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Forums - Gaming Discussion - What lessons did Nintendo learn this gen you think?

Soundwave on 09 February 2015
zorg1000 said:
deskpro2k3 said:

I think Nintendo is getting out of touch with their fanbase. Then again, people on Youtube are signing up for the Nintendo Creator's Program even though they're not allowed to upload videos of Smashbros and stuff.

Nintendo learned something all right, I just don't know what it is.

It's not the core Nintendo fanbase that Nintendo is losing. As long as they continue to make high quality entries of 2D/3D Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Metroid, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Yoshi, Xenoblade, Kid Icarus, Star Fox, Pikmin, Tomodachi, Fire Emblem, etc and make a handful of new ip each gen like Codename STEAM and Splatoon, core Nintendo fans aren't leaving.

The big mistake they made this gen was releasing hardware $100 more than they have in previous generations along with selling their devices at a loss, software droughts and mediocre advertising are big factors as well.

From April 1996-Mar 2001, Nintendo shipped about 90-95 million units of Gameboy+Nintendo 64 and from April 2001-March 2006 Nintendo shipped about the same amount for Gameboy Advance+Gamecube and they were very profitable during these times. So far this generation Nintendo has shipped about 60 million for 3DS+Wii U and by the time it hits the 5 year mark, they will have likely shipped 70-75 million units, down from the 5th/6th gen but not by a huge amount. Had they released more affordable devices sold at a profit, with more/better advertising than its very likely they could be seeing 5th/6th gen level sales/profits.

I don't think so. I think their main problem is that their two bread and butter audiences outside of their core fanbase -- kids and casuals are being taken away from Nintendo in droves by Apple/Android devices. 

A traditional game handheld will probably never sell 80+ million any more, who knows 3DS might very well be the last one that can even breach the 70 million barrier. 

Doesn't matter how cheap the device is, when people already have another device in their pocket that basically scratches their portable gaming itch already (on top of doing 100 other things), the need for a dedicated portable kinda flies out the window. That and the whole $1/free games vs. $40 games kinda seals the deal. 

The GBA really would've sold like 100+ million too had it not been cut short, but its yearly shipments prior to the DS releasing were more on pace for a system that finishes in the 100 million range. The amount of systems they were selling yearly in the GBA + GCN era is likely something they simply can't replicate in the modern market (forget Wii/DS obviously). 



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Game_God on 09 February 2015
PotentHerbs said:
Hopefully they understand that tablets are not suitable controllers!


That is why Nintendo doesn't use a tablet as a controller...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n29CicBxZuw

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Guitarguy on 09 February 2015

Doubt they learned anything. Or they learned things but will not apply them. Their next home console will still be dwarfed in terms of power by the next Sony and Microsoft console and 3rd parties basically ditched Nintendo for the most part after the Super Ninendo. Even with the Wii smashing the 7th generation in terms of sales, major third party releases were still sparse compared to the competition.



Game_God on 09 February 2015
oldschoolfool said:
how to still make a boat load of money,without the backing of the gaming media.


+1



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n29CicBxZuw

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se7en7thre3 on 09 February 2015
Soundwave said:
se7en7thre3 said:

If Nintendo bets on themselves,  they can get a nice contract on the chipsets for a friendly price.  


Yeah that's the other obvious benefit of the Fusion concept too, economies of scale,

Lets say they want to ship 15 million portable versions and a more modest 4 million home versions in one fiscal year ... that comes out to

15 (x1 Samus processor) + 4 (x3 Samus processors) = 27 million Samus processors

I'd bet they'd get a much nicer deal from their chip providers ordering in such high volume like that. Sure beats ordering 3-4 million Power PC processors and Wii U GPUs like they are right now per year. Obviously the way things are now they probably have little to no leveraging power in getting a better price on their Wii U components.  

Nintendo needs to figure out how to remain profitable, without gimping the HW too much.  The idea of combining or chip stacking mobile tech. (which is very energy efficient) seems like something Nintendo would go for .



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DarkRPGamer007 on 09 February 2015

Have a good launch, space out games correctly, not name the consoles so closely, and market the hell out of it.



XBOX ONE/Wii U/3DS/PC

RIP Iwata 12/6/1959-7/11/2015

Thanks for all the great memories!

Game_God on 09 February 2015
Twilord said:
Nintendo need to buy developers like Platinum, and maybe a few indies who might be 'up for' the retail scene with some guidance. Become an industry onto themselves; they are well capable of it.


+2



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n29CicBxZuw

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Angelv577 on 09 February 2015

If they learnt something, they aren't showing it right now so I personally don't expect much from them. This is one of the reason why having competition is good, you have choices to move on and I already did. Good luck for Nintendo in their next console.



Soundwave on 09 February 2015
se7en7thre3 said:
Soundwave said:


Yeah that's the other obvious benefit of the Fusion concept too, economies of scale,

Lets say they want to ship 15 million portable versions and a more modest 4 million home versions in one fiscal year ... that comes out to

15 (x1 Samus processor) + 4 (x3 Samus processors) = 27 million Samus processors

I'd bet they'd get a much nicer deal from their chip providers ordering in such high volume like that. Sure beats ordering 3-4 million Power PC processors and Wii U GPUs like they are right now per year. Obviously the way things are now they probably have little to no leveraging power in getting a better price on their Wii U components.  

Nintendo needs to figure out how to remain profitable, without gimping the HW too much.  The idea of combining or chip stacking mobile tech. (which is very energy efficient) seems like something Nintendo would go for .

To be honest though with the hardware thing ... unless they have better hardware than what Sony/MS are offering they're not going to get very far with that whole path. 

They've already missed the bus as far as competing with the PS4/X1 as far as I'm concerned. PS4/X1's install base by late 2016 will be north of 50 million, anything trying to sneak in after that will be seen as too little, way too late. 

750 GFLOPS would be a decent upgrade on the Wii U while not be so far out of sync with the handheld that ports between the two start to get really tricky for developers. A 3:1 ratio I think is a good one to aim for, who knows Nintendo may not even push it that far. The home version could be more like 2:1 to the handheld. 



zorg1000 on 09 February 2015
Soundwave said:
zorg1000 said:

It's not the core Nintendo fanbase that Nintendo is losing. As long as they continue to make high quality entries of 2D/3D Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Metroid, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Yoshi, Xenoblade, Kid Icarus, Star Fox, Pikmin, Tomodachi, Fire Emblem, etc and make a handful of new ip each gen like Codename STEAM and Splatoon, core Nintendo fans aren't leaving.

The big mistake they made this gen was releasing hardware $100 more than they have in previous generations along with selling their devices at a loss, software droughts and mediocre advertising are big factors as well.

From April 1996-Mar 2001, Nintendo shipped about 90-95 million units of Gameboy+Nintendo 64 and from April 2001-March 2006 Nintendo shipped about the same amount for Gameboy Advance+Gamecube and they were very profitable during these times. So far this generation Nintendo has shipped about 60 million for 3DS+Wii U and by the time it hits the 5 year mark, they will have likely shipped 70-75 million units, down from the 5th/6th gen but not by a huge amount. Had they released more affordable devices sold at a profit, with more/better advertising than its very likely they could be seeing 5th/6th gen level sales/profits.

I don't think so. I think their main problem is that their two bread and butter audiences outside of their core fanbase -- kids and casuals are being taken away from Nintendo in droves by Apple/Android devices. 

A traditional game handheld will probably never sell 80+ million any more, who knows 3DS might very well be the last one that can even breach the 70 million barrier. 

Doesn't matter how cheap the device is, when people already have another device in their pocket that basically scratches their portable gaming itch already (on top of doing 100 other things), the need for a dedicated portable kinda flies out the window. That and the whole $1/free games vs. $40 games kinda seals the deal. 

The GBA really would've sold like 100+ million too had it not been cut short, but its yearly shipments prior to the DS releasing were more on pace for a system that finishes in the 100 million range. The amount of systems they were selling yearly in the GBA + GCN era is likely something they simply can't replicate in the modern market (forget Wii/DS obviously). 

U honestly don't believe that 3DS/Wii U could have sold modestly better in the same time frame if they launched at $100 cheaper each and had more/better advertising?

By the end of this fiscal year, 3DS will be at roughly 52 million shipped with Wii U roughly around 10 million. In the same time frame, GBA was around 65 million and GC around 15 million. So it's 62 million vs 80 million, maybe they wouldn't have matched GBA/GC but if 3DS/Wii U launched at lower price points with increased advertising efforts than it may be more like 70 million at this point.



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