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[BowieZ]

I believe Nintendo will be unveiling their new smartphone at the January Direct, a day before the Q3 results.

It will initially act as the company's third pillar hardware, but ultimately form the core part of their upcoming handheld-console hybrid system (the phone will be both the handheld device itself and the controller for the console).

They will announce both models -- the more expensive, sleeker adult model, and the child-friendly (but still sleek) model.

 

[BlackJace]

Let's hope paradigms do shift. Nintendo at its current trajectory cannot possibly hope to remain relevant in the hardware space. At the end of the day, the industry is quite cyclical, so I'd imagine they're working on several different course of action.

Thank you for your report, Aqua.

 

[orioto]

I've said this so many times...Nintendo is run by out of touch, incompetent fools.

*Stupid Name
*Severly under powered
*Mario Kart should have been a launch title
*A REAL console pokemon game should have been made
*Mario 64 HD (In fact various HD 64/GameCube games)
*ALL Pokemon/Zelda/Mario etc gameboy and GBA games available on 3DS and Wii U eshop.


Easy money.

If only you had been there to tell them launch was the right time to release their Mario kart. I still wonder why they left it in a closet for 2 years, such a bad strategy..

But honestly, as much as i think Nintendo is out of touch, this post is insulting and dumb as fuck.

_Pokemon has nothing to do with home consoles. It's reason to exist is being portable title. They are actually not dumb enough, yet, to do such a thing.

But maybe they should have had the same reasoning in the other direction. Some title like Mario Kart or Zelda should have been exclusive to consoles.

_More HD remakes yeah right... To please the ngc fans having the console already.. Let's circle jerk by making more and more happy the 20m fans they still got by drowning them in fan service.

_Now, indeed, the WiiU was not what they needed now. But it's not like they had something better to offer in their sleeves.

 

[JordanN]

The 3DS was only struggling for a few months so I don't see why it would've made sense to fire him so fast.

There where other things happening behind the scenes like how long it took for them to get the eShop running and how games were being rushed to meet quota.

I'd also call in the whole 3DS strategy but I don't think I'm ready for that.

 

[jay]

I'm reading it wrong or the eventual change would be firing iwata and going mobile?

Everybody wins!

 

[Instro]

With 3rd party support continuing to dwindle, and the casual audience still ignoring the device, I'd have to imagine that Nintendo will have to stick it out with the WiiU, try to double down on their core audiences and hope they can get consumers to buy it as a secondary console. Its impractical to think they can just scrap the WiiU now, although they could make the gamepad optional to further lower the price. That would take some over hauling on the OS and some sodtware though. I doubt they will pursue mobile devices in any meaningful way, perhaps offering some VC content.

As far as top level staff changes are concerned, multiple people need to go.

 

[Crisium]

Can ineptitude be so easily repaired?

 

[Scum]

If investors/Iwata instigate any change at Nintendo, then I sure as hell hope it's one that involves acting & thinking on a global scale, catering to the family crowd, getting NoA & NoE to be more involved and setting up dev studios at their Western branches. NCL needs to sort out their console output.

 

[Fourth Storm]

Iwata is a developer. If they fire him, I hope that they do not hire an MBA type. The OP is very worrying.

As another thread pointed out, the board is full of many guys who Iwata brought on board. He may step down in order to play the scapegoat, but his own number 2 will probably then get the job.

Whatever happened to Yamauchi's son in law's shares, btw?

Edit: That was another Aquamarine thread. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=699964

 

[Aquamarine]

I'm aware of that, maybe it did not seem from my post.

But the change if it happens what would be aside steering towards mobile?

It would be any avenue that's different from their current strategy (aka. their announced plans for 2014 and what they've done in 2012 and 2013).

That could mean anything from turning towards developing mobile games, to prematurely phasing out Wii U post-2014 and focusing 100% on 3DS, to fast-tracking a new home console (making the Wii U a "short" console like the GBA), to transitioning out of console development entirely and building their own smartphone...even third-party development / major changes in how they're handling the 3DS and Wii U. That's the important thing about it...we don't know what it would entail.

Presumably it would be steering towards mobile in some capacity, though, since that's the strategy that many large Japanese companies (Sega Sammy, Square Enix, Konami, etc.) are currently taking.

The "change" would happen in corporate strategy...avenues that investors could look at as a possibility for getting Nintendo out of its rut. Basically, any major way that the company would pursue in an attempt to continually grow their business.

 

[cw_sasuke]

There where other things happening behind the scenes like how long it took for them to get the eShop running and how games were being rushed to meet quota.

I'd also call in the whole 3DS strategy but I don't think I'm ready for that.

Firing the CCO because of a 3 month eShop delay seems kinda radical.
But yeah they made it unnecessary difficult for them with the 3DS at the start because of incompetence and greed.

 

[Aquamarine]

As another thread pointed out, the board is full of many guys who Iwata brought on board. He may step down in order to play the scapegoat, but his own number 2 will probably then get the job.

Whatever happened to Yamauchi's son in law's shares, btw?

As of December 25th, 2013, Yamauchi is officially no longer the owner of the shares. We don't know yet if it was the result of a share buyback, or the new owners of the shares (like Minoru Arakawa) have yet to be announced. Presumably it's the latter.

 

[Sandfox]

There where other things happening behind the scenes like how long it took for them to get the eShop running and how games were being rushed to meet quota.

I'd also call in the whole 3DS strategy but I don't think I'm ready for that.

I don't think those issues were around long enough for Iwata to get canned over it and while games like 3D Land and Mario Kart were rushed they still ended up doing really well.

 

[Hiccup]

Just release all back catalog games on the 3DS that it can handle

Release game boy, color, advance, NES, SNES, n64, GameCube, Wii games for sell on the eShop.

WHY IS THIS SERIOUSLY SO HARD?

The company deserves to fail. They can't even release Mario bros 3 in America on time.

 

[Delio]

I'm reading it wrong or the eventual change would be firing iwata and going mobile?

I feel like once they go mobile they are truely gone.

 

[Bluemercury]

They nees to build western studios. Didny NoA used to have free reign under Arakawa and Lincoln days?

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

The first post is alive and well

 

[Hiccup]

They nees to build western studios. Didny NoA used to have free reign under Arakawa and Lincoln days?

Yeah and because of them it kept the n64 alive. I strongly believe until this day that NCL got rid of all those studios because it shamed the homeland.

Western 2nd party developers kept the damn system alive. We saw what happened with the GameCube and not the Wii U.

 

[SpartanN92]

If only you had been there to tell them launch was the right time to release their Mario kart. I still wonder why they left it in a closet for 2 years, such a bad strategy..

But honestly, as much as i think Nintendo is out of touch, this post is insulting and dumb as fuck.

_Pokemon has nothing to do with home consoles. It's reason to exist is being portable title. They are actually not dumb enough, yet, to do such a thing.

But maybe they should have had the same reasoning in the other direction. Some title like Mario Kart or Zelda should have been exclusive to consoles.

_More HD remakes yeah right... To please the ngc fans having the console already.. Let's circle jerk by making more and more happy the 20m fans they still got by drowning them in fan service.

_Now, indeed, the WiiU was not what they needed now. But it's not like they had something better to offer in their sleeves.

This idea about pokemon having to be handheld to retain the true expieriance is such horseshit. If they put forth the effort a console pokemon game would be magnificent.

You don't seem to be a fan of HD remakes...as an avid Halo fan and having received the luxury of Halo anniversary I can tell you HD remakes are amazing. I would love for a lot of my old favorites to be playable in an upgraded form on my newer systems. And guess what? They make a pretty decent penny.

The post was meant to direct attention that they have all these options sitting in their back pocket that they seem to completely ignore.

Had they done the things they detailed in my post sales would be vastly higher IMO.
Can't help the hardware power though. They are stuck with that lousy decision.

 

[Gartooth]

Aquamarine you always make great Nintendo threads! Love all the research put into this.

As far as Nintendo themselves, it is clear that they have been put in an incredibly difficult situation and were hoping that 3D World would be a saving grace for the system which unfortunately for them isn't the case. As far as smartphones, I don't see Nintendo committing a lot of development resources to it but things like a Pokedex, Miiverse, etc. could all happen. Heck, we might even see something akin to NES Remix that could retool old VC games for IOS/Android support.

About Iwata's future at the company, he's gone if he is unable to steer Nintendo through this. The whole "one game can save the system" reeks of desperation on his part so hopefully he can somehow think of something to help Nintendo towards a new direction while retaining the company's identity.

 

[Ranger X]

I find this all very interesting. Am curious to see what Nintendo will do in 2014 because the WiiU absolutely is in great trouble. Forget the 3DS, the WiiU is the most struggling console Nintendo ever released outside the Virtual Boy. I don't even know if this will mean an early death for the console or if its even possible to turn this trend around but something will happen that's for sure.

 

[Chris R]

Can't wait to see what Nintendo comes up with. Working from behind produces the best things.

 

[Hiccup]

And another thing. This company released NES Remix and Dr. Luigi and has the gall of charging $15.00 for them. It's absolutely madness that they would charge that much.

$5-7 max.

 

[ccbfan]

Nice write u Aqua but one thing I noticed is missing and IMO Nintendo's 2nd biggest problem after the WiiU.

3DS software sales.

You rarely hear it mentioned but 3DS software sale have been very disappointing (Worst attach rate of any Nintendo system).

Any discussion on this problem?

 

[Scum]

Nice write u Aqua but one thing I noticed is missing and IMO Nintendo's 2nd biggest problem after the WiiU.

3DS software sales.

You rarely hear it mentioned but 3DS software sale have been very disappointing (Worst attach rate of any Nintendo system).

Any discussion on this problem?

I blame the pricetag of the games. They need to be at $£29.99.

 

[Epcott]

The rumor Iwata would step down if sales didn't improve was nearly a year ago. The change that did come by that spring was him becoming CEO of NOA. Since that time, they've ramped up marketing (a shortcoming he addressed around E3 2013) but sales are still not favorable. All this time, and so very little change, except, they threw a new Mario at the problem, (a very good Mario) which didn't exactly fix it.

I'm not very optimistic that they'll change their strategy, though I do hope their course changes to a more positive route.

 

[Sandfox]

This idea about pokemon having to be handheld to retain the true expieriance is such horseshit. If they put forth the effort a console pokemon game would be magnificent.

Pokemon is on handhelds because Gamefreak wants to encourage people to trade and battle with people they meet outside of the home and they put their effort into creating new features to support that.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

Nintendo's biggest problem is that they still believe that a family is closer to The Cosby Show rather than Malcolm in the Middle. It's like a music company still targeting disco fans. They're so afraid of tarnishing that image that they keep making all these boneheaded decisions.

Are we talking about the same company that published Conkey's Bad Fur Day?

I strongly believe until this day that NCL got rid of all those studios because it shamed the homeland.

n-Space certainly was shaming Nintendo, but probably not in the way you meant. I'm guessing by "all those studios" you are simply referring to Rare, right?

More than likely Nintendo got rid of Rare when the Stamper brothers told them they were exiting the company. Besides, by the point Nintendo offloaded Rare it was starting to look like everything they were making was just a copy of existing Nintendo games. Kameo and Grabbed by the Ghoulies were just poor stand-ins for Zelda and Luigi's Mansion. Rare's strength as a 2nd party was diversifying Nintendo's line-up with non-Nintendo-like games, such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark... ie games Nintendo would never have made on its own, which Rare wasn't developing at the time of their sale to Microsoft (and which Retro was brought on board to develop).

 

[Hiccup]

Nice write u Aqua but one thing I noticed is missing and IMO Nintendo's 2nd biggest problem after the WiiU.

3DS software sales.

You rarely hear it mentioned but 3DS software sale have been very disappointing (Worst attach rate of any Nintendo system).

Any discussion on this problem?

They tried charging $30 for brain age and $40 for nintendodogs both of which people equate to 99-1.99 games on smart phones. They also still charge $40 for games that are incredibly old on the eShop. Oh and wonderful 101 is $29 in stores while $59 on their eShop.

Their prices are absolutely insane.

 

[BD1]

They nees to build western studios. Didny NoA used to have free reign under Arakawa and Lincoln days?

NoA had free reign BECAUSE it was run by Arakawa and Lincoln. Two highly trusted confidants on Yamauchi-San.

You can see the clear shift in philosophy about NoA from NCL just about a decade ago. Lincoln retires. Arakawa retires. Yamuchi retires. Iwata takes over. NCL appoints a group of General Managers in Kyoto. No successor at NoA as trusted as the dynamic duo.

NCL pulled the plug on whatever autonomy NoA enjoyed.

 

[BlackJace]

Honestly, what do you think they might go for, Aqua? Third party seems too drastic, and I can't imagine them wanting to give up all that control. Mobile is certainly a possibility, but I believe it'll just be limited to companion apps. Fast-tracking seems almost as drastic as third-party, and I imagine investors would be livid at the thought of the company dumping more billions into R&D.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Pokemon is on handhelds because it means lower development costs and higher sales - it's no science, just business. On handhelds the can always expect a installed base big enough to sell +10 million Pokemon copies, that's not the case on for their home consoles.

 

[Hiccup]

Honestly, what do you think they might go for, Aqua? Third party seems too drastic, and I can't imagine them wanting to give up all that control. Mobile is certainly a possibility, but I believe it'll just be limited to companion apps. Fast-tracking seems almost as drastic as third-party, and I imagine investors would be livid at the thought of the company dumping more billions into R&D.

They will definitely release another handheld and console. They are gearing up to make release cycles occur quickly with their new buildings as well as hardware architecture.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

Honestly, what do you think they might go for, Aqua? Third party seems too drastic, and I can't imagine them wanting to give up all that control. Mobile is certainly a possibility, but I believe it'll just be limited to companion apps. Fast-tracking seems almost as drastic as third-party, and I imagine investors would be livid at the thought of the company dumping more billions into R&D.

You sound like you believe the investors actually have a say in what the company does.

 

[Astral Dog]

As much as I may seem negative towards Nintendo, I dont see how firing one man is going to change anything.

Nintendos biggest problem is what they do works, most of the time. Even people cite the gamecube and N64 as failures, in terms of operating profits, they weren't.

The problem is the WiiU and how best to dump a failing console without looking like you are going to dump it. The Gamepad was a bad idea and its really that simple. The WiiU has proven that Nintendo just cannot compete at the upper scale pricing wise and is better making a middle of the road console that has enough power to get quick ports of whatever is on Sony/Microsoft consoles, but powerful enough to allow Nintendo software and shovelware to shine.

A Nintendo console is never again going to the primary console for a vast majority of adults, but if Nintendo embrace the second console/console for the kids market they will stay profitable and further cerment their niche.


Once you have the niche you can start introducing whatever weird accessories you want. But make your base console simple to dump content on and with a control scheme that everyone will use and understand.

Then you can sell all the wiimotes, gamepads, cameras, heartrate montiors etc you could ever want. They might not be as well supported, but you will make up for it in third party support.

Yes, the price is a BIG problem, this is a system that was designed to appeal to kids/families and some hardcore players as their secondary console, but at $300 is too expensive. Another problem was that they just werent ready when they launched it and should have waited six months , selling the gamepad as an accesory with a better price woul have helped them.

Even then, i think the Wii U has a very respectable lineup of exclusive titles, a nice controller and for $200 it was worth it IMO.

 

[BD1]

More than likely Nintendo got rid of Rare when the Stamper brothers told them they were exiting the company. Besides, by the point Nintendo offloaded Rare it was starting to look like everything they were making was just a copy of existing Nintendo games. Kameo and Grabbed by the Ghoulies were just poor stand-ins for Zelda and Luigi's Mansion. Rare's strength as a 2nd party was diversifying Nintendo's line-up with non-Nintendo-like games, such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark... ie games Nintendo would never have made on its own, which Rare wasn't developing at the time of their sale to Microsoft.

Yep. I'm speculating, but Nintendo probably saw the value in the Stamper Brothers creativity and leadership, more than they saw value in Rare itself. Rare was already notorious for long dev cycles, legendary delays and haphazard organization; who wants that if the two guy keeping it together weren't there?

 

[Scum]

Honestly, what do you think they might go for, Aqua? Third party seems too drastic, and I can't imagine them wanting to give up all that control. Mobile is certainly a possibility, but I believe it'll just be limited to companion apps. Fast-tracking seems almost as drastic as third-party, and I imagine investors would be livid at the thought of the company dumping more billions into R&D.

I still think that the best thing to do is to get NoA & NoE more involved. There's so many talented developers out there setting up Indie studios nowadays that Nintendo will have very little trouble finding the talent. NCL needs to get their own Western devs to help out with output. Retro should be big enough by now to handle two projects at the same time.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

And another thing. This company released NES Remix and Dr. Luigi and has the gall of charging $15.00 for them. It's absolutely madness that they would charge that much.

$5-7 max.

Personally, i think 90% of games on the VC and eshop are over priced.

Nintendo prices its games like it has a monopoly.

 

[BlackJace]

You sound like you believe the investors actually have a say in what the company does.

I don't know, my knowledge of the business side of the company is shallow at best, hence why I asked someone who might know.

 

[SpartanN92]

Pokemon is on handhelds because Gamefreak wants to encourage people to trade and battle with people they meet outside of the home and they put their effort into creating new features to support that.

Why not allow me to cultivate online friendships in a console format as well?

This is not a one or the other argument...It is a why the fuck not both argument!

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

I blame the pricetag of the games. They need to be at $£29.99.

Honestly even that might be too high. I have one and I don't feel like buying games AT ALL. I think a big part of it is that the deals you can find on iOS/Steam are just so damn good that it makes those prices seem outrageous.

 

[The Silver]

Guy who makes Pokemon wants people to go out and interact with each other, a console pokemon would go against that grain, or something along those lines.

That guy is stuck in a Japanese mindset where something like streetpass is actually viable, the western world is all online.

 

[Onesimos]

I predict that Satoru Iwata will not be fired/resign after the Q3 report (unless it is very negative). Someone close to him will be. I wonder who it may be.

 

[Father_Brain]

The rumor Iwata would step down if sales didn't improve was nearly a year ago. The change that did come by that spring was him becoming CEO of NOA.

Wrong. Iwata was referring at the time to the current (then next) fiscal year, ending in March 2014 and with results to be released in late April.

(Though he didn't literally say he'd resign if Nintendo failed to meet its operating income target, but nor did he outright deny it IIRC.)

 

[j-wood]

I'm going to be pissed if the wiiu is canned considering I just bought one.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

Personally, i think 90% of games on the VC and eshop are over priced.

Nintendo prices its games like it has a monopoly.

I tend to agree, because I want to pay less... but at the same time I don't think it's reasonable to say that the great games in the VC library are over-priced compared to the trash that gets released on smartphones. Shouldn't classic games like Earthbound, or Super Mario World, or Chrono Trigger, etc be a little more expensive than games that are essentially equivalent to the micro games in Warioware?

2) Nintendo's historical library is over rated and hasn't translated into home console sales. The thought that nostalgia will increase sales is misguided when less and less people play Nintendo home consoles over time. How many 10 year olds want to play Zelda and Kid Icarus?

That's cute. Have you seen the sales figures for Mario Kart Wii?

Excellent OP. I hope their are sweeping changes but I don't think anything drastic will be done for another fe years. Iwata, the board, hardware designers, and their game designers have no clue what the core gaming audience wants or the uber casual gaming audience wants.

It's convenient to ignore the insane success of the Wii when saying this, while simultaneously avoiding the obvious similarities between the Wii U game pad and the success of tablets and touch screen gaming with the casual audience. As for core gamers, I don't think you can consider yourself a core gamer if you don't also play Nintendo's games.

 

[kswiston]

I'm going to be pissed if the wiiu is canned considering I just bought one.

Chances of that happening this year are basically zero.

 

[FLEABttn]

I am firmly in agreement that they should not do anything that would cheapen or devalue their IP, their extensive historical library, or it's bond to their own hardware. That path eventually leads to being just another 3rd party (i.e. downhill eventually).

1) Nintendo has devalued and cheapened their IPs without going mobile through rehashes and stagnation; going mobile and cheapening your IP isn't mutually inclusive.

2) Nintendo's historical library is over rated and hasn't translated into home console sales. The thought that nostalgia will increase sales is misguided when less and less people play Nintendo home consoles over time. How many 10 year olds want to play Zelda and Kid Icarus?

3) Their bond to their hardware that worked in the past may no longer be relevant and clearly doesn't automatically translate into success forever. The Wii-U is an unmitigated disaster and does not drive Nintendo games sales. Markets change and companies are required to change - or die.

 

[Gartooth]

Do we have a shortlist of notable people who could potentially replace Iwata? It'd be interesting to consider what their own visions for Nintendo would be. (provided they don't have the same vision as Iwata of course)

 

[AstroNut325]

Excellent OP. I hope their are sweeping changes but I don't think anything drastic will be done for another fe years. Iwata, the board, hardware designers, and their game designers have no clue what the core gaming audience wants or the uber casual gaming audience wants.