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sperrico87 on 03 January 2013
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Soundwave said:
sperrico87 said:

As long as Iwata and Miyamoto are in charge, Nintendo will never put their games on other platforms. They believe it will completely destroy their competitiveness and make their brands less desirable. I happen to agree with that philosophy.

We're a very long ways from the management at NCL even vaguely entertaining the idea of bringing their games to other platforms, let alone beginning to develop for other platforms. Years away.

Direct quote from Iwata last summer on Nintendo releasing their games on non-Nintendo devices: "So long as I am President, that shall never happen". It ain't happening, folks.

Look at Animal Crossing and 3DS sales in Japan and tell me Nintendo can't make it with their long-standing business model.  They can, for sure.


If Wii U is a sales dissapointment and cell phones continue to erode the relevance of game handhelds, I don't think it's so far fetched that Iwata will be given the boot at some point. 

Under his guidance, Nintendo has largely squandered most of the momenteum they had from the Wii/DS heyday with two very problematic hardware transitions and he seems to be apologizing for something different every 3 months nowadays. 

Miyamoto is moving back into an advisor position. I honestly wouldn't mind Nintendo get a president that was more aware and in tune with the Western markets. Under Iwata, Nintendo has become very Japan-centric in their software philosophies, contrasted to Nintendo in the late 1990s. 


3DS/ Wii U is Iwata's third hardware transition at Nintendo, so while it's true the 3DS/ Wii U generation has been rocky, you also have to give him at least as much credit for the immense successes that were Wii/ DS, which were also under his leadership.  GameCube was even rockier, but GBA did just fine.  

I think some of their software teams, such as the Metroid, Zelda, Mario teams mostly make games that will sell like gangbusters in North America as Christmas gifts.  Probably the rest of the quirky Japanese-centric software either is made without even consideration for western audiences, or made as something that isn't even considered for localization because it's so niche to Japan.  I think the balance they have for software is probably 50/50 in the end.

The rocky 3DS launch was a result of a huge mistake in pricing, not necessarily a lack of demand for new hardware.  DS was six-and-a-half years old when 3DS launched.  You also have to consider that cell phone gaming in Japan has been around longer than it has elsewhere in the world, yet Japan has the largest appetite for handhelds to this day, so I don't think there is very much overlap between gaming hobbyists and cell phone users.  I think people just use both and don't consider phones a replacement for a true gaming device.