Soundwave said:
And Nintendo is somewhat their own worst enemey here because they refuse to let go of the Mario/Zelda/DK/Pokemon safety blanket. Are they willing to invest real marketing and development dollars on an IP to attract new audiences now that the casual gaming bubble looks to have burst for them? We'll see. |
Do what you think is right so they could repeat the awesome loss producing records of PS3 and Xbox360? Give up on their own money making franchises so 3rd party could sell to a broader market base at their loss? Why does the gaming world need a PS4 and Xbox720 clone?
And if they did invest an an IP that competed directly with the 3rd parties, now they would come? Waited on the Wii U even longer so 3rd parties could bring their next annual installments onto 3 platforms or fork over serious money to make one of those exclusive? Why?
Nintendo occupies the biggest portion of gaming pie that is clearly evident (see the Pacman?). Wii U being a year or two ahead of the HDTwins is a perfect marketing strategy to keep Nintendo's piece of pie all to themselves. Study for your own benefit, that the HDTwin market is a zero sum gain. They both pushed each other beyond the realm of profitability, if they endeavered to start 8th gen the same way, then history is bound to repeat itself that Nintendo would be able to slash Wii U price and coast into profitability on the backs of their strong handheld market.
HDTwins can push harder and really at the end of the day, it just becomes more obvious they are budget PCs. Now if they go the smartphone route and subsidize from anticipated software revenue, maybe they can afford to turn them into midrange PCs. The higer end they push, the more consolidation will take place, and your 3rd parties become the same few annual installments you see every year. Innovation will find its way on cheaper platforms, Minecraft, Angrybirds, Etc. Just by choosing not to get in the goring bloodbath with the HDTwins, Nintendo will be in a good position to adapt itself to the new gaming world.
Sony's PSPGo, ViTa, countless hybrid gaming, tablet devices have all flopped, proving cutting edge graphics is a costly and unsustainable strategy to maintain BROADLY. Nintendo will be well served to not follow Sony's footsteps, and definitely do not engage in any headon battle with MSFT, where they have proven for 15 years, they WILL spend heavily to go after a market, not to grow it, but to wreck it.
1. Blackberry vs Window phones....both lost
2. iPod vs Zunes.....saturated
3. Xbox360 vs Ps3.......PS2 heair apparent sabotage and platform selling exclusives turned multiplatform
4. iPhone vs well MSFT got smart and didnt try too hard here
5. iPad vs MsFt Surface, Apple Store vs MSFT Store....never the best, but will spend dough to copy you tit for tat.
Nintendo's $10 billion in cash is nothing compared with what a monopoly in OS can generate year after year. Apple survived MSFt by innovating away from them. Where you see MSFT, you see stagnant growth and cutthroat competition. As a gaming fan, last thing I want to see is MSFT taking down Nintendo and Sony. Unlike Apple, whose Steve Jobs era passion for perfection pushed them better. MSFT's penchant for mediocrity and uniformity would KILL all that is wonderful about gaming.
