Satoru Iwata Cites Poor Basic Wii U Sales To Rule Out Price Cut Benefits

[famousringo]

RolStoppable said:

Gamerace said:
IF the lack of software is a chronic problem for their hardware then it's long past time Nintendo invested in more studios or focused on only a home or portable system since they are clearly incapable of sufficiently supporting both adequately.

If they know lack of software is going to hinder hardware sales (which then hinders software sales) why don't they actually do something the (expletive) about it? More than a temporary influx of games like WiiU is getting.

They did things to do something about it, it's just that those measures have fallen flat, because they always revolve around getting third parties on board. Since the industry keeps shouting that you need third parties to be successful and because Iwata is a nice man, that's what Nintendo has been trying to accomplish. Investing in more first party development capacity would have gone against the narrative, because it's said that first party software hinders third party software sales.

Furthermore, Nintendo has been engaging third party developers as a publisher to get more development on their platform, but has run into problems with the games being mediocre quality (Fatal Frame) or limited appeal outside Japan (Zangeki no Reginlev), sometimes even when the game is a long standing Nintendo IP (Metroid: Other M).

This is a strategy that Nintendo continues to use today with Platinum, but they can't just expand it to infinity. Eventually, even Nintendo runs out of talented game designers to oversee these external projects, and now they're fighting against the rising costs and slowdowns of HD development.

It's not an easy problem to solve, and Nintendo is right to be cautious about growing their development too aggressively.