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AFTER ENDURING A disappointing year, Nintendo is planning on developing new devices for emerging markets.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said the company would develop completely new game machines for emerging markets rather than sell cheaper versions of existing consoles like the Wii U.
Nintendo reported a net loss of €164 million over the 12 months through March and sold 2.72 million Wii U consoles, missing its estimated target of 9 million.
Despite the poor earnings, there are no plans for the company to release any games on smartphones with Iwata saying “The smartphone market is probably more competitive than the console business… we have had a console business for 30 years, and I don’t think we can just transfer that over onto a smartphone model.”
Instead, it’s experimenting with new functionality which requires smart devices. Its next flagship title, Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, will be released at the end of the month and will have a smartphone service called Mario Kart TV, allowing users to watch official and user-generated videos as well as following rankings from the game.
It’s also launching another similar service called the Nintendo Figurine Platform, allowing you to create figurines and link with different video games through Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in the Wii U Gamepad.
The funny thing is if they did decided to make Mobile Apps, they are sitting on the mount Rushmore of video game franchises: Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, Metoroid Prime to name but a few. Great company, run by a bunch of clowns #shame
Indeed. You’re getting thumbs down from Nintendo fanboys. They’re squandering their IPs, wiiu is dead in the water and portable handhelds (for gaming only) are going the way of The dinosaurs.
Completely agree mate, its crying shame CEO Iwata is running such a brilliant company into the ground.
Making mobile apps would be an extremely sort sighted move and anyone who claims otherwise understands nothing about the company, it’s philosophy or the games industry in general. Mobile is a winner take all market very few games release actually make much money as companies like Square Enix are rapidly discovering. People wont make more than €5 for a mobile game and many just wont pay anything at all. Piracy is rampant on mobile Android especially.
Then there is that fact that the specification on mobile is all over the place meaning its impossible to guarantee a performance standard on a particular platform. This is a company that wont emulate GBA games on the 3DS because they can’t guarantee that they will perform identically to how they did on the GBA.
There’s further reasons it’s a terrible idea but those alone are plenty of reason not to do it
Ok I take your point, but the facts are that the company needs to get access to its core audience: casual gamers. Look at how well taking on Sony/MS directly is working out for them for the core market is failing. Nintendo had a year head start on PS4 and X1 and currently the Wii U install base stands at 6.17 million vs 7 million PS4′s and 3-5 million Xbox One’s (hard to get precise figure from MS). On top of that Nintendo as a company to be oblivious to the market data is clearly telling them. My idea is one such way to get money flowing quickly, but in the long term they need to review their approach to making hardware. Pachter has talked about them going down the dev road like Sega. Personally hope it doesnt come to that. One thing is clear the Wii U cannot be saved
Pachter is a side show I don’t think he’s ever been right in any of his predictions.
The conventional wisdom that gaming is just core and casual is sort of flawed. An equally flawed but more accurate assessment is that there exists 3 primary markets, core gaming, casual gaming and family gaming. Nintendo is squarely in the 3rd category as far as primary sales go and they have a pretty solid foothold in that market with the 3DS. Unfortunately they didn’t follow them from the Wii to the WiiU and it’s probably a lost cause in that market at this point. Their only hope with the WiiU is to rally the base and minimise losses.
Losses aren’t an immediate issue though their cash reserves are so enormous that they could take losses like they took this year every year and not be in trouble for decades (http://www.gamesradar.com/nintendo-doomed-not-likely-just-take-look-how-much-money-its-got-bank/)
They want market share back sure but going mobile would be a disaster, many of those people they wouldn’t bother to get a console because sure cant they get mario on their phone. It would cannibalise a stable high margin market in favour of a volatile low margin one. It’s madness
Rallying up isn’t going to solve the problems with the Wii U, the hardcore Nintendo fan base not big enough to support Wii U on its own and saying that Nintendo has the cash reserves to continue making mistakes is fine.
But that’s a cop out mentality in my view, Nintendo need to be proactive with the Wii U. Thus far in the 8th gen they gave been reacting to the market. We both recognise that the Wii U is in trouble, I just don’t understand why the company should continue with a failed product, cut your losses already approach.
As you yourself point the handheld sales are the driving force for the company. That is why it should focus on the portable games market and mobile/tablets are inevitably part to the future for Nintendo if they do that. Mobile games could be used as a way to attracting new fans too the handheld hardware perhaps. That being said the future of handheld gaming is impossible to predict, best approach would be a combo of both mobile games and proprietary hardware/software
I mostly want them to rally the troops so that I get the games I like not because it’s in the best interests of the company. Unless they have something big left up their sleeve the WiiU is doomed to be another quality console with quality games that failed due to a crisis of marketing. Most parents still don’t realise its a new console and not just a tablet peripheral
People massively under estimate the risk of mobile. If you put any effort into a game the cost of development might well outweigh your returns. Theres also a limit to what can be done on mobile with touch input. all the most successful games have really simple controls, match 3 games, endless runners, catapult games. Is the world really that hard up for mario on mobile that they want to see the gold standard for 3D platformers reduced to an endless runner?
Your focusing on content, content is one part of the puzzle. Market and customer awareness are the keys for going after the core audience especially the casual market. And this year just like last year Nintendo is ignoring a potential opportunity to reach that audience at E3 in favor for another closed church session preaching to the converted. I know it will be available on YouTube but the Nintendo direct PR events lack the same impact that a full E3 presser has. E3 drove the PS4 early success in my opinion.
I’m arguing for Nintendo to use Mobile games as PART of an over all approach to getting new customers, you continually argue that full scale app development is “dangerous” yet it is very scale-able in terms of costs, and its not like Nintendo are short of cash anyway. Instagram App was originally started with 12 devs, company sold for over 1 billion dollars. The growth potential is massive even if Nintendo just focused on bite sized mini games to grab kids attention to get their parents buying consoles later on
I don’t see how the Nintendo directs are substantially different than an E3 stage show other than for the people who attend in person. They get reported on just like the shows.
Also they’ve already said they’ll consider using mobile to advertise and promote games but won’t release fully fledged games. Apps like instagram aren’t really comparable to games they have a completely different financing model.
“I don’t see how the Nintendo directs are substantially different than an E3 stage show” If thats the case the there really is no point in continuing this exchange.
Bottom line is there are 2 versions of how Nintendo is perceived 1 the view Nintendo fans like yourself hold: everything is rosy in the garden with a few weeds on the verge no big deal. The other view is more realistic: Nintendo needs to change their approach for the future, the Wii U is irrelevant and will NEVER be a success and production needs to be stopped. Others like Sessler and Pachter are calling for the management team needs to go.
Personally I believe Nintendo lack a clear message and strategy for how best to more forward, added to this problem are managers who lack the convection required to run a company of Nintendo’s size and importance
Interesting debate but neither of you mention that Nintendos primary revenue is hardware. Nintendo is a console maker who also makes some games. Not vise versa. All Nintendo platforms were hacked which if anything increased hardware sales.
Look at what happened to BlackBerry! They released on all platforms & died.
Yeah sort of, the old/current Nintendo business model is to make proprietary hardware sell the hardware at a profit supported by compelling proprietary software. The main source of income comes from software sales and licensing to third party vendors.
Problem is companies don’t really make profits on consoles anymore. For example eurogamer states that Sony only breaks even on PS4 console sales, its only when consumers buy PS+ subscriptions and buy PS4 games that Sony actually starts to see a profit for each PS4 it sells.
Blackberry is selling to a very different market compared to the games industry, comparing the 2 is a bit pointless
Mario kart 8 ? They really need to come up with some new title games.
3 Nintendo stories in two days? Well their PR machine are doing an alright job!
Nintendo games with blue tooth controllers and chrome cast functionality I’d pay for no problem tenner a game with digital distribution sitting on a goldmine have emulators for old Mario karts on the phone would love a purpose built one
You know that Nintendo is doing badly when the most mainstream news of the year for the has been the remake of Pokemon Sapphire and Ruby announced yesterday. If Nintendo want to sell their devices they need to keep up. They fell behind with the Wii, refusing to upgrade to the HD generation, like Sony and Microsoft did, and only this time using the Wii U have they finally gone HD, nearly a decade after their competition did. They need to launch a decent console with some EXCITING IP’s. I don’t know about you, but Mario just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. They’re sitting on top of a goldmine of prospective games… Just imagine a 720-1080p Pokemon RPG on a non-handheld console, with a Skyrim-like world. That is something I’d pay €400 quid for, no bother.
The N64 was a hit, GameCube was not, Wii was and now the Wii U is not… If the past has taught us anything, the next console will be amazing!
The only Nintendo game I play is Pokemon. Gotta catch’em all.
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