Nintendo Failures seem exaggerated

[Lightknight]

It is fair to say that the Wii last the last generation in terms of many things. Profitability being the big one. The other two lost money from what I'm told and yet the Wii made money on every Wii ever sold while also selling a good 20 million more units than the others.

I'd say the Wii didn't actually win in terms of profitability. Think of it like this, Nintendo was actually posting losses in the last 2 years before the Wii U came out. That's due to stoppage of sales for the Wii in its last few years. Everyone who had a Wii got one early on, and there were next to no late generation games that were of major repute coming out. Even the Operation Rainfall games didn't do that well when localized. On the software side Nintendo was releasing less first party titles and as such was making less money. 3rd party titles on the Wii sold like crap overall the whole generation so a lot of 3rd party companies just stopped making games for the Wii period.

Now Sony and MS actually started to make a profit halfway through the last generation. That and with most of the libraries of both the PS3 and 360 being 3rd party games that sold well, they never saw the 2 year slump in hardware sales that Nintendo saw. Games with record breaking sales like COD and GTA V came out on a nearly yearly basis for the PS3/360. I'd say in software dollars Sony and MS won that fight. In hardware I'd say Sony won on that front. They didn't have to deal with a Red Ring of Death fiasco and considering the fact that they overtook the 360 in sales (with the 360 having a year long jump on release to the PS3 and Wii) as well as the fact that if you to put the release dates of the PS3 and 360 side by side, the PS3 sold just as well. Also keep in mind that MS was coming off of a 4 billion dollar loss on the original Xbox and did report that the Xbox division was losing MS the most money by the end of the 360 era.

Nintendo won in hardware sales, but that came at the cost of alienating a lot of gamers in order to sell things like Wii Fit and Wii Music (top selling Wii games). It also came at the cost of ruining the few good 3rd party relationships that Nintendo had.

I think people overestimate the number of Nintendo gamers there actually are. The Gamecube only sold 22 million units total. That's mostly after it dropped to $100 and got a few better known titles like RE4 (*gasp* a non-Nintendo game helped sell consoles for Nintendo...). The last few years Nintendo was profiting off of every Wii Sales and their attach rate was higher than the PS3. If they were losing money, it was because of the 3DS that they started losing money on when they had to drop the price three months after the launch or it was because of the R&D costs involved in creating the WiiU and the software they were going to have at launch.

No, Nintendo "won" the 7th generation in almost every concievable way. Nintendo fans don't give a shit if there's a WiiFit game on their console. Not when Wii puts out a new Zelda, Mario Galaxy, Super Smash and the like. The people they alienated are fans of third party AAA games. But look at the gamecube, it more powerful than the others and still didn't have as much 3rd party support either. So this was nothing special and is why Nintendo had been shedding market share for almost a decade prior to the Wii.

Nintendo sold more consoles, all of which sold at a profit and their 1st party games sold HUGE numbers. They amassed a huge amount of cash thanks to the generation and so by every qualifying factor they won. I greatly preferred the other consoles and even I can admit that. It's because the Wii played by different rules. The console was so cheap comparatively that the question became which console/pc you were going to get in addition to the Wii and not if you were going to get the Wii. With the WiiU, Nintendo actually ended up alienating the niche market they'd found before and further alienated the gaming demographic by creating a machine that was too expensive for casuals to but too underpowered and under supported (software) for hardcore gamers. Then you get the niche elderly market they'd found who found the wiimote easy to control but find the gamepad cumbersome and confusing.

They did almost everything wrong and it isn't the Wii's fault.

 

[VG_Addict]

What can Nintendo do to get more market share/core fans?

Could Nintendo be forced to drop out of the console race because making a home console would no longer be worth it due to decreasing sales?

 

[Artaneius]

First and foremost, Nintendo is seen as the "savior" of the console gaming industry. It pretty much saved the industry from collapse after the video game crash. People have a lot more emotional ties to Nintendo than any other developer. So if the company is doing crappy... then people gossip about the news more because they care about them more. Second, Nintendo pissed off A LOT of their original fanbase with both the GC and the Wii. Instead of giving what gamers wanted at that time, they continued to try to preserve their traditional ideas of making games for "children and families". Just like there is a lot of people who care about Nintendo so there is a lot of people who hate Nintendo and will use any bad news of them as a sign of righteous revenge for abandoning the core gamers. And third is that both Sony and Microsoft make money from many different markets. If the gaming industry proves too costly for them, they can just drop out of the industry all together. Sony however; may not be able too. But I know Microsoft can easily recover from anything negative.

 

[VG_Addict]

I like how any argument supporting Nintendo going third party can be summed up as, "WAAAAH, I wanna play Nintendo's games, but I don't wanna buy a new console to do it!". Some people even say they're "holding their games back". Yes, Nintendo are heartless monsters for wanting to keep the main reason people buy their consoles in the first place (their exclusives) on their native platforms.

 

[Lightknight]

Not really. The only thing they lacked was third party support last year. This is the year they release their once-in-a-generation titles. Smash Bros. comes out this year. Hyrule Warriors looks awesome. Things will work out this year.

Did the gamecube not have the once in a generation games? The N64 either? Both of those generations saw huge losses of market share and, both of those consoles sold better than the WiiU at this point. let's also face it, the N64 is a legend that we all know and love. A fantastic console with games (Nintendo first party games) many of us remember fondly to this day. The truth is, the Nintendo brand alone is not enough to carry a console. Sony succeeded because they recruited/courted a ton of development studios and brought a ton of new things to the table (and continue to do so). Nintendo is simply one very large publisher and Nintendo fans openly admit that they buy the console for the Nintendo games. But Nintendo fans aren't all that numerous, not the kind that is willing to buy the console over a more powerful one, that is. Do you think EA could have their own console if their games were higher quality? Lord knows they want to and they're trying hard with Origin. Sony manages to compete by giving a steady flow of quality 1st party games while keeping the 3rd party titles flowing even more. With little third party support Nintendo cannot survive and at this point the reason they don't have 3rd party support is one part their outdated sales method in which they don't believe that they should cater to development studios/publishers (this is something they have publically announced, they feel it is beneath them and think Sony is shameful for doing so) because they have failed to recognise what Sony and Microsoft know, that they have two customer fronts which include gamers and companies that want to pay to have access to those gamers. It is another part the console itself. The only proprietary console on the market that isn't x86 means it is difficult to develop for and the huge chasm of disparity in processing ability prevents developers from coming even close to fitting 8th generation games on a console that's basically just 512MBs more RAM than the 7th generation with a processor that, I shit you not, practically IS the 360 CPU.

How are things going to get better for them? They announced huge impending losses, 10% of their investment capital just decided to walk out of their doors, and now they're looking at a different business structure which may very well mean the end of the Nintendo branded console has already been decided on.

How will they bounce back? I don't see how they can after the Wii U. It will ruin their brand name.

Worst case scenario is that this generation is absolutely lost to them. At which point they have enough money to try again next time and see how things go if they've actually learned from their mistakes. Contrary to popular belief, they don't actually have enough money to make it through several console generation failures. But they could potentially get two more out since they're in a much stronger position than Sega was before they went full-software. That being said, it isn't about how long they can last as much as when it's time to quite. One failure isn't enough to dissuade Nintendo, they've had failures before (the N64 launch and the gamecube being two of their mistakes that failed to prevent huge losses in market share to Sony).

What I'd like to see Nintendo do is to come up with a a cheap console that is just as intuitive as the wii. Heck, it could literally be the wii with updated graphics and tighter controls. If they put more games out for it that really push the Wii line then they should do fine because this is a niche market they've found that no one else really caters too. Fun and affordable family friendly entertainment. I understand that they want to get that large segment of hardcore gamers back but they can't do that unless they make an expensive powerhouse of a machine that can hold 3rd party AAA titles and that wrecks their ability to reach their current niche market.

Either that, or I want Nintendo to innovate the way they do business. Figure out ways to get their games to people through other means. One thing that's for sure is they can't have it both ways. They can't have their 100 million niche market and the hardcore market. Not unless computing suddenly advances far beyond the amount that games can use to the point where no console really has an advantage (good luck).

 

[kilenem]

Why is everyone talking about the Wii and Wii U and no one about the DS and 3DS? I'll remember the Wii consoles for rhythmic dance titles and guitar-hero type games for the casual gamer, while DS at least had a bunch of thoughtful titles which catered for experienced and serious gamers.

Because as well as the 3DS and DS sell, it still has the problem of not too many 3rd party games selling well. With a select few companies like Capcom, Square Enix, and Namco (aka Japanese 3rd party devs), 3rd party games sell like crap on the 3DS. Nintendo's handheld supremecy has never been challenged to there are a few franchises that can sell well like Fire Emblem and Monster Hunter. Most new IPs not made by an old industry standby (i.e. Squeenix and Bravely Default) usually flop.

Really I thought 3RD party did better on 3DS and DS then PSP and VITA. Since the amount of 3RD party games were a lot less.

The gap between 1st party sales and 3rd party sales on the 3DS and DS is still astronomically large. On the PSP/Vita 3rd party games sell just as well if not more. There's also the fact that Sony has a lot more 2nd party companies making games for them than Nintendo.

3rd party games on the DS/3DS not made by Square Enix, Capcom, Namco, and other big companies typically do not sell that well, and those make up the majority of the 3DS/DS library. Also take into consideration that a lot of the best selling 3DS/DS games are ports. Take a look at the top 50 best selling games on the 3DS for example. It's majority Nintendo and Square Enix games. Some Namco and a good amount of Capcom.

The 3DS is seeing somewhat of a JRPG boom lately so that definitely slants the sales in the favour of Squeenix. Monster Hunter making the jump from a Sony exclusive to a Nintendo exclusive also help Capcom's relationship with Nintendo in the handheld department, as does Phoenix Wright. Professor Layton is also another big DS franchise and helps Level 5. But besides the few companies I mentioned, its hard for 3rd party games to sell on Nintendo hardware in general.

A lot of the stuff you say is true
Although I was wondering were JRPG'S having a boom on the 3DS or its just that finding a great JRPG is almost exclusive to handhelds's because gamers are more forgiving for a game on a handheld because of the Limitations. Very few Japanese Devs seem to know what to do with HD gaming. Its like When Every thing went 3D and the only good sonic games were on the handheld.