I love Nintendo. I love my Wii U. I love my 3DS.

The Wii U is a pretty good bit of kit, but Nintendo is unintentionally screwing it over. It's well known that the system is struggling, but morale is low for it. Very few believe that the Wii U can make a 3DS-like recovery anymore, and the way that Nintendo are handling things, that is no surprise. What's frustrating is that the Wii U, and Nintendo as a whole, can really be a dominating force if Nintendo starts doing things right, but it just doesn't seem like they know how or are willing to. I think I do know how. Nintendo needs to take some notes from both Disney and Apple. Love them or hate them, they are both extremely successful and they both have lots of similarities with Nintendo.

(I understand if you don't feel like reading the whole thing; jump down to the CONCLUSION for a summary.)

What can Nintendo learn from Disney?

1. Acqusitions

The number one thing that Nintendo needs to learn from Disney, if absolitely nothing else, is to ACQUIRE FRANCHISES! Everyone knows how powerful and successful Disney is, but few stop to take note of how exclusive they are. Disney only airs Disney commerials (as far as I remember) in Disney Channel, for example. This means that the only way you can experience Disney is through Disney. This ties in to their acquisitions. They now own both Marvel and Star Wars. These are beloved IPs that Disney can now directly profit from, and with Disney's respect for the quality of their Marvel franchises, people can be a little more confident in how they will handle the new Star Wars trilogy.

Nintendo can and should be doing something similar. Ninendo has a lot of money they aren't using. That is well known. What they should be doing is investing more of that money to grow their company and their mindshare. A lot of people like to bring up that one of Nintendo's biggest problems is its abismal 3rd party support, but I'd argue back that that isn't really the right way of looking at things. A better way to looks at it is this:

Nintendo does not have enough nessecary franchises on its consoles. 

Here's what I mean. If I look at the Wii U, what are the games I'd have access to that make me need a Wii U, regardless of personal preference? Well the first is obvious: the first party games, right? If I wanted to play any of the first party franchises that Nintendo offer on a home consoles, I need to own a Wii U. Now if we look at all of the first party games coming out this year, that only accounts for a handful of nessecary franchises. Mario, Zelda, Xeno, unannounced, etc. The second comes from the exclusives. Franchises that Nintendo may not necessarily own, but that Nintendo has exclusive rights to for a game or two. That's games like Bayonetta 2, Sonic Boom, Monster Hunter 4. If you want to experience those games, you NEED to own their respective Nintendo consoles. They are nessecary franchises. They make owning a Nintendo console a necessity instead of just a luxury.

But then you look at games like Call of Duty or Assasin's Creed. These are games that are available on numerous platforms, and sell the worst on the Wii U. Why is that? It's because, for those franchises and for most people, those are not nessecary franchised for the Wii U. They are nessecary franchises for the 360 or the PS4 othe XBO or the anything else. This is because they feel that they will get better experiences from these games on these other systems, wether it's because of Xbox Live or better graphics, that's what Nintendo is lacking for these gamesn and that will never change. The will never have Xbox Live, or the best graphics, so they need to stop focusing on that, and focus on what WILL sell their systems: exclusives.

The PS4 and XBO both have more multiplats than the Wii U. That isn't changing. However, what can change is how many exclusives Nintendo has in comparison, namely first party franchises. Just like Disney did when acquiring Marvel and Star Wars, Nintendo needs to acquire powerful franchises to make their consoles more necessary.

For example, similar to the Marvel purchase, Nintendo should outright buy Capcom.

Make them a subsection of Nintendo. Capcom will still retain their name, identity, and talent, but they're franchises would now be fully under the ownership of Nintendo. With powerful franchises like Mega Man, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Devil May Cry, amongst many others, as exclusively Nintendo franchises, everysingle person who wants those games would NEED to buy a Wii U or 3DS to continue playing them. Capcom is a financially struggling publisher with a good number extremely powerful franchises under its ownership. Their franchises fit very well with Nintendo's franchises, even the more mature ones do, and they also fill in genre gaps that Nintendo is missing in its exclusive line ups. It's the smartest purchase Nintendo could make right now. Instead of letting the publisher go bankrupt and allowing multiple different companies to separate the IPs, Nintendo should go in and buy them all outright.

Other than Capcom, Nintendo needs to purchase another powerful IP or publisher. In this case, it needs to be something western. The fact of the matter is that the XBO and the PS4 both have much more appeal in western countries than the Wii U does, and that is obviously a problem when you're selling your product in western countries. While I'd love to say something like "Nintendo should purchase Take-Two Interactive" or "Nintendo should get into a permanent console-exclusive partnership with Valve," none of them are as realistic a Nintendo buying Capcom. Take-Two is striving, and previous attempts at a purchase by EA were flat out regected, and even if Nintendo did get into an exclusive partnership with Valve, it wouldn't realistically help much in selling Wii Us. Bethesda would be another ace purchase if it didn't seem so infeasable. Konami would be another, non-western, purchase that would be good for Nintendo.

But, on top of purchasing Capcom, perhaps it would be best for Nintendo to buy out CD-Project Red. Perhaps they should instead be purchasing developers like Epic Games, Crytek, id Software, etc. Buy Hello Games. Buy Slightly Mad Studios. The point is to develop games so that Nintendo's consoles don't need to worry as much about not getting third party support. Sports games to combat the lack of EA support. Western games to help with a lack of western support.

My point is that the Wii U doesn't need 3rd party games if it has enough nessesary franchises to merit it's purchase. The 3DS proves that, but the Wii U needs more.

2. Movies, TV shows, and theme parks.

Mario is just as famous world wide as Mickey Mouse is. That's a fact. Mario is bigger than Pikachu, bigger than Star Wars, and heck, he's even bigger than Nintendo. Why, then, isn't there a Nintendo World with Mario as the mascot? Why aren't there CGI Pixar-like movies for Luigi's Mansion and the Super Mario Bros like Disney is doing with Wreck-it-Ralph, Brave, Frozen and Tangled? Even Sega is keeping Sonic the Hedgehog alive with the announced Sonic Boom franchise. Why doesn't Nintendo do something similar by creating an anime series on Cartoon Network for Kid Ucarus or on Nickelodeon for Star Fox? Disney even does live action films. Why doesn't Nintendo do that for, say, Metroid? 

The common argument is that they wouldn't be good, but why not? Because of one bad Mario movie in the 80s? So what? We have a lot of talented people everywhere. Nintendo should get them, and build their own in-house TV studio: Nintendo Television Animation. They should make their own live-action film Studio: Nintendo Motion Picture Studios. They should have their own animated film studio: Nintendo Feature Animation Studios. They should have their own Theme park(s): Nintendo World. 

Nintendo is an entertainment giant, and it should start acting like one. If Nintendo gained a reputation for making amazing movies and TV shows, their famous IPs would gain even more mind shares. There less relevant IPs would become more well known. As long as Nintendo goes all in, the quality would remain top notch across all entertainment mediums. Also, if they acquired Capcom, they'd also be able to make a CGI movie for Street Fighter or a television series for Resident Evil like how REvelations was structured. The possibilities could be endless, but Nintendo needs to expand and keep their franchises relevant. They could even do something like putting some of the shows on Youtube for free, and making profit entirely through add revenue, on top of having the shows air on TV.

What can Nintendo learn from Apple?

1. Firmware, not hardware.

Fortunately, Nintendo seems to already have this in mind for the future, but allow me to explain this. With Apple, people buy the hardware because of the connected firmware. Whether it's iOS or OS X, everything you own connects to your Apple ID through them. Because of this, there is an attachment to these that you don't really get with some other products. This is especially true with game consoles. When changing generations, it becomes an issue of convincing your audience to transfer over from the previous one. Before, this wasn't an issue solved through backwards compatibility. That isn't perfect, however. What Nintendo should instead be doing right now, is prepping every game on the eshop now to become part of the Virtual Console for the next generation. And after doing that, ensuring that every title purchased under your Nintendo ID will transfer over to the new generation. This is what Apple does with it's apps and with itunes. Nintendo should be doing the same thing with it's games. This way, upgrading to the Wii U two is literally just a hardware upgrade and nothing else.

What this also allows is for Nintendo to upgrade their hardware more frequently. Starting with the successor to the Wii U, which we'll call the Fusion terminal here because the whole idea behind that rumor fits so perfectly here, Nintendo should release a new console every two years, along with a firmware update for the previous consoles. Now I know this sound absolutely rediculous and damn near blasphemous at first, so allow me to give an example.

Nintendo releases the new Nintendo Fusion Terminal in 2016. The system is sold for $300 and is roughly as powerful as the XBO. The hardware is largely the same as the original Wii U, with only minor tweeks here and there, like analog-click triggers on the gamepad and pro controller like the wavebird had, rumble triggers, and gyroscope capabilities on the new Fusion Pro Controllers. Also, every Fusion Terminal comes with two controllers: A Fusion Gamepad and a Fusion Pro Controller. All the purchases you've made under your NNID with the Wii U and or 3DS, barring some 3DS games, will transfer over to the new console, along with all of your friends, Miiverse posts, and other things tied to your account. It will also have backwards compatibility with the Wii U and the 3DS. When this system is released, Nintendo continues supporting the Wii U by down-porting some games available on the Terminal to the Wii U for a year. Nintendo also releases a firmware update for the Wii U and 3DS to match the firmware of the new Fusion Terminal two months before the console is released.

Two years later in 2018, Nintendo released the Fusion Terminal 2.0. This system is sold for $300 and is slightly more powerful than the PS4. The hardware is largely the same as the original Fusion Terminal, with only minor tweeks here and there. For example, this time they release two versions: The first version is sold with a disc drive and the other is sold without one and is digital only. They are both the same price, but the disc driveless one is sold with a 2TB hard drive, while the disc one has signifigantly less memory. Every Fusion Terminal 2.0 comes with two controllers: A Fusion Gamepad and a Fusion Pro Controller. All the purchases you've made under your NNID thus far will transfer over to your Fusion Terminal 2.0. You will be able to naturally play any Fusion Terminal 1.0 games on this new Fusion Terminal. Nintendo releases a firmware update for the Fusion Terminal and Fusion DS to match it with the firmware of the new Fusion Terminal two months before the console is released. Because of the similar hardware, many of the Fusion Terminal 2.0s games are still playable on the Terminal 1.0, but with lesser graphical fidelity. 

Two years later in 2020, Nintendo releases the Fusion Terminal 3.0. This system is sold for $300 and is signifigantly more powerful than the PS4. You get the point.

By doing this, they change what it means to upgrade a platform. It is literally just an upgrade where you can enjoy the system past the next upgrade. Someone who still owns the original Fusion Terminal may not see a need to upgrade until the Fusion Terminal 3.0, nearly six years later. Someone who decided not to get the original Fusion Terminal may eventually get the Fusion Terminal 2.0 after his Wii U. Someone who never upgraded from their Wii/360/PS3 might just get the Fusion Terminal 1.0 because it finally offers the power jump they want, and since the hardware is finally up to snuff, it may finally get some better multiplats, if it even needs them. Since the archetecture will be largely similar throughout, developers won't be relearning the archetecture with every new iteration, so once they're familiar with one, they will be largely familiar with all of the subsequent hardware upgrades.

Because of the way it all works, they create brand loyalty through nessecity. In the same way that all your song and apps are on your Apple IP, all of you games and friends are on your NNID, and changing to consoles that aren't made by Nintendo means starting all over again. It also doesn't screw over the consumer because you console isn't made imediately obsolete by the consistant upgrades like with the many Sega console upgrades and add-ons.

2. Retail Stores

The Nintendo World Store needs to be in every mall in America. It need to be in every mall in Europe. Every mall in Japan. People underestimate the power of retail presence. Let's face facts; store chains like Gamestop, Target, Wallmart, and sometimes even Bestbuy don't do anything to push Nintendo consoles. They're pushing the PS4, PS3, XBO, and 3DS, because that's what is selling. And why shouldn't they? They are there to make a profit, not to help out the little guy. But those of you who own an Apple product, answer this in the poll above:

Have you ever, if you have ever owned one, purchased or fixed an Apple device directly from a retail Apple store?

I'm going to infer that for a majority of you, the answer is yes, even before setting up the poll. Now for discussion in the thread, I want any of you with Apple store experiences to share if they were positive or not. Personally, all of my experiences have been positive. The people who worked there were always nice and informative, as with pretty much any tech store, but the biggest thing is that I never got the impression that they were trying to sell me something. In fact, it felt more like the whole store rather wanted me to try everything. So many times before I got my first Apple device, I would just go in to tinker around with the tech. No one ever looked pissed when I walked in, tinkered, and walked out. Because of this, I fell in love with Apple products years before I actually got one through hands on experience.

  Sound familiar? If should, because it's one of the major things Nintendo, and many Wii U owners, say about the Wii U. It's something you need to experience. Unfortunately, it's tough to get anyone to want to experience the Wii U while at the stores it's already in, for what ever reason. Their priorities when in these stores are always elsewhere. However, if you go to a Nintendo World Store, you're there for one thing and one thing only: Nintendo. With 40 million 3DS owners, 150 million DS owners, and 100 million Wii owners, you already have at least 150 million people who have a possible interest in walking into the store at least once who have a positive opinion of at least one Nintendo product. You have at least 40 million people who'd have a current and ongoing interest in walking into the Nintendo World Store because of their 3DS. That's completely ignoring everyone who's every owned any other Nintendo product or anyone with even a passing curiosity for the store.

By building multiple Nintendo stores around the world, Nintendo can directly control the environment from which people buy their Nintendo products the same way Apple does with its products. They would be hiring Nintendo enthusiests, who genuinely love Nintendo products enough to actually apply for a job there, to sell their products instead of gambling on people in these other stores who genuinely and rightfully may not. It's obviously much easier for someone who loves a product to sell a product than it is for someone who doesn't. After setting up numerous Wii U and 3DS kiosks through out the store, you can have many people trying many different games at once.

IN CONCLUSION:

Disney:

1. If Nintendo acquires Capcom, and purchases either another major western publisher or purchase serveral diverent western developement studios, they can signifigantly lessen the impact that poor third party support can have on their consoles.

2. Nintendo should create movie and television studios to put Mario and Metriod on the big screen, as well as build theme parks with popular Nintendo mascots. By doing this, they can revitalize brand regognition throughout the world. As long as they keep the same amount of control over their movies and TV shows as they do with their video games, Nintendo can maintain the quality of their IPs there too.

Apple:

3. Nintendo should place more focus on selling its firmware and less on selling its hardware. Nintendo should tie all purchases to the NNID. By doing this and upgrading the hardware more frequently they can create stronger brand loyalty and more easily compete with the hardware specs of their competitors.

4. If Nintendo opens up a magnitude of Nintendo World Store retail chains through out the world, mainly in malls, they can more easily control the experiences that people will get when trying Nintendo products.

This is not to say that this is all Nintendo needs to do, because it definitely isn't, but if Nintendo did these four thing that Apple and Disney are doing, they would be mega companies by the time that the change was complete, in the same league as the both Disney and Apple. No doubt about it.

Nintendo already had movies and TV shows which were all just terrible (90% of the time) so idk if they should go back although after watching the Kid Icarus anime shorts and Kirby TV series, I wouldn't mind them doing that for something like Zelda and Metroid so I agree to a certain extent

The big issue with opening a shit ton of stores around the world is Nintendo only has 2 products every 5 years which have accessories and games vs Apple and others have many products such as iphone, ipod, macbook, imac and etc and they come out with a new one every 6 months to a year. I think that part is a complete waste of money, if a company like Sony has to shut down many of their stores in US with the large product library they have, it would be impossible with only 2 products so I will have to disagree

Everything else I agree with (I only read the conclusion) maybe except for Capcom, I would rather say Sega than Capcom cause that company is just meh apart from like 2 good games

Now I 100% agree.

Edit: Great that you added the conclusion. You gave me an extra 3 points and saved me from getting banned!

I can only partially agree with ur reasoning. Yes, Nintendo should expand and acquire new studios, but they shouldn't get Capcom as the first one; they need to get more western games to appease that audience. And they should definitely get more cartoons/movies out there!! Y u not do that Nintendo?!

And console gaming does not work in the same way as the phone market, so releasing new HW more often wouldn't work. And it's totally unnecessary for Nintendo to own their own shops on a WW or even a national retail chain.

Nintendo buying Capcom is a great point. They should also buy Activision, EA, Microsoft, and pretty much every major gaming company out there.

I never read the whole thing, but Disney is a huge media company. They are the biggest media company in the world by revenue. They make big movies and their TV division is huge too. Disney Channel is not their main TV channel, its ABC and then all the other cable networks they own which includes Disney channel, ESPN and ABC Family. Owning ABC and ESPN doesn't really help the Disney brand, but it makes them money and they've diversified away from being a company who's main target audience is children. Are you saying you want Nintendo to completely diversify itself from a gaming company to a mass media company? If so then that's incredible risky and I don't think Nintendo can afford acquiring so many movie studios and TV channels to accomplish that goal. Also themeparks are usually not very profitable.

Sega isn't as valuable a purchase Capcom is. Capcom would be cheaper, their IP's would be more valuable, and Nintendo can get most of the Sega IPs already. It would be a waste of money with the only slight benefit being Persona exlusivity. I love Sega too lol so don't thing this is me bashing them or anything.

As for the Nintendo World Store thoughts, in the actual post, I suggested that Nintendo upgrade their hardware every two years instead of every "generation." I also put an example since I know it's controvercial. Go to the italicized paragraphs for the example.

But even with just the Wii U, 3DS, Wii, and DS, I still think the Nintendo World Store would be useful. I also think that it isn't comparable to the Sony Stores because they were largely associated with products that people largely didn't want at all. If it Sony just renamed them the Playstation store and just sold PS3s, PS4s, and Vitas, I think the turn out would have been much different. I suspect the same thing with this.

And is response to your thoughts about your distrust for Nintendo TV shows and movies, I completely understand your worries. However, those TV shows as far as I know, were not directly handled by Nintendo like what I'm suggesting here. In fact, I think that Kirby: Right Back at Ya! was the only one that was published by Nintendo and made with Nintendo's Direct influence. Warpstar inc., the company that produced the show, was formed between a joint investment between Nintendo and their own HAL Laboratory, Inc. Same thing With Kid Icarus: Uprising's Anime shorts. I think that if Nintendo maintains direct control of their IPs like in these examples, the quality of their shows and movies will be just as good.

Why wouldn't it work? There's no precident that shows that it couldn't. Same with the retail chains. There's absolutely no reason why it wouldn't be benefitial.

Hardy har har. Nintendo buying Capcom, a stuggling publisher with only a few hundered million left to their name, is completely different from them buying "every other major gaming company out there."

Sort of yes and sort of no. While I am not saying that Nintendo should strive to be on the same level as Disney went it comes to mass media, I do think that they should be making strides to have some mass media relevance. Sega is making Sonic Boom. Sony is make the Sly Cooper movie. I think that Nintendo should be doing more than that. Maybe one or two movies out a year and maybe three or four television shows running at a time. That's nothing on the scale of what Disney is doing, but it is far more than anything done before by a gaming company. Look at what the Pokemon television show is still doing for the Pokemon franchise. Nintendo should be doing much more of that. Get into a partnership with Cartoon Network. Do something. That's what I'm getting at.

On themeparks: But some of them are, are they not? 

Ah, yeah I see what you're saying and I completely agree. It would be better for them to get in partnerships and let Disney or Cartoon Network produce those movies, TV shows, and theme parks attractions centered around Nintendo's characters. That way the risk can be shared and Nintendo won't have to take the risk of buying movie and telelivision studios. In fact, it would awesome if Disney merged with Nintendo. Then we could see Nintendo's characters getting much more exposure as well. Its a huge oppurtunity and more exposure for the lesser known characters would boost game sales as well. And just imagine how much money can be made from the merchandise. That Disney management really know how to run a business...

Themeparks are not very stable. Disney themeparks are the most successful and account for 17% of Disney's profits but they are an exception. Some themepark companies like Six Flags have struggled in the past and even some of Disney's themeparks like the one in Paris makes loses. 

It wouldn't work because consoles aren't phones; every new console has a new operating system, new specs, new games. Everything is new! That's the problem. New HW means new games - and just take a look at PS4/X1; they don't have backwards compatability. How many people would buy a new console if they knew that a better version would be released just one or two years from now? A lot of people would hold off buying. The only upgrades a HW maker can do is making a slim version or adding HD memories; like X360 and PS3 did the last gen. But releasing new HW every second year just wouldn't work. People would lose faith in the company - just look at Sega.

And opening a retail chain would cost a shit load! You need to buy/rent property, you need to hire and pay staff, and you have to make enough from those retail stores to offset all those costs, and very few companies sell that much/has that kind of demands that they can pull that off.