Staring into the abyss of a world where Nintendo has no games scheduled for release. Edit: The Time of Darkness Has Arrived

[Jumpin]

curl-6 said:

Jumpin said:

Bayonetta level games are releasing quite commonly. As I pointed out in my last post, Paper Mario, Rogue Company, Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town, Bloodstained 2, Crysis Remastered, WH40K Mechanicus, and Trails 3 DX all just launched; some of these may even perform twice as good. And "I wanna know!" is not a good answer for inventing all this drama, and doesn't change my above opinion.

And it is completely acceptable for Nintendo to not announce dates for product way in advance. Not only is it acceptable, it's preferable.

To illustrate: Were you representative of the actual population, an I were Nintendo's product manager, I'd be deeply concerned that you're only interested in what's coming out in the distant future, and not what's coming up, newly released, or on the catalogue promotion. I'd consider you as representing an unhealthy customer profile, with healthy customer profiles (and desired ones) being constantly focused on the featured catalogue, the upcoming schedule, and the new releases. And I'd say your behaviour needs to be corrected (for this thought experiment, you'd represent a significant portion of the audience). What's the best way to do this? Generally just wait 1-3 years - this is (in my experience) and let customer adjustment to the new paradigm set in.

In actuality, Nintendo's Nintendo's been far more calculated, and adjusted their processes over about 3-4 years starting with Kimishima in the phasing out of directs and closing back the window of scheduling releases. It seems to have worked since Nintendo just had their second most successful Q4 in history for software sales on a single platform - the record is 48 million (set by Wii) and Switch hit 46 million. So I'd consider this thread to be more like a loud expression of an outlier.

The point I'm trying to make with the illustration above is it's better for business when hype is generated at launch rather than far in advance. Generally a good business practice in mostly every type of established business, it kind of baffles me that some people have the mentality that video gaming is an exception and needs to be announced months to several years out; this is completely illogical. Generally, the reasons you'd generate hype far in advance is because you need investment to finance your project or to disrupt the competition in a desperate move; it doesn't apply to Nintendo, because it's a powerful established brand. Of course, a drought would be another reason to announce future software to disguise the fact that your launch schedule sucks - this is why Nintendo's stocks would often slump after what some gamers would feel are powerful announcements, because investor analysts see the picture FAR more clearly, and through all of these spin strategies; what Nintendo was doing in the past was revealing their poor schedule. The difference with the Switch is Nintendo has developed a very good release cadence that is causing high sales to existing users and their evergreen first party titles keep driving hardware. As an investor, I'd be FAR more excited about the consistency of sales driven by Animal Crossing New Horizons, Breath of the Wild, and MK8 DX than I would be for something like Bayonetta 3, the fact that Nintendo keeps releasing games of that level makes Bayonetta 3 kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme. Anyway, investors care about business health, and firms have analysts who tear down and study this stuff in order to make calculated investments.

Anyway, an example of a company which has traditionally had a short announce to launch window (sometimes as little as announcing a new product on launch day) is Apple, and it has led them to become the most powerful brand in the world - a very good model for a company like Nintendo to follow, in fact, it might be more beneficial to Nintendo that has a much higher release cadence and a much higher risk of cannibalization (which has been problematic for Nintendo's third parties since Nintendo began regularly announcing things FAR in advance during the N64 era, especially after DK Racing (which, bit of trivia, was developed as Pro-Am 64 at first, but they wanted a stronger license; so technically it's a sequel to Pro-am with DKC characters), which I think was the last game they announced weeks before release for many years - and DK Racing was one of Nintendo's fasting selling games, ever, prior to the DS and Wii.

But I'm rambling and I gotta go! So I'll wrap up before I leave (without proofreading, sorry for mistakes/poor English).

Bottom line, Nintendo SHOULD make sure customers stay focused on catalogue, newly released, and upcoming games they can pre-purchase. That drives sales, and is what's good for business.

At most 3 months, and that's because of investor quarterly reports - August 6th is the next one, and by that date the next key Nintendo game should be revealed.

You don't even need to take my word for it that it's a good business strategy (if I somehow haven't convinced you with my pages of rambling), just look at investor satisfaction. Nintendo is a healthy business, their stock is at its highest levels since 2008 and is both growing and far more stable. Although, to be fair, Nintendo's stock collapse in 2008 was primarily from disparity in the level of economic collapse with the US and a projected longterm rise in the value of the yen, which GREATLY impacts Nintendo's net income. But shareholders wouldn't value Nintendo this highly if they didn't think the company wasn't being run extremely well right now, and with the right strategies and good business health.

Last, as I have been saying, August 6th is the day I'd guess they'll announce the next game by as that's their next investor meeting. So, if you're wondering about Nintndo's next scheduled release, that's your date.

1. I don't care about how much money already rich corporate suits in Kyoto are pocketing, I care about actually having a quality new games to play and the future not being a miserable black hole of nothingness like it is right now.

2. How am I supposed to have any faith that the system I paid good money for won't be a dust collector for years to come when they have no significant games dated at all and multiple titles promised long ago have failed to materialize?

3. For God's sake, I'm not asking for much here, just a little transparency, a little hope for the future, something positive to look forward to in this horrible time.

If you would have actually read my post, you would have seen this stuff has already been addressed.

1. Nintendo's a business, it's just ignorant to think they're going to sacrifice their business goals to serve your over-dramatic curiosity. Your whining in our forum has zero percent chance of changing that. And YES you SHOULD understand how their business works, because your real problem is not something Nintendo has done, but your misunderstanding of their business, even when I have explained it to you in more than sufficient detail.

2. You've seen this point you keep making repeatedly disproven, month after month. You keep going on about a drought that never existed. How long is this going to have to go on before you understand that unannounced does not = non-existence?

3. And what you're actually saying is "Nintendo should abandon their 85 billion yen (800 million USD) marketing strategy that has helped lead them to some of the greatest success in company history because "I'm curious and very dramatic." That's quite far from "not asking for much" - it's asking them to cannibalize sales and potentially cost them billions of USD in value for mismanagement. But again, all of this is explained in detail above.

Again, August 6th is their next fiscal report release; their plans will be in section 3. There's a good chance they're having a Direct before that. Since Nintendo has been only announcing quarterly plans, you're going to get July through end of September. Furukawa says Nintendo has no plans for major events this year, they are continuously announcing new stuff (which you can see on the Nintendo websites, their youtube channel, the Nintendo EShop, and the Nintendo Switch News Channel app), and while they will continue using directs to convey certain information, they are looking at new methods - IMO, Directs have run their course, and I've maintained this for some time now (probably close to two years now; Fuck you Smash fans =P) - and I think Nintendo knew this for some time too, but it's official as of this year after the last shareholder Q&A - it seems they're phasing them out; I don't know if treehouse events will work, they sound great on paper, but apparently the last one was a disaster - unfortunate, I LOVED the treehouse event for Breath of the Wild.