Great post over on GAF - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=745429

next earnings release is going to be brutal for Nintendo.

Neogaf has become a cesspool of bullshit.

There are like 10 shitty ass Nintendo threads on the front page there

Honestly Aquamarine should know better. She should at least be aware of how this company functions.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BdMjK0PIYAAQWfn.jpg

All dis money is being spent you know?

You want a good post? Here

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=95819125&postcount=273

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=95846515&postcount=439

And lololol at this http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=95810329&postcount=197

I've been thinking about my claims of the possibility of "going deeper" into some of my main arguments, and decided to write a little about one of them as an example. This isn't necessarily only for John Lucas' eyes only, it's more of an observation in my personal view an expression of my take on a very common and widely spread misconception: Nintendo are the saint of the videogaming industry with only wholesome intention and practices.

I just wanted to add some things to the whole “Nintendo have only wholesome practices and the best interest and most love for their fans, the industry and consumers at heart” notion.

Bear in mind; I am not out to paint a picture of an evil company out to eat your soul; I’m simply shining some light on some things a lot of people possibly aren’t aware of and that are being conveniently ignored by a lot of diehard Nintendo fans, both in the UNITY thread and elsewhere.

All I want to show is that Nintendo are a company that has always chased the dollar first and foremost, like every other stock market registered venture ever conceived and that this hasn’t really changed over the years, much the same as the most hardcore fans’ perception of them.

Again; this is not an effort to paint Nintendo black, it’s a comment towards the fact that they are more or less just as gray as the other major players, when all is said and done and that others have also contributed in a positive way or, at the very least, worked hard at repairing possibly dwindling relations to the consumer. Nintendo are not stranger to unfair practices, making some silly excuses and employing some questionable ethics here and there as well, just like everyone else.

It is an answer to the trump card that is the Nintendo fan’s old and perpetual insistence that Nintendo is solely a force for good and should be the one example and mold for the entire industry when this is clearly not the case from any sort of objective measure (am I objective though? Probably not but still a whole lot more than the OP of this thread).

The fabled and oft ignored region lock issue:

John Lucas and a lot of others enjoy using Microsoft as the primary example of consumer hostile policies and, with the Xbox brand at least, someone who is mostly out to do anything possible to satisfy the 3^rd party and let them have their way, effectively leveraging 3^rd parties into a position of more or less total market control, the infamous DRM ploy of 2013 is by far the biggest culprit here. It’s not entirely untrue at some points, and there are real grounds for putting the policies and ethics of Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Google and a bunch of others under close scrutiny and critique.

There are many sides to this story though; the most important probably being that Microsoft never implemented this model in their machine at all; they took a 180 degree turn and more or less screwed over developers in order to appease their fans. The whole “Xbox 360 had a terribly high hardware failure rate” is another popular way of exposing Microsoft as a company that couldn’t care less about their customers and only want their money and nothing else.

Again, there’s a big problem here; Microsoft’s response in facing this issue, which makes it quite clear that they are also set on gaining and maintaining an overall positive consumer relation in addition to their revenue from the fanbase.

They extended their warranties to cover three years on all 360 units, they included the RROD as a fully covered issue in the agreement, they even refunded the losses of people who had already repaired their 360 units and made the warranty retroactive, fitting it to units and owners who had already owned their 360’s for some time, this was an unprecedented move in consumer electronics and likely cost the company in excess of 1.000.000.000$. Now, you could say that it was beyond stupid to launch a console with such frail hardware to begin with and I’d be forced to agree.

However, this is merely an example as to how they treat their customers after the fact.

Oh, and the logistics of it all? Seamless and perfect, units fixed or replaced in a jiffy all over the world and delivered on the door in a rather spectacular show of consumer care by a company among the most universally viewed as clinical and cynical in their approach.

Here is the real kicker right now though; the Xbox One is completely region free (as is the PS4), all the games lack a region lock embedded in the hardware. You know which two out of the newest batch of consoles on the market right now aren’t region free? The Nintendo Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS.

Why are they not region free though, here’s what Iwata had to say on the matter in the summer of 2013:

“This is a feature that Nintendo consoles have historically imposed.”

That’s fine but not in and on itself a good argument for imposing it now, another perfect example of the startlingly transparent need to cling to ancient tradition and solutions. Digital distribution circumvents the issue partially by simply requiring an account tied the specific region, one that everyone can make, or they simply bypass the entire region lock altogether. With the Wii U offering a fairly destitute digital distribution model compared to the competition and sporting a very small (albeit very fast) internal storage solution, this becomes an even bigger issue and makes circumvention near impossible on all fronts.

Sony and Microsoft have full well realized that this is a medieval practice that does not belong in modern consumer electronics; hence they have chosen to forego it entirely for their console games, with the consumer’s best interest in mind. There is money to be made here, region locked platforms have a much higher degree of segment and regional price control due to the difficulty of importing and utilizing foreign region software and you can launch games a year or more later in other regions and sell it all over again at full price, effectively screwing your customer, not only in wait but also in unfair regional pricing advantages in the long term.

The whole “Nintendo could have chosen to instill artificially high prices on handhelds” routine is unnecessary on the whole since they have other means of gaining this extra revenue, this being among the chief ones and by far among the worst as far as consumer interest is concerned.

They can’t very well have their cake and eat it too.

“From some people’s perspective, it might seem like a kind of restriction. However, we hope people can appreciate the fact that we’re selling our products worldwide”

It is a restriction, no way around it. And others have deemed it unfair and counterproductive and subsequently removed it a long time ago in their ability to have a sense towards the future of distribution, global marketing ease and lasting, positive consumer presence. The PS3 and PSP featured region free gaming, the same for the 360 (the solution here is making it up to the publisher to decide, the vast majority choose to forego adding regional locks, those evil and controlling 3^rd parties are given a hall pass and choose to stay in class instead, amazing). The same goes for the PS4 and One. Movies are covered by different laws and most of them are still region locked, sadly. I’m pretty sure Sony can and will offer their own production/publishing across regions though.

Full on region locks for games is an archaic practice and yet another show of Nintendo’s inability and/or unwillingness to follow overall market movements, even those undeniably beneficial to the consumers and industry integrity.

The fact is; Sony and Microsoft also sell their products worldwide as well, this is poor excuse at best and doesn’t seem to hinder others one bit, and indeed hasn’t for almost a decade now. These are not the words of a company that always puts the consumer first and treats revenue merely as a bonus.

“There are many different regions around the world, and each region has its own cultural acceptance and legal restrictions, as well as different age ratings. There are always things that we’re required to do in each different region, which may go counter to the idea that players around the world want the freedom to play whatever they want”

Again, these differences are easily overcome by Sony (who have even more presence in more regions on the whole, which would further complicate matters according to Iwata’s own, obvious hogwash) and Microsoft products and are really a non-issue, there is talk about how “if you want to make something work on specific hardware, you can make it work”, well, if you want to make a global distribution model work in spite of regional, legal, and cultural differences, it can be achieved, it’s seemingly not even very hard.

Age ratings will most certainly affect Nintendo’s games the least of all, they’re pretty much the most kindly age rated software on the market and most of it is pretty much allowed and partly designed for all ages, compared to the competition, once more, this is really a non-issue. They are not “required” to short-stick their fans and consumers in this fashion; they willingly choose to do it.

“I hope that game fans can understand that the industry isn’t doing this solely out of business ego”

Then why are Nintendo the only ones doing it? Sony and Microsoft could easily have squeezed considerable amounts of extra cash out of their consumers by implementing a solution that allows for a great deal of regional pricing control and the offset of global revenue differences, yet they choose not to, in a (to some) surprising show of consumer care and their innate ability to respond, and partially drive, market movements, adaptation process and willingness to compromise are key here, this affects marketing and consumer interest just as much as hardware and cost relations.

Sony have also added “free” games to their PS Plus subscription deals in order to heighten the value of an online service they have decided to demand payment for, they could have easily gone for the 7^th gen Microsoft approach and simply charged for online services with no extra value added besides plain access to said service.

“There are some reasons behind it”

And those reasons are, very specifically; increased revenue through regional pricing control. There is not an iota of reasoning to be had for this being in any way a good global consumer policy, these “reasons” are obviously something only Nintendo seems to be struggling with and it’s a bunch of hot air. Nor is this a specific Japanese production/distribution/marketing problem in any way since Nintendo seems to mysteriously be the only ones affected by it today. They certainly cannot blame the mess on having to cater to the wishes to a multitude of cooperating developers and manufacturing partners either, seeing as how Sony and Microsoft have a vastly bigger base of said cooperators to work with on a global scale and this doesn’t cause such troubles and obstacles.

This also ties into their ongoing tendency to delay release of games in different regions a lot longer than most other publishers and manufacturers. Some are saying that Sony choosing to prioritize the West in their launch is stunting the Japanese consumer interest, Nintendo on the other hand have often chosen to release their software with severe delays between regions, Animal Crossing (the first) released on N64 in Japan in April 2001 and was only available globally 1-3 years later, with each region seeing a full priced release.

City Folk saw a fairly consistent global release but did show up in South Korea about 14 months later, at full price. Importing it was impossible without resorting to illegal hardware modding or piracy since the Wii was region locked (as opposed to the open solution of the 360 and PS3).

New Leaf was released in Japan November 2012 but wasn’t available in NA and Europe until the middle on June the following year, once again impossible to simply import due to region locking and once again released at full price in each respective region.

Fire Emblem: Awakening wasn’t available in Europe until a whole year after Japan, at full price, naturally.

Other developers/publishers also have some wait between launches, but this is not the norm and the wait is usually a whole lot shorter and mostly due to practicality (the multiple languages of the Europe region and perceived lack of appeal of certain franchises in certain regions, among others). This is a very Nintendo-esque policy and it is a play to profit maximize on software globally; you hinder your fanbase in attaining the software they want at a lower import cost by region locking and then release up to six months, a year or even more after, at full retail and have them shell out.

It is a rather consumer hostile approach and one of the hallmarks of Nintendo development and publishing, simply trying to defend it by claiming that Nintendo products are very Japan centric won’t work either, the majority sales are still outside of Japan for nearly all franchises and this is not stopping other Japanese developers from being kinder to the global audience (Sqeenix, Capcom, Namco, Konami, for instance) than Nintendo has ever been, there is likely a very real main reason why Nintendo is more popular in North America than they will ever be in Europe; they keep screwing European gamers over with this silliness.

Edit: It seems that EU and courts agree with me on the "reasons" for Nintendo's restrictions in newer times, this plays exactly into my argument:

http://www.out-law.com/page-3067

There’s also their history of not lowering the price of software for a very long time and in tiny increments, this is another practice going against the norm and consumer interest. Simply stating that “people are obviously willing to pay these prices” is not a viable defense of the practice; it doesn’t make it fair to consumers globally, especially not when viewed in context with the above points.

All these policies have led to some very unfavorable conditions for gamers, like with the N64, due to the production cost of the cartridge, the focus on concentrated regional launches and skewed shipment allotment, paired with slightly underdeveloped distribution networks, N64 games launched at 599-699NOK back home in Norway (with 3^rd party titles often going for about 799NOK), while Playstation titles almost always ran an even 500NOK at release. The Playstation titles also dropped in price after either a set space of time or after a certain amount of sales, the first Gran Turismo was available there for about 300NOK after it had sold 2-3 million globally, while games like Super Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time remained in the 599-699NOK region for an extended period of time and despite great sales.

That is not very consumer friendly and it is not the fault of the retailer (another common excuse) either; this is and was a direct result of Nintendo’s historically somewhat cynical policies towards pricing and availability, all as parts of a perfectly understandable strategy to make money, this is business after all, and it’s pretty good business at that, look at how profitable the N64 and Gamecube were despite poor hardware sales and poor 3^rd party support and software sales.

They really do have good business sense in their own right but it’s not very kind business sense.

Even the biggest TV shows, movies and music releases drop in price, as a direct response to great sales or simply as a counteract towards dropping perceived value as the production grows older, receives good competition or is simply replaced/succeeded (Super Mario Galaxy, released in November 2007, was nearly full price when the sequel turned up in May 2010). We all know about Microsoft’s Greatest Hits catalog and also Sony’s Platinum release.

I managed to get my PS3 on a good deal in Fall/Winter 2009 and got my hands on ten top rated titles with an average price of about 15 pounds (150NOK), while most of the Wii’s biggest hits were still more or less full price and the console itself still cost pretty much the same as well (due to high perceived value, and that’s fine but it took them forever to respond to the early and rather sizeable decline with an actual price cut).

This is effectively a market penalty that essentially gives consumers the same conditions as early adopters for an artificially extended period of time, it is an attempt at forcing a continued level of perceived value rather than matching its decline by index adjusting the pricing, all markets do the latter.

This could possibly be part of the explanation as why the Wii peaked so early and started declining rather heavily already by 2009 and illustrates a company that wants to force rather than adapt and compromise and none of this is very consumer friendly.

Not to mention the piracy issue; the DS and Wii were plagued by these concerns, in large parts due to these policies and restrictions. And piracy, as we all know, is not a good aspect of the gaming industry, might as well reduce the incentives for resorting to it. Also seems somewhat counterproductive if you want max profits but it all ties into the desire for the outmost control possible (even when resulting in a very unintuitive mass of problems, especially around relations), refusal to bend to modern solutions before tradition and a very deep set refusal to concede to being subject to industry woes and issues on a general basis.

The monetary rights to user generated content issue:

http://wiiudaily.com/2013/05/nintendo-lets-play-controversy/

That right there is an attempt at something that is undeniably simply a full-fledged campaign to profit from your consumers and fans in a rather questionable way. Yes, other companies have been at youtube throats before; Universal, Vivendi, Paramount, Sony and others, for sure. Their claim to rights have resulted in content simply being removed though, a fairly common action in the preservation of copyrighted material.

Nintendo, however, wanted it differently; they wanted to actually capitalize on user generated content on the biggest video site/service in the world through ads rather than simply request a removal.

This demonstrates a great desire to make some easy money at consumer expense and most of these videos are not even uploaded/created by people who are attempting to make money off of Nintendo products.

This plays into Nintendo’s wish to assert market control on a much higher level than Sony or Microsoft ever since the NES days, this is not about “they’re just being darlings and letting the videos stay because they want their great franchises to get good exposure and be shared among fans”, it’s a play to get money, pure and simple.

If the exposure factor was the primary wish here and they were truly so much more benign than others, they would have simply left the videos untouched. Other companies do not leave videos untouched either, but like I said; in a move to prevent others from capitalizing from copyrighted material, they rather insist the content be removed, they’re not attempting some elaborate play to extract money off of other people’s effort and fandom (actually braiding Nintendo ads into the very video itself).

Reggie claims the whole move was simply to protect Nintendo IP’s, which is bullshit, other companies request content simply removed, Nintendo’s move would not have prevented others from using their content to possibly make their own names but it would certainly have made Nintendo some easy cash. Not so much protection as simple desire for revenue.

Microsoft wanting to control the living room environment and offer “portal to all Microsoft products” and their Live service being a paid one doesn’t seem so hostile now, does it? Nintendo didn’t want this content to go away to shield them from potential loss; they wanted to control the potential revenue stream and pocket it in a very consumer hostile business move. They have gone so far as to actually forcibly insert commercials into user generated video, and here you have John Lucas foaming at the mouth at Sony and Microsoft sporting product placement and advertisement in 3^rd party offerings.

This is not how you treat your fans if you’re the descendant of unicorns only bent on painting rainbows and playing the harp to soothe your subjects.

You haven’t seen Microsoft or Sony trying anything like this, in fact; they are both thrilled at the idea of user generated content, in video games especially and while Nintendo argues that UGC lowers the overall quality of software (as if it was mandatory), others realize that it is a community connecting addition that expands value and recognition and ultimately adds creative variety and long term value in oodles and buckets. It’s the perfect developer/gamer synergy that Nintendo refuses to take part in despite their professed love of gamers and gaming.

Kind of unfeeling towards the presence of the gaming community and, once more, directly against the philosophy and overall development of the market, a refusal to face reality and another sign of a company that has glued itself to tradition, for all their seeming expanding purposes, they seem awfully set on never taking part in outside methodology and standard, even the most efficient ones, probably the greatest show of hubris in the industry today despite people’s insistence on Nintendo’s virtuous and superior degree of humility.

If one wants to see what user generated content can inspire; look at Counterstrike, Diablo II patch 1.10 and entire studios and releases inspired and driven by modding bases.

A whole lot of people were upset about this whole youtube move, a company that loves the community and industry this much and only provides positive angles and input would surely be unable or unwilling to cause such outcry and distress.

Reggie stated that:

“The fans need to understand that we see the issue, we understand the issue, but, right now, all we've done is take the first step to protect our IP” 

No, the first step to protect you IP is removing the content outright, not attempting to cash in on it. Now this is BS marketing talk, right here. People were outraged at Microsoft after the DRM scandal and had every right to be and people were outraged at Nintendo’s petty play and excuses in this situation and had every right to be.

The Foxconn incident:

Again, I’m not trying to make Nintendo see worse than others, in any way, I’m implying that their drive for profit is the primus motor in their philosophy and overall strategy and their involvement in the Foxconn scandal was not in any way worse than others, my point here is that it wasn’t any better.

Yes, Nintendo launched an investigation (like a great deal of others) in the wake of this incident, and said that it goes directly against their famous CSR and perceived stance on industry ethics, I take issue with the fact that people are cheering Nintendo as some beacon of ethics though since that would surely entail their outsourcing and partnering process being deeper and more thorough, specifically to avoid debacle and scandal such as this.

It obviously isn’t/wasn’t and they seemed as oblivious as the others, or; none of the parties involved cared to intervene and simply responded to the reveal rather than the issue itself per say, I can’t and won’t speculate on which.

I do find it odd though, one would assume that Nintendo goes to greater lengths than others, especially considering the product lines and overall product volume being a whole lot smaller and less diverse than many others’, this makes it easier to get a more or less total picture of everything from conceptualization to planning, production, assembly and distribution.

Regardless of whether it was known to them or if they were oblivious to it; it makes you think about their standards for ethics in the global chase for revenue and profits.

I would not be surprised if several of the involved parties simply “overlooked” the assembly/production, especially with the financial crisis looming for quite some time.

I’m not saying that Nintendo knew about this and exploited underage workers operating in unworthy conditions, I’m saying that their response and reaction to the matter was more or less exactly the same as everybody else’s so we really can’t tell one way or another.

It probably comes to down to trust, which is both an issue and not an issue at once.

This was a gruesome part of history in the consumer electronics market and Nintendo was very much a part of it, like it or no, both the Wii U and 3DS were/are made here and if they truly and sincerely hold themselves to a higher ethical standard than everyone else, they should at the very least make more effort than other said companies in acquiring proper insight and knowledge into their own production/assembly process.

The Pokemon Bank issue:

Not sure if this is an actual issue but it certainly is a slap in the face to anyone shouting at Sony and Microsoft for charging for online. What this service does is store your Pokemon online on servers, for a fee. While this fee is not very big in most countries and regions, it’s still the same principal and this is essentially paying for one single service whereas paying for PSN or Live nets you a whole basket of features, services and possibilities.

It’s hard to condemn PSN and Live without also condemning the Pokemon Bank, I would like to see someone try though.

After all; how much does Valve charge for their Steam-cloud storage of save games and images and the massive server capacity required to offer and distribute their mastodon catalog? If your guess was “zeroeh dollarhs”, you’re a winner!

There is no reason to charge money for playing online, I actually believe that in all honesty, Valve are the epitome of fairness in these issues, but; on the same coin, I can’t see any possible justification for charging money for storing Pokemon either. Why isn’t this simply a planned addition to the rest of Nintendo’s free online offering? Charging for an individual online feature and then bragging about having free online while condemning others seems extremely contradictive to me (especially since you don’t have to pay for the other either if you don’t want). It makes no sense at all, other than cashing in some easy money on a massive franchise with global appeal and a customer base that are for the most part children.

Again, this is not very consumer friendly at all and would certainly not be the brainchild of a company that puts the gamer and fair practice at the very forefront of their agenda, above the universal objective of actually turning a profit.

This is probably one of those areas where if Nintendo does it, it is simply “smart business sense” while when other do it, its shows “lack of integrity”, “greed”, and “consumer hostility”. Great.

PS: In Hong Kong, this service will run at about 40$ per year, that’s 10$ less than PS+ and Xbox Live, in Taiwan it will run at 150$, that’s three times as much as PS+ and Xbox Live. PS+ also throws in monthly games for this fee, not entirely unlike Netflix in some ways. In case you forgot what we’re talking about here; this is Pokemon Storage Online you’re paying for. Regional control for maximized profits and all that, no one can convince me that server costs run 5-150$ per user per year.

I feel like repeating myself; this post is simply to shine light on some Nintendo practices that I feel more or less proves that they just are as eager to make money as others and that they are prone to taking some shortcuts and apply some questionable tactics at times just like everyone else.

They are not an industry saint; no one is, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a huge part of my entire argument in here and otherwise.

We need to stop being so naïve and gullible and blinded by our love for products.

None of this does in any way detract from Nintendo’s incredible talent, past merit as a great factor in salvaging the industry, pedigree, solid hardware, amazing world class games or deep and genuine love for games and gaming; it simply marks them as a company with shareholders and an interest in making money, just like everyone else.

Edit; look at this link:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/foxconn-puts-up-suicide-nets

There is no doubt that Nintendo, along with others, were made aware of Foxconn's troubles and questionable methods and conditions yet they chose to stay in the alliance. They did claim and keeps claiming that they are wholly commited to promoting and showing good ethics though, the OP does much to paint it as a great success at that. However;

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/supply-chains/ngowatch-%E2%80%93-september-2013

They didn't seem to learn much from 2010 at all, there are seemingly a lot of people who agree with me on this. Here are some;

http://www.corporateregister.com/reviews/item/?n=136

http://www.corporateregister.com/news/item/?n=207

Hardly a shining beacon of sound ethics overall, Nintendo managed to be the one company out of the 24 they studied, including Sony, Motorola, HP, Intel, Panasonic, AMD and a bunch of others, that wound up on the bottom of the list, and the research indicated that Nintendo has "yet to make any known effort to trace or audit its supply chain". This is not very good and certainly a far cry from their continued insistence of making headway and setting a good example for others through their CSR and overall business practices.

Yeah, I saw that too. This makes me feel we're for too long with the same console makers' landscape (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) and that it can change in the near future. Will Nintendo go half/full-3rd-party, migrating its business to the emergent smartphone/tablet market, thus facing it's PC alter-ego (Apple) on its own territory? Will Sony or Microsoft give up of the console business due to the continuous losses and the lack of growth of the hardcore market? Will Valve conquer a significant share of the market with its Steam Box or will it just eat some of the PC's share or will it somehow attract a brand new kind of consumers?

If I had to predict who is going to play the 9th generation, I would only name Microsoft (which seems to have the most stable business and growth from gen to gen). Sony / Nintendo / new comers are just too risky to consider.

Very nice table and posts. I have yet to read the bigger one but I can say already that the others are very informative.

What Nintendo must do is to at least get used to the changes in the market. For one, it needs far more advertising(probably happening when MK8 and SSBU comes out), it needs to appeal to a wider range audience (X and Bayonetta 2 isn't enough for some), and announce details on upcoming games much more.

I tried Unity yesterday. I spent two hours with it. I didn't understand anything.

Unreal is better.

Unreal is a really crappy engine imo.

If far more clear, but i hate how it runs.

Nah, Unreal is great. Problem is, most products done with it have a clearly identificable engine.

You've touched some good points about what Nintendo does for money that Sony/Microsoft don't:

- Consoles with region lock to better squeeze each market.

- Lack of depreciation in game prices along the time.

- Profit from User Generated Content that wasn't meant to fill Nintendo's pockets.

- Long-term blackmail of the market rather than adaption to it.

- Inability to admit the points above, making ridiculous excuses for such actions.

- Online fee for 1 single feature (pokemon storage) rather than an entire online service.

However, you conclusion is: Nintendo is like Sony/Microsoft. How would that be? Can't you perceive a difference looking at your own points?

I know what the word "company" means: profits first. But you acknowledge that Valve plays differently. Aren't Sony/Microsoft playing differently from Nintendo too? I'm sure both Sony and Microsoft also engage into greedy behaviours that Nintendo doesn't. It's a matter of business creativity so each company comes up with its own ideas to maximize profits. But my question is: are the Sony/Microsoft "infamous lists" as large and devastating as Nintendo's?