How can Nintendo go on the offensive against Apple?

[Joelcool7]

RolStoppable said:

Joelcool7 said:

1) Many of your threads are so poorly constructed that within the first ten replies you get you have five or more people pointing out the glaring flaws. There is not much room for healthy discussion, if you even get basic things wrong so often.

Same can be said for many of your threads. When I make a mistake I apologize and move on with the discussion. Fact is Rol your comment about me finding facts to support my ideology is exactly what you do all the time. There is nothing wrong with that, unless you or I actually say something is fact which is not. Mistakes have been made in some past threads, but for the most parts I must say I usually check the VGChartz data before talking sales and I check Google usually before posting any thread.

2) The "great" 16-bit console war was all about Nintendo and Sega fighting over male teenagers and seeing who can come up with the coolest games. People who fitted that target demographic remember the fourth generation fondly, but everyone else more and more got the feeling that gaming isn't for them anymore which is why Nintendo declined. This only got worse in the fifth generation with another competent competitor entering and fighting over the male teenager demographic. Nintendo will always lose this battle, because they have way too many popular family friendly IPs. This by default makes them uncool and once you are uncool you stand no chance among male teenagers.

You mention a single generation, but according to your logic wouldn't the 32/64-bit generation be the exact same? I mean nothing really changed did it? Yet the market expanded exponentially, in fact without fail the industry has been expanding since the NES. Another flaw in that logic is the fact that Nintendo focused entirely on teenagers, that has never been the case. No fan or even hater would suggest Nintendo targeted the teen user base exclusively. Any fan or supporter knowledgeable in Nintendo's marketing plans knows that family has always been Nintendo's target. Haters of Nintendo would argue children were always Nintendo's target. The idea that teenagers were Nintendo's target is something you made up entirely based on the fact that teenagers were at one point the largest consumers of video games.In fact the first time Nintendo did actually publicly target teenagers and young males was the release of the Nintendo DS. So when Nintendo actually targeted teens and young males they were more successful then the decade of targeting families. But that would sort of refute your whole idea that trying to appeal to teens and young men were the reason for Nintendo loosing market share.

3) "Going on the offensive" to me means fighting head to head. What Nintendo did with the DS was going their own way and letting Sony be.

You think of it as direct head to head. But an indirect attack is still an attack and is offensive. Any move for Nintendo to steal market share or increase market share at the cost of a competitor is an offensive move. Nintendo's move with Wii and DS was to create a new market so that they could compete. Despite what Nintendo said they were always competing, its been widely accepted that this was a whole marketing plan to steal and grow market share.Notice that the move by Nintendo lead to a huge increase in not only market share but a major decrease in Sony's PlayStation sales. Do you honestly think the cheap retail price, launch titles, new controller tech was not intended anyway as a move to compete. You claim Nintendo wasn't competing, however Reggie recently stated Nintendo's products have always competed against everything that steals your time, music , movies etc...etc.. Nintendo has recently suggested that they always have all the mediums in mind as competition. So how could Nintendo consider music and movies competition but not 360/PS3.

It was nothing more then a marketing ploy to increase market share and sales. Create a niche market so that they could actually compete. The whole reason behind Wii was to enable Nintendo to compete again, give them an edge up on the competition. That was always Nintendo's goal!

The 3DS was designed to compete with Sony. You just need to look at the 3DS's current and future lineup, the majority of it looks more like stuff you could find on the PSP rather than the DS.

3DS was designed to be a true successor to DS and attract the fanboys and their core demographic back. Reggie and Iwata have both said that Nintendo lost a lot of their loyal consumers. Nintendo 3DS according to Iwata core gamers are Nintendo's target with 3DS as well as to be the true successor of DS. Nintendo wants both segments of the gaming population.

There recent attack on Sony in Japan, I won't deny that it isn't a direct attack. However I don't think the attack was planned since day one, rather a contingency plan. Lets face it at the beginning when 3DS was announced Nintendo said UbiSoft was their biggest supporter. Tons of western titles were announced, now a few months after 3DS crashed Nintendo has tons of Japanese PSP style titles to announce while all their traditional western partners are dropping 3DS.

I can't help but think this an act of desperation and wasn't the original plan. Nintendo knew what the PSVita would be like. Nintendo and Sony have both claimed many times to be following each others products very carefully. The addition of the second analog stick and two triggers show Nintendo wasn't initially intending to target Sony in that way. Nintendo 3DS was meant to be an improved DS that would not only attract back the loyal users Nintendo lost but continue with the success that DS saw.

As for hypocrisy, that's just complete misinterpretation on your part. The two separate quotes of mine explain why Nintendo paid for Monster Hunter, but not for any Western third party games yet. I didn't say that Nintendo needs MH exclusivity and I never said that Nintendo going on the offensive against Sony in the handheld market is a smart thing. Anyone who has read my posts in the last six months or so should know that I am not happy about Nintendo's direction with the 3DS. Neither from a consumer or business point of view.

Usually when you are that adamant about something and don't clearly state it is not your opinion it is. The thread didn't ask what Nintendo's strategy was in acquiring Monster Hunter. It was suggesting that Nintendo's focus needed to be spread equally between the west and east. It was an opinion thread I thought that was perfectly clear, the way you attacked my ideas and took them so person, can you blame me for misinterpreting them as your own. Honestly if Nintendo's attack on Sony wasn't what you thought they should be doing then you should have posted what you thought they should do. If you honestly thought the west was important then you should have replied.

4) I bring up Super Mario Bros. so often, because it's Nintendo's biggest IP. The problems with the 3DS run deeper than just the absence of this series, but it is exemplary of there being something seriously wrong with Nintendo's current business strategy (which is exactly why they had to drop the 3DS's price so fast). If Microsoft stopped to make Halo, then people would call them crazy. If Sony stopped making Gran Turismo, then people would call them crazy. But if Nintendo doesn't make SMB, then it's no big deal even though SMB is bigger than Halo and GT combined. I guess you have learned nothing.

lol Rol, bringing up that old thread and accusing me of not learning. On what basis haven't I learned I never once said that NSMB should not come to 3DS. In fact if you read all of my recent threads and posts pertaining to the subject including responses to your very own threads/posts. You would note I think a NSMB game is on its way or will be made by the end of the generation. I don't believe Nintendo would toss its highest grossing spin-off out the window!

Dude stop putting words in my mouth. Yes if Nintendo stopped making Mario games that would be a huge deal, in fact even ditching NSMB is a big deal. But that's not the case and I have never suggested it to be so. Fact is while Miyamoto has talked about wanting to merge the 2D and 3D Mario's he hasn't ruled out a NSMB:3DS. Nintendo cutting NSMB is pure speculation on your part, seeing the sales and knowing Nintendo they aren't done with 2D Mario.

So what would Nintendo release in the following years if they used all their big IPs in year one? They have plenty of smaller IPs, they could create new IPs and they can make sequels to games that are already present on the platform. Seriously, that question of yours completely lacked any sort of logic.

Rol your not a N00b. You know fully well that Nintendo can't just release all their big IP's launch year. You yourself said Wii proved that you don't win the console wars by a sprint you win by a marathon. Releasing all of Nintendo's strongest IP's day one would be a sprint if I have ever seen one.

You know that if Nintendo launch Super Mario 3D Land, NSMB3DS, PaperMario, MarioKart those titles alone would benefit Nintendo a bit in the short run. But the titles would eat up each others sales and the momentary boost to hardware sales would be lost. You also know that the new and smaller IP's are incapable of supporting a platform on their own. The big high selling titles push hardware whether they be first or third party.

That being said I'm not saying new IP's and smaller IP's don't contribute as they definitly do. But look at sales of Wii the hardware sold best with MarioKart, NSMB etc...etc... sure WiiFit sold well and so did the other Wii series of games but they didn't match Nintendo's juggernauts.

Nintendo needs to spread their titles out over the consoles life span. Releasing all their big IP's at once would be stupid. Thats like suggesting that Microsoft should launch Halo 4,5,6 all at the launch of Nex-Box instead of releasing them year  by year. Or do you think Nintendo should be milking Mario more? I mean they are already releasing 3-4 handheld Mario titles each year, if they were to release all of their Mario spin offs alongside all the other big franchises the market would collapse.

 

5) Yeah, I haven't read those posts and I won't. All I need to say is that NSMB sold 90k units at its original price in its 62nd month in the USA. So there is this supposed threat from smartphone gaming, yet a game that is five years old is still able to enter NPD's top 10 multiformat charts. Come back to me when Apple and others have found a way to compete with Super Mario Bros. Much more talented companies have tried for 25 years and they all failed.

Umm profit wise your right Mario has always been the most profitable franchise. However bulk sales wise Angry Birds has been downloaded over 150-million separate times, that out performs every Mario title to date. Many iOS games sell millions upon millions more copies then anything Nintendo has on the market. Its just Nintendo makes a much larger profit on every software unit sold.

6) You've been here for years, but you don't show any signs of progress. Your threads are still regularly as fundamentally flawed as the stuff you posted when you joined these forums. Pretty much everything you post about gaming reads as if you have been brainwashed by major gaming websites and eat up everything they write. Examples are the idiotic hardcore and casual segregation and nowadays Apple being a threat to dedicated handhelds. Just because something is said everywhere you go doesn't mean it's correct, especially when you consider how rubbish gaming journalism is.

Umm you do know I am a gaming journalist by trade right? No shit I'm going to talk like one. However brainwashed from the major gaming sites is a joke. I follow the developers actual press releases I was on the press release list of over a hundred developers just like two years ago. I haven't been writing professionally for about two years but I follow the press releases I get my hands on.

Again I rarely actually pay attention to IGN, 1Up or many of the other gaming sites. Usually my beliefs come directly from the publishers, developers and console manufacturers. Apple being a threat to the dedicated handheld industry is a view shared by Sony and Nintendo alongside countless other developers/publishers.In fact I only quote Kotaku and such because often the press releases are private, made over email or I see them on Twitter. I need to use a source that everyone will see and since I don't yet have my own site to report news I need to link to other sites.

It seems that you don't base your ideologies around what the developers and publishers say and do, rather your own beliefs. Am I brainwashed? Yah I'm a game journalist and a gamer I report and follow the industries opinions and beliefs. If Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft all say something is a fact with the consensus of the other publishers and the consensus of the gaming media. Then yes I take it as fact.

Also in the past threads that we have debated in, I have always had support of many users who share my flawed ideas. Just like you have users who support your flawed ideas. Its all a basis of opinion and we both have opinions that other users agree with.