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Forums - Nintendo - If you were President of Nintendo, what would you do?

TheLastStarFighter on 24 January 2014
fleischr said:
Marketing/Retail/Advertising/Ancillary Sales
--------------------------------------------
Aggressively pursue new distribution channels. For example, have a Wii Fit U display in Bed Bath and Beyond. Or even PetSmart! WiiFitU has tracks pet activity too. Cool way to show off Cat Mario too.

Partner with McDonalds, Subway or other fast food chain for a Mario/MarioKart themed toy giveaway in happy meals

Form Nintendo "Street teams" that show off (and directly sell) Nintendo games and hardware in malls, festivals, trade shows.

License lesser-known and more 'mature' IPs for Graphic Novels. Namely
-Metroid
-Earthbound
-Starfox
-The wonderful 101

Create "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" type of ads. Troll XboxOne and PS4 for being consoles filled with angry, lonely, immature young men and position the WiiU as the console for happy, regular, normal people. You MUST do this in the next year before it's too late and these consoles gain mainstream acceptance.
Also position the WiiU as console that's best for spending time with your significant other (because it is).

If I was president of Nintendo, I would hire you to replace Reggie and lead the marketing charge.



Around the Network
SlayerRondo on 24 January 2014
TheLastStarFighter said:
SlayerRondo said:
JoeTheBro said:
SlayerRondo said:
Go third party fast and hard while still supporting the 3DS and WiiU for a while for a nice smooth transition.

Nintendo makes great games that are reason enough for people to buy their OK consoles. But not enough anymore and even less in the future.

Xbox One, PS4, Vita, PC, Tablets, phones and everything else will give Nintendo games the sale they deserve.

Even if game sales tripled, they would still lose money doing that.

(Replace tripled with whatever you want. I'm not doing the math, but it might be around there)


And how do you figure that? 

Besides Nintendo's downhill trajectory gives them a whole lot more to lose than going third party would.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=176458&page=1

From that thread:

TheLastStarFighter 3 days ago
edit thread

In terms of their business, Nintendo is primarily a hardware maker.  Yes, they spend a lot of resources making games, and they are the biggest software maker in the industry.  But they are also the biggest hardware maker, and it is where most of their income comes from.  If we use the Wii as an example, we will get the following chart:

Hardware Total Profit per unit Total
100.95 $49 $4,946,550,000
Total Software Royalty per unit Total
913.5 $7 $6,394,500,000
Total income from hardware business: $11,341,050,000
Nintendo Software Publisher share Total
312.84 $27 $8,446,680,000

Note that their are a few assumptions made, first of all that the profit per Wii was/is $49.  It was reported that Nintendo was making $13 in Japan, $49 in the US and $79 in Europe per Wii soon after launch. That may not be totally accurate, but it's a good estimate.  Secondly, prices on both software and hardware get reduced over time... but the relative dollars should be at least somewhat consistant, and costs go down too.

But as you can see, in that chart 57% of Nintendo's business is the hardware side.  The company themselves say it's about 65%.  Further, the royalty revenue from software costs Nintendo virtually NOTHING, unlike the actual development of first party software.  About 30% of their revenue simply comes from existing in the hardware sector.

Nintendo will never become a software-only company if they can avoid it.  They will only do so if their hardware begins to mount massive year over year losses.  Since the 80's they have been build on royalties as a business and will continue to be.  Even if Wii U is a complete failure they will try again, simply because the royalty revenue business is too lucrative.  And this is even before considering factors such as their own software getting a boost by being the "flagship" titles for the system, and other 1st party advantages.

 

You clearly don't understand where Nintendo makes their revenue.


I understand where they make their revenue.

I just believe that with the WiiU and the next generation of Nintendo consoles likely failing The sooner Nintendo gets on the third party bandwagon the better off they will be in the long run.



This is the Game of Thrones

Where you either win

or you DIE

TheLastStarFighter on 24 January 2014
SlayerRondo said:
TheLastStarFighter said:
SlayerRondo said:
JoeTheBro said:
SlayerRondo said:
Go third party fast and hard while still supporting the 3DS and WiiU for a while for a nice smooth transition.

Nintendo makes great games that are reason enough for people to buy their OK consoles. But not enough anymore and even less in the future.

Xbox One, PS4, Vita, PC, Tablets, phones and everything else will give Nintendo games the sale they deserve.

Even if game sales tripled, they would still lose money doing that.

(Replace tripled with whatever you want. I'm not doing the math, but it might be around there)


And how do you figure that? 

Besides Nintendo's downhill trajectory gives them a whole lot more to lose than going third party would.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=176458&page=1

From that thread:

TheLastStarFighter 3 days ago
edit thread

In terms of their business, Nintendo is primarily a hardware maker.  Yes, they spend a lot of resources making games, and they are the biggest software maker in the industry.  But they are also the biggest hardware maker, and it is where most of their income comes from.  If we use the Wii as an example, we will get the following chart:

Hardware Total Profit per unit Total
100.95 $49 $4,946,550,000
Total Software Royalty per unit Total
913.5 $7 $6,394,500,000
Total income from hardware business: $11,341,050,000
Nintendo Software Publisher share Total
312.84 $27 $8,446,680,000

Note that their are a few assumptions made, first of all that the profit per Wii was/is $49.  It was reported that Nintendo was making $13 in Japan, $49 in the US and $79 in Europe per Wii soon after launch. That may not be totally accurate, but it's a good estimate.  Secondly, prices on both software and hardware get reduced over time... but the relative dollars should be at least somewhat consistant, and costs go down too.

But as you can see, in that chart 57% of Nintendo's business is the hardware side.  The company themselves say it's about 65%.  Further, the royalty revenue from software costs Nintendo virtually NOTHING, unlike the actual development of first party software.  About 30% of their revenue simply comes from existing in the hardware sector.

Nintendo will never become a software-only company if they can avoid it.  They will only do so if their hardware begins to mount massive year over year losses.  Since the 80's they have been build on royalties as a business and will continue to be.  Even if Wii U is a complete failure they will try again, simply because the royalty revenue business is too lucrative.  And this is even before considering factors such as their own software getting a boost by being the "flagship" titles for the system, and other 1st party advantages.

 

You clearly don't understand where Nintendo makes their revenue.


I understand where they make their revenue.

I just believe that with the WiiU and the next generation of Nintendo consoles likely failing The sooner Nintendo gets on the third party bandwagon the better off they will be in the long run.

And that's stupid.  That's like saying if BMW has a couple bad years selling cars they should close their car buisiness and stick to motorcycles.  Nintendo is primarily a hardware provider.  If they have a poor couple of years, they should correct problems, not close a buisiness which has provided billions and billions in profits.



SlayerRondo on 24 January 2014
TheLastStarFighter said:
SlayerRondo said:
TheLastStarFighter said:
SlayerRondo said:
JoeTheBro said:
SlayerRondo said:
Go third party fast and hard while still supporting the 3DS and WiiU for a while for a nice smooth transition.

Nintendo makes great games that are reason enough for people to buy their OK consoles. But not enough anymore and even less in the future.

Xbox One, PS4, Vita, PC, Tablets, phones and everything else will give Nintendo games the sale they deserve.

Even if game sales tripled, they would still lose money doing that.

(Replace tripled with whatever you want. I'm not doing the math, but it might be around there)


And how do you figure that? 

Besides Nintendo's downhill trajectory gives them a whole lot more to lose than going third party would.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=176458&page=1

From that thread:

TheLastStarFighter 3 days ago
edit thread

In terms of their business, Nintendo is primarily a hardware maker.  Yes, they spend a lot of resources making games, and they are the biggest software maker in the industry.  But they are also the biggest hardware maker, and it is where most of their income comes from.  If we use the Wii as an example, we will get the following chart:

Hardware Total Profit per unit Total
100.95 $49 $4,946,550,000
Total Software Royalty per unit Total
913.5 $7 $6,394,500,000
Total income from hardware business: $11,341,050,000
Nintendo Software Publisher share Total
312.84 $27 $8,446,680,000

Note that their are a few assumptions made, first of all that the profit per Wii was/is $49.  It was reported that Nintendo was making $13 in Japan, $49 in the US and $79 in Europe per Wii soon after launch. That may not be totally accurate, but it's a good estimate.  Secondly, prices on both software and hardware get reduced over time... but the relative dollars should be at least somewhat consistant, and costs go down too.

But as you can see, in that chart 57% of Nintendo's business is the hardware side.  The company themselves say it's about 65%.  Further, the royalty revenue from software costs Nintendo virtually NOTHING, unlike the actual development of first party software.  About 30% of their revenue simply comes from existing in the hardware sector.

Nintendo will never become a software-only company if they can avoid it.  They will only do so if their hardware begins to mount massive year over year losses.  Since the 80's they have been build on royalties as a business and will continue to be.  Even if Wii U is a complete failure they will try again, simply because the royalty revenue business is too lucrative.  And this is even before considering factors such as their own software getting a boost by being the "flagship" titles for the system, and other 1st party advantages.

 

You clearly don't understand where Nintendo makes their revenue.


I understand where they make their revenue.

I just believe that with the WiiU and the next generation of Nintendo consoles likely failing The sooner Nintendo gets on the third party bandwagon the better off they will be in the long run.

And that's stupid.  That's like saying if BMW has a couple bad years selling cars they should close their car buisiness and stick to motorcycles.  Nintendo is primarily a hardware provider.  If they have a poor couple of years, they should correct problems, not close a buisiness which has provided billions and billions in profits.


To come back from the WiiU they are going to need another Wii like success and I don't see that being possible for them. Their current success was leveraged from past successes and with the rise of multi purpose media devices they need to get on the third party bandwagon now.

Also the problems they have are based mostly around the hardware they have and the image surrounding it. They would need to launch new consoles to properly fix this. And by the time the next generation comes around for Nintendo they are going to find themselves with an even smaller audience then they had when the gamecube was at an all time low.



This is the Game of Thrones

Where you either win

or you DIE

freebs2 on 24 January 2014

Some crazy ideas :P

PLAN A:

Plans for WiiU:

  • Ditch the gamepad and release a system update to make the OS perfectly compatible with wiimotes and pro controllers.
  •  Make a 199$ bundle with Mario Kart 8 as soon as possible. (no controller)
  •  Sell the gamepad separately bundled with a NintendoLand free download-code, for 99$Since the WiiU is not going to be a mass market machine anyway at this point, I would focus 1st party teams on "hardcore" and fan-favourite IPs, so new Metroid, new Starfox, new F-zero, also a couple of new IPs.
  • Start releasing VC games of N64, Dreamcast and Gamecube.

Post WiiU:
 

  • I would design the next home-console as a "big sister" of their next handled console. The return of the Gameboy:  "Gameboy HD" or simply "Gameboy" for the handled and "Gameboy TV" or "Gameboy Premium" or "Gameboy +" for the home console.
  • Hardware: both consoles should share the same arm CPU, while they could have 2 different GPUs with the same set of instructions: one more power-efficient for the handled, and one more powerfull for the home console.
  • A unified game library: GB and GBTV will share a unified "multiplatform" libabry, which means the same phisical copy (cartdige) can be played on both console with some di difference. The same game played on the home console will be played at an higher resolution and with more detailed assets, also the home console will enable local multiplayer on many games. Some examples: Mario Kart 9, New NSMB, SM3Dno3, DK3, SSB5 will be playable in single player and online on the handled, plus you'll have local multiplayer and upgraded graphics on the home console.
  • Some games will remain exclusive for the home console (like 3D Zelda, 3D Metroid, Shooters, etc.)


PLAN B

Plans for WiiU: see plan A + partnership with Steam

- How does it work?

 

  • The WiiU controller will become (also) a PC peripheral, only compatible with SteamOS, to remote-play Steam games.
  • Nintendo will sell a PCI-board version of WiiU, which contains only the tecnological core of the console (MCM module + RAM + wireless antenna), to be mounted on SteamOS computers, for 99$. (according to CNN teardown these parts costs less than 60$ to make)
  • Everyone with Steam machine (or an home built PC with Steam OS) that mounts a WiiU-PCI will be able to buy DD WiiU games and Virtual Console games on a dedicated Nintendo App.
  • Nintendo will continue to develop games exclusive WiiU games and sell phisical copies on the console.

 

Post WiiU:

  • Design the next console from the ground-up to be integrated in a Steam machine (for example use an x86 cpu rather than PowerPC architecture) Continue to sell it as a cheap stand-alone console, or as a module to be mounted in mid to high-end Steam machines.

 




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fleischr on 24 January 2014

Hardware development
------------------------
Release a hardware add-on for iPhone and select Android devices that allows access to a 'Nintendo channel' app allowing consumers to play some VC games. This addon can double as a WiiU gamepad.

Introduce a new WiiU SKU with some changes to the gamepad.
-Smaller. Current gamepad is big enough to scare some people.
-Eliminate some unused features like NFC, Mic, and Camera. (allow for headset plugin though)
Other changes
-USB 3.0
-DVD/Blu-ray playback
-Larger hard drive

Pricing/Retailing
-------
New WiiU SKUs : $225 including new gamepad, pro controller and game.
$150 with pro controller and game and discount for iOS/Android add-on
$80 for iOS/Android add-on

$10 Retail games price cut for all Nintendo-published WiiU games
All existing regular Wii games price cut to $30 or lower
3DS prices remain as-is

Wii - WiiU trade in promotion / Refurbished Old Wiis to China
Offer consumers $100 off a WiiU when they trade in their old Wii.
Refurbish and sell these old Wii for the Chinese market



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

Egann on 24 January 2014
spemanig said:
Egann said:
spemanig said:
Egann said:

The real problem is that Nintendo (as always) overvalued their IP. Mario just doesn't sell home consoles, anymore, but the damage is basically done.

The Wii U definitely needs some marketing presence. It is practically invisible compared to the PS4 and XBox One. ADVERTISE.

Also, I would double down on Zelda U and X. These are literally the games which can save your console. They need to be awesome and they need to be out.

A Majora's Mask remake would also be a good idea, although personally I would go the Oracles of Ages/ Seasons route and make it clear this is a parallel game, not a remake. There is, after all, precedence in the Zelda series for parallel adventures. From there...go nuts. This is THE M rated Zelda game people will talk about for the rest of time. No sex or cursing, but there will be gore, death, and a host of disturbing images.

Disturbing like there are some VERY hard sidequests, and if you fail you see Cremia, Romani, Kafei, or other NPC die a horrible death or live with a haunting curse for the rest of the cycle.

Oh, and difficulty increases randomly after you return to the beginning a few times, you see a montage of your own failures as you save while Majora laughs at you, and if you want to not see a grave or a sad ending at the credits, you have to complete the whole Bomber's Notebook in ONE CYCLE before confronting the final boss.

You clearly don't understand why people like Zelda.

No. I understand why people like Majora's Mask. 


If you honestly think "THE M rated Zelda game people will talk about for the rest of time. No sex or cursing, but there will be gore, death, and a host of disturbing images." is why people like Majora's Mask, then you very clearly do not.


Majora's Mask was a success because it had atmosphere. The original had plenty of disturbing images in it's own right--tell me seeing Romani get abducted by aliens or showing up two days later LOBOTOMIZED isn't disturbing!--and Miaku's death had as much gore to it as the Ocarina engine could support without making him look like a monster.

What I'm saying is that a straight-up remake with todays graphics would probably wind up with a T rating already.

The thing is...Majora's Mask really didn't do too good a job using the atmosphere it was building. It makes perfect sense for an RPG punishing you for failing a sidequest by killing an NPC, but it doesn't make that much sense in Zelda. There just aren't enough sidequests for failure to be a reasonable option, so difficulty goes out the window. Majora's Mask is the exception specifically because you can go back and try again as many times as you want.

In Majora's Mask it makes perfect sense to see a montage of your failures when you save to drive home that Link is failing, it makes perfect sense to make enemies tougher after several saves because the player should have learned their patterns, and it makes perfect sense that if you don't complete every major NPC's sidequest before fighting the boss, they still meet their unpleasant end in the credits.  None of that would ever make sense for a "normal" Zelda game, and when you put that all together, the game you've got fits the M rating better than T.



Jumpin on 24 January 2014
Roma said:
I would wave my magic wand and complete all games and then release them like a lot of people think will happen if Iwata was replaced


Yes! This is exactly the sort of leadership we need! Fire Iwata and bring in that Gandalf guy! It will also bring in a Westerner who knows how the Euro-American market works!



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Egann on 24 January 2014
freedquaker said:
The handheld business is good enough, at least for now, so leave it alone. If they start entering the "smartphone or tablet" space, they will need to decrease their game price drastically. This, combined with the high rate of piracy on Android will lead to a huge perceptive devaluation of their games value.

What they should do with mobile, is to revive the old first party titles (Gameboy, NES, SNES, N64 etc) and release them for the mobile for a relatively small premium price like $4.99 or $9.99. Meanwhile they should continue their primary mobile market with 3DS and DS, where they are the king of the hill.

On the other hand, on the home gaming system, they are no longer relevant, so it's much more future-proof to be a software publisher. They have been going downhill ever since the entry of Sony first, and even more with Microsoft, and they have little chance to compete against them. Their best bet would be

- Either cooperate with Sony, on the next playstation and release all new Nintendo games exclusively for the new PS platform. It's also a good strategy to release former Nintendo titles with revamped graphics etc on the platform. I am sure Sony can agree upon some privileged conditions with Nintendo.

- Or Just go multi-platform, releasing their franchises on all feasible platforms, the Sega way.


I'm not sure any of those are great ideas. The 3DS is doing phenomenally compared to the rest of the market, and doing anything on mobile might undercut it. Releasing Nintendo games on Playstation or multiplatform may sound great to a consumer, but a) it would anger everyone who bought a Wii U, and b) it would seriously hamper their ability to make their own games because Nintendo has always developed for their own hardware.

A part of me wants to see Nintendo become a peripherals manufacturer. Sell the Wii U GamePad as PS4 and XBox One accessories for $100. But then that makes the consumer pony up $500 or $600 for hardware, which is just too much. Microsoft would likely refuse because the Gamepad would make Kinect voice commands obsolete. All that work on snapping TV screens, skype, and browsing while gaming--and more importantly the marketing for it--would be flushed down the toilet if you had a second screen.

Between a split market and that huge initial investment, Nintendo can be certain most gamers can't afford both a new console and their Nintendo peripherals in the same financial year. Sales two years from now doesn't actually help.

 

For my money, I think the best hardware bet Nintendo has is to stay the course with the Wii U.  If Zelda U and X don't sell it, politely End Of Life it after a respectable, but disappointing, five year run and make a successor to the 3DS which can stream to a TV screen.



AZWification on 24 January 2014

 Like I said before  I would go to Gabe Newell's house and give him two slutty Asians so that Half-Life 3 becomes a Wii U exclusive. Nothing wrong with that I  swear.



                
       ---Member of the official Squeezol Fanclub---