Nintendo: We must 'differentiate' to survive against smartphones, tablets

Company president Satoru Iwata claims competition from Apple devices has not affected DS line, but firm must "offer something exclusive" to survive.

Makes sense. The DS line has remained mostly untouched by social devices, but, as he said, some experiences in the future won't be able to strive anymore on Nintendo's handheld line.

So Nintendo needs to aim for premium game content that has an added edge compared to the cheaper iOS/android app offerings.

That's what I love about Nintendo. They don't just pump up numbers. They innovate.

Going a 'similar but cheaper' route against your competition is never a good business plan.  If you start beating them, all they have to do is drop their price and you are either immediately screwed or forced into a pricing war where you will be eventually screwed.  A lower price is great, but you need something that truly differentiates you.

But what Iwata is saying is a little strange to me.  After all, the DS sold admirably after iPhone became popular, and iPhone spanked the DS in terms of features.  It was the quality of the games that continued to sell the DS after this point, not the fact that it had a touchscreen.

Yeah. The touchscreen definitely helped highlight certain aspects of a game's usability as well as its quality, so HW features played a little role in lifting up the pre-existing quality of the Nintendo games.

I think what Iwata is saying is that certain formulas that worked on the DS will no longer be viable on a regular console SW pricing model. Examples of these are the touch series games in general which offer pick-up-and-play experiences, many of these being replicated on the mobile devices at lower prices. So those games probably won't work as well. Nintendogs released on the 3DS with little success, the next experiment is Brain Training deamon (or whatever it's gonna be called). Hopefully it sells well, but the whole touch phenomenon is not looking extremely promising for Nintendo at this point, it's good that Nintendo is not resting on that to succeed, or so this quote would lead us to believe.

Nintendo's knack for innovation is what's kept them in the video game industry--the Wii is proof of that.

Nintendo's strength and also it's weakness is in it's console's software exclusivity. For example, the Wii had some great exclusives, but it also missed out on a lot of HD multi-plat exclusives.

I'm excited for the Wii U because Nintendo is trying to offer all kinds of gameplay with the system: the wii remote, the new pro controller (for that traditional PS3/360 gameplay), and of course the tablet. The amount of control options developers have when they decide to develop a game for the Wii U is phenomenal.

Iwata is pretty much correct. Nintendo can keep coming out with their Portable Consoles as long as their games are still popular and attractive.

People can't get Nintendo's FP games on iOS/Android and that's what keeps them coming.

I've never seen Nintendo boast of first party titles being what keep them strong ever. The is what other people decided they want to be true.

Its always there innovation and there focus on making things fun for everyone. I bought the Wii because I like the Wii-mote. I didn't play most of the first party games on the system. Same with the Gamecube and the N64.

Well, duh.

Nintendo's first party titles, unique gameplay and cheap hardware should be enough for them to stay competitive. Multimedia features are neither required nor requested on their platforms.

Well that's you.

I can support my theory by looking at SW numbers in relation to HW when Mario or Pokemon comes out. True, it's a new game and HW usually goes up at least a little when that happens but it never has a long-term affect, like Mario or Pokemon, on the HW. That shows that SW (FP specifically.) is what sells HW.