How can Nintendo go on the offensive against Apple?

[Phoeniks.Wright]

Joelcool7 said:

Umm you see the flaw in your logic is that PC is a indirect competitor with consoles. In the 90's PC was such a huge threat that both Sega and Nintendo supported it from time to time to boost sales. Fact is until piracy became so rampant in the late 90's the PC was actually a competitor. A huge reason consoles survived was they were drastically cheaper then a good computer and they also used a control pad opposed to a keyboard+mouse.

As far as I know, PC's were never a huge threat to game consoles, neither in the 80's, 90's and even 00's. Also, don't know how Nintendo and Sega supported it in the 90's but fair enough, if you've got proof I'll gladly change my mind. But yeah, the fact that consoles were less expensive than PC's did help, but even so people didn't buy computers mainly  to play games, at least not a lot did.

Today computers are a platform we can't be to sure about. Because of rampant piracy its impossible to tell how much software market share is being lost to computers. The PC was definitly a competitor and even today does effect consoles in a big way either directly through sales or competition. The reason computers aren't as big is because software developers cut back support due to piracy, look at VGChartz for a perfect example. However if Piracy hadn't lost publishers billions over the years they would have supported PC as much as consoles and computers would have definatly driven console hardware sales down.

I'm not going to go too deep into this, because I'd be opening a whole different can of worms if I did, but to make it short, Pc's only affect PC like consoles in any meaningful way, like the 360 and PS3. As for the whole piracy thing, I think it's a tad more complicated, but that's for another discussion.

Another major difference, consoles hook up to your TV they are usually used in living rooms while computers are in the office. There is plenty of room to have both. But a major factor Iwata said he is afraid of himself is the ability to carry multiple devices. A guy can't carry a 3DS, Smart Phone and Vita along with him everywhere. He's going to choose one device, girls with purses might be able to pack two but why would they want another device that does essentially the same thing as there smart phone. Who's going to carry around multiple portable devices, look at MP3 players as a perfect example, ever since Smart Phones have become popular MP3 players are slowly dissapearing people don't care to carry an MP3 player and a smart phone its unpractical.

The whole point is that smartphones don't essentially do the same thing as handhelds. Apart from the games, the fact that most smartphones don't have any buttons would make most games found on handhelds unplayable, like SMB. The whole challenge for Nintendo is to then make games so compelling that you'll carry your phone and your console together.

Also, music is a bad example since music exists independently from it's hardware, while games work with the hardware. You just have to look at the whole better controls for a FPS debate, the mouse makes it so much more accurate, so it's better to play it with a mouse for example.

Also you mention Apple has only tried to get into the games industry twice. lol you are horribly misinformed you are forgetting their game console the Pippin. Apple also tried to attract game developers in the 90's but gave up, however Jobs has said multiple times that gaming is still at the back of Apples mind.

You're right, I take that back. I wasn't aware that they had produced such a commercial failure, since it never made it to Europe. Though I didn't mention it, I meant the apple after Steve Jobs came back in 1997, the much more well known one. Also, you're mistaken: Jobs didn't give up pushing video games on apple products, just look how much effort was put to sell an app easy, so that more developpers would work on it, and I know that in 2000, when Microsoft announced that they had bought out Bungie, an apple computer dev, Jobs personally called up Balmer I believe, absolutely pissed at what they had done. Fact is, if an ex-Atari employee couldn't succeed, what makes you think someone who didn't work in the videogame industry will succeed?

So why is iOS devices competition to handhelds where home consoles aren't.

- Price (Computers were way more expensive then game consoles) Infact I can get an I-Phone 3 for free with a three year contract. An I-Phone four for only 150$ still cheaper then a 3DS.

And why don't you count the cost of the contract? Assuming it's only 10$ a month ( does it get any cheaper? ), that's still 360$ at the end of it, way costlier than any handheld.

-Software (Computer lost all of its developer support) however iOS and Android devices have larger libraries of games then anything Nintendo has ever put on the market.

So? Doesn't matter if most of it isn't any good. And I'm not saying this just like that: If we take Angry birds, the most successful game on smartphones, only a fraction of those 350?million dowloads were paid versions, and when you look at t's history, it only started becoming a success after they dropped the price from 2 to 1$. So for smartphone users, that game isn't even worth 2$.

-Piracy , unlike computers piracy on the iOS is virtually non-existant. Meaning software will sell and developers will make money on it.

True, that is very good.

-Portability, you don't have room to carry multiple portable devices Nintendo is in competition for your pocket. Would you rather carry your 3DS or your phone?

Well personally, I'd carry my DS and my phone with me, but as I've stated before, it's Nintendo's job ( a fair bit at least ) to make such good games that I'll carry my phone and my handheld.

If smart phones were not a direct threat to Nintendo do you really think Iwata would be shaking in his pants? Do you think Sony would be saying they hope 3DS doesn't bomb? Do you think industry exec's would predict Apple to take over the industry within 10 years?

Iwata isn't shaking in his pants because of apple, that was either a misquote or made up on purpose. Sony is sayng that because they are also pushing 3D, except for TV's, so it's in their best interset that people don't reject 3D, aka the 3DS. Also those industry execs have been spouting a load of nonsense for a long time, I won't go through all of it, but they are the ones who also said the Wii would fail miserably.

Or are all these high paid executives with tons of education and experiance really dumb. I mean if Apple isn't a competitor then every president of almost every console manufacturer and president has it completely wrong. I mean Capcom, EAGames, Activision, Sega, Square-Enix..etc...etc.. all those publishers that are beginning to develop for iOS devices because they feel they are direct competition.

No no, either ignorant, since they come from other industries and assume that the can use the rules from other industries in the game industry, or they want to force the market in a certain direction, so them sounding dumb is on purpose. And as far as I know, 3rd parties can develop for whatever platform they want, so I don't see the problem.

Yah they must all be nut jobs!