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Forums - Nintendo - What happened to Nintendo's anti loss leading strategy??

Mr Khan on 07 May 2014
Soundwave said:

The Wii U isn't expensive because of it's hardware performance.

It's expensive because Nintendo became obsessed with weird, niche-y hardware ideals like a system having to be as small as possible so it would be approved by Japanese moms. And having to have low electrical draw because uh ... well because of efficiency sake or something


That's why it requires a heavily customized chip. That and they thought throwing a 6 inch touch panel (and because it's Nintendo they have to use a resistive touch panel that no one else uses, everyone else is on capacitive).

All these weird, custom demands that Nintendo makes on their hardware means the hardware is not cheap to produce, it's heavily customized and Nintendo has to pay for that. Nintendo can't use an AMD GPU design from a perfectly good existing chip ... they have to have a completely custom chip designed from scratch to their needs, which again is expensive (honestly Yamauchi would not allow this). Much like the 3D screen on the 3DS is expensive.

Both MS and Nintendo have the same problem in that they also bet the farm on expensive controller gimmicks that have back fired in terms of sales appeal and are now weighing their respective console's down by keeping the price high. 

Lateral thinking, again, which is becoming counterproductive in a world where consumer electronics (under the hood, anyway) is getting samey-er.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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Mr Khan on 07 May 2014
noname2200 said:
They drank the Industry Kool-Aid. Twice.

Not an excuse, by the way.

And yet are getting scorned by the industry now more than ever?

At least Jim Jones promised you'd go to heaven for drinking the kool-aid...



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Soundwave on 07 May 2014
Mr Khan said:
Soundwave said:

The Wii U isn't expensive because of it's hardware performance.

It's expensive because Nintendo became obsessed with weird, niche-y hardware ideals like a system having to be as small as possible so it would be approved by Japanese moms. And having to have low electrical draw because uh ... well because of efficiency sake or something


That's why it requires a heavily customized chip. That and they thought throwing a 6 inch touch panel (and because it's Nintendo they have to use a resistive touch panel that no one else uses, everyone else is on capacitive).

All these weird, custom demands that Nintendo makes on their hardware means the hardware is not cheap to produce, it's heavily customized and Nintendo has to pay for that. Nintendo can't use an AMD GPU design from a perfectly good existing chip ... they have to have a completely custom chip designed from scratch to their needs, which again is expensive (honestly Yamauchi would not allow this). Much like the 3D screen on the 3DS is expensive.

Both MS and Nintendo have the same problem in that they also bet the farm on expensive controller gimmicks that have back fired in terms of sales appeal and are now weighing their respective console's down by keeping the price high. 

Lateral thinking, again, which is becoming counterproductive in a world where consumer electronics (under the hood, anyway) is getting samey-er.

Nintendo's approach would be great if anyone actually cared about having a console by medium sized or only consume about 33 watts of electricity. 

No one in reality gives two poops, especially gamers though. I don't think anyone cares if a console were to be the size of say an NES, read the Wii U Iwata Asks, most of their effort in designing the actual Wii U console came down to making it fit into a casing that small and consume only that much electricity. 

A total waste of R&D on their part yielding a more expensive GPU with no tangiable performance boost. But hey, it can fit nicely into a hobbit hole, for whatever that's worth. 



Mr Khan on 07 May 2014
Soundwave said:
Mr Khan said:

Lateral thinking, again, which is becoming counterproductive in a world where consumer electronics (under the hood, anyway) is getting samey-er.

Nintendo's approach would be great if anyone actually cared about having a console by medium sized or only consume about 33 watts of electricity. 

No one in reality gives two poops, especially gamers though. I don't think anyone cares if a console were to be the size of say an NES, read the Wii U Iwata Asks, most of their effort in designing the actual Wii U console came down to making it fit into a casing that small and consume only that much electricity. 

A total waste of R&D on their part yielding a more expensive GPU with no tangiable performance boost. But hey, it can fit nicely into a hobbit hole, for whatever that's worth. 

You are right, though. While i do enjoy saving the earth (and my own electric bill would probably be higher if i had a PS3 or 360 running here), it certainly is one of the last things on anyone's (casual or core) mind when they're thinking of buying a video game console.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

oniyide on 08 May 2014
Aquietguy said:
oniyide said:
Aquietguy said:
greencactaur said:
I assume they make a loss because of the tablet, and i've been saying the tablet was a horrible idea since the beginning ~_~. If the casual market wants a tablet they'll go out and buy a tablet, but the Wii U is a tablet with a brick connected to it that loses its portability aspect so it doesn't make much sense to me.


That pad, which is not a tablet, is the best thing about the Wii U. That's not the problem and never was. Nintendo's problem is perception. They do a terrible job of changing that "Nintendo is for kids" nonsense. The Wii U is a good system which brings lots of possibilities that just isnt being tapped into. All the money they made with the Wii yet they have so much game drouth. They should have hired a ton of developers with all that money at least 3 to 4 years ago developing games for the U. It's just like they were totally unprepared. They said they wanted to capture the core crowd but did very little in the development and PR department and that is the problem. Not the Wii U its self. That's why you keep hearing a lot of people who don't own one saying its crap while the people who do say they love it. As well as a lot of people who thought it was crap love it after buying.

if the pad is the best thing about WIi U then thats a problem, because clearly people are not feeling the pad


Clearly you didn't read the whole post as I explained why the Wii U is not selling well. 

oh i read it, i just dont agree with it, except the games part. I would chalk that up to then having to make stuff for 3ds so it wasnt like they were exactly doing nothing at all.  Theyve had that image for years and that didnt stop the Wii from doing what it did.



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zippy on 08 May 2014

Well it seems Wii U is now selling at profit without the aid of purchasing a unit of software, so hopefully back to profit soon enough.



Aquietguy on 08 May 2014
oniyide said:

oh i read it, i just dont agree with it, except the games part. I would chalk that up to then having to make stuff for 3ds so it wasnt like they were exactly doing nothing at all.  Theyve had that image for years and that didnt stop the Wii from doing what it did.

 Nintendo wasn't trying to win over the core gamer with the Wii. Plus the Wii had way more hype than the U, which seems to have none. And what part do you disagree with?  The part that the people who own a  like the pad and the people who don't hate on it with little to no experience using the pad. 



Seece on 08 May 2014
zippy said:
Well it seems Wii U is now selling at profit without the aid of purchasing a unit of software, so hopefully back to profit soon enough.


Link??



 

sundin13 on 08 May 2014
Seece said:
zippy said:
Well it seems Wii U is now selling at profit without the aid of purchasing a unit of software, so hopefully back to profit soon enough.


Link??

Iwata mentioned it in the Q/A portion of the briefing...I'll try to find a link...

here it is: http://www.gonintendo.com/s/227830-nintendo-fy2014-briefing-details-completed

"There is no loss from the hardware any more and more games will be at E3"



Seece on 08 May 2014
sundin13 said:
Seece said:
zippy said:
Well it seems Wii U is now selling at profit without the aid of purchasing a unit of software, so hopefully back to profit soon enough.


Link??

Iwata mentioned it in the Q/A portion of the briefing...I'll try to find a link...

here it is: http://www.gonintendo.com/s/227830-nintendo-fy2014-briefing-details-completed

"There is no loss from the hardware any more and more games will be at E3"

Thanks, that's good progress. I wonder if they cut will they go back to losing money.