So Nintendo's in a rough state.  Posting another loss despite a real good year from 3DS, Wii U selling terrible, etc, etc.  Iwata and the gang need to do something.  Presumably Option 1 is to get Wii U going so the system isn't wasted, brand damaged etc.  However, if that's not possible they move on to Option 2 which is to look toward the next gen.  The question is, what is more imporant for turning things around, their next home console or handheld?

3DS has done well, but not as well as DS.  DS captured imaginations, brought in new customers and was in the hands of every child in the world.  3DS has a stranglehold on the market, but that market has shrunk considerably with many pre-teens preferring iPads as a must-have tech gadget to brag about. Everything eventually becomes passe, however, and iPads will become stale at some point.  Nintendo could use a new and exciting product - perhaps itself a tablety thing - to once again become "it" with kids and adults alike.  They really started the whole "touch" gaming that they now are secondary to tablets and phones in.  A new and exciting product could once again bring them to the forefront of fun gadgets.

Wii U has been a minor disaster.  Missing the mark with the mass audience and being bypassed by many core gamers in favour of the more powerful, better 3rd party supported competitors, Wii U is dragging Nintendo down.  A new system released sooner than expected could either excite the mass market with something new and fresh or target core gamers with a system more powerful than either PS4 or XBOne.  A success on the home front where Wii U has failed would turn around the overall fortunes quickly.

A third option could be to focus on something completely different, a "3rd piller".  Nintendo could produce a true tablet with casual software support and retro games.  Or it could produce the N-Phone, a true gamers' smartphone.

What should Iwata and company have as a priority right now?

They need a Riibranding...

Instead of Wii U, it could have been called either the Nintendo U or the Nintendo Ultra. Maybe the next home console will be called the latter?

I think Iwata is ahead of you by a year or so! :)

Iwata said this last year at a Q&A:
"(...)as I explained to you a short while ago [speaking about the president presentation], we are not saying that we are planning to integrate our platforms into one. What we are saying is that we would like to integrate software development methods, operating systems, and built-in software and software assets for each platform so that we can use them across different machines. This means that if we manage to integrate our platforms successfully, we may in fact be able to make more platforms. At the moment, we only have our current handheld devices and home consoles because if we tried to make more platforms, our development resources would be spread too thinly. The more we can share software across different platforms, the more development resources will be left for something else."

From this you can read that Nintendo has the aspiration for, at least, a third system - whatever it is.

This is taken from the conference today:

"We cannot continue a business without winning," Iwata said on Friday during a press conference attended by Bloomberg. "We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each.

"We are thinking about a new business structure," Iwata added. "Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone." - http://www.computerandvideogames.com/445870/nintendo-thinking-about-a-new-business-structure/


Remember last year when Iwata said it was too soon to change strategy (wait for Wii U`s performance over the holidays and such)? Guess the time is nigh!

I think they need to focus on mobile. The home console market may belong to the competition, but it feels pretty solid. The mobile market however is moving on to smartphones. Without doing something big now, it could be very hard to bring those people back.

Mobile gaming is a force to really be feared.
With games getting better on mobile, how long for it to start rival the average home console game?

It`s clear that Nintendo is watchful and that it`s planning to go for a third pillar again.

Their HH's are in a good position still. They need to focus on the Wii U and then its successor.

A network platform that interacts with a portable hybrid console to provide both home, and portable console experiences for one entry fee. Games can work either on the TV or on the portable, can utilise both screens in tandem or can be better suited to one screen over another: a blockbuster Zelda better suited to television, while Picross is better suited to on-the-go gaming. Turn Virtual Console into a subscription service, either by investing in cloud technology, or allowing a certain amount of downloads per month from a large library of games from multiple formats. Think Netflix but with Nintendo and other publisher's back catalogue. Expansion of software development capabilities should be a priority, as should bespoke partnerships with a variety of third party publishers. Focus on subscription and free to play driven experiences in the music, party and sports genres which are accessed either by subscription, or by purchasing peripherals, as with Wii Fit U and Wii Sports Club. Varities of payment methods for software must be considered: as Iwata has admitted, it is no longer viable to focus largely on boxed products that sell at a certain retail price. While those titles should not be abandoned, a wider variety of pricing methods and purchasing options should be there from day one, and software should be made in tandem with the business model used to distribute it.

Nintendo have the groundwork for this on 3DS and Wii U, but it needs to be unified and integrated into a network based platform in the future. The focus should be on the most profitable way to deliver their IP while remaining in control of the platform through which that IP is distributed, and I think this is the best long-term solution.

In the short term, Virtual Console, eShop and Nintendo Network should be improved through unified, cross-platform accounts and more aggressive release schedules with lower pricing. Perhaps even experimenting with a subscription model now for Virtual Console, that allows users to download a certain number of titles per month, should be done. Nintendo need to seek to turn Wii U into a business that breaks even or grinds out a small amount of profit through software sales, wring as much profit from 3DS as possible, digitise further to maximise profit margins, while ensuring that future business forecasts are more reasonable.

EDIT: I see last year Iwata said one system wasn't an option. It isn't that far-fetched to assume Nintendo are working on a networked platform accessed through different pieces of hardware, though.

^ Wouldn`t that require a streamlined SW production to be a success? Otherwise you`d be telling people to buy multiple platforms.

I don't think a Wii 3 is going to happen. Wii U isn't a "minor disaster" it's a major disaster (sorry Nintendo fans need to stop being in denial about it).

I think a tablet is coming, perhaps a subscription type service too. I think major, major changes are ahead.