Expert thinks Nintendo + Disney

[Landguy]

RolStoppable said:

Landguy said:

Sony is clearly setting themselves up to get out of the console business. So we agree on that part.

As far as the big N goes, they too are not swimming in cash anymore.  They have a shrinking business model and a literal warehouse full of IPs that have tremendous value.  As the company continues to struggle, there will come a time when they will have to decide whether they want to sell an IP or 2 or just get out of the hardware business or just sell out all together.  Most tight knit companies like N fight the inevitable and sell off pieces (see Sony the last 5 years) at first to struggle to stay alive.  Don the line, when the broken business model can no longer be propped up by selling pieces, they make a decision from a bad position.  It will take a few years, but time will prove this out.

Sony has bled money for years despite ongoing restructuring that included axing divisions and selling off assets. On the other hand, Nintendo has stabilized without having to fall back on any drastic measures, plus they still have several billion dollars in pure cash reserves. The console business works in cycles, so the next one may very well look very different from the current one; the next cycle is just two years away because it's reasonable to expect a new Nintendo handheld to launch by holidays 2016. Projecting a linear trend that transcends generations is asinine.

All it takes for Nintendo to get back on track is avoiding stupid decisions like selling expensive hardware at a loss, making good use of their planned software approach for the next generation which should limit software droughts for both the home console and the handheld, and redefine their software output (i.e. more new IPs like during the DS/Wii era instead of what they've been doing in recent years). Even if their hardware sales barely improved over 3DS/Wii U in such a scenario, their profits would be healthy because the biggest cause for their struggles in recent years would not exist. And when a company posts profits year after year, there is no reason to believe that Nintendo has hit the end of the road in the hardware business.

I doubt that nintendo handhelds have a real future beyond the next 5-7 years if that.  The need for mass quantaties of a standalone handheld is very small in the future.  That's why Nintendo as a hardware platform of any kind will be really unlikely.  Even Sony has a limited chance of having much of a hardware future past MAYBE the PS5 if it is even needed.

The streaming model will eliminate the real need for any particular hardware platform.  Lucky or planned, both Nintendo and Sony have a place in the future with their large 1st party catalogs.  Even with that, I doubt that either of them will stick around as independent companies.  They will more than likely get folded into/bought by some other company.

As far as M$ goes, they don't really have a future as a studio or anything of the like.  They have a better chance of being a simple interface as they are now with windows or their app store.  If they don't just become a blip on the radar of google or apple.