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Forums - Sales Discussion - Will Sony and MS have the courage to compete with Nintendo in 2016?

 

How will this play out?

Sony will compete but MS will status quo 98 24.02%
 
MS will compete but Sony will status quo 21 5.15%
 
Both twins will compete 152 37.25%
 
Nintendo won't be hindered. 137 33.58%
 
Total:408

Your theory is very clever but has three major issues :

- PRICE : if Nintendo comes up with such advanced/complicated technology as home/portable hybrid, it's probably going to be quite expensive as Ipad or Surface are. PS4 and X1 will have room for a price cut by end of 2016, which will be a huge entry barrier for Nintendo's "return".

- PERFORMANCE : an hybrid system is not gonna have PS4 or X1 level of graphics, which will make it unattractive as next-gen games keep getting sharper. At best, it will be some kind of super-powerful Vita, which will face Vita's current problems and competition.

- TRUST : Nintendo has lost the trust of gamers and developers. Why would developers restart from scratch when they already earn nothing on a 8m WiiU userbase? Why would gamers uninterested in WiiU suddenly want to play Nintendo games on that new platform?



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padib said:
TheJimbo1234 said:

Handheld market? Good luck with a new product when the majority of that market is now dead due to phones. This is why the vast majority of sales have been from Japan and no where else.

Because "meshed" devices helped with the psp...oh wait. It only works if people buy into it, and the ONLY company that has succeeded with this gimmick is Apple - one of the wealthiest companies in the world.

What you said was rubbish. I would love to see you pitch those opinions at a meeting and see the reactions. You never accurately addressed any point; market share, market growth, competition, cost of production, game library etc. Thos are actual points. Saying "I really like Nintendo and want a new console from them soon, and for it to do well" is not addressing anything besides telling people your preference.

I'll answer your post as well as I can, if you're willing to talk. If you're just going to be defiant in some superiority war this will be my last reply to you in this thread.

1) The PSP was not a meshed device. It required games to be developed specifically for it, and games would need to be redevelopped to be released on the PS2 or PS3 following it. Do you understand why this will not be the case for Nintendo's next console?

2) Here are the points you wanted me to address:

Market Share

I believe that with this new strategy, Nintendo will be able to achieve sales that exceed the 3DS in terms of hardware sales. I expect the new platform to start big due to having double the software effort dedicated to a given machine as compared to the old paradigm. The 3DS marketshare is what I would consider a worst case scenario, with the DS marketshare a best-case scenario. The reason is simple. There is no logical reason to believe that sales should drop below 3DS levels of sales worldwide with a console with possibly twice the amount of software for it whilst sold at a more affordable price within a comparable competitive landscape. If you have a reason, please mention it.

Growth

Given the ability to transfer games then from the new handheld to the next new home console, by virtue of a shared API, I expect the momentum to stay strong in terms of hardware and software sales, but more importantly in terms of software sales. The reason is that, the more games released for a given console, the more appeal said console has. Due to the removed need of supporting two consoles, the library is no longer fragmented half-way into the lifespan of the handheld, as was the case for the 3DS for people who have been reading Nintendo's investors briefings. For that reason the new paradigm will only foster growth and sustained momentum of software and hence hardware sales. The combined hardware sales of the family of devices should far exceed the combined sales of devices sold this gen, yes despite overlapping sales this gen.

Competition

This was my question to you in OP. I prefer to read your answer, I've already given hints of my thoughts on the matter and have voted in the poll. Without stiffling discussion, I will just say that I believe that Sony and MS, upon seeing Nintendo's success, will scramble at competing with 1st party quality games, and will also attempt to blur the lines between a variety of hardware configurations, much like what happened with Move and Kinect when trying to catch up with the Wii.

Cost of production

As replied earlier, please read my posts, I don't expect the costs of the first of this new family of devices to exceed that of the DS.

Game library

See point "Market Share". Also this one goes without saying and is mostly understood for those who are informed. If you need more details on this I can provide them.

1) Many devices offer this nowadays, and it has not been popular. Few people care about it.

Market Share & Game Library

Look at the downward trend in all handheld consoles in the last few years. Is this due to the product being old or a shift in the market due to phones and tablets? Sales of the 3DS are far lower than the DS, so actually it would be accurate to assume a negative trend rather than the same share. Nintendo being the main/only developer of games is the most limiting factor and there are no signs of this improving. 

Growth

You ignore the lack of new IPs and how Japanese games are selling very poorly in recent years. You also incorrectly assume that console owners = handheld owners. This is not always true. Also why buy both platforms when you can get your favourite with all the games? Most people will see the possibility of svaing money rather than spending more.

Competition

You assume Nintendo will have a large success which is too presumptious. Also Sony are working on cloud based gaming so there is a good chance that Sony will have their entire games library accessable from a phone....Good luck competing with that. Also by 2016, tablet and phone hardware will be close to the power of consoles, so this is yet another platform for gaming.

Cost

Cheap products will have low specs. Low specs will mean it won't be apple to compete with leading tablets and phones. Also if the games are poorly designed (good chane they will be as Nintnedo have not dealt with new engines for a long time), then the game would be limited to the worst platform, ergo a powerful console would have a game that looks pants and with limited content due to size. This would be solved by having a state of the art handheld, but this would cost far more to develop and buy over a console, so most people would opt to buy the cheapest platform.

 



JustBeingReal said:
DanneSandin said:

But how likely is it that Nintendo will wait until 2018 to launch new hardware? 3DS is down YOY, and will only decline further, Wii U isn't selling well at all, so what choice to they have? 2017 seems pretty reasonable to me. I agree that they should delay the launch for as long as possible, so that they have a comparable console to sonys and MSs, but considering their situation....


It's very likely, because that's when costs will start to become reasonable for them to produce their next home console, it's when the tech is at a mature production level, sooner than 2018 and it's expensive or they're stuck with last generation technology. It's not really a delay, because it's a 6 year gen, which is pretty much normal now. Launching in 2016 only gives them a 4 year generation, basically flipping the bird to the people that bought a Wii U.

As for 3DS we have New 3DS, which will likely launch early next year in the west, that prolongs the 3DS architecture until Nintendo launches their fusion system. Wii U will likely see growth next year, considering the games coming too it and we have no idea about the games that will come in 2016 onwards for that system. The situation is what Nintendo makes of it, they can certainly ride out the rest of the 8th gen for another 3-4years, then the demand will be there for their next system, it's certainly not there yet and Nintendo certainly hasn't tapped out what can be creatively done on the Wii U.

I remain skeptical that the sales of 3DS and Wii U will sustain Nintendo well enough for them to hold off new hw releases until 2018... But then again, they will launch their QOL next year or something like that, so THAT could help them (financialy) to wait to release new gaming tech..



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

Normchacho said:
DanneSandin said:

I don't know how you would describe the DS... That's two consoles that's evidence enough that Nintendo might hit it big next gen. But like I said, they need the 3rd parties; it's a lot safer a bet than trying to find the next Wii.

I'm talking home consoles, they are a very different game. There is simply no reason to think that Nintendo will be able to just add the WiiU sales to the 3DS sales.  How many WiiU owners don't have a 3DS? Why would people who decided against buying a Nintendo home console just hop on board because the 3DS was more popular...

haha I've just had the same conversation in this thread with someone else! I also pointed out that there's quite a lot of cross buying between the two consoles... I think that both consoles need something special to differentiate themselves; how many would buy two consoles that plays the same games?!



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

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Versus_Evil said:

Why would they? NN next console we can assume won't have third party support that ship sailed along time ago that will take a long time to repair. Also by then the XO/4 will be in their stride . The real question is.

Do NN have the STUPIDITY to release another console that early? For me personnaly its a little to early.

Fixed



Although I think the effort is half assed. SONY is already working on a making all games developed for their platform work on all SONY licensed hardware. So _IF_ the Nintendo rumor is true, SONY will have no problem _IF_ they choose to do the same thing Nintendo is doing.

Likewise for MS. MS has been using the underlying software components of their Windows OS and direct X stuff in their XBOX consoles. More and more of this has been true with each iteration. We could very well see software written for windows work on a windows phone and an XBOX.

All that being said, I don't know if its a good strategy necessarily. Games developed for a PC don't usually fit for a console. Games developed for a console don't usually fit for a PC. Likewise mobile vs console have similar issues. I'm not convinced it is a good strategy for SONY or MS.

Nintendo games on the other hand might very well fit for that simplified space.



A warrior keeps death on the mind from the moment of their first breath to the moment of their last.



I really hope Nintendo will succeed with its future projects. In fact, any real gamer should hope so because Nintendo is the only video game market-only company left out there. Whatever "Nintendo Fusion" will bring, Nintendo has to overcome 3 major stubborn attitudes: 1. Arrogance against 3rd parties: They really have to cater 3 parties, 2. Weak online gaming: Must be on par with Sony and Microsoft and 3. Saving costs on technical specs and use the catchword: gameplay over graphics: The technical specs should not be too far off of state-of-the-art.

If Ninendo combines their known strengths with the above 3 criterias then I see no reason why Nintendo can't rule the whole gaming market again.



padib said:
zorg1000 said:

It's not about selling more home consoles, it's about merging the platforms in order to have a unified console and handheld. 2 devices with the same architecture, operating system, online infrastructure, similar specs that share a library. Combined Nintendo might be able to sell 70 million or so devices.

It's about maximizing software sales by not having games like Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, 3D World suffer low sales because they are on a device with low install base. These games can all be 5-10 million sellers if they had the handheld side of the business to sell on as well.

What's he's saying is next gen there will be Playstation 5, Xbox 4 and Nintendo Fusion which is split up into 2 seperate devices similar to Vita/Vita TV.

So zorg, how do you think Sony and MS will react to this gamechanger?

I don't think it will really affect them in any huge way, it's two completely seperate demographics. It's not going to stop PS4/XB1 from selling strong numbers and won't stop them from getting AAA 3rd party titles.

The objective isn't to sell better than or compete directly with PS/XB but rather to allow Nintendo to be more self reliant by increasing software output, giving them a strong userbase to sell their ip to and ultimately maximize profits.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

padib said:

Market Share & Game Library

I'll offer two points.

First, I would argue that what damage was done to the portable market by smartphones is done. In that same line of thinking, I would assume that the newness factor of smartphone smash hits has faded. Unless you have numbers showing me new IP after new IP that is just smash hit after smash hit, it's my understanding that people have now integrated smart phone gaming into their lives, and the negative influence on Nintendo's handheld market will not continue in a downtrend, but will either plateau or see a trend reversal due to Nintendo's known ability to create novelty, be it by hardware or software (new IPs).

Second, though Nintendo may be the only developer on the new "squadron" family of systems (which I highly doubt given 3rd party support on Nintendo's handheld line), with a concerted effort on one unified library, their output of games can double, thereby making the situation much more viable than the 3DS. If the 3DS with its library was able to sell a number, the bolstered library should cause a positive influence directly proportionate to the increase in the quality and size of the unified library.

I doubt that very much. Revenue of mobile apps (main share: mobile games) is climbing fast each year.

  • iOS app revenue 2012 = ~5 billion US$
  • iOS app revenue 2013 = over 10 billion US$
  • iOS app 2014 = over 3 billion US$ each quarter, probably 13 - 15 billion US$ for the whole year.
  • app revenue in the Google play store is growing even faster, together they will top $20 billion US$ this year
  • gamepad-extensions and similar solutions for iOS and Android get better and cheaper each month

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/01/07App-Store-Sales-Top-10-Billion-in-2013.html