Nintendo, What went wrong

[Crystalpepsifan]

Casual gamers and clueless soccer moms wont care.

I plan on buying one.

[JCU]

I plan on buying one.

Will you be purchasing any other Nintendo hardware or software this Christmas Season?

[Crystalpepsifan]

Will you be purchasing any other Nintendo hardware or software this Christmas Season?

Negative.

[JCU]

Negative.

And that is exactly the Nintendo problem(s). The company can not sell its modern offerings but it can put together an emulator with a handful of games (already available for years) that people will buy.

[segarule]

And that is exactly the Nintendo problem(s). The company can not sell its modern offerings but it can put together an emulator with a handful of games (already available for years) that people will buy.

[Lan Di]

[JCU]

Best Buy is having quite a few "top" tier Nintendo games for $29.99 (50% off)such as XCX, Mario Maker, Star Fox, etc.., If that isn't the writing on the wall for the Wii U, nothing else can be said.

[Splatterhouse5]

The industry grew without them.


Nintendo lost it's leverage when Sega broke open the console market. Sony continued it and provided easy to use 3D hardware, and created a gold rush out of their platform. Startup game studios took advantage of it. Nintendo did nothing substantial to capitalize on new talent, and they did nothing to offer a competitive platform. They chose to go with heavy reliance on higher publishing fees and high priced games. They made it harder for new developers to get on their platforms, and they slowly lost bigger publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and THQ.

A whole generation grew up with Xbox and Playstation instead of Nintendo now, and they have expectations not being met on simple things like online social networking, online gaming, and digital distribution.

They rely on conservative ideas. They don't have any new blood rockstar developers, or any good marketing. Nintendo of America & Europe are both nearly useless localization companies with no creative input. The whole company takes forever to release a handful of games, and this year is probably the worst lineup schedule in their history.

Miyamoto was their messiah, and he's just releasing total shit like Star Fox Zero.


I grew up with Nintendo, and there's nothing about the company's stubborn hardware focus I like. They should go 3rd party and make games, because they suck hard at everything else.

Yup, this is pretty much it. I started to feel Nintendo's descent around the N64 era when they lost a meaningful amount of system selling 3rd party IP and releases to the PS, but the seeds were sown the generation before. The N64 is when Nintendo started to really lose it's grip on the gamer, and it's been a downward spiral ever since.

With the handheld market quickly depleting, Nintendo is running out of an audience to sell their hardware to - So much so that they're trying to merge their audience into one product (the NX). It's a dangerous time for Nintendo. The NX isn't likely to be much more powerful (if at all) than the WiiU - essentially making another WiiU, but with portability instead of a tablet as it's selling point - so, it's still going to miss the vast majority of the 3rd party games that XB and PS owners are going to get. It would be a powerful handheld, but price it too high, and it'll bump into the same kind of problems that the Sony Vita bumped into.

No doubt, I like the premise of the NX much more than I did the WiiU, but now it feels like a product that should have released instead of the WiiU. For this to be a success, I think this needs to be sold in the $200-$250 ballpark, but I really don't see that happening as Nintendo is still ludicrously selling the WiiU at $300 - That price will obviously drop soon enough, but the NX is likely to replace it at that price point (or something close to it).

I'm trying to imagine the collective support that the 3DS and the WiiU got as the kind of support that the NX is likely to get. Pokemon is going to sell the thing, but if I had to guess, it's not going to reach 3DS sales numbers as the NX can't possibly reach the $100-$150 selling point that the 3DS/2DS could. Hmmmm...this could get ugly, and just might be the last hardware that Nintendo produces if they make too many missteps. The number of people willing to buy their home consoles has diminished to such a point that it's not even worth it anymore. Their handheld audience is all that's really left. I think it'll sell more than the Gamecube, but less than the 3DS, and THAT will be their collective audience.

After that, it would probably be a good idea to blow the whole thing up, and start all over...or just go 3rd party. If they want to stay in the console space, they need to create a new fanbase, and hire a new developers capable of attracting that new fanbase.