| mountaindewslave said: I'm pretty sure Nintendo has like 10billion liquid assets, meaning assets that can be moved extremely quickly. The suggestion Nintendo will lose billions is just absurd. even the worst case scenario that would never happen, you would have to release a console generation and have like ZERO sales for that to be a possibility. Not sure where some of you are getting your numbers from Also this thread is just silly. Nintendo just had a fairly shit generation and the max they lost in a particular year was like a few hundred million. Control yourselves. |
I never said they will lose $3-4b in cash flow over the next 5 years. It's a hypothetical scenario which I outlined to explain to the doom and gloom posters what could happen under a stress testing scenario. Even under my completely made-up and absurd scenario, Nintendo would continue to be a going concern. Thus, there is no need to panic and make headlines such as The Switch is a make-or-break for the firm. If you read my post carefully, I am not suggesting that Nintendo will proceed to lose billions of dollars on this console. I am simply voicing my disagreement to the idea that Nintendo needs to sell XYZ consoles to remain a viable console maker. From a business point-of-view, given the peculiar launch timing of the Switch (i.e., roughly 3 1/2 years into the current generation), it seems Nintendo decided to strategically take a risk with its hardware choices. Since the PS Vita flopped, it implies that Nintendo would generate guaranteed sales from anyone who is interested in non-casual smartphone/tablet mobile gaming. The success of 3DS and New 3DS suggests that there is still a healthy market for these consumers. On paper/marketing alone, the Switch seems to be a more focused, and better executed concept of the original Wii U. Therefore, it's reasonable to believe that it should outsell the Wii U at the very least.
The Switch doesn't need to sell 100-150 million units for it to be a good console imo. For example, I have no interest in Xbox One because my 6700K and GTX 1070 SLI on a 2560x1440 monitor provides a superior gaming experience to the cross-platform XB1 games. Therefore, for me, XB1 is not a desirable console. At the same time I acknowledge that not everyone has a powerful PC and XB1 appeals to them. For that reason we should be more open-minded that Nintendo is actually offering a different console experience to the other big 2 competitors. Had Nintendo tried to approach the horsepower of PS4 Pro or Xbox Scorpio, that in itself would not guarantee 3rd party support or sales. Such a console would have impressive hardware but not look as appealing against the already large gaming libraries of existing XB1/PS4 consoles. OTOH, with the Switch, they are offering selling features which are unique to Nintendo's console, in a way not even directly competing with the traditional home consoles. To the traditional console gamer who desires a powerful home console, the Switch may be disappointing, but nonetheless it makes sense why Nintendo decided to approach this console generation the way it has. The GameCube or N64 have already proven that having powerful console hardware alone isn't enough to elevate a Nintendo console to sales success.
