The truth about Nintendo

[Jizz_Beard_thePirate]

Zod95 said:

Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Zod95 said:
What is TLDR?

Too Long, Didn't Read

Basically a summary of what you typed for the people that don't have time to read all that

That's at the end:

3.3. Damaging the gaming ecosystem

During all these years, Nintendo has attempted to profit the most delivering the least. They were always forced by others (rather than forcing them) to move onto new generations and new evolutionary stages, both on hardware and software. As the most profitable gaming company, Nintendo could have engaged into bold concepts that could require massive money spending to achieve new skies in the videogame evolution. Instead, they chose to play it safe, taking as much wealth as possible away from the gaming cycle.

This was achieved through a solid and long-term strategy based on exclusivity and disguised elitism as well as dirty moves (like the inventory management, region lock, key-chip, limit of yearly launches, “no returns” policy and media outlet control) to put developers, retailers and customers on a short leash. To make Nintendo stronger, such moves have only weakened/killed promising developers and the gamers’ ambitions, holding back the industry for many years.

Nintendo has created consoles primarily focused on their needs in terms of software development, constantly waiving tech standards (and doing it in full for 2 consecutive generations). When dealing with partners, they behaved like amateurs, offering inadequate documentation and incompetent help support.

Weakening gamers was the gateway for Nintendo to suffocate competition and meet partners with open hostility. It became clear that one can use power to get even more power. Only 3 companies have had such an opportunity: Atari, Nintendo and Sony. Only 1 has done so.

Nintendo was also the company that has contributed the most for game exclusives. Making any title from a 1st party studio to be exclusive, demanding every 3rd party NES game to be exclusive in the 3rd gen, making many of the 5th gen multi-platform to release a “64” version and buying exclusive rights for many games like no other company has done before (maybe, and only maybe Microsoft could have done something similar).

Moreover, Nintendo has promoted low competitive environments, where shovelware could thrive and sell millions on the Wii. A console with less than 40% of market share was able to collect many more (and far more successful) trash games than PS1 with 70% or PS2 with 75%.

The only side showing Nintendo’s positive contribution to the gaming ecosystem is the critic. Most of websites give high scores to Nintendo games. However, let’s not forget that game websites are a business by themselves. They cannot afford to be unpopular. Even if they don’t see quality in a certain videogame, they will give a high score if the game sells well. How many games do you know that sell millions and have a score of less than 50/100? Let me give you one example: Just Dance. IGN gave it 2/10 because they perceived no quality on that game. After seeing that it sold many millions, they gave 8/10 to Just Dance 2. Do you think the same doesn’t happen with Nintendo games?

In conclusion, despite Nintendo’s ability to produce highly appealing products, their real positive contribution was to their shareholders: 32B$ at your expense and all the atrocities Nintendo has made.

Shorter dudeee, usually tl:dr is one paragraph or less