You people know very little. Malstrom did not get lucky as he gave a full explaination that was like 3 pages long on the site  called wiikly(Which sadly is a site that is no longer up) Malstrom says that the games that flop because they fail to be system sellers. Nintendo could make a great selling game easily but makinga system seller is hard. 3rd parites are supposed to make money not be system sellers which is why they are ignored? Any more questions?

".. wtf.. what is this question!.. they have been doing something wrong forever! .. and not just this year.. according to haters shishh.. get with the program.."

You REALLY should actually read ALL he's written, as he's actually called on the haters from previously, for hating on Nintendo for stupid reasons.

I know the history of Malstrom. I too once thought he was quite the prophet. I also thought he had some creditials at one time. However, I can no longer find them. And his latest essays sound more like a fanatic than a professional (at least in his language and tone, if not in his statements). There is an old saying that is used in some rural parts of the United States -- "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes."  Maybe the contrary argument was Malstrom's "nut." 

The loss was the first publicly reported by NIntendo ... but it has only reported for three decades, so we don't know what happened in the eight decades before that. It does point to R&D costs, launch costs, and changing market dynamics. But no one seems to be making as much noise over the fact that Sony was put on a negative market match.  And the new stars of the mobile era are seeing lower profits (Zynga) or less than a minute of playtime per download  for their one well-known game (Rovio -- 500M downloads and 300M minutes played daily of Angry Birds).

As for the game discussions, there are some valid points and some others to be proven. You are correct on Wii Music. However, how many other games in history have sold (nearly) 3M and are universally hailed as a failure. On 2D platformers, the sales of Rayman Origins will be quite instructive. Sold across all platforms, this game appears to be very NewSMB-like. If it sells well, then the genre needs more games. If it does not, than maybe it is just Mario magic. (It is not as if Kloona or Wario Shake or even Kirby Epic Yarn have sold numbers near SMG -- 2D/2.5D platfomers all that have been outshown by a 3D platformer).

Meanwhile, as for mature games, only Eternal Darkness and Geist were Nintendo published. The  M-rated (ESRB)/15-rated (Euro ratings during that era) were generally third party affairs. As for Resident Evil, it is tough to know what kind of effect it would have had as the exclusive it was supposed to be as Capcom announced a PS2 port BEFORE the GC version went on sale. But it is safe to say that it is not a general strength associated with Nintendo gaming today -- even though it was in earlier generations (if only for the fact that during the NES/FC era, Nintendo was essentially the only game system with a large install base.)

However, the biggest problem is that you can't please everyone. So the question becomes who do you please. Over time, Nintendo has successfully zigged when others have zagged (motion control, dual screens -- technologies which led to new game play innovations which defined Nintendo during the last generation when it made record profits, which seems to me to go against Malstrom's argument of Nintendo unable to succeed by focusing on ways to play).  It has also zopped on its face (staying with carts) on occasion. Technology itself is only as good as the software. That is really the point that is missing in all of this.

In closing, certainly NIntendo will be challenged to continue its past success in the future. For those who have not been following entertainment news -- that is the new reality in the world in which we live. Entertainment spending is down because there is more competition and because economic conditions have limited some individuals' ability to spend. And I may be wrong, but I place at least slightly more faith in those who guide the company than a blogger.

Mike from Morgantown

By that logic, a good chunk of Ninty games were flops, Paper Mario, MP3, OtherM, S&P2, Mario Sports Mix, WarioLand Shake it, Both Kirbys. That is simply unrealistic to have every single game that Ninty makes be a system seller. Someone who like WiiSports might not give a crap about Metriod and vice versa. Im not buying it, there are more factors than if it moved consoles. Cost of production, ads, etc.

see, that makes alot more sense than what the other guy said. I read a comment but Miyamoto? i believe and he was the one who said that whole if a game doesnt sell at least a mil its a flop for them. It was in regards to WarioShake at the time. Ill try to find it again.

that actually was not the article i was talking about, and to be honest, the update didnt really clear anything up. It sounds to me that REggie put his foot in his mouth. 

But its insane to think that a Wii game or any game has to sell a mil to profit. Okami did not have to sell as much as Red Steel 2 to profit

1. Why else do you think this relatively unkown guy is so popular? Content, content, conent. It's all about what he writes, and what he writes is usually highly insightful and resonates with a lot of people, particularly those lapsed/oldschool gamers that the industry and gaming media seems to ignore these days. Do you really think anyone would give him a second look if this guy had dumb things to say? It's not just the fact that he predicted the Wii's success or is going against the grain (although that certainly adds to his appeal when 99% of the mainstream gaming media seems to spout of the exact same talking points). It's the fact that what he writes makes a scary amount of sense to a lot of people, myself included.

2. They are not failures in and of themselves, but when you compare them to the major hits on Wii, they were certainly dissapointments, and you can bet Nintendo feels this way as well. Mario Galaxy recieved all the marketing, all the hype, all the production quality, and is the mainline Mario game for Nintendo. Yet a 2D Mario game, based on 20 year old gameplay, has outsold it 3 to 1. That to me doesn't bode too well for Mario Galaxy.

3. That's precisely the problem. WHY have these type of games ceased to exist? There is clearly a huge market for them, as most of the Wii's hit games show. Yet the industry at large continues to ignore them.

4. Not sure what this has to do with anything...

5. I'm not sure I get the dislike this one blogger seems to get on this site, especially for someone who minds his own business and doesn't even make a profit. To me anyway, he's right on the money for most of his ramblings, and seems to get the market Nintendo is going for more than Nintendo themselves these days.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of these people proclaiming Nintendo's doom. I just feel they have lost touch with their roots, and the markets that made the NES/Wii/DS so successful in the first place. And if they continue to go this route, sales will continue to decline.

In reaction to my posts, I think Rol makes a good point about Nintendo needing to serve the underservered market.

My question though is whether or not there is a true market for 2D platformers or if it is just a specific market for Mario 2D platformers. Rayman Origins will provide a lot of those answers.

As for Metacube questioning why I mentioned M-rated games, my point was to counter those that said that Nintendo was going after the "mature" audience. Thus, I was showing how few M-rated games actually come from Nintendo, as opposed to third parties.

Mike from Morgantown