Nintendo President Sees a System for Every Demographic

[AzrealMaximillion]

They talk about the NES and the Super NES being "Nintendo's last hardcore systems before they sold out to the kiddies" while failing to consider that they themselves were kiddies at the time NES and Super NES were current platforms.

The thing is back when I was a kiddy playing the SNES, I and many others were playing games like Super Metroid and Star Fox, not Cooking Mama and Sonic and Mario Olympics.

When I was 10 I was playing Quake and Unreal Tournament. When I was a kid games then were much more 'core' back then. There was no market for watered down shovelware. Hell shovelware back in the 90s usually killed companies.

 

[Baresark]

snip

You have summed that up beautifully. I hate when people talk shit when they don't know. The specs offer a good improvement over the current generation. Take into account there hasn't been any large graphic jumps since the current generation of consoles came out and you have a highly competitive system that will appeal to the core gamer crowd with the third party support it has, and is gaining. People just want them to fail because they are all butthurt over the Wii. It's a shame that the average gamer doesn't seem intelligent enough to know that more choices is always better. If we only had a single console then the price of games would be more ridiculous than they already are.

What's even funnier is that even if the PS4 and Xbox.... 720/Sphere/Whatever are more powerful than the Wii U, it doesn't matter at all. The console wars has never been won by the system with the most brute force. Indeed, it's usually the weakest system which comes out on top.

Look at this generation. Out of all three consoles, most people would say that the PS3 edges it over the 360 in terms of tech, if only because of blu-ray, and what dedicated developers can wrangle out of the Cell processor. Yet the PS3 is still behind the 360 in terms of total units sold, and both of them are still waaaaaay behind the Wii's sales, which was the weakest console out of the lot.

Before this, we had the Xbox, Gamecube and PS2. The Xbox was leaps and bounds ahead of the others in terms of power. It was essentially a mini-gaming PC marketed as a console. Yet it only sold around 20 million units, narrowly beating out the Gamecube. The PS2, the system which looked downright primitive compared to the Xbox? Sold 100 million units and is still the most succesful console in history.

How about the original Playstation versus the N64? Now, while the Playstation had better texture processing than the N64, it was still an undoubtedly weaker system. The N64 could throw out poly counts that the PS1 could never dream of matching. The PS1 had CD discs, which allowed for more storage space compared to cartridges, yet the N64 was still by far the more powerful platform. Yet the PS1 stomped all over it in sales, dethroning Nintendo for the first time in history.

Gamers seem to have this retconned view of history that the weakest consoles always fail and the strongest always win, when every console generation from 1995 up to today proves this isn't true. The PS4 and 720 may be more powerful than the Wii U. Then again, they may not. It really doesn't matter, as trying to predict success based on which console will be the most powerful is stupid.

The WiiU sounds like it's got some nice specs. As long as it provides a nice jump from the current gen (which it seems it will), there's no reason why it couldn't succeed against the next offerings from Microsoft and Sony.

And I'm still interested in the potential of that tablet controller. People may right it off as a gimmick, but I think there's a lot of really cool things developers could do with it. Let's hope they don't leave it as late as Nintendo did with Skyward Sword to show everyone what 'gimmicks' are actually capable of.

One of my favorite examples of failed systems being superior is the Dreamcast. It was leagues ahead of the competition and it was the last system Sega put out. Crazy shit.

I too look forward to the tablet controller. I'm glad they listened to people and the WiiU will be able to support two of them. It's promising as far as controllers are concerned. And it is not different than what a lot of handhelds are doing these days, and it's not nearly the gimmick it's made out to be. My only concern is the overall size of it, seems large. But, I look forward to the WiiU.

 

[geizr]

Watching Nintendo's fortunes ebb and fall lately is a little bit like Jeff Bridge's words of wisdom in The Big Lebowski: "strikes and gutters, ups and downs."

This has occurred because Nintendo rested on its laurels instead of cultivating the community, both developers and gamers, around the Wii to push what the Wii can offer. Over-emphasis was made toward the concept of casual gaming without significant understanding of what casual gaming actually means; instead, we get a lot of crappy, short, dumbed-down cash-grab games, which significantly hurt the Wii's appeal. It did not help that many gamers see motion controls as a gimmick. Unfortunately, neither Nintendo nor developers for the Wii made much attempt to use motion controls as the truly new paradigm that it is; instead, they opted for simple mapping of standard button pushes to incongruous gestures.

For the moment, Nintendo seems to be riding high on Skyward Sword sales and the promise of Mario Kart 7, but Reggie Fils-Aime, president and COO of Nintendo of America, has plans to keep the momentum going. With the upcoming launch of the Wii U, Fils-Aime believes that each of Nintendo's four systems - the Wii, the Wii U, the DS, and the 3DS - can share the same market space for some time as long as they appeal to different demographics: core gamers, lower-income homes, and small children.

Market fragmentation, from what I've ever seen, is nothing but more headache than it is worth, for both the seller and the buyer. In my opinion, it would be better to just phase-out both the Wii and the DS and just keep the Wii U and the 3DS with backwards compatibility to the prior systems.

Also, I believe there is a certain misunderstanding of the market in this statement. Many poor families already do buy the Wii; some have even bought a PS3 or Xbox360. Even those who are poor, as long as they actually have income, are willing to stretch to acquire some entertainment, and they are not without understanding of the differences of each of the systems nor which most appeals to their own tastes in gaming.

As for the "core" gamers, there are many "core" gamers who purchased the Wii, and some who still play it on occasion. However, this "core" may be leery of investing in the Wii U if they feel they will be underserved, as they have with the Wii. This "core" audience did not care about high-end graphics(if they did, they would not have bothered with the Wii in the first place) as much as the gameplay, game mechanics, and overall story and presentation of the game. Nintendo and its cohort of developers failed to provide sufficient games that serviced this "core" because they were too hung-up on their distorted ideal of casual gaming.

(So what is the "hardcore" gamer today? Someone who buys sequel after sequel of the same 5 basic AAA-mainstream titles?)

It's not about the hardware; it's all about the games. A good mix of casual and core games would have allowed the Wii to maintain a larger market appeal. The Wii's price point was already at a level of wide market appeal, hence the high sales of the Wii early in its life. While many scoffed at the motion controls, the Wii still had support for more traditional gaming controls. Finally, while the graphics were no match for the PS3 and the Xbox360, but they were "good enough" that, with good game design and proper artistic direction, the Wii could have easily enjoyed many titles that would have appealed to casual and core, alike, and secured the console's dominance. However, Nintendo(or at least, Nintendo of America), being insistent on a narrow, short-sighted vision of the system, failed to cultivate the market of such games(for example, the storm surrounding Xenoblade Chronicles)

When questioned about the Wii U and the 3DS, Fils-Aime turned his attention to Nintendo's occasionally-faithful core demographic. "The consumer buying Wii hardware today is going to be a different consumer than the one who will be buying Wii U in the future ... We haven't announced pricing for Wii U, but you can definitely expect that pricing is going to be different and that the games are going to be different." Films-Aime suggests that both the Wii U and the 3DS will aim to deliver more "dedicated" experiences. Given that the Wii's unprecedented success was due largely to the casual boom, it's difficult to say whether the core demographic still has much invested in Nintendo, but if recent 3DS sales are any indication, gamers may still have a lot of faith in the house of Mario.

The faithful who bought the Wii and the DS will be the same, or at least a subset of the same, faithful who buy a Wii U. However, don't be surprised if the faithful are more cautious this time going forward. They may adopt a "wait and see" policy to see what kinds of games Nintendo cultivates onto their system.

Nintendo's sales during the holiday season will be telling, but not nearly as much as the continued prospects of the 3DS and the eventual launch of the Wii U. If Fils-Aime's predictions come true, Nintendo could be sitting pretty once again, but if not, his reaction could be very, very different.

Nintendo has become complacent with early high sales rate for the Wii and the large installed base of gamers. However, that complacency has definitely cost them in the latter years of the system's life. The PS3 and the Xbox360 have caught up and could potentially surpass the Wii if Nintendo maintains this air of complacency and conceit in it's view of its own market. In my opinion, the prognosis does not look good, given the above statements from Reggie. The Wii could only "print money" for just so long. You still have to do significant work to make it continue to "print money" going into the future, and that is where, in my opinion, Nintendo failed.

Ugh, didn't realize how much a Wall-O-Text this became until I posted it.

 

[huigho1215]

That's all well and good, but I'm still not buying either until there are games I want to play bad enough to merit purchase. Step it up, Nintendo, and create something so I can give you my money!

Like...Paper Mario. Or a new Mother Game. Because, flat out, I'd buy a 3DS and two copies of that mofo, right there.

Dunno how to embed the video, But you should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4OHZXdtavE

And now it's just a waiting game my friend

 

[BehattedWanderer]

That's all well and good, but I'm still not buying either until there are games I want to play bad enough to merit purchase. Step it up, Nintendo, and create something so I can give you my money!

Like...Paper Mario. Or a new Mother Game. Because, flat out, I'd buy a 3DS and two copies of that mofo, right there.

Dunno how to embed the video, But you should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4OHZXdtavE

And now it's just a waiting game my friend

Oh, I've seen that. Several times, in my anticipation. But, you will notice, there is no date revealed for it, so I have no idea when I should start saving for it. Slightly troublingly, there are also no companions depicted anymore. Part of the quirky RPG seem to have been lost, in favor of some of Super Paper Mario's less fun quirks. The paper thing is cute, and fun, yes, but what held the games solid was that it was a themed RPG. But, now, it just seems to be a themed game. Kirby's Epic Yarn did this, as well, and that wasn't much fun as a game. I'm prepared to wait, but the more we wait, the less I worry about the 3DS. If I had one, and had planned release dates for several interest-arousing titles, I would sit in anticipation. But there's little actually going to come out for it in the immediate future.

If the WiiU doesn't launch with two or three respectable titles capable of carrying it, with others that release and hold strong within the six months of it's availability, then it too will not be a strong contender. Nintendo needs to remedy this problem immediately, if they want to stop this current trend of losing money.

 

[Epona]

I get the feeling the overwhelming majority of the "hardcore gamers" that Nintendo "abndoned, betrayed, and screwed over" who now go out of their way to bash Nintendo whenever they are mentioned are the exact same "hardcore gamers" who hated Nintendo since the 90's and called the Gamecube "Barney's Lunchbox".

They talk about the NES and the Super NES being "Nintendo's last hardcore systems before they sold out to the kiddies" while failing to consider that they themselves were kiddies at the time NES and Super NES were current platforms.

Face it, Nintendo's never been for the terminally hip gamer who takes themselves too seriously and wants a gritty, "hardcore" image attached to their system, its been like that since the Super NES vs. Genesis days.

The Genesis was black, sleek, and had attitude.

The Super NES was commercial, pop, white, had purple ON and RESET switches and purple buttons on its controller.

PURPLE BUTTON AND SWITCHES.

Basically these "hardcore" are demanding Nintendo to "go back to" being something they never were to begin with.

This narrative that Nintendo screwed over dedicated gamers with Wii really baffles me. Its as though people just judge Nintendo's entire library based on Wii Sports and Wii Fit and draw a conclusion based on those games alone.


At the most I see the Wii as Nintendo giving up on trying to appeal to gamers who already made it cool amongst themselves to hate Nintendo anyway.

Actually, the people upset with Nintendo were the ones who loved Nintendo in the 90's. The N64 wasn't released until 1996 and it launched with Mario 64 so it was probably 1997 or later that we started losing faith in Nintendo. Right about the time that Final Fantasy VII hit that OTHER console.

Of course, that other console looked more like a toy than the SNES did and it had colored shapes as button descriptors. The original Playstation looked like a a kids cd player. Don't get me wrong, I still love that design. The N64 looked weird but not kiddie.

Even in the SNES era it was Mario vs Sonic and Mario was for kids. The Wii has been a disappointment. I have only a few Wii games and I have more Virtual Console games. Of the Wii games I do have, none have been beaten more than once. Of the Virtual Console games, all have been beaten multiple time. This comparison just goes to show how good those NES and SNES games were compared to Wii games. I will never go back to Mario Galaxy 1 or 2, I have gone back to Mario World and Mario 3 more times than I can count. I won't go back to Twilight Princess but A Link to the Past, memorized.

Nintendo is still a top notch developer but they didn't design the Wii for hardcore games. The motion control system lends itself well to short, casual games. Wii Sports was the perfect pack in but if you wanted to sit down and play Oblivion or Dragon Age, well the system would choke and the motion controls would suck to use for 60 or more hours.

The best thing about the Wii was the Virtual Console but they even managed to screw that up. It is practically dead and having the games tied to the console and ONLY the console, well that's like throwing your money away.

 

[huigho1215]

to end your worrying about the companions part. At least I'm taking the chain chomp on the left to be considered a companion. But you're right about the no release dates for the games for the damned thing. Got one for my birthday and there's only so many times you can save hyrule in 3d before you want something else to do.

Edit: well I goofed. I meant to quote Mr/Mrs BehattedWanderer in order to continue our conversation.