chris_wing said:
Revenue from hardware, and revenue from licencing 3rd parties to publish on your hardware ecosystem are a bit different. Yes I know about licensing fees that hardware puplishers have, but Nintendo would out way the profits they make from third parties licensing fees by selling their own software to a larger base. They could also move to an open source platform like android to avoid having to pay licensing fees. The idea that the Wii U will become cheeper to produce over the years is grounded in the idea of mass production, but unfortunatly the Wii U is selling slowly and the componant makers aren't producing the large amounts they had hoped for, which means that it will take longer for the manufacturing costs to fall. Nintendo launched the Wii U selling at a loss for $350, the Wii U is now selling at $300 and is probably loosing more money now per unit than it did when it launched & people are still asking for another $50 price cut. I'll particialy withdraw my original statement, but if we are including licensing revenue then isn't Sony making more money on it's hardware? |
In order for Nintendo to be better off as a software-only company, it would have to tripple its sales, plus another 20% to make up for licensing fees they are now charged (or not earning) on their own software. Plus the usual 25%+ profit they usually make on hardware (Wii U was a abboration and a mistake). So if you really think Nintendo could sell 110 million copies of MarioKart on PS + Xbox... yeah, OK, sure. They would be lucky to see any increase... I would wager many titles would go down as they would no longer be looked at as "flagship" system titles (see Sonic, Crash, etc). And they would lose the synergy of bundles, of promotion of titles on boot screens, of hardware designed around their own games, etc.
If you're thinking they could make massive sales on Smartphones... sure, if they are willing to sell titles for a few bucks. FYI, Nintendo made more money off 1 title, Animal Crossing New Leaf, last year than Rovio made as an entire company - including selling Angry Birds, one of the most successful multi-plat mobile titles ever.
As far as Sony goes, the Playstation brand hasn't made money since the launch of PS3. However, they do take in a most of their revenue by being a hardware platform maker. Their 1st party software business is small, but if they do return to profitability with PS4 it will because they are a platform holder making money off licenses on 3rd party sales. Same as MS. And same as Nintendo, despite their larger in-house games division. There is a reason all of them are in this business.
