9Chiba said:
im pretty sure what rol is trying to say is that regardless of steam's or angry bird's success, there is no way iOS will cannibalize on Nintendo's handheld sales. the only one who can bring down nintendo is nintendo. they just have to keep making shitty games. sure, steam is growing, and angry birds got a hundred million downloads, but can you prove that retail is declining? and can you prove that steam or iOS is the cause of that decline? can you prove virtual console cannibalized on wii game sales? you can't. consumers do care about retail. maybe not just for resale purposes, but they definitely do.
Go look at NPD or VGC data for 2010 and 2009. Retail sales decreased. Go look at downloadable formats. They posted triple-digit growth in most markets last year.
So then there are two possibilites as to why it declined:
1) Video games are less popular
2) Other markets cannibalized retail sales.
The 2nd is the likely answer. Look at valuations for new companies like Zynga which are worth billions of dollars. They aren't at retail other than their points cards. Now, I don't believe that retail in general will go away, but the market is changing significantly as online penetration is allowing for new users to have new experiences. In the case of Zynga, they've made billions off of their low-barrier to entry products that have more people playing their games than there are Wii/DS owners worldwide. Its just part of the change like when we saw arcade games see a smaller role as home systems came into power.
also, iPhone is not a video game console, it is a portable computer. it was not made to play games, so the games made for it will generally be shallower compared to its dedicated handheld counterparts (and by shallower, i do not mean casual, i mean more limited in many ways). years ago, people like you predicted the doom of game consoles in favor of computers. that computers would take over the living room. iOS is just the latest embodiment of that prediction. computers never took over in 1985, and they won't take over today. and it doesn't have to be Nintendo that thwarts them. in fact, it is very possible that Nintendo will be ousted as a integrated hardware/software game company if they continue on its current path (3D obsession, changing the fundamentals of its flagship titles such as metroid, zelda, and mario, etc) any company that decides to make a dedicated handheld and excellent games for that handheld will effectively end the computer craze. the iPhone, as long as it is a portable computer, cannot have excellent games. it could have good games and great games (see angry birds) sold on the cheap, but that is all.
And oddly enough, its those same computer markets that are growing with online games on Facebook. You can say that iOS is the same thing as the PC-Console debate, but I must ask: did retail console sales ever decline in the face of PC gaming? I don't think it did. Whereas now, we're seeing high double and even triple-digit gains for smartphone gaming at a time when retail saw a near double-digit loss in 2010. Oh, and if your interested: Smartphone gaming is likely to post near triple digit growth again in 2011.
I know what I say upsets you and other Nintendo fans, but thats just my opinion as to where the market is going to go. If it weren't for a few key pieces of technology, I wouldn't be so strong on what I say, but when every smartphone has 100% connectivity to a market place, and we're seeing stronger 3G/4G/LTE penetration in major countries, we're seeing a device and ecosystem that is much different than the traditional handheld ecosystem, which makes it a very attractive market to get customers. You see, the core difference between the PC-Console debate is that you wrongly assume the smartphone isn't a gaming device first and foremost, or at least relatively comprable. In the case of the PC, non-gaming software has always sold the vast majority of software in the industry. Comparatively, 30-40% of all software sold on smartphones are video games. That is the key difference. If 30-40% of all software sold are games, then I think you are very wrong as to the power of gaming on smartphones, and who are buying the games.
1: zynga makes "billions" from advertisements. that is a fact. if they only sold games, they would make considerably less. as for why retail sales are down, i can only assume that is because of the recession we are in and that neither of your two choices are correct. digital distribution sales "tripling" doesn't mean squat and you know it. how much did those games cost? were advertisement based "sales" factored in? what would happen if we compared the Nintendo DS to the iPhone directly? how much total profit did game software for either make? if you're going to use data, at least use it in the right context. i maintain that only the game makers can kill gaming, and sony, microsoft, AND nintendo, and most third parties are doing a perfectly good job of that right now.
2: smartphones are not foremost made for video games. you just proved it yourself by saying 30-40% of software sales are game sales. that number is not 100%. it doesn't matter how PC software sales compare (though that argument is flawed as well, since it's hard to track paypal based games, advertisement based games, item mall MMORPG games, etc. and smartphones can't stream flash games) to smartphone software sales.
3: arcade games saw a decline because video game consoles meant arcade games at home. computer games were not arcade games at home. smartphone games are not arcade games. arcade machines were designed with one game in mind. video game consoles were designed with first party games in mind. smartphones were designed with no games in mind, letting third parties fend for themselves. i will repeat this as many times as it takes.
4: i don't have a clue how you decided that anyone who has a different opinion as you is a Nintendo fan. that's just ignorant.
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