The truth about Nintendo

[Troll_Whisperer]

RolStoppable said:

Troll_Whisperer said:
You may disagree, but it's at least well written and argued and there are a few good points.

Things like not refunding faulty machines, limiting the number of games by 3rd parties, the YouTube scandal, strictness with region-locking and odd formats to avoid piracy, high royalties, etc do show that Nintendo has been a bit stingy and tried to abuse the market to their advantage whenever they could.

It doesn't mean Nintendo are evil, and despite their low-investment, high profit margin approach, they make great games. But if they want to compete in this market they need to change and I think they have changed to some degree, if only because they were forced by market changes.

Limiting the number of third party games and controlling a media outlet (Nintendo Power in America, Club Nintendo in Europe) actually improved the industry. The limit meant that third parties had to make the best games possible, if they wanted to sell a lot of copies. Additionally, Nintendo highlighted the best third party games in their magazine, so the likes of Mega Man, Castlevania, Contra were the third party games that could prosper whereas the trash was weeded out as much as possible. That in turn was also good for gamers. All the good people benefited while the bad people (who caused the industry crash in America) got no chance to destroy the market again; they weren't allowed to flood the market with their trash again. Very few third parties had so much talent that they were seriously limited by Nintendo's policy of only a few games per year. But the talent that was there could mature, because most of the gaming dollars didn't go to scam companies.

Problems with faulty machines (PS2's class action law suit, 360's RRoD) have not been a Nintendo-only thing, although if you want to quantify the evil, Nintendo is the least evil one (failure rate of less than 1% compared to double digit percentages for Sony and Microsoft). The Youtube thing obviously pales in comparison to the PSN hack and all its details, as well as Microsoft's intended DRM for the Xbox One. Where Nintendo fumbles with region-locking, Sony and Microsoft fumble with backwards compatibility; it's either gone entirely or you have to pay again (like the PSP program, PlayStation Now and the sure-to-come Xbox equivalent); not to mention that region-locking affects a much smaller number of gamers than backwards compatibility. Sony and Microsoft have policies in place that force third parties to add more content if a game is ported late, or require (virtual) parity for simultaneous releases. The point of all this? Singling out Nintendo makes absolutely no sense when it comes to such topics.

Your last paragraph has it backwards. Right now Nintendo is facing financial problems, precisely because they abandoned their low investment, high profit margin approach. Both the stereoscopic 3D in the 3DS and the Wii U's Gamepad are big moneywasters. Therefore, if Nintendo wants to remain a console manufacturer, they have to go back to their old model, not further pursue their new ways.

Perhaps those actions could be justified in the context of the gaming crash, but gaming didn't crash anywhere outside of the US and gaming thrived all the same, and not through Nintendo HW but through more open platforms like PC, Amiga, Commodore, etc. In any case, I think Nintendo should have been a bit more lax after it was clear that video games weren't going anywhere, it's this behaviour that I think diminished its share of the market, despite being widely successful at the beginning. At the very least, it can be argued that they are a company of slow reactions and I believe some of these choices were the wrong ones when they were in a position of dominance.

About the faulty machines, I wasn't talking about the failure rate, but specifically about the no-refunds policy. The PSN hack was not intentional by Sony (though incredibly stupid and short-sighted). No backwards compatibilty sucks, I agree. The DRM scandal was the biggest F you by a gaming company to consumers in history and had they pulled it off the most damaging to the industry, so I also agree. I don't believe Sony has those policies you mention in place, I might be mistaken. Not trying to single out Nintendo, other companies have also tried to use their position to theri advantage. Sony tried to cram all the things they felt like in the PS3 and force them onto consumers to gain a position of power in other industries (talking about BD and Cell). Even MS, who hilariously thought they were the new leaders and could force whatever they wanted, when they had like a 30% market share the previous gen and a weak-sauce brand outside of NA.

About my last paragraph, I might not have been clear, but I didn't mean that the high profit margin approach was the thing to change or that their financial troubles are due to them changing it (I agree the 3DS and WiiU were major fuck-ups, I don't know how I would've followed the success of their predecessors, though). I was talking about the policies mentioned above. They changed their YouTube policies, reduced royalties, obviously the game limit and no-refunds policy, etc. Plus other changes like better online, account system, hopefully region-free games... that I believe they are kind of forced into.