Can Nintendo Make Another Successful Home Console w/o Expanding?

[Eddie_Raja]

RolStoppable said:
Think about this: If the pool of Mario fans is limited (which it obviously is), how come that certain Nintendo consoles performed worse than the biggest Mario games? The problem that is at work here isn't so much that Nintendo makes mascot games, it's that the resulting products only appeal to a niche within that pool. And that's because Nintendo's software developers get the leeway to push their agendas.

Examples of this are Miyamoto's premium treatment of 3D Mario games over 2D Mario games, even though historically the latter have always sold more, and Aonuma's desire to make every Zelda as close to The Wind Waker as possible (which was a game that didn't resonate with the market). There are already sound theories that Zelda U is The Wind Waker on land.

As you can see, Nintendo isn't really pushing Mario or Zelda, but rather very specific interpretations of that material; and they have been doing so despite sales data that suggests that that is not a smart idea. That's the reason for their tremendous decline.

Nintendo's portfolio of IPs and potential to create new brands is way above of that of any other video game maker (look up the list of bestselling games of all time, Nintendo clearly outpaces everyone in number AND variety), but they haven't made use of that due to deliberate decisions by the software management (that ultimately influences the hardware design too, because that's how an integrated software/hardware company works). This is by far the biggest problem they have to fix, because third party support is definitely not the answer when the majority of big third party publishers have already proved that their games aren't capable of selling Nintendo hardware.

I mean there is a reason many of Nintendo's IPs are begining to focus on only one interperatation:  The people at Nintendo are getting too old.  Sony and even MS continue to promote younger leaders up to the top positions, and this causes a constant evolution of franchises as well as the creation of new ones.

Nintendo is suffering from "Old-Man Syndrome."