Mal Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-17/nintendo-forecasts-net-loss-on-stagnating-sales-of-wii-u-games.html Missed by 6.2 million. So on the mark. I'm going to gloomily bring out the popcorn as heads roll. If I recall, Nintendo's meeting is soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Astoundingly, Iwata is not stepping down. But I think it's time to realize that the Wii U will be dead soon. I wouldn't expect to see many more games released on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 If I get one new Zelda and one real 3D Mario I'll be happy, but I'm starting to doubt I'll even get that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staySICK Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 I'd love to see an HD continuation of Galaxy. I still need to play 3d World, but I can't see it topping Galaxy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 3D World is really good, but it just feels small, like the 2D Mario games. I don't think it's really comparable to past 3D Marios, it's just different. I don't want an HD continuation of Galaxy, I want a new 3D Mario altogether. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 The one plus out of this is that it looks like the 3DS is also performing below expectations, and that Nintendo is actually kicking around the idea of developing games for mobile devices. That is something I can get behind. Pokemon Sigma and Lambda on my phone? Fuck yes. If that happens I would also hope that they would start developing games for the other consoles as well, which is another thing I can get behind. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staySICK Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 going the way of sega, but with better games? yes please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 (edited) The 3DS is doing below expectations, but it's not doing terribly. Nintendo would be foolish to develop games for competing mobile devices at this point. 27 million 3DS units in the wild is healthy. It's not the success the DS was, and Nintendo should be looking at a different business strategy in the medium- and long-term, but abandoning the 3DS would be a mistake. On the other hand, Nintendo has apparently announced it will be reviewing new business strategies: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-17/nintendo-forecasts-net-loss-on-stagnating-sales-of-wii-u-games.html Here's another good writeup: http://on.wsj.com/1b83Ry2 Then again, on the pure money side of the analysis, this is the third year in a row Nintendo's posted an operating loss. That is very, very, very bad. Expect to see Nintendo's stock take a nose dive, especially considering that it rose so much in December because investors are idiots. I truly wonder about that rise; there are some very, very bad analysts, or if there was just a shitload of short selling activity in anticipation of bad news. The bottom line is that the Wii U is a failed console. Nintendo is putting off announcing how they plan to deal with their abject failure until March. I wonder how Nintendo would fare as a pure developer and publisher. Its extreme incompetence when dealing with 3rd parties does not bode well for any plans to publish on other company's devices and ecosystems. Edited January 17, 2014 by Mr. GOH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Nintendo being free from creating software to support hardware, and just being able to create, could be a great thing. Imagine a Mario Kart with the online infrastructure of PSN or Steam? A Zelda where they don't have the shoehorn in motion controls to support the Wii Motion Plus? A Retro developed Metroid game on PS4/Xbone?!?! Think of the beauty! So at this point.. die Wii U, die!!! Also; the 3DS performing so much below expectations is hilarious to me. That system might have great games but the hardware is such garbage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 The 3DS is doing below expectations, but it's not doing terribly. Nintendo would be foolish to develop games for competing mobile devices at this point. 27 million 3DS units in the wild is healthy. It's not the success the DS was, and Nintendo should be looking at a different business strategy in the medium- and long-term, but abandoning the 3DS would be a mistake. I agree with all of that, and I never would have expected them to consider developing for competing mobile platforms, but from the link on the last page it looks like they're the ones kicking the idea around, and while it seems weird for them it would benefit me so I'm all for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Yeah I still think it'd be shortsided to release games for iOS/Droid when the 3DS is the only thing that's selling. Either make a home console / portable hybrid or keep doing DS line and use PS4/XB1 for home console games. Unless they're not making that much off the 3DS and feel it'd be better to go full in with mobile... I don't know how Mario would be without a d-pad but Pokemon would be a money maker on iOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Either make a home console / portable hybrid or keep doing DS line and use PS4/XB1 for home console games. But making home console hardware is their big issue at the moment. As for controls on phones don't forget up until N64 and 3DS most of their games were built for controllers that were just front buttons, which a phone screen would emulate well enough. And push come to shove there's the Moga and similar. Though I'm feeling deja vu on this front. There's 35million 3DS's in the world to get the Nintendo back catalog on the go. There's 200million iOS devices currently in operation (at least according to Apples figures for iOS7), and god knows how many Androids in the wild. S-E have managed to sell 100-500,000 copies of FFIV on Android for £11(!!!) a pop*, which isn't too bad. And I'd wager Nintendo have a much larger and more popular back catalog than S-E. I dunno, maybe my knowledge of mathematics is much worse than those brain boxes over at Nintendo who carry on rerunning their numbers lower and lower each month, but it seems like launching back catalog on mobiles is the way to go. *aka between £1-5million. Not a bad sum since the game was likely mostly paid for already in sales for the DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 (edited) I don't think they're really thinking about abandoning the 3DS. I think they're more looking at how they can leverage their brands using smartphone and tablet apps to sell more 3DS games. The moment Nintendo makes their new core games available on other platforms is the moment they've given up on being a hardware company. The 3DS death wouldn't be immediate, but it would come. Making their entire back catalog available on smartphones might work, depending on how they do it. If they can make it so that the apps are both entertaining AND make the users want to buy a 3DS (or Wii U, hahahahahahahaha), then it would work. If they just release their old games and phones, well, good for me, bad for Nintendo as their hardware divisions will continue to bleed money. I do not think Nintendo should take any half-measures. Its business is in free fall, but they have oodles of cash. Nintendo is in exactly the sort of crisis for which it's been saving all its cash. They need to do some research and planning and then commit to a new strategy, whatever it is. Releasing its back catalog in dribs and drabs on smartphones while the Wii U limps to its death and the 3DS continues to weaken won't improve things in the long run. Edit: Consider this; the Wii U has been out for about the same length of time as the Dreamcast was when Sega discontinued it. Though the Dreamcast's lifetime sales were around 10 million, only 6.5 million were sold before it was discontinued. (source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto... ) Sega was also facing its third consecutive year of losses. But look at that number; more Dreamcasts were sold in its first year and change. The Wii u has sold fewer units than the Dreamcast had at the same point in its life. This does NOT bode well at all for the Wii U. I would not buy a Wii U anytime soon, as they'll be much cheaper once Nintendo discontinues them later this year. Edited January 17, 2014 by Mr. GOH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Their hardware divisions would continue to bleed money anyway, both the Wii U and 3DS are fundamentally flawed and inflexible devices to deal with upcoming changes to the industry (heck, even now ancient ones like digital stores and decent multiplayer). The lack of momentum means less 3rd party support (which Nintendo already sabotaged last gen anyway) which means they just have Nintendo games to work with and Nintendos creativity in coming up with new game ideas leaves much to be desired. So use nostalgia to make up for current operating loss and knock out back catalog for iOS and Android. Then in 2015 with much of back catalog ported and released and some years after Wii U launch so it's not too much of a kick in the balls, release skinned up Tegra K2 android console designed to play the already existing and released back catalog and (my body is ready) Gamecube and Wii catalog *massive cheering* *twilight princess is shown* *oh and what's this* "And partnering with Nvidia and Valve you will be able to stream your favourite PC games into the living room as Nintendo's first Steam Machine" *Julie Larson-Green's head explodes* "Oh and I know Jack's going to be on his stage later, but he's here too to talk about the upcoming Gaikai partnership" *reddit crashes forever*. Later half is quite fanciful but it's a doable thing. Nintendo continues to stay in the hardware game while turning an enemy into an ally by using the larger manufacturing output, demand, and development to produce quite powerful machines on the cheap that utilise a common framework and Nintendo's years of games to refresh and revitalise the brand for years ahead. The only major snag with all of this is it'd actually require Nintendo to change as a company and the last time they did that was back in the 80's when they figured that these card thingies might not be the future anymore and knocked out the NES. It'd be like if some bright spark developed a rocket to put on side of Titanic when it was 200ft off the sea bed. Nintendo don't have a COD, they don't have an Angry Birds, they don't have a Minecraft or a Warcraft. They have a Mario and a Zelda. They don't stream, they don't do mobile, they barely do digital and online multiplayer. Nintendo and Disney are essentially the same company as far as how parents react to them. Disney and Nintendo are safe. A child can watch a disney film or play a Nintendo game and generally they're not going to be exposed to anything terrible. But that hasn't stopped Disney from adapting and changing, they do 3D animations, they have Marvel, and now Star Wars. Which are both quite "safe" franchises too, they're hardly making Sin City and Event Horizon. Angry Birds (incidentally includes Star Wars) is now a "safe" game and that's on phones and tablets. The Lego games (incidentally also with Marvel and Star Wars) are "safe" games and those are on everything. Nintendo is losing it's monopoly on being the "safe" choice and seemingly doing fuck all about it. PS4 and Xbox have the expensive, adult/teen friendly, high-def console market tied up safe and good, but this doesn't leave Nintendo as the only cheap, child friendly low-end gaming machine on the market anymore. They had that window to themselves in '06 and did quite well in that rare luck of the draw. But that window has gone and Nintendo seemed to think they could repeat the same trick twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 It's kind of disgusting that Iwata isn't stepping down. If you were to fuck up this badly at any other job for three years straight you would be gone. Unless you're a politician, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Not just a decline over 3 years, but a non-Yamauchi helming the current decline. I imagine what's keeping him in place is the spurt from the Wii coming out. That did generate quite a bit of money for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Adapting Nintendo's back catalog to work on phones is expensive and I'm not sure it would be worth the investment for every single game. Just adapting the control scheme would cost a good chunk of change, and even then bad controls may limit sales. I mean, how well would Twilight Princess play on a phone? Or any Mario platformer? Even if that worked, for individual games, the margins may be low unless millions of folks are willing to shell out lots of case for old-ass games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Yeah, I don't see trying to adapt old games to touch controls working very well for anything faster than Advance Wars or Pokemon. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 So ignoring the fact that Twilight Princess came out for Gamecube and Wii, a good 2-3 generations after the "pre-N64" stop-gap I mentioned before, let's get onto the stage where quite a lot of people have already got the ground work on emulation laid down and pretty much most of the library works too, and that's without needing Nintendo's enormous cash reserves. So I'm not really seeing it as an expensive endeavour beyond the whole "adding a bit of polish to what's already there, oh and slapping NintendoTM on the app somewhere". Oh and the $25/$99 Play Store/App Store cost which I guess Nintendo might struggle to cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 N64 games are not really ideal for tablet/smartphone controls for the masses. If you're dedicated, yes, you can learn to use them. But why bother when there are so many other entertainment options on your tablet or phone without such high barriers? And I missed where you pointed out the stopgap in your last post. Also, should Nintendo steal the emulation tech or buy it? How much do you think it will cost? Does Nintendo want people to associate it with 8-bit games that look good through nostalgia goggles but were actually wonky, ugly and had awful music and sound effects? And how much of the great Nintendo games of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras were actually 3rd party? I mean, I'd love to rebuy Final Fantasy IV and VI for my phone. Oh wait! I already can! Squenix owns the rights and ported the games! Awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 As for controls on phones don't forget up until N64 and 3DS most of their games were built for controllers that were just front buttons, which a phone screen would emulate well enough. And push come to shove there's the Moga and similar. Though I'm feeling deja vu on this front. As for "stealing or buying", there's no one to buy it, and most emulators are actually open source making it about as easy to steal as air. On top of that I'd take a stab in the dark that the Virtual Console stuff suggests Nintendo has already figured the whole emulation of most of thier own consoles already. And *gasp* is able to talk to publishers about putting non-Nintendo games up there too. Is the irrational hatred a fair few gamers have of mobile as a gaming platform so great that folks would rather see Nintendo die in a ...well not even a burning wreck their demise is so unspectacular and boring, than even contemplate releasing titles to mobile platforms? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 If Nintendo were to release N64 games on tablets with controller support, I'd jump right on them. The unofficial N64 emulators don't really work all that well for a lot of games. Of course, the game I'd really want (Conker) they probably aren't even allowed to sell anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 (edited) You misunderstand me; I do not hate Nintendo. I read and write and talk about Nintendo's ongoing failure because I have an abiding fascination with products, companies, services, whatever in their death throes. Open source does not mean free for commercial use. The vast majority of open source licenses (including snes9x's) require permission if you're going to use the code to make money. It's always fun litigating against folks who steal open source code then integrate it into their commercial products. Copyright claims and unjust enrichment are just the beginning. Yum yum YUM! That said, it doesn't matter. It still costs money to make sure everything works emulated on a variety of different mobile devices with radically different control schemes than the original game was intended to work with. I don't think it will necessarily fail, I'm just skeptical that releasing their back catalog will do much to 'save' Nintendo. Nintendo's IP is more valuable in new games that are accessible by a wide audience (without comprising quality; Angry Warios will not cut it). Re-releasing the same old school games on the platforms of the moment forever and ever is not a very good use of Nintendo IP. Edited January 17, 2014 by Mr. GOH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Open Source however does mean the code is free to peruse and see how it was done, though I'm sure hiring on a few folks with mobile development knowledge probably isn't hard in this day and age. And apart from one being a physical on/off switch and the other a virtual on/off switch the control schemes aren't that far removed from each other, you're either pushing or you're not. I'm not suggesting they re-develop their older games to work with all the flicks, and hovers and swirls afforded by touch screens, just pure and simple emulation. No Wind Waker HD style remake. "Games as they used to be, IAP free!". It's a model that's worked well enough for GOG so far. The back catalog released on mobile isn't there there to save Nintendo, it's there to bandage them up. It's the radical change from their aging hardware policy focused mostly on local play using proprietary hardware that I'm suggesting would save them (at least in a way that wouldn't have them turning into Sega which is always the other option). - Continue plugging the Wii U - Drop the Wii U, Make Wii U 2 - Go the way of Sega - Become an Android console company If their IP was valuable in current games then the Wii U and 3DS wouldn't be doing absolutely shit at sales right now and this discussion wouldn't be happening. Their value is/was in being the "safe" choice, but Nintendo has been supplanted for that and never bother attempting to regain it and just slapped "U" on Super Mario Bros and called it job done. Keeping their 30 years of IP locked up or tied to failing hardware platforms is certainly not ideal either. Wii U sales exploded with the release of Wind Waker HD so there's definitely gold to be had in them there nostalgia hills. (See also aforementioned sales of FFIV on Android and GOGs successful business model). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted January 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 Oh yeah. 18% drop in their stock. IWAAAAATAAAAA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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