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Soundwave on 10 January 2013
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Osc89 said:
Mr Khan said:
Osc89 said:
Soundwave said:

3.) Create (or buy) a flagship "hardcore" character IP -- Mario paves the way for a lot of the mascot/cartoon/license based content that floods Nintendo consoles, but Nintendo really doesn't have a similar beacon for the older audience. You could always let Retro try their hand at a new IP, or go find one to publish. I suggested for risk-averse Nintendo to approach the folkes at Danjaq/EON productions, who own the James Bond license. Bond is cool, Bond is easy to market, if the rights are available, perhaps Nintendo could get them (or perhaps just rights to Bond FPS games). A Bond game with the same effort put into it as a Mario or Zelda would sell an easy 3-4 million and then other developers could look at that and say "oh, I guess there is an audience for something edgier here after all". 


What about Metroid? That's what I think of when "hardcore" Nintento is mentioned. They just need to boost Samus to mascot status (or more than she already is).

1) Welcome to the forums

2) Not really viable. They tried that with Other M (to an extent) and it just ended up pleasing nobody. Metroid works best as a third tier Nintendo franchise (as much as i hate to say that) and should be given attention only after tier 1 games (like Mario Kart, 2D Mario, Pokemon, and Wii _____) and tier 2 games (3D Mario, Kirby, and Zelda)

Thank you! As for Other M, the only complaints I've heard were regarding the characterization of Samus. This could be easily fixed by having her as a silent protagonist, more like Gordan Freeman. He's more adult and very iconic.

It would be pretty cool to see Nintendo start a new hardcore IP, but their strengths tend to lie in building up long-standing franchises. Plus I doubt they would go all in on promoting a newer riskier character, which you kind of need to do if you want them to be any kind of mascot. Microsoft managed it with Master Chief, but they went all in and didn't have much else competing for attention at the time. Anything Nintendo puts out will be quickly overshadowed by anything from tier 1 or tier 2. They have strong mascots already, and more than the competition.


I'm seriously tempted to make this my sixth point. 

F*ck Metroid. 

Pardon my french, from a marketing POV, Nintendo's strategy of having no answer to the need for a older-skewing franchise other than throwing Metroid at people over and over again has been a disaster. Metroid is not a big time franchise for core players and never will be unless the entire game play is changed dramatically. 

The mass audience does not like slow paced, solitary games for the most part. 

The 4 Metroid games (the 3 Prime + Other M) combined have sold less than GoldenEye on the N64. The two Metroid games on the Wii actually somehow managed to sell less than the two on the GameCube despite having 4x the userbase. 

Nintendo needs a GoldenEye. Not these small potatoes. 

Metroid is a fine series by its own merits. It's just not the franchise that Nintendo tries to keep positioning it as, and no doubt even they probably have gotten the message by now. Metroid has had 10+ years from Metroid Prime to make its case as a true top tier core gamer franchise and the numbers simply aren't there. No excuses, time to move on and let some other IP have a real chance. 

If Nintendo won't invest in a new character because they're too scared to take the risk, then like I said, I've suggested they go sign a deal for the Bond license which is currently free and apparently available. They have history there, it works for them, and I'd virtually gauruntee a high quality Bond game from Nintendo with a good multiplayer component would outsell any Metroid game they make.