Good thread. People like to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to their favorite companies.

"the snow melts...flowers fade...time and love - THEY GO ON!"



We all pass, that is the natural way of things. But atari is so irrelevant. You should really admit you were wrong to compare them to Nintendo. Sheesh! I just don't think you can admit it.

1. Miyamoto and Nintendo have been preparing for his retirement for a while.  There isn't going to be some mass panic in the company and big dip in quality of their software when he does.

2. I don't know what this means. Their console lifespans usually are the same  as other consoles. That's a place they always know they'll be in. Iwata himself said they count on their IPs to counter the unpredictability of how their hardware will be recieved by the market. They know they take risks with hardware, that's why they always make sure they have  strong cash reserves.

3. Nintendo have a number of must have IPs in their portfolio and they're very capable of creating must have IPs,probably more than anyone else in this industry, as they showed in the last decade with Nintendogs, Brain Training, WiiSports, WiiFit.

And, no I'm not missing any point, this thread is mainly about Nintendo as are the posts from other threads that prompted you to make this one.

Again, if you think this thread is about Atair, you completely miss the point.  The thread is FAR more about people who think their company of choice will be around forever.  I named Activision and Nintendo in the original post, as two examples, because people were going "No No No!" that neither one is vulnerable.  By seeing only Nintendo here, you are showing Nintendo as your company of choice.

Point is Atari at one time was NO irrelevant and was synonymous with videogames, as was seen in Blade Runner.  I grew up in that era and remember it.

I'm sorry your favorite company went the way of the do-do. But there's no reason to project it onto others.

1. What you wrote there explains why there is now a clear lack of internally developed new IP that is must have.  Nintendo is recycling their old IP over and over again, and not doing no.  It is 2D/3D Mario, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Zelda, and maybe Metroid.  There is also Donkey Kong Country.  But where is the new IP?  Where is the big new must have property Nintendo is coming out with?  That is the issue I am talking about here.  It just isn't there.  It isn't like there isn't new IP being produced.  There is Angry Birds, and also Minecraft.  And there are others.  They are NOT coming from Nintendo.  Nintendo is going outside their company to get new IP done, with the likes of the Wonderful 101.

2. On console lifespan, look at the Wii.  Because it is weak tech, it ended up having shorter life than the 360 or PS3.  Companies never really got around to doing much third-party on it either, outside of primarily shovelware.  The Wii U is in a similar boat.  Because it doesn't match the ONE or PS4 in power, companies are only doing Wii U stuff with development on the 360 and PS3.  

3. THIS generation isn't showing any.  The Wii had a new, accessible interface, and got some.  But new stuff?  Where is it?  What is the big new IP on the 3DS and Wii U that is new and must have, that is doing really, really well.  Nintendo isn't putting it out.  Let's Dance isn't their property at all, and is on other platforms.

Also note here, let's say you can read what I wrote as it NOT being a slam of Nintendo, but something else.  What you read it as is this: Where the new IP is coming from is NOT the console makers.  It is coming from small studios and Indie stuff.  It is on smart devices.  That is where the new stuff is popping up, NOT consoles.  This is bigger than just Nintendo.  Things have changed.

I'm afraid to admit that I played this game on the Genesis...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Drivin%27

I semi enjoyed it but it had terrible controls which made the game more difficult than it should have been.  Atari did decent for awhile but they barely had any IPs to themselves and mainly relied on 3rd party companies.

I thought the Sega Genesis Ghostbusters game was actually decent.  Is that the same one you are thinking of?

When the arcades went down, Atari began to seriously fade from the marketplace.  When you lose a console, you increasingly become irrelevant.  Sega is in that boat now, nowhere near what they were when they had a console.  I believe Nintendo would likewise be similar if they ended up not having a console.  Mario would go the way of Sonic without Nintendo having its own console to showcase Mario and others.  Metroid would get lost, as would Zelda.  People just wouldn't care as much at all.  I believe this is a reason why you Nintendo argues against going third-party.

He's talking about Hard Drivin' in reference to Rol's example of Club Drive.

I agree on the Genesis Ghostbusters game though; that game was very cool. I'd buy it on the VC in a second if it ever released.

I believe Nintendo likes to make their own consoles because they can choose the specs they need and best control input to utilize their games.  I've only had a few minor issues with their controllers (analog stick on N64 controller could have used a metal shaft like Radioshack's controller to prevent the analog stick from going bad, and had problems with yellow c stick on GC controllers acting like it is being pressed in a direction even though it isn't being touched (had no problems with Wavebird just the wired)).

Anyways, Nintendo would rather control the whole process from hardware to software.  Their IPs are good enough to ensure lots of sales.  Their only real bomb would be the Virtual Boy.  That was the only time they missed on hardware so much that even their IPs couldn't save the console.  GameCube had good specs and had good third party support.  It got dominated in the overall sales but they still made money off it.  Melee sold pretty damn well for a fighting game (number 3 on the all time sales chart for fighting games just barely behind Tekken 3).  Their other main IPs still sold millions each.  So while they only sold 20m hardware they still sold a shitload of software.