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Gamerace on 05 August 2013
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RolStoppable said:
Gamerace said:

People are already playing these games on those platforms so Nintendo isn't suddenly making them available, they are making them available at cost instead of free.

Okay by your numbers Nintendo has made 70m but now has to drop the price on eshop.  Let's assume they sell 1m on eshop (we both know those numbers are not happening but we'll use this for estimating loss to be conservative).  So now they loss $4 on ever one sold through eshop or 4m dollars. 

Um?  Am I missing something?  70m gain on mobile at a cost of a 4m loss on eshop?  HELL YES!  DO it Nintendo!

Well yes, you are missing something. Even if Nintendo's games would sell like mad (100m wouldn't be happening), the additional profit they would make from it would be peanuts.

When we then add the expectations of consumers that more Nintendo games will become available on non-Nintendo hardware, there is less of a reason to own Nintendo hardware. If Nintendo hardware sells worse, then Nintendo's new software will also sell worse. And they have a much bigger profit margin on new games. You would be asking Nintendo to put the health of their hardware at risk for a few million of extra profit.

Also, if you ask Nintendo to put their games on smartphones, you might as well ask them to put their games on the PC, Xbox and PlayStation. The principle is the same: More addressable consumers than on Nintendo hardware alone. And if we go further with this, why not ask Sony to put games on Xbox and Microsoft to put games on PlayStation?

Except people are already playing  classic Nintendo titles on mobile devices (and PCs).  In fact emulating Nintendo games was a sales pitch for Ouya.

So your entire argument lacks merit.  If people want to play Mario Kart (N64) on their tablet, they'll go ahead and do it.  If they want to use a controller they can do it on Ouya or PC.   Classic Nintendo games are already out there.   Yes, maybe that's costing Nintendo some sales of new hardware from people who feel Mario Kart N64 is the same and Mario Kart 8 (and to an extent that's true).   But largely it's rubbish, if people want the new games, they'll buy the new Nintendo hardware to play it on.   It's up to Nintendo to make their new games compelling enough that we don't want to settle for the old ones.

Really Rol, you usually make a solid argument and have shot me down (justifibly) a couple times but this stance is really weak.  I don't believe that you believe selling N64 and earlier games on other platforms would notciably undercut new hardware sales.   And by not selling the games themselves, it's just millions left on a table untouched.      But we've seen Nintendo do that countless times, and I don't see them doing this either.