 could be fed within reason the same shader code. If I remember right the TEV in the Wii had to do pixel shading per vertex. Not per pixel.
You'd have to rewrite your code not only to just lower brute technical specifications but also shader code to an entirely different (and much more aged) design paradigm. A lot of the technical flourishes we take for granted (simple normal maps) were all but impossible on GCN/Wii hardware without significant CPU assistance. A strain on something already lacking the capability for competent ports anyway.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Nintendo had shipped 13.3 million by Q2 in Japan, as of late, sales of the 3DS stand at 14.4-14.5. Nintendo had shipped 2.94 million in Q3 last year - that figure will not be apparent in Nintendo's current Q3 shipment figures based on the latest sales. I am strictly speaking of shipment figures as they will be severly down from last year's Q3 - maybe I had not made myself clear in my paragraph. Apologies
LegendofLex
Member
What was wrong with their approach in 2008-2009? They had the best-selling platforms and were producing all-time best-selling titles as late as 2009-10. After that, when they started making stuff for 3DS and Wii U, they never went back to advancing the whole "games to combat disinterest in gaming" direction and seem to have just thought they could now get their DS/Wii people to move on to their other new games.
NSMBU is not aimed at combating disinterest. It is an uninteresting game.
Nintendo Land could have been pretty interesting. The problem is that it is not appealing. Coating it in Nintendo IPs is not the right strategy to combat disinterest (disinterested customers are not interested in Nintendo IPs); watering down those IPs with the "Mii/theme park" BS certainly isn't going to make them more interesting.
Wii Sports Club could (vaguely possibly) have gotten people interested in the GamePad as a new horizon/renaissance for motion gaming. It certainly worked with Wii MotionPlus. I don't think the GamePad would have caught on anywhere near as well as the Wii Remote anyway - the concept is just not as good a fit - but Nintendo could have at least pretended to be excited about the applications. Instead, Nintendo did an absolute terrible job of positioning Wii Sports Club as an exciting new Wii Sports game, and it's more like a weird Wii leftover that they're hiding on the eShop and only really pushing through Nintendo Direct/SpotPass (poor visibility to non-owners).
I can't think of anyone who is interested in Wii Party U. The fact that Nintendo executed that awkward Wayne Brady marketing thing suggests to me that they are just putting it out there and don't know what they're trying to do with it.
Wii Fit U is probably the best effort they've made software-wise, but its development and release period has been so strangely staggered, drawn out, etc. that I think it's going to wind up getting lost in the shuffle. There was very weak build-up to its release, and it wasn't released rapidly after announcement either. No way it's going to get even minimal buzz.
JordanN
Banned
I recall Shikamaru Ninja said Yamauchi wanted to get Nintendo into the anime business and when Iwata took over, he scrapped those plans.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I could and did tell them at the first rumors of WiiU that it was a mistake. They ignore the thing that made Wii popular (the simplified and intuitive controller) and marginalize it for a 360 controller with a touch screen in the middle. And then charge $100 more than their last highest priced console. And then the name. I don't think its the biggest problem with the platform, but the course of the past year has made me realize it was a much bigger problem than you'd expect.
I think they were banking on the Wii making that bunch dedicated console gamers willing to adopt "hardcore" gaming designs... even if that basic design had existed for 15 years before with no interest from that elusive group.
Personally I'd have called it NEW Wii and had an advanced Wiimote and camera system with it. Charging at max of $299 with the next iteration of the Wii Sports series as a pack-in.
Well if I was in charge of Nintendo they wouldn't be in this mess either lol.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Awww, you caught me before the edit.
Your statement was that Nintendo listened to everyone to abandon the ideas behind the Wii to make a traditional console.
This narrative is false because Nintendo has had a history of not listening even when they say they are trying to and with the Wii U they prove yet again to not be listening.
Besides people were split on what Nintendo should do. Some said they should make an HD Wii thus iterating on motion controls but offering better graphics, others wanted them to abandon waggle but from their statements they didn't care if Nintendo remained first party, others hoped that the Wii U would be close in power to the future consoles MS and Sony would bring instead of something as powerful as the current at the time PS3/360.
Nintendo shouldn't and can't compete with the high-end sector of the market. That's a market you can't possibly win if you aren't able to take huge losses to gain marketshare. And even then it doesn't really make a lot of business sense to operate that way, since the profit margins are just too slim to outweight the risks. That's also the reason why we don't see any other company trying to enter the the market Sony and Microsoft are competing for.
I do think that Nintendo might be successful with a device similar to the Ouya. A device build with cheap smartphone tech that's very affordable and powerful enough to play Nintendo's popular multiplayer games such as Mario Kart or the NSMB games. Technically more demanding titles like Zelda would suffer, though.
I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo introduces the Virtual Console on iOS and Android in the future, either. They can call it a means of promoting their new games with the classic games. Play the old games to get in the mood for the new titles that are exclusive to Nintendo's own hardware ... while testing the waters how much money the company could potentially make on smartphones.
Btw: My gf and I bought ourselves a Wii U for Christmas. I'm really surprised how much I'm enjoying the experience and especially the GamePad. I wish more people would buy that damn thing.
I do think that Nintendo might be successful with a device similar to the Ouya. A device build with cheap smartphone tech that's very affordable and powerful enough to play Nintendo's popular multiplayer games such as Mario Kart or the NSMB games. Technically more demanding titles like Zelda would suffer, though.
I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo introduces the Virtual Console on iOS and Android in the future, either. They can call it a means of promoting their new games with the classic games. Play the old games to get in the mood for the new titles that are exclusive to Nintendo's own hardware ... while testing the waters how much money the company could potentially make on smartphones.
Btw: My gf and I bought ourselves a Wii U for Christmas. I'm really surprised how much I'm enjoying the experience and especially the GamePad. I wish more people would buy that damn thing.
I hope Nintendo realizes, and I'm sure they do, that after the massive tanking of the Wii U, the utter implosion of their console business, coupled with the huge turn around time it takes to replace a failed product (realistically the soonest you can create a new flagship console is 4 years, which is practically EONS in the electronics world, and boy is mobile moving fast), they are starting from the absolute bottom. The Wii brand will have no meaning and not bring them any benefits, shoot it can be argued it will have nothing but a negative stigma by the time a new system releases. They will need to start totally fresh at enticing casuals.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
IIRC Nintendo has two share classes, commoners hold shares with lesser voting rights than those of the Yamauchi trust and treasury stock. It means Nintendo have a stranglehold on the board and regular investors can't really force any changes.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Which is both good and bad.
It gives their designers the autonomy to create whatever they want. And it gives their designers the autonomy to create whatever they want.
Not only that but it gives their designers the autonomy to create whatever they want.
mohsinkhan
Member
I do see them killing off the WIIU earlier then they expected, I say we see a $150 sku by next year.
They would rather perform sudoku.
What the hell was up with Nintendo when they predicted 9 mill units? Are they that much unaware of the market they are competing in?
My GOD that is horrible.
I still don't see how you come to that number. The only known is that sales will be almost half million down for the quarter. You don't know what Nintendo has shipped for holidays and how many unsold systems there are.
By the end of 2012 (that include those 2,94 million in Q3) 3DS had shipped 10,89m and sales were 9,80m.
A combination of all three.
Why not? Replace the Wii U Gamepad with an upgraded Wii Remote, ditch PowerPC, ease up on the system's absurdly low power envelope and you can probably afford to upgrade the RAM and buff the GPU to the 800-900 Gflop range, which puts in within reach of the Xbox One. It's not about beating Sony and MS' offerings but being in a comfortable spot where the Nintendo console is seen as undoubtedly next-gen and can benefit from 3rd party ports.
Build hardware that is easy to work with for third parties and invest in IPs that appeal to their demographics. As I mentioned before, it's not something that will fix itself overnight as their lackluster relationships with third parties date back to the mid-nineties, but it would be wise to start the process as soon as possible.
Nintendo is a baffling company. I can only attribute this to them being
A. A Japanese company. Too quirky to understand
B. Fiscally conservative to a fault.
Why they would deconstruct their western gaming studios after the N64, then follow up with a Purple purse, all the while ruining third party relations is beyond me
Hey this post looks like a perfect excuse to post this:
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Japan Only
Shipment of 3DS in Japan for Q3 FY 2012 - 2.94 million
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2013/130131e.pdf
LTD total Shipment of 3DS in Japan as of Q2 2013 - 13.33
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2013/131030e.pdf
Nintendo 3DS sales total LTD according to Media-Create 14.4-14.5
Nintendo is not shipping 2.94 million 3DS' in Japan if shipments were at 13.3 in Q2 2012 if sales are currently standing at 14.5. Shipments will most likely be halved to 1.4-1.6 million for Q3 in Japan or down considerably compared to last year. What am I saying that is wrong? I'm perplexed.
LTD until Sep 2012
Sales: 7.543.709
Shipments: 7.940.000
Dif: 400.000
LTD until Sep 2013
Sales: 12.886.975
Shipments: 13.330.000
Dif: 440.000
It's very simple
I think the surprising thing for me was the repeating of the mistakes they made with the 3DS with the Wii U. The way they reacted to the 3DS initial failure by dropping the price and offering all those games as an apology to early adopters struck me as an incredible move because it's really something not a lot of companies would've done. It seemed like they had learned, but the Wii U's absolutely baffled me. I'm guessing it's because they're already taking a loss on it and can't really afford to cut the price at this time, but they shouldn't have gone with the Gamepad as the central idea if it's so expensive, it's as simple as that.
"But we had Mario at launch! What went wrong???"
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Chris, we are saying the same thing quite frankly - shipment sales-figures will be down compared to last year; but how much, that remains to be seen. You claim that shipment-figures should only be down by 500k compared to last year, on my end I say approximately halved. We shall see by Q3 results, good talking to you and looking forward to your Media Create threads
If Nintendo really wanted to they could probably go H2H against the other consoles given that they are just using PC parts and getting 3rd parties to support them would probably be more of a process that would have more to do with the next console itself than anything else.
I think the real problem was all the delays.
Seppuku, surely.
Chris, we are saying the same thing quite frankly - shipment sales-figures will be down compared to last year; but how much, that remains to be seen. You claim that shipment-figures should only be down by 500k compared to last year, on my end I say approximately halved. We shall see by Q3 results, good talking to you and looking forward to your Media Create threads
No. I don't say shipment-figures will be down only by 500k. Sales will be down that much. You don't take in count that last year 3DS had exactly the same unsold amount before Q3.
If Nintendo shipped only 1,6m for Q3 that would leave Japan with almost zero stock for January (200k) when last year it was almost 1 million.
They didn't ship 3m again but 2m+ is the number.
Does anybody inside or outside Nintendo really believe Iwata can lead them back to success? He's so committed to failing strategies and so allergic to change, even as the company drives off a cliff.
If his answer to the complete disembowelment of their business model by Apple is a Miiverse app, I will tear my hair out.
If his answer to the complete disembowelment of their business model by Apple is a Miiverse app, I will tear my hair out.
Because western studios weren't that big a deal on consoles at the time.
Western console game development didn't really start to take over until years after that decision. With the exception of the games from Rare, none of the N64's western first party games helped it all that much. We like to look at the N64's western game lineup in hindsight, but it was a different environment back then. The PlayStation dominated mainly off of its dominant Japanese 3rd party support, and the shift in the console industry that the Xbox and later 360 started pulled that advantage from right under Sony's feet, and it had to change gears into what it is now -- basically an American company that still considers itself Japanese. If Nintendo had a crystal ball circa 1999 maybe they would've kept some of those western studios, even Rare, and pushed forward development of Perfect Dark 2 to respond to Halo Combat Evolved, but they didn't. The western takeover of console gaming took everyone in Japan by surprise, including Sony and Nintendo.
The worst part is that Japan hasn't really found an answer to this problem. Sony answered it by essentially turning PlayStation into an American operation. Japanese third parties are either struggling, trying to act western, shrinking their appeal, or all three. I feel like Nintendo narrowly escaped this fate because of the Wii, the DS's dominance of Japan's handheld market, and the uniquely broad appeal of its first party games.
Stepping back into the bleeding-edge hardware race in my opinion would be financially unsound for Nintendo and would basically just amount to following everyone else, which we know they're determined not to do. Plus, it wouldn't work without also being coupled with a complete revision of how Nintendo interacts with third parties. Then there's the question of whether the console market can even support three similar competing machines.
I think Nintendo's only real way out of this mess is for its next round of hardware to be something truly ahead of the market -- another striking innovation, but not something as dull as the GamePad. It would have to be a change in the entire way its platform works.
The writing was on the wall, western games were the future. Nintendo was in denial, plain and simple. They saw the future and were like
One way or another, their days are numbered.
Aquamarine
Member
Nintendo announced those predictions in April of last year. It was at a time where Wii U had a decent launch but was only beginning to significantly underperform. There was lots of hope from Nintendo that future first-party releases and the holiday season would be sufficient enough to jumpstart the console back on track.
Once Q2 hit and Wii U was still struggling, Nintendo took a wait-and-see stance for Q3 performance before making any real changes. They shifted the blame and refused to alter their predictions for Wii U / 3DS sales because that would signal lack of management confidence in Wii U's ability to perform throughout the holiday season.
It's clear that Q3 is the stress test for the console. Everyone is looking at Q3 for the Wii U to demonstrate its "miraculous turnaround" that Nintendo's predictions (100 billion JPY / 8.54 million consoles shipped) suggest. We know that Nintendo has invested a significant amount of money into marketing this holiday season and has legitimately tried to push Super Mario 3D World / the Wii U library.
In Japan they've been somewhat decent at it for the past few weeks. That somewhat decent could turn into great depending on how long Nintendo can maintain its momentum. If the console crash and burns after Week 1, 2014, we're right back to where we started.
In USA / Europe though, the situation seems more grim based on the two statistics that I posted in the OP...but we still need December NPD results first.
Refreshment.01
Member
What makes people think the GamePad is expensive? Or the component that forced them into the 350 price range at launch?
The writing was on the wall, western games were the future. Nintendo was in denial, plain and simple. They saw the future and were like
One way or another, their days are numbered.
Is that why Sony is more of a western dev today than a Japanese one since their best selling games are mainly western made?
They're not getting back to Wii/DS numbers no matter how many hardware platforms they put out. Sony and and Microsoft won't come near figures like that either. Going 3rd party on consoles and premium for phones/tablets also won't put them anywhere near Wii+DS revenue figures. The only companies touching those sorts of figures for gaming are the handfull of ftp phenomenons.
A hybrid hardware approach gets around the diminishing returns problem that's sinking Wii U and it also allows Nintendo to consolidate their considerable development focus on one unified platform. You could still have a "console" and a "handheld" hardware release to serve both markets and still even build some unique games for each focused around interface or audience. It's a less risky road forward for Nintendo as a hardware maker.
Nintendo has a bad habit of abandoning most strategies associated with an under-performing console instead of correctly identifying the ones that prevented it from completely tanking and retaining them for future platforms.
- They ditched their strong ties with western developers and the console FPS because it didn't help them outsell the PS1 when it's precisely what turned the N64 into a moderate success despite the system's glaring flaws.
- They had an online infrastructure that was in some ways ahead of Xbox Live circa 2006 with Randnet on the 64DD. Instead of building on that foundation, they decided to treat online as an afterthought because it failed to sell a peripheral for an already dying N64 in one of its worst performing markets.
- They closed the door on competitive yet cost-efficient hardware design because of the Gamecube, even though what sank the system was its image problem and lack of DVD playback.
I'm sure someone could provide even more examples of this.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
sörine;95870986 said:
No it's a massive risk. First they could very easily price themselves out of both markets, second trying to consolidate their platform to appeal to both could very easily lead to them appealing to neither.
It's actually one of the riskiest strategies. The Vita attempted to market itself as console gaming on the go, it bombed spectacularly. Vita Tv following a similar route. There's nothing currently in market signalling anyone wants that.
Their handheld division is still profitable and successful, if they were going to only have one console they should focus on that.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Now it's the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The writing was on the wall, western games were the future. Nintendo was in denial, plain and simple. They saw the future and were like
Then why did the entire rest of Japan not see it coming?
This is actually really accurate. Perhaps it's behind the idea of the 2DS as well.
Refreshment.01
Member
I been thinking this for years. But the real important thing of note with the above aproach is why Nintendo isn't implementing this with the Wii U right now?sörine;95870986 said:
In the future we expect them to have similar architecture in the mobile and home device, but they could easily (due to the processing advantage of the Wii U) get emulation for 3DS in the home console. Both systems have almost exact interface and interaction methods.
So what's holding them? Especially since the Wii U is underperfoorming.
Charrettizard
Member
I read this book for a research paper I did this semester. It's a fantastic book, and easily the most insightful look into Nintendo's inner workings ever made.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
The writing was on the wall, western games were the future. Nintendo was in denial, plain and simple. They saw the future and were like
One way or another, their days are numbered.
Are you suggesting they should have had an identity crisis and started pumping out generi-shooters? Last thing we need is for yet another Japanese company to forget what made them so unique and appealing in the first place.
I'm glad they're sticking to their guns until the industry figures itself out again. In the meantime, they just need to drop WiiU's price, market it aggressively, and keep the awesome games coming. It's been so refreshing among the oversaturated western games that have all started to look the same.
This industry has figured itself out. It's Nintendo that hasn't.
metalslimer
Member
I hope you are wrong, but I don't see Nintendo ever really competing in the console business again. What I fear most is that even their handheld business will take another huge hit next gen as smartphones and tablets become even more pervasive. Nintendo really needs to make sure their next handheld launches perfectly because a bad launch could actually be devastating for them
Freezie KO
Banned
Generic Western support like FPS and sports and racing games? Nintendo has a long history with those, as has been cited in this thread. Some of those games were defining achievements like Goldeneye and WaveRace.
What made Nintendo "so unique and appealing" wasn't always Nintendo Land and WiiFit. Half their output in 2013 was mini-game collections. What made them unique and appealing was their desire to constantly push the envelope and innovate with their games, even within existing franchises. They've already abandoned that.