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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo's Questionable moves, 3DS difficulties

Mr Khan on 03 April 2011
greenmedic88 said:
Mr Khan said:
greenmedic88 said:
Conegamer said:

By Justin Polak

What do you reckon? (P.S, sorry for the colour, I'm working on it!)

http://www.primaryignition.com/2011/04/02/justins-words-of-wisdom-nintendos-questionable-moves-and-the-3ds/

I pre-ordered the 3DS and my initial POV on the unit has been nothing but positive, but i still have to question whether there is any legitimate growth to be found in the dedicated handheld gaming segment or whether it will even be able to maintain the same consumers who were former customers.

There wasn't a single game in the initial line up that I'd pay $40 for. Recognize that many of those titles sold at that price were purchased simply because of that age old "new console phenomenon" that inspires owners of a brand new device to buy really mediocre games they wouldn't look twice at a year into the console development cycle, just to have something to play on their new toy.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether the software being sold is actually worth $40 per title in the days where major publishers are now releasing smartphone developed versions of their main IPs  at a fraction of the cost. For those who don't have an ear to the ground, the days where free and $.99 apps developed on a shoestring budget were the only options on smartphones is already over.

"I like buttons", "touch screen controls are terrible", "I like physical games", "I only play Nintendo games" while legitimate opinions, simply don't apply to the average user, who in all likelihood sees minimal beneift of a dedicated gaming handheld if they already carry a smartphone.

 

Again, the only hole in this argument is content. If the dedicated handhelds draw the right games, they can make non-consumers (who would prefer to have just a smartphone) into consumers.

Now this makes it an uphill battle to be certain, but Nintendo's got the capability to make consumers out of non-consumers if anyone does

Hell, if it weren't for Nintendo, this whole argument wouldn't exist, and the whole market would've defaulted to non-dedicated platforms decades ago

It wasn't possible to play games on phones with better hardware and better development tools than dedicated portable game systems prior to the iPhone 3G much less decades ago.The portable games market has changed more in the last two years than it has in the past twenty directly because of the iOS/Android market. It's easily the biggest disruption the market has seen since the advent of portable gaming.

There's no question dedicated handhelds will always have their built in market, but the days of them being the default portable gaming platforms for general consumers may well be over and frankly, all of the established IPs that were once only available on handhelds won't change that.

Better hardware is highly subjective in this case, when so much of that hardware advantage is lost on non-game capabilities and a design that is not intuitive for gaming. Granted, disruption comes from the segments of the market that are willing to put up with good enough, but this will hamper the mobile market's ability to actually get killer apps of its own, and i'm talking about stuff that actually brings people to the platforms, not stuff that gets downloaded 100 million times because people happen to own the platform in question.

Compelling games content will, for the next cycle at least, still be the realm of the dedicated device.

Now if Apple were actually interested in selling iPhones for games, they would start to invest in some studios of their own, but until then, they'll be unable to do damage to the dedicated market



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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homer on 03 April 2011
Jumpin said:

Sure there is a place for candy, but they're never going to take the place of a full meal.


You obviously have yet to meet Willy Wonka. Anyways, the only problem I see is if  the raising cost of game development for the "core" consoles is outpacing the growth in userbase.



"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." -My good friend Mark Aurelius

Albion on 03 April 2011

Nintendo may even see Apple App store as a good thing.

 Growing the User base of gamers and Bringing back old nintendo users from the 1990's

The bottom line is. If apple takes out Nintendo. It wont be with its Ipad.   The Itouch or something in the future

Could be damaging. But not now and not anytime soon.



greenmedic88 on 03 April 2011
homer said:
Jumpin said:

Sure there is a place for candy, but they're never going to take the place of a full meal.


You obviously have yet to meet Willy Wonka. Anyways, the only problem I see is if  the raising cost of game development for the "core" consoles is outpacing the growth in userbase.

And that's really the problem.

Opinions will vary, but is there a growing market for $40 portable games, particularly when they aren't all big budget titles (but still cost $40 retail) and there are alternatives for those who don't carry portable game systems but do always have that smartphone on hand?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me to spend $40 on a portable game, either it's something I'm going to be playing for hours like a regular console game, or it will have to offer something pretty unique.



Khuutra on 03 April 2011
greenmedic88 said:

And that's really the problem.

Opinions will vary, but is there a growing market for $40 portable games, particularly when they aren't all big budget titles (but still cost $40 retail) and there are alternatives for those who don't carry portable game systems but do always have that smartphone on hand?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me to spend $40 on a portable game, either it's something I'm going to be playing for hours like a regular console game, or it will have to offer something pretty unique.

You'll need to define a timeframe for the growth, here.

More, I'm not sure an expanding market is really the same thing as a sustainable market, hwich is the only thing the diehard should really be worrying about.



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greenmedic88 on 03 April 2011
RolStoppable said:
homer said:
Jumpin said:

Sure there is a place for candy, but they're never going to take the place of a full meal.

You obviously have yet to meet Willy Wonka. Anyways, the only problem I see is if  the raising cost of game development for the "core" consoles is outpacing the growth in userbase.

I don't think that's going to be a problem. If that were going to happen, then third party publishers would simply adopt their popular Wii/DS vs. HD consoles model: Flood the former with cheaply made games and funnel the profits into projects for the latter. It doesn't look like there's any sort of prestige to gain by being a top developer for iOS, so dedicated game machines will continue to take the spotlight even if they aren't profitable in and of themselves.

That's one thing that will probably never happen any more than we're likely to see games being marketed as "Only on iOS!"

Frankly, I don't think Apple cares one bit about exclusivity so long as developers continue to publish games on their platform, customers keep buying software and Apple keeps getting their 30% of the take.

Generally speaking, exclusives do help sell platforms, but in the case of smartphones, I really can't say I hear about a lot of people buying an Android or iOS compatible device because "they just had to play X game."

The reason for publishing on these platforms is really just a matter of having a large built in potential consumer base that frankly, is kind of foolish for developers to overlook, whether they're garage developers or major publishers. No prestige involved; just tapping a growth market.



Albion on 03 April 2011
greenmedic88 said:
homer said:
Jumpin said:

Sure there is a place for candy, but they're never going to take the place of a full meal.


You obviously have yet to meet Willy Wonka. Anyways, the only problem I see is if  the raising cost of game development for the "core" consoles is outpacing the growth in userbase.

And that's really the problem.

Opinions will vary, but is there a growing market for $40 portable games, particularly when they aren't all big budget titles (but still cost $40 retail) and there are alternatives for those who don't carry portable game systems but do always have that smartphone on hand?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me to spend $40 on a portable game, either it's something I'm going to be playing for hours like a regular console game, or it will have to offer something pretty unique.



3DS is unique.  It has 3D lol



greenmedic88 on 03 April 2011
Khuutra said:
greenmedic88 said:

And that's really the problem.

Opinions will vary, but is there a growing market for $40 portable games, particularly when they aren't all big budget titles (but still cost $40 retail) and there are alternatives for those who don't carry portable game systems but do always have that smartphone on hand?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me to spend $40 on a portable game, either it's something I'm going to be playing for hours like a regular console game, or it will have to offer something pretty unique.

You'll need to define a timeframe for the growth, here.

More, I'm not sure an expanding market is really the same thing as a sustainable market, hwich is the only thing the diehard should really be worrying about.

The specifics aren't an issue here. It's widely acknowledged that Android and iOS device growth isn't going to be changing for the worse in the future.

If anyone's predicting some sort of market crash either in the demand for such devices, the services they provide or even the software that's available for them, I haven't been seeing any such stories from reliable sources. 



greenmedic88 on 03 April 2011
Albion said:
greenmedic88 said:
homer said:
Jumpin said:

Sure there is a place for candy, but they're never going to take the place of a full meal.


You obviously have yet to meet Willy Wonka. Anyways, the only problem I see is if  the raising cost of game development for the "core" consoles is outpacing the growth in userbase.

And that's really the problem.

Opinions will vary, but is there a growing market for $40 portable games, particularly when they aren't all big budget titles (but still cost $40 retail) and there are alternatives for those who don't carry portable game systems but do always have that smartphone on hand?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me to spend $40 on a portable game, either it's something I'm going to be playing for hours like a regular console game, or it will have to offer something pretty unique.



3DS is unique.  It has 3D lol

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-15/tech/lg.optimus.3d_1_google-s-android-smartphone-nintendo-s-3ds?_s=PM:TECH

And the only game I bought for the 3DS was SSFIV and that's only because Amazon gave out a $25 credit for use with one of the initial titles.

None of those initial games were worth $40 to me, and I can say this as someone who really likes the 3D capabilities.



Khuutra on 03 April 2011
greenmedic88 said:
Khuutra said:

You'll need to define a timeframe for the growth, here.

More, I'm not sure an expanding market is really the same thing as a sustainable market, hwich is the only thing the diehard should really be worrying about.

The specifics aren't an issue here. It's widely acknowledged that Android and iOS device growth isn't going to be changing for the worse in the future.

If anyone's predicting some sort of market crash either in the demand for such devices, the services they provide or even the software that's available for them, I haven't been seeing any such stories from reliable sources. 

When you say  "such  devices" in your second paragraph, you are referring to the iOS? I never implied that they would see anything except for growth.