UncleScrooge said:
Squilliam said:
Actually what I'm saying is that you can't expect perfect performance from any company all the time. You can't simply say that Nintendo are losing X market and therefore it is all their fault, you have to also take into consideration the good performance of rivals. It is the exact same thing as not blaming Sony entirely for the better performance of Microsoft and especially Nintendo in the current generation, to do so would be disrespectful of Sony in that case and of Nintendo and Microsoft. Credit is due wherever you find good performance, so you can't absolutely say that Nintendo alone are 100% responsible for Nintendos performance. You have to take wider considerations into account.
I never said it is all their fault. I am totally aware smartphones eat into their market. Who would say such a stupid thing? What I said was that a lot of this is caused by Nintendo acting dumb over the last years. Just like that a lot of analysts talk and stuff people say on forums sounds like Nintendo is in 0% control of their sales and it is all "fate" or something which is plain stupid because you have to take into account that Nintendo of today is a very different company than Nintendo of 2005. It's actually pretty common for companies to get cocky once they see prolonged success.
My observation is not simply based on "they are losing the mass market - it must be their faul". 
UncleScrooge said:
You continue to post numbers but where is the proof these are actually connected? I can give you some nice "pirates are the reason for climate change" charts if you want (I actually can. My statistics prof collects that stuff like trading cards or something xD) And I think these numbers are very worrying just for different reasons.
What about Wii sales? Did the Wii also get killed by smartphones? Or maybe - just maybe - it was killed by Nintendo being unable to produce more mass market titles and focusing on the "hardcore" 3DS? No that can't be true... silly me.
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Climate is a bad example as there are too many variables to consider such as the various natural climatic cycles. If in an expanding market one player remains stagnant or shrinks then you can give a strong argument that the increasing sales of a competitor have something to do with it. So whilst climate science is 9x% certain, you'd be picking at threads to argue a strong case against it.
I've got some other ones, haha. Pirates and climate is a classic. Anyways, the point here is the bolded part: "something to do with it". The way websites and analysts act makes it seem like competitors are responsible for 100% of Nintendo's lost sales. I maintain my stance that a good chunk of that is Nintendo's fault. Not all of it - again I'm not that naive. But quite a chunk of it.
I guess in the end we'll meet somewhere in the middle. Of course you don't think Nintendo's competitors are causing 100% of their recent downfall. And of course I don't think Nintendo is responsible for it all alone.
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Nintendo could have done better, yes. I haven't denied their responsibility for some of their performance. It was quite likely that they didn't expect the level of success that they earnt with the Wii and of course in hindsight they didn't know that the Wii would be sold out for years and the average market price people were willing to pay was $299 when they were targetting for $199 with backwards compatibility which in the end likely did about nothing for their overall sales.
When you're at 100% of the market with the GBA or 70% with the DS it is extremely hard to go anywhere but down in terms of market share. One company cannot be everything to everyone all the time. It is hard to point to one action alone or even a group of them and say that in an ideal world had they done X and Y and Z differently they'd have ended up with a better result. Luck and timing both have significant roles to play, sometimes it is because the competitors action or inaction and others you just have the right product at the right time and ride a wave of popularity.
The market is just different now. It used to be if you wanted to play games on the move you had about one viable choice, Nintendo. Now you can choose between Nintendo, Sony and Apple with the possibility of more competitors becoming viable between Android and Windows 8 phone/tablets. The only time you can really claim 100% responsibility was when Nintendo had 100% of the market, then and only then do their actions dictate the overall direction and sales they can achieve.
Core gamers don't understand what 'good enough' means. If you're a core gamer you're far more likely to have more than one system and the fact one device can do an adequate job in one area doesn't mean anything because you also bought the device which is more than adequate there as well to compliment the overall experience. It never mattered to the 30 million Call of Duty players that the PC was the best way to play that game because keyboard and mouse was the best interface for shooters, analogue sticks and 640P graphics were 'good enough'. For the mass market, 'good enough' is the enemy of specialised devices.
