| Joelcool7 said: Well while Sony should definitely not be ignored because they still have the potential to steal market share. As a threat to Nintendo's handheld existence they are no longer the biggest threat. In fact Sony even recently acknowledged that a failure of 3DS would hurt Sony's Vita and the handheld industries ability to survive. I share that sentiment as well as the idea that a Vita failure would severely damage Nintendo's handheld capabilities as well. The two competitors need each other to survive its in their best interest that each other remain around. As for MH3 coming to Vita, your a writer here so I'm guessing you must have some knowledge the general public does not. Because I have not heard anything official from Capcom or Sony to indicate MH3 is coming to Vita in any shape or form. The only indication I have heard of is that a retailer leaked an inventory list which slates MonsterHunter3 for Vita. As far as I know the Monster Hunter Portable 3rd came out for PSP and came to PS3, but I have yet to see any official confirmation that it or MH3 is coming to Vita. So a source of that info would be enlightenning. Unless you are refering to the fact that Vita can download MHP:3rd through backwards compatability. I agree currently 3DS is in no position to hold off Apple. As for those saying Nintendo doesn't need to go on the offensive or worry about Apple because there will always be a market for Nintendo's software. Well look at GameCube look how great that did with just Nintendo's software, yes it was profitable but Nintendo was loosing share contantly with every new console. Nintendo's software was not able to keep Nintendo's home consoles from being in a steady decline in sales ever since the NES. If Nintendo's handheld division began to steadily decline in user base every generation, Nintendo would be boned. Nintendo cannot afford to decline drastically. Lets look at Nintendo's first party software support at best Nintendo has about 30+ million loyal consumers judging by the fact that despite having the highest selling hardware on the market Nintendo titles themselves don't sell any better then 26-million. So say Nintendo looses all of those gamers buying games other then Nintendo's first party titles. Nintendo will be down to at best 40-million in hardware sales. Well that loss will mean less games for Nintendo's handhelds and if Nintendo's home division isn't making a killing it will mean all gains will be spread between handheld and home platforms. With Nintendo incapable of releasing as many first party titles the hardware sales will continue to decline each generation. Apple will slowly eat up market share and so will Android. Now Nintendo has 13.5 billion in the bank so they could sustain steady losses for a very long time. But would they? Of course my numbers are based on speculation based around VGChartz data. But Nintendo loosing profit steadily from smart phones is definitely not going to be good. If Nintendo is incapable of fighting back then all they can do is wait until Smart Phones kill them, which is inevitable if they cannot do anything to increase sales of hardware. Nintendo needs to be able to fight back, the question is how can a dedicated video game handheld do anything to a smart phone. Also the idea that people have always needed phones and Nintendo has always survived so they are no threat now. Well phones back in 2004 when DS launched were incapable of playing games that DS had. In fact smart phones have only become capable of playing Nintendo's software within the past two to three years. As phones become more and more powerful and can play better and better games Nintendo will no doubt loose market share. The industry is changing and smart phones like it or not are a huge threat to Nintendo's handheld dominance or even their long term survival! |
@ MH3 - I was certain MH3G HD was confirmed for the Vita, but I guess not. My bad.
Anyway, I certainly agree that Nintendo loosing marketshare is a bad thing for them, but in Nintendo's current situation, what's really the best they can do? We both agree the 3DS (in its current form at least), is not what Nintendo needs to make sure gamers will want a dedicated handheld over a smartphone.
So either Nintendo needs to do something drastic to make the 3DS a more compelling choice (in terms of hardware at least), and I don't think a second analogue stick is the definitive answer. The 3DS's weaknesses as I see it:
1) Downloadable games are a small niche on the device. There is no comprehensive infrastructure to give freedom to developers and publishers in this field.
2) The hardware lacks killer features. It does very little that hasn't been done before or improved on before.
If Nintendo doesn't do anything about those two, then I don't think they will be able to match the success of the DS. Software will of course play a huge part in all of this, and no doubt the 3DS can be a huge success regardless of its hardware so long as the software is there. But if Nintendo wants to avoid losing marketshare to Apple, they need something more. I think the best solution to those problems would be a new hardware platform, but that would also be a huge mistake. So Nintendo's best hope might be to ride this one out for a couple of years, before they take the fight to the phones.
