Pachter: Nintendo Should "Consider Getting Out of the Wii U Business"

[xaszatm]

I think Nintendo should sell some of the old I.P.'s it holds like Golden Sun or Earthbound (Mother) to other developers for multi-platform release. Would any one be angry if Atlus got the rights to make a new Earthbound game for the PS4, Xbox one or if Level 5 made a new Golden Sun game.

To be honest, yes, I would be angry if Atlus got a hold of the Earthbound series. That franchise doesn't belong to Nintendo but to Shigesato Itoi. It was Itoi himself who said he didn't want to make another Mother game and I say we should let him have his wish. Furthermore, Nintendo does allow third parties to touch their franchises, those franchises just won't be touching any non-Nintendo consoles.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

To be honest, yes, I would be angry if Atlus got a hold of the Earthbound series. That franchise doesn't belong to Nintendo but to Shigesato Itoi. It was Itoi himself who said he didn't want to make another Mother game and I say we should let him have his wish. Furthermore, Nintendo does allow third parties to touch their franchises, those franchises just won't be touching any non-Nintendo consoles.

Like how CAPCOM developed the Zelda: Oracle games, Namco doing Donkey Konga and now Smash Bros., Sega with F-Zero, Team Ninja with Metroid, and Tecmo-Koei with Pokemon Conquest and now Hyrule Warriors. We won't be seeing Nintendo franchises on other system. It's about time people learn to cope with that because that how it is in the real world

 

[Sean951]

I work retail, and I'm still selling Wii-Us after the holidays. No one wants an X-Box and people want PS4s, but I haven't had any in stock since Christmas. Meanwhile, I keep selling 5-6 Wii-Us a week, sometimes more, occasionally less.

 

[xaszatm]

To be honest, yes, I would be angry if Atlus got a hold of the Earthbound series. That franchise doesn't belong to Nintendo but to Shigesato Itoi. It was Itoi himself who said he didn't want to make another Mother game and I say we should let him have his wish. Furthermore, Nintendo does allow third parties to touch their franchises, those franchises just won't be touching any non-Nintendo consoles.

Like how CAPCOM developed the Zelda: Oracle games, Namco doing Donkey Konga and now Smash Bros., Sega with F-Zero, Team Ninja with Metroid, and Tecmo-Koei with Pokemon Conquest and now Hyrule Warriors. We won't be seeing Nintendo franchises on other system. It's about time people learn to cope with that because that how it is in the real world

Still, he does raise a good point. Nintendo could be letting more people get a hold on some of the lesser Nintendo franchises for a Wii U exclusive. It would serve both as a way for more quality games to be released on the Wii U and stop all the complainers saying that Nintendo doesn't put too much focus on its minor franchises.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Still, he does raise a good point. Nintendo could be letting more people get a hold on some of the lesser Nintendo franchises for a Wii U exclusive. It would serve both as a way for more quality games to be released on the Wii U and stop all the complainers saying that Nintendo doesn't put too much focus on its minor franchises.

True, but Nintendo doesn't let just ANYONE touch their franchises. They're sticklers for quality and that's before there's no guarantee it would boost sales. Seriously, I'm not getting my hopes up for people suddenly getting over their Nintendo cooties just because F-Zero or Star Fox came out on the system.

 

[xaszatm]

Still, he does raise a good point. Nintendo could be letting more people get a hold on some of the lesser Nintendo franchises for a Wii U exclusive. It would serve both as a way for more quality games to be released on the Wii U and stop all the complainers saying that Nintendo doesn't put too much focus on its minor franchises.

True, but Nintendo doesn't let just ANYONE touch their franchises. They're sticklers for quality and that's before there's no guarantee it would boost sales. Seriously, I'm not getting my hopes up for people suddenly getting over their Nintendo cooties just because F-Zero or Star Fox came out on the system.

Well, it's not really for the sake of "hardcore" gamers (though it will convince a few) but rather that Nintendo's franchises are so varied that just adding a few of them to the roster will entice more people to pick up the console...well, that and advertising the darn thing.

 

[JCAll]

True, but Nintendo doesn't let just ANYONE touch their franchises. They're sticklers for quality and that's before there's no guarantee it would boost sales. Seriously, I'm not getting my hopes up for people suddenly getting over their Nintendo cooties just because F-Zero or Star Fox came out on the system.

After Other M got absolutely savaged by the critics, I'm not sure Nintendo is in any hurry to start loaning out the bit IPs.

We all have Nintendo games we'd like to see more of. I could use a new F-Zero now that WipEout is basically dead, and I'm been bitching for a new Lolo for over a decade. I...don't think Nintendo is in any hurry to cater to my absurd niche. Ah well.

 

[zefichan]

Of course, fanboys want Nintendo to do this, but let's face it: If Nintendo did, they'd shoot themselves in the foot, so they won't.

In fact, only utter idiots want them to do so, anyway, because it'd kill innovation entirely. Innovation these days is pretty much done entirely by Nintendo, with Sony and Microsoft just making locked, crappy PCs that people somehow want despite them offering nothing. Nintendo at least tries. What do Sony and Msoft actually offer? Seriously - just games held hostage. Their devices have NOTHING a PC can't do better. Nothing, not a single thing. Nintendo at least DOES offer something different, control shemes you just can't do on a PC. That's SOMETHING.


Nintendo is more than fine. They have so much money that they can currently afford two more consoles to utterly fail. THEN they'd be in trouble. JUst look at their yearly reports, people. They are utterly fine and in an nentirely comfortable position.

And before the Sony/Msoft fanboys cry: I actually have no Wii U and will only get them when the games on it interest me personally (same reason I have no PS4 and Xbone - neither has any game I care for). I just like facts. Most gamers that bash Nintendo games and want Nintendo consoles to fail are just bitter that they can't play the games.

Nintendo will thrive, even if they fail the next console utterly. And that's good for the industry. When Nintendo dies, consoles will be finished. All that's left then is crappy not-quite-PCs and no innovation whatsoever.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Who the hell would buy a Nintendo console in the future if the drop Wii U support in under 2 years.

Abandoning all those who did get a Wii you would kill a lot of confidence in future products not to mention alienate their most loyal customers all for an uncertain return on a later console at a point where sony and microsoft would already have a firm domination of the market. Yeah kinda silly. Still maybe design an attachment that lets the WiiU play more standard games to make porting easier or something? Just pushing ahead at this point doesn't seem like the best strategy either.

well thats not an option I can see as it looks to me like there are no expansion slots for upgrades.
I'm guessing better development kits and incentives for third parties is going to be the only way

Maybe although the depressing truth is that better dev kits or not WiiU has a hard time running engines a lot of the bigger developers are using and WiiU doesn't exactly seem like the best for indie development because the extra technology is more expensive and limits where they can move it after. As for incentives? The problem is how are they going to be able to give better incentives when they are earning less money and have a smaller base. Micorsoft or Sony can out incentive anything they do because they have the financial stability to do so. They might not, but praying for that kind of over site as a winning strategy is one hell of a hail marry.

I'm guessing the only incentive big enough would be for Nintendo to cover all 3rd party overheads if a game on the Wii U didn't profit. A plan that could pay off or ruin them

 

[Paradoxrifts]

The real problem for Nintendo is that their third-party titles will be demonstrably far easier to release on the PS4 and the XB1 than the opposite way around.

 

[b3nn3tt]

Personally I wouldn't complain, having access to their good games whilst not having to invest in a console I'll hardly use.

Pretty much this. I enjoy Nintendo games when I've played them on friends' devices, but I don't enjoy any of them nearly enough to drop all that money on a console that I will only use for those games. If Nintendo were to go third-party, then I would almost definitely buy some of their games in future.

That being said, it's not something that I can see happening. Possibly ever. As many people have pointed out, Nintendo have a lot of savings; poor sales of the WiiU are not going to damage them enough to make going third-party a necessity, or even a potential option. I'm sure I read somewhere that Nintendo could utterly fail a further two console generations, and still be reasonably comfortable.

I'm also with other people when I say that abandoning the WiiU would be one of the more stupid decisions that Nintendo could make. However, they do need to do something about it. The impression I'm getting at the moment is that the people that have bought the WiiU were already big Nintendo fans, so would probably have bought it whatever the circumstances. But Mario and Zelda are simply not bringing in new customers. The best thing that Nintendo could possibly do at this point is to find a way to bring third-party support back. I have absolutely no idea how they might do that, but it would definitely help them. Failing that, they need to bring out some new first-party games. Anyone that is excited about a new Mario/Zelda/Donkey Kong/Mario Kart probably already owns a WiiU. Nintendo need some way to attract people who don't already own a WiiU, and games are the only way that I can think of that they could achieve that.

 

[bluegate]

Fair points all around. Perhaps I was a bit harsh. Platform makers can also develop and publish, true. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, all were all three hats. And Nintendo does currently...snip snip snip [/b]...So I just cringe at the thought of the possibility of Nintendo going multiplat, not self-publishing, and some-else pulling the strings.

Perhaps I am wrong in this, but I can't help but feel that way.

Well, it is a hypothetical situation so I guess nothing can be claimed as being a 100 percent right or wrong. Although if something like Nintendo going multi platform were come to pass, then my guess is that they would still publish games themselves.

And I can't say when I would have had them release the console. That's why I said I can't fault them for releasing when they did. As you correctly pointed out "having a full year without any next-gen competition is a smart thing to do". I completely agree. But they didn't advantage of that opportunity in many ways (particularly with marketing and informing the consumer). The risk they took, calculated and intelligent though it may have been, didn't pan out as well as it could have, or even as well as it should have.

Guess I slightly misread / misinterpreted what you said regarding the timing of their release. A bit hard to see such a chance wasted for them ( maybe even not entirely by their own fault ).

I still can't see any good coming from doing as Pachter suggest. I would fear ending up in the same situation as Sega some time ago - releasing so many systems in such a short period of time. By the time the Dreamcast rolled out, customer faith in the brand had been severely damaged (and it's a shame because the Dreamcast was great for the time, and some the games are still fun).

Again, good points - thank you.

I pretty much agree with that and lastly; same back at you.

True, true, they do not justify my Actions XD I was just saying that in this industry, a lot of people use Worst-Case Assumptions.

Let's look at Ubisoft; Low WiiU Sales where the reason why Rayman Legend went Multiplatform and caused the Delay of the WiiU Version [http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2013/06/20/rayman-legends-delay/], which didn't matter because the game didn't sell well anywhere (Although the WiiU Had the best selling Version). Or how about the fact that they Consider Beyond Good and Evil a Mistake [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129370-Ubisoft-Considers-Beyond-Good-Evil-a-Mistake], and because of it they have no plans on making a Sequel for it?

Both of those use "Worst-Case Assumption": For all they know, a BG&E2 would sell amazingly, and perhaps Rayman Legends, when it was suppose to Launch originally in February, would have sold amazingly well. But no, the Worst-Case was Assumed, and we are where we are now.

It is indeed a shame that many companies are afraid of taking risks with their investments. Sadly, the industry has become a very cut throat and hostile beast over the past few years ( for several reasons ). In a way, their actions are defensible and understandable, for example; most companies strive for profit, which in my book is a good thing, as that allows them to keep people employed. Greanted, I would rather that companies that are able to take a hit from a bad selling game to actually experiment and try new things, always following the trend and chasing that one golden egg laying goose isn't doing anyone any good in the long run, after all.

We, on the other hand, don't have any responsibilities towards stock holders, employees or anything when we are discussing things on fora such as these, so why not humor and explore the possibilities of what might sounds like a weird or crazy notion instead of dismissing it. Who knows, one might just stumble across something one didn't know about or new ways of thinking, etc. It's fun to try new things from time to time, play devil's advocate for some things and such.[/pretentiousness and hypocrisy]

By the way; your data on Rayman Legends seems to be out of date, according to VGChartz [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Rayman+Legends], the PS3 version is currently the best selling version of Rayman Legends ( PS3: 0.29m, WiiU: 0.27m, X360 0.23m, PSV 0.04m ). It looks like a three way split between the three 'big' consoles, don't know whether the earnings from those versions are more than the cost to port it over though, so I can't say whether it was a good idea financially speaking, but just looking at sales numbers, it doesn't look like Ubisoft made a bad choice, purely looking at it from Ubisoft's perspective that is.

Want me to keep going? I can find more examples of "Worst-Case Assumption".

Personally, I wouldn't mind For example, I hadn't read the article before about Beyond Good and Evil and I'm a little interested in what kind of stuff you would provide, not sure whether it would be perceived as going off topic a bit though.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

That being said, it's not something that I can see happening. Possibly ever. As many people have pointed out, Nintendo have a lot of savings; poor sales of the WiiU are not going to damage them enough to make going third-party a necessity, or even a potential option. I'm sure I read somewhere that Nintendo could utterly fail a further two console generations, and still be reasonably comfortable.

Even if Nintendo manage to keep its losses from widening (Which is a dubious assumption), I don't think that investors will be content to sit back while the company bleeds money for 15 years. Especially given how expensive console development can be- by the time they've run themselves out of savings, it's probably already too late.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

But yes, a number of the more casual audience have departed to mobile gaming.

I think about it this way: if the "casual" market has really gone over to mobile gaming then EVERYONE is in for a decline. No system sells 80 million just on the "hardcore." That's just a fact; the broader market is absolutely necessary for any industry to thrive, and if no one has them then they're all in trouble.

 

[aba1]

No, Pachter. That's not what they need to do.

Six steps to save the Wii U:

• 
  [li]More games - They're making progress on this front, but the I think the turning point will be Mario Kart 8.[/li]
  [li]Better marketing - I recently saw an ad on TV that explained that the Wii U isn't just an add-on. They should've been doing this type of ad all along, and they should've been advertising a lot more.[/li]
  [li]Better bundles - For now New Super Mario Bros. is okay (Nintendo Land was always a bad choice), but before holiday 2014 season, they need to start bundling Super Smash Bros or Mario Kart 8.[/li]
  [li]Stop selling the Wii - This is contributing to consumer confusion. Introducing a new model of Wii (the Wii Mini) after launching the Wii U was a colossal mistake. Continuing to sell either version of the Wii is a bigger one. Both the Wii and the Wii Mini need to be ditched ASAP in order for the Wii U to ever gain any real traction.[/li]
  [li]Stop ignoring franchises - We want a new Star Fox game that builds on the foundation set by the first two (think Assault, but actually make a complete game this time). We want a new F-Zero game at all. A new Puzzle League game would be nice, if it can find a big enough audience (maybe rebranded as a Luigi game?). A new Wars game would be a fantastic fit for the Wii U's gamepad.[/li]
  [li]VIRTUAL CONSOLE - Seriously, they've got a huge backlog of games, a fair few people who would be quite willing to re-purchase them, and very little cost in rereleasing them compared to new games. When the Wii was young, I used to get excited to see what new Virtual Console games would come out every week. It was a fantastic hype builder, and helped keep people's minds where you wanted them. It got regular features on quite a few gaming news sites (read: free advertising).[/li]

The Wii U doesn't have to die. It can be made profitable. But Nintendo really needs to look at why it's failing and fix those problems before that can possibly happen. If something isn't working, the solution isn't do the same thing but more of it. Once Nintendo gets that figured out, I think the Wii U perform do acceptably.

P.S. Thanks

I am on a similar page to yourself though I will add that the main fact he wiiu doesn't gain as much traction is it has no 3rd party support. People can get a wiiu and miss most major titles or a ps4 and only miss a couple. The wiiu is often separated from the other consoles because it only plays first party games so everything it has only it has and nothing else.

 

[xaszatm]

That being said, it's not something that I can see happening. Possibly ever. As many people have pointed out, Nintendo have a lot of savings; poor sales of the WiiU are not going to damage them enough to make going third-party a necessity, or even a potential option. I'm sure I read somewhere that Nintendo could utterly fail a further two console generations, and still be reasonably comfortable.

Even if Nintendo manage to keep its losses from widening (Which is a dubious assumption), I don't think that investors will be content to sit back while the company bleeds money for 15 years. Especially given how expensive console development can be- by the time they've run themselves out of savings, it's probably already too late.

Nintendo has just as much a chance of the Wii U succeeding as the PS3 or the 3DS has a chance of succeeding. All they need is a strong advertising campaign. There is a market for the Wii U. It's just that the audience doesn't know it exists due to a lack of advertising. If Nintendo can pull a heavy add campaign, they will start making a profit again. Whether or not they "win" this console race, that will be unlikely at best, but make a profit on the console? Yeah, that is likely.

 

[Something Amyss]

True, but Nintendo doesn't let just ANYONE touch their franchises. They're sticklers for quality and that's before there's no guarantee it would boost sales.

They're such sticklers for quality we got the CD-i Zelda games and Other M. They've also "let" Capcom develop Zelda titles. So what are the criteria for someone touching their franchises?

In fact, only utter idiots want them to do so, anyway, because it'd kill innovation entirely.

It'd kill false innovation, sure. But do we really need false innovation that's nothing more than a marketing gimmick?

After Other M got absolutely savaged by the critics, I'm not sure Nintendo is in any hurry to start loaning out the bit IPs.

If the CD-i games didn't put Nintendo off letting other people develop Zelda, I don't know why they'd be adverse to letting others because of Other M. Especially with less "precious" franchises than Zelda and Metroid.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Nintendo has just as much a chance of the Wii U succeeding as the PS3 or the 3DS has a chance of succeeding. All they need is a strong advertising campaign. There is a market for the Wii U. It's just that the audience doesn't know it exists due to a lack of advertising. If Nintendo can pull a heavy add campaign, they will start making a profit again. Whether or not they "win" this console race, that will be unlikely at best, but make a profit on the console? Yeah, that is likely.

The PS3's sales were never as bad as the Wii U's. And that was *with* being priced much higher. And the PS3 actually had third party support, since it was powerful enough to run the same games that the PC and 360 could run. And Sony actually invested in online so that they wouldn't be two generations behind like the Wii U is now. And they had a lot of loyal PS2 fans who were actual gamers, and as such were looking to upgrade eventually. So there's really no comparing the two consoles at all.

"NEED MOAR MARKETING" gets thrown around every time a product that somebody likes fails. Shit gets heavily marketed and still fails all the time. Sometimes it just isn't what the market wants, and no amount of intense raging superiority complex on the part of Nintendo fans is going to change that.