Pachter: Nintendo Needs More Exclusives to Beat PS3 and Xbox360

[Jumpin]

happydolphin said:

Jumpin said:

I wouldn't say attracting Microsoft and Sony fans are necessary for winning the generation. They certainly were not last generation where 250 million Nintendo hardware units (Wii and DS), and nearly 1.6 billion software units sold on the hardware. Most videogamers prefer the exclusive franchises offered by Nintendo than those offered by Sony or Microsoft, and this is proven by the fact of the results of the last generation.

So far, with two handhelds already established in the next generation race - you're seeing that this is even more true than it was last generation. Nintendo exclusive franchises on 3DS are dominating Sony's exclusive franchises on Vita to a far greater degree.

Pachter's analysis is simply refuted by facts combined with common sense.

You are not using common sense, you're bending the rules of reason.

The success of the Wii U in the sphere of the home console sphere is the topic at hand (like the title and OP state), so injecting notions and sales numbers of handhelds is not contributing to a sound argument. Otherwise, the N64 was a success in the Playstation era. We know that, relatively to its competition, that was not the case for Nintendo, as its brand image was greatly damaged in the home console space during that generation and the one after it.

Great, now that I've cleared that out, let's actually get to the heart of the topic.

The Wii was a runaway success by catering to a market that was mostly age and taste agnostic. That lead to wins on the casual and non-gamer front, but led to losses on the traditional gamer front, to which Sony and MS were both catering much more instensively as manufacturers (3rd and 1st party offerings).

As such, comparing the Wii to its competition, it lost an opportunity in customers that resulted in 140m HW sold units for the competition (PS360) which Nintendo did not participate in to any considerable degree (as shown by sales of top blockbusting multiplats - COD, EA Sports, etc.).

So no, his analysis is not refuted at all, and there is a lot of truth to what he is saying, it's just that his solution stinks.

...And in the real world, Nintendo`s traditional gaming franchises - particularly their most iconic traditional gaming franchises: 2D Mario, 3D Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart saw their greatest successes on the Wii and DS platforms respectively. It is no coincidence that these platforms are contemporaries of each other. This is simply the factual state of things.

In the real world, common sense dictates that the Wii and DS fanbases are both the same fanbases, and wouldn't be two separate fanbases which coincindentally have strikingly parallel gaming interests. Common sense also dictates that since their most traditionally significant franchises from over the last 25 years have grown in sales, that their traditional fanbase has grown, and not shrunk as you have said.

No matter how you slice it, Nintendo controls the most powerful exclusive franchises in the videogame industry. Facts are facts, and facts do refute his statement.