| Akvod said: "1. (a) I don't care about Pachter's degrees, no appeal to authority fallacies from you please, especially when his ACTUAL area of expertise is stock analysis. " Stock analysis requires you to understand the company's business you know? What exactly do you think stock analysis entails? Also, lol "appeal to authority fallacies". Did you just read Wikipedia's article on logical fallacies or something? Point is, is that Pachter actually reads 10-k's and other, exclusive, sources of information and talks to management as well as journalists. He's a fucking expert, and I find it hard to believe that he's just pulling numbers out of his ass. On the other hand you just make claims while even admitting yourself that you have "no data". Knowledge isn't a perfect or surefire thing. Given the limitations, I'm going to believe Pachter over you. "Or is the Wii unique among consoles in having a rock hard cost of manufacturing that has barely decreased through an entire console generation?". Could be, dunno. Can't really say anything about the costs at this point in the generation, since I have no knowledge about that. But as for not cutting the prices: 1) A few years ago, when the Wii was still selling a lot, it would have been stupid to cut prices and lower MARGIN. 2) The price they have now could be based on a number of stuff. They might have an idea of what the current demand of Wii is, and determined that the current cost maximizes profit (which is a function of volume and margin). It might be that costs can't be lowered anymore. I'm not really sure where exactly you're going with this though. "(b) What are you basing that opinion about peripherals on? Regardless, they will still sell many tens of millions of controllers." From what I've seen, Nintendo has mainly been marketing the WiiU as 1 GamePad+a bunch of Wii motes. Going off of what seems to be Nintendo's marketing (and therefore, business strategy), I just don't see Wii motes being sold as much, given that current Wii owners should already have some. Maybe they'll sell the GamePads? I don't own a WiiU so I'm not sure if there's support for multiple GamePads (are they even being sold individually)? But it just doesn't seem like something that'll have a lot of volume in terms of sales (or appeal). "2. (a) It's hard to say how much Nintendo franchises benefit from the hardware control I spoke of. But I would argue that in the long run, it is more beneficial to keep the franchise strong than to pursue the short term gains of going multiplatform, only to see your franchise suffer and see declining sales because of declining quality, rather than continuing strongly into the future. In this scenario, in exchange for a smaller market they gain reliable customer support. Look at Sonic. " I think the Sonic brand really didn't fail as a result of a lack of exclusive hardware, but just poor quality software. "(b) If I were to speculate, I would say that the difference between having to support a console, but not having to pay royalties and also receiving royalties from third parties (which believe it or not do exist on Nintendo consoles), may or may not be equal to not having to support a console, but having to pay royalties, but having access to a greater market; but that when you take into account not only the hardware factor I refer to elsewhere (and possible franchise degradation if hardware control is lost) but also brand unity/recognition, it is at least equal. " Christ that's a long sentence (also a lot of "buts"). Sorry, I didn't really follow what you wrote there. "3. Aside from the effect it had on existing franchises (and I'd remind you of Super Mario 64 and the analog stick, which acknowledging that there are people like RolStoppable who would argue that that was also detrimental to the franchise), it gives Nintendo opportunities to do NEW things like Wii Sports, WSR, and the Trauma Center series which (as a non-player, I understand) relies on touchscreen or Wii Remote drawing for its gameplay. Making new franchises as well as continuing old ones is, I'm sure you will agree, essential to the health of a software company." Sure, but does that really get people to pay a premium for the console? WiiU seems to show that people aren't. Is it worth having those controls if that means that you can only sell to one platform? It just doesn't really make sense for a hardware or software point of view.
"1) You haven't even proven that the Nintendo hardware and hardware-based business is unprofitable. Aside from that, I will concede that if you are only analyzing the hardware for the hardware's sake, then it isn't relevant to that analysis how much the hardware helps the software. 2) On the other hand, I think it's quite a remarkable claim to say that "Dictating hardware-->better software" has no relevance to Nintendo's software business. I mean frankly that's a completely ridiculous statement. What I suppose you mean is that the quality argument is trumped by the quantity argument of being able to release across two platforms (not three, unless you forsee a new entrant into the market). But IMO that is a shortsighted outlook because over time series of inferior quality dwindle and fade away, if not disappear entirely. 4. In conclusion, simple logic isn't necessarily correct logic. And I have better things to do than to do 100% of the factfinding while you don't have the same burden, especially when you (and Pachter) are the ones making the claim in the first place that Nintendo would be smarter to abandon their hardware business. The burden of proof is on you IMO. "
Watch the video again. Don't stop inbetween it. Just take a deep breath, and understand that he's just about business. You could say that Nintendo's more focused on "quality" or "artistic integrity" or something like that. But Pachter's points are simple. Nintendo's not making enough money on hardware, Nintendo could make more money on software.
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I don't like to say it but Pachter is so right on this one. The only reason Nintendo made a loss last year was because of Wii-U hardware costs. Also Pachter forgot one very important argument, it's not only about the very small profit they make on the Wii-U you also have to count for all the development costs that came before it's release.
Like he said going software only would be much more profitable for them, though i still think since Nintendo is doing pretty well in the handheld department they could try a Nintendo tablet.
I'm pretty sure they could make a nice deal with Sony or Microsoft where they would have to pay very limited royalty fees anyway.(they probably wouldn't have to pay them at all if they were to release exclusively for only one of them).
I would love a Nintendo/Sony collaberation and it would probably be better for everyone including Nintendo fans, since they would get great 3rd party support and very powerfull hardware.
