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Soundwave on 27 January 2015
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Skullwaker said:
Soundwave said:
But there was a plausible audience there of people for Nintendo to go after -- if you were a casual player or someone who could play games with the complexity of Pac-Man or the original Mario Bros. and not much else, there wasn't really much on the PS2/GCN/PC/XBox for you to turn to. Nintendo successfuly exploited that for a few years before others copied it (Kinect) and then Apple completely took that audience away. 

What audience is under served right now for gaming? Casuals are very happy with smart devices there are hundreds of new games every year. So are kids. Core/hardcore gamers are well served with the PS4/XBox 1 and then you have Steam on the PC. I mean I guess no one's making games for dogs/cats?

I don't think Nintendo will be able to find a new fad this time. Every level of gamer from the fringe/casual/non-player all the way up to the most hardcore player has a ton of options. I mean maybe VR? OK. But it looks like Sony, MS, and Facebook/Occulus are already moving on that. 

Just because Sega hit paydirt once with Sonic on the Genesis to save their bacon didn't mean the "hail Mary killer app" formula worked again on the Saturn with NiGHTS or the Dreamcast with Shenmue (even though Sega spent a small fortune on the game). I don't think there is a Brain Training or Wii Sports coming again to save Nintendo this time. 

Let's not try to pretend the Wii was the first console that tried to appeal to casuals. It wasn't. Even now, consoles are still trying to appeal to casuals. Just not the tablet-mobile casuals.

I'm not saying Nintendo is gonna hit a homerun next gen like what happened with the Wii and they'll have some killer app that'll make them infinitely more successful than XB and PS, but if I know one thing about Nintendo, it's to never count them out. When they hit low points, they always come back swinging. History repeats itself, and Nintendo knows what mistakes not to make again next gen. I don't think 60-80m is out of reach for them at all, especially considering they may be the only console manufacturer left and if Nintendo Fusion becomes a reality, their console/handheld divisions will merge and give them a ton of profit/sales. 

I think it's just wise to wait and see what happens. Assuming Nintendo is finished is just as foolish as assuming they will easily dominate. We don't know anything of their plans.

I'm not really a big believer in the "history repeats" ... no there are plenty of examples where history doesn't repeat. Even the history that Nintendo is on is that they were on a fairly consistent decline in the home console business since the 1980s onwards, with a 4 year spike due to the Wii, but now they're right back on their previous trajectory. 

I think what the console business is today -- 95% Western consumers and Western publishers, being an enviornment in which Nintendo really can work in. Even Iwata himself says while he is NOA's president he doesn't understand the Western market very well. 

So I'm looking at that. Maybe they can pull off another miracle, but I tend to think if your business is banking on always pulling off a miracle, the day will inevtiably come where you can't pull of a miracle.