| Conegamer said: Whilst a price cut would boost sales, I don't think there's much they can do to speed up the development rates of the games which would produce a sub-par product. They are doing stuff about it, as can be seen by the Nintendo Direct. But they need to do more. However, we likely won't see what until E3. |
Presumably, the length of those development cycle is primarily due to the type of software they are trying to create, i.e. 3D Mario, Pikmin, Zelda, etc. In other words, Gamecube-esque games, but now in HD.
While I think one of the bigger mistakes Iwata made was in not reading the tea leaves and realizing that third-party support is simply not something he should have expected, let alone relied upon, the best time to fix that problem has passed. Since that's the case, in his shoes I would seriously consider either devoting fewer resources to these Gamecube-esque titles or going on an immediate hiring spree for new talent. I would direct the talent saved/acquired in this manner to try and focus on games that are both more mainstream and less resource-intensive. I'm thinking specifically of how hit titles like the language training games, Wii Fit, and especially Brain Age.
The Iwata Asks on Brain Age is especially relevant to this train of thought: he gave a small handful of developers extremely limited time and very few resources to come up with compelling software, and as a result they threw away most of their notions of what a videogame should be and instead focused on creating something that the public would demand, but which videogames had not yet catered to. The results speak for themselves. Admittedly I expect the bulk of these games to flop, or to be minor successes at best. But even one megahit would make the endeavor worthwhile, and in light of how gaming has largely retreated once more to its limited audience, I suspect such an approach would breed more than one success, and at a fraction of the time and cost, no less. Nintendo claims the Gamepad can lead to exciting new ways to play games: thsi would be a fantastic way to prove it.
