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archbrix on 14 January 2011
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Squilliam said:
archbrix said:
Squilliam said:

Nintendo is a gaming company as many companies previously were typewriter companies. If Nintendo is defining itself by the games then it is vulnerable to companies which don't call themselves game companies coming into the market.

This is not an accurate analogy.  Typewriters are not used anymore, thus companies like Royal and Underwood went under due to them not succesfully evolving into keyboards or merging with PCs, for example.  Nintendo's games aren't going anywhere.  Will their handhelds eventually become a bit different to adjust to the times?  Maybe.  But even more than EA or Activision, Nintendo's software will always be in high demand, barring some kind of complete meltdown in their creative department, which isn't likely. 

@noname2200 said it best:  PCs have not hurt consoles in the least, and that's even with the former having many huge advantages over the latter.  True that with handhelds it's more about the convenience of having everything on a single device, but a $0.99 game on iphone is still a far cry from the latest SMB, Mario Kart, or Zelda as far as quality.  It's not like the way the convenience of MP3s have hurt CDs, simply because that's the exact same content at a slightly lesser quality, as opposed to completlely different content altogether.

Apple has proven that there is certainly room for their business model in the market, even with Nintendo around, but the opposite is also true, especially where younger gamers are concerned.  And remember, Nintendo has billions and billions in the bank.  What's to stop them from establishing a full blown online business model for thier own games in ten years, or at the very least, even partnering with a phone company?

Typewriters, even electrical ones are specialist devices which are used to create documents. That speciality was folded into one general purpose device, much the same as car GPS makers are finding their products folded directly into the feature set of cars and cell phones. So just as a cell phone isn't as good as a GPS unit as a standalone unit, a cell phone definately isn't as good as a portable games device for playing games. However it is good enough for a large proportion of the market and it does come with a unique distribution model. For the cost of a single Nintendo game you could buy a veritable greatest hits of iOS games, and even if Nintendos quality never falters it doesn't mean they won't ever see market share eroded.

The idea that PCs have never hurt consoles and vice versa is based upon what empirical data? If a large number of people are sitting down every night to play Farmville and go on Facebook that reduces the time they have to play console titles. Remember, Farmville as a game is possibly the biggest game in the world in terms of time sunk into it.

So whats to stop Nintendo from establishing their own online business model? Well for starters, they haven't really started now. It takes time to develop an online content distribution business and it appears that Nintendo still haven't started on theirs. Beyond this if they start to offer the same types of mini games as cell phones, they could erode their market share on their own platform and introduce serious pricing pressure on their own games. So taking on the smaller and more focused games could be counter-productive for their own first party revenue structure. Finally which phone company would they partner with? None of them has the overall market share dominance, they would go from top of the handheld market to middle of the phone market.

Sorry, Squilliam, but I think you're reaching quite a bit to sell your point.  Your typewriter analogy is very flawed; as Rol pointed out typewriters are hardware meant for a specific function.  People no longer have a need for them because they can type on other devices.  What you're saying is that everyone will treat gaming as a secondary feature on other devices; people won't buy Nintendo's handhelds because they can game on their phones.  Problem is, there will always be people to whom gaming comes first, and people don't buy phones just to play games.

As far as your Farmville argument, well, I think you helped prove my point even more.  What empirical data you ask?  Oh, how about the 180 million home consoles sold so far this gen despite all of the Farmville playing on PCs.  And tell me, what happens when Farmville, or something like it, comes to those home consoles?

The only point I will agree with you on (halfway) is that Nintendo is very behind in the online marketplace, but again, why would Nintendo need to tackle this area all by themselves?  They definitely have the resources to hire, partner with, or flat out buy any "professionalized" assistance in that area.  Only reason they're so behind here is because they (erroneously, IMO) don't view online as a big deal for themselves... yet.  The part where your argument fails again is assuming that if Nintendo made smaller, cheaper games (ala Angry Birds) it would deter people from buying the next Mario Kart or Zelda at $25-$30.  Tell me, how much did the huge success of simple games like the Brain Age games and Nintendogs hurt the sales of NSMB DS?