RolStoppable said:
Sure. Long post ahead, let's look at the quotes.
"The Wii was able to reach a large number of new consumers who had never played games before by bringing hands-on experiences with its Wii Sports and Wii Fit," he explained. "However, we could not adequately create the situation that such new consumers played games frequently or for long, consistent periods. As a result, we could not sustain a good level of profit.
The reason why software sales took a nosedive is that Nintendo slowed down on releasing Wii games that their consumers would be interested in playing. After Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii (all in 2009), Nintendo basically called it quits and didn't bother anymore to supply sequels to these hugely popular games. The hunger for more games was there (as evidenced by the explosive sales of the Just Dance series), but people can't buy games that do not exist. "Moreover, regrettably, what we prioritised in order to reach out to the new audience was a bit too far from what we prioritised for those who play games as their hobby. Consequently, we presume some people felt that the Wii was not a game system for them or they were not willing to play with the Wii even though some compelling games had been released." This is misinterpretation on Iwata's part, because as pointed out above, Nintendo didn't prioritize their new audience. While 2010 still had Wii Party and Donkey Kong Country Returns, Nintendo's lineup leaned towards more dedicated gamers with games like Monster Hunter Tri, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Sin & Punishment 2. The year 2011 was mostly emptiness on Nintendo's part with barely any new games being released. People can't buy games that do not exist. Besides, why be worried about a minority when the majority would still be on board as long as you actually release games for the system. "Once consumers have a notion that 'this system is not for us', we have learned that it is extremely difficult to change their perceptions later," said Iwata. Logically, you would try to please the majority instead of focusing on a minority.
"Therefore, in promoting the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, we have announced that we would like 'width' and 'depth' to coexist. "With the Nintendo DS and the Wii, the approach of 'width' was well accepted by many people; however, what we did in terms of 'depth' was not satisfactory for some consumers. This time, we would like consumers to be satisfied in both aspects. "In order to do so, we started to work on the 'depth' aspect first, and the current and existing software you can see for the Nintendo 3DS is based on that idea. In the future, the approach will evolve," he continued.
This is blatant misinterpretation, because virtually nobody complained about a lack of depth in the DS library. It's just Iwata looking for justification to change Nintendo's strategy. Not to mention how terrible this strategy turned out to be for the 3DS. Nintendo posted their first annual loss since they entered the video game business. "Our approach for the Wii U is basically the same. By doing so continuously, we are expecting that the number of game users per household will increase and as the gaming population increases, we believe we can create a sustainable video game market." And here Iwata is threatening to repeat the same mistakes which is awful. There is no way to please everyone. But there's a way to piss everyone off: By trying to please everyone. There are certain market segments that Nintendo should surrender, because if they don't, they will hurt the rest of their business greatly. Iwata makes it sound like the Wii and DS were mistakes (which wasn't the case judging by financial data), but the real mistake was that Nintendo changed their strategy about a couple of years ago. Which is why they are in trouble now and the announcement that they'll continue down the same path certainly isn't good news. |
Thank you. Interesting. I understand better now.
You say "The year 2011 was mostly emptiness on Nintendo's part with barely any new games being released. People can't buy games that do not exist.". What do you think was the reason for the drought of Nintendo games in 2011?
You say, "There are certain market segments that Nintendo should surrender", which market segments should they surrender?
