| torok said:
You suffer the same issue of most Nintendo fans and it's something Nintendo itself suffers: the belief that their IPs are some magical things that can do anything. All of them aren't saving the Wii U. All of them won't avoid the fall of portables. Making people create a NNID won't make them buy Wii U or 3DS. Just like people create a new account for WWF, they can do it for any console. You are implying that an app with some games will create a magical connection between people and Nintendo. If games like GTA San Andreas didn't do it on mobile, nobody will. It's a companion device. Want people to buy your gaming device? You don't have to buy a mobile gaming company and make apps for that. Just create something people want and advertise it. That's what Sony did with the PS4. The mobile app is a companion an extra feature. The strenght of their aproach is at the core of the machine: the gaming aspect. Creating an app with links to other game on the App Store isn't "creating a platform". You aren't understanding the concept of platform. Just creating an unified ID isn't creating a platform. This already exists, everywhere. Their strategy is more straightforward: expand the handheld userbase to the mobile base. They will make money with mobile games, they won't attract games to their platform. Of course, some will make the jump, but that's a bonus. An unified login and cross-purchases is just the minimum requirement for this to work. That's possibility 1. Possibility 2 is that they will just make spinoff of their IPs on mobile to get some advertising, like Sony did. This of course, would fail in the same way. They can't go half way. Or they release a mobile full Pokemon or 2D Mario game or they will end with some random re-skin of a endless runner that won't change a thing. |
I don't believe that Nintendo's brands are magical, but they do have mass market relevance, something Sony and Microsoft franchises lack. That's completely undeniable. Aside from Pac-Man, and maybe something like The Sims as a brand, I wouldn't say that there are any hardcore gaming IP with the mainstream appeal that most run of the mill Nintendo IP have. Disney has the brand power, but not the infrustructure or the gaming know-how. Minecraft has the brand power, but only one IP to tie it to. Nintendo has just put itself in the position where it now has everything that it needs to succeed at this.
Getting people to make an NNID alone wouldn't get someone to buy Nintendo hardware. I've already said that. But the connection with an account isn't some magical wonder. Apple does it with Apple IDs. Steam does it with their accounts. There's no magic. It's consumers with real, tangable connections to their accounts, and the software tied to it. It's why someone with an iphone is more likely to buy a Mac than a PC. That's not magic. It's basic consumer relations.
You're making it out to be some magical complicated thing. It's not. It is straight forward. It's just something Nintendo hasn't done, and to this extent, no one has done successfully. I'm not proposing that this will "save the Wii U." It's not even remotely the same thing. The Wii U was asking for a $350 investment. This is a, likely free, mobile platform to play, free to cheap, games. There's almost no barrier to entry with the latter, and nothing to lose by signing up.
And yes, it is a platform. It's not "just an account." The Facebook App is a platform. The Twitter app is a platform. Platforms "exist, everywhere." And even if you don't consider it a platform, those are merely semantics. The outcome is still the same and very real.
They've literally flat out confirmed that these mobile games are meant to usher people into buying gaming hardware. They've already confirmed that the main goal of these mobile games are not to earn revanue, but to entice people to buy Nintendo hardware. They've already flat out said that they would use a platform which connects mobile and gaming hardware, to unify the Nintendo gamer. These aren't assumptions. These are quoted statements directly from Nintendo over the past year.
A unified login and cross purchase system is not merely the minimum requirement for Nintendo to make mobile games, otherwise every mobile game would be part of an account requiring a login. All of Sega's games would need a Sega ID because it's the "minimum requirement." All of the GTA games would require a "Rockstar Plus" username, because it's the "minimum requirement." They don't do that, because they aren't trying to do what Nintendo's doing.
What their strategy is definitely not is a transfer of their audience from handheld to mobile. Handhelds aren't going anywhere. As long as there's a new exclusive Pokemon game on a dedicated handheld, the thing is guaranteed to hit at least 15 million units on the back of that one game alone. Because handhelds clearly aren't in a bubble, and more games come out for them than merely Pokemon, they will always sell enough hardware to warrent selling more. Handhelds are declining; they aren't dead. They will ultimately plateau.
