How is Nintendo successful when they're consistently behind the times, from not using CDs to having bad online?
How is Nintendo successful?
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
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Because they have a stable of beloved franchises, and generally care less about chasing trends than making solid and enjoyable games.
They make exclusive games to their consoles/handhelds. Those exclusives are generally of high quality and quite well liked by a wide gamer base that makes people buy the consoles/handhelds to play them.
That's a big part of it anyway. Enough for a lot of people to forgive the flaws in their practices/hardware.
I mean, I don't give much of a shit about online gaming capability, so that part doesn't bother me, so I got a switch. I do care about a reliance on crappy motion controls so I didn't get a Wii/Wii-U. A lot of their games are doing just fine being on tiny ass little memory cards(which can hold 32 GB) and a lot of people buy their games digitally anyway, so lack of DVD isn't a big letdown in this case.
That's a big part of it anyway. Enough for a lot of people to forgive the flaws in their practices/hardware.
I mean, I don't give much of a shit about online gaming capability, so that part doesn't bother me, so I got a switch. I do care about a reliance on crappy motion controls so I didn't get a Wii/Wii-U. A lot of their games are doing just fine being on tiny ass little memory cards(which can hold 32 GB) and a lot of people buy their games digitally anyway, so lack of DVD isn't a big letdown in this case.
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I usually prefer physical when possible for me. I have a few digital, but most are hard copy.
The Wii U was not too bad about this by comparison, with a few exceptions.
Star Fox 0. I hate that game.
They retain a solid library of first party titles and at time of writing are still producing the best handheld consoles in the world. It's a simple formula that holds no interest for me personally but isn't hard to understand.
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They are extremely good at making very good games. Plus their games tend to be rather different from most aaa games so they don't really have to compete with other big ones. They also make money on each console sold.
Simple answer is that Nintendo makes good to great games (on average) which offsets their average to bad consoles.
It's why I'd love to see Nintendo go third party, but I'll admit that the Switch does fill a niche that otherwise wouldn't be filled right now, outside mobile and more relevantly, the Steam Deck.
It's why I'd love to see Nintendo go third party, but I'll admit that the Switch does fill a niche that otherwise wouldn't be filled right now, outside mobile and more relevantly, the Steam Deck.
Ha! Don't disrespect da VB Wario Land! It's got me in to the character. That and more so Wario Land (GB).
No. I have my problems with Nintendo, but no. Not even Sony wants to see them go 3rd party.
The Switch has numerous problems, most notably the reliability issues with the Joy Cons and the general presence of framerate issues caused by it being a tad underpowered, but it's also the best mainstream option for handheld gaming, in that it's the only mainstream option for handheld gaming because every attempt to compete with Nintendo in that market sputtered and died. The Steam Deck will almost certainly be a better quality product but the cheapest one will also be about £40 more than the OLED Switch, £80 more than the original Switch, and over £150 more than a Switch Lite. Nintendo handhelds outdoing more powerful but more expensive competitors has been a consistent occurrence since they started making them. The GameBoy outsold the Game Gear more than 10:1 and the even better Atari Lynx didn't even crack a million sales. The GameBoy Color trounced the frankly brilliant Neo Geo Pocket Color and rather innovative WonderSwan. The GameBoy Advance sold 81 million units, the closest thing it had to a competitor was the ambitious but admittedly flawed N-Gage which cracked 3 million. The oddly often forgotten PSP is the most credible opposition Nintendo ever had, and as such it managed to sell a full 53% as many units as the DS which is the second most successful console of all time. The Playstation Vita was a great console and consequently sold a paltry 16 million in the face of the 3DS romping to just under 76 million.
They've got a far better track record than Microsoft.
The answer to your question is simple. They have the most successful franchises on the planet.
Mario.
Zelda.
Pokemon.
/thread.
Mario.
Zelda.
Pokemon.
/thread.
Do they really? The GameCube was outsold by the Xbox, and the Wii U was outsold by the Xbox One.
That, and Microsoft never had the motion control/touchscreen fixation Nintendo went through.
Yes, there was the Kinect, but none of their consoles were built around it.
So what? That did not make the GC a failure. Plus, the GC has more unique games compared to og XBOX. The latter did have a few unique niche games I wish came to other consoles at the time. Plus, a GC can still work after many years. The OG XBOX has a certain problem where a chip with melt after a certain amount of years unless you pay someone or remove it yourself, because Microsoft are dumb asses.
The Wii U still had unique exclusives compare to XONE, and I did not regret my purchase. Granted, I called that most Wii U games would get ported to Switch or other modern consoles, and I was proven correct. I did not regret trading in my Wii U for a Switch either. That said, I had a great time, and I would do it again.
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Nintendo use cheap hardware so unlike Microsoft and Sony they don't lose money on each console they make. So they end up making money both on their hardware and software, whereas Nintendo and Microsoft only make money on the software and sell the hardware at a loss that they have to recoup (at least initially until the hardware becomes a few years old and cheaper to continue producing).