7 ms·

Nintendo makes the most confusing business decisions.

cyphax 10y ago
I know right?! Either that, or they know something I don't. They could probably make a lot more from selling these. It's like they don't need it and want to keep it limited in numbers, which doesn't rhyme with how many original NES' were sold and how OK they were with that. :) Or maybe they want to start selling NES titles on the Switch and they don't want to compete with themselves or something?
- azeirah 10y ago
  > they know something I don't Am I weird for thinking that it's very likely that an entire company with over 100 years of experience _does_ know something that you don't?
  - greedo 10y ago
    Institutional knowledge gets lost everytime an employee dies or leaves the company.
    - chongli 10y ago
      Tell me about it! Squaresoft is no longer the company that made the great games of my childhood (SNES era). All of the key talent that went into those games has left the company.
      - lcfcjs 10y ago
        FFXV is pretty awesome though!
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    Well, they can think they know something that isn't true anymore. I've seen it before at companies, the circumstances leading up to their success are often repeated as sacrosanct steps not to be questioned.
  - EpicEng 10y ago
    If only it worked that way. Besides, Wii U anyone? They have plenty of recent fumbles we could bring up.
- brilliantcode 10y ago
  Anytime I see Switch mentioned, I think about nintendo's ol' switcheroo 22 years ago that ultimately outdid nintendo.
  - aaronbrethorst 10y ago
    Are you referring to the Pokemon Company?
    - scrame 10y ago
      More likely the Sony drive for SNES that they scrapped and Sony made into the playstation.
      - brilliantcode 10y ago
        Yes, it's my favorite story. tl;dr: Sony gets backstabbed by Nintendo, proceeds to destroy them in their own staple industry for the next few decades by releasing Sony Playstation.
- notadoc 10y ago
  You'd expect some virtual console on the Switch but that is still missing the point of the NES Classic, which is cheap enough to be an impulse buy or a gift, and cashes in on the nostalgia of an entire generation. I know a lot of people who haven't played video games since they were kids who wanted the NES Classic, it has a unique appeal.
duskwuff 10y ago
The only possible explanation I can think of is that a replacement product is in the works (e.g, wider game selection, SNES support, downloadable games, etc). Otherwise... WTF.
- Asooka 10y ago
  That product is called the Switch.
  - wernercd 10y ago
    The Switch has a lesser appeal than a $50 box that has a lifetime of nostalgia.
    - tartuffe78 10y ago
      Not for everybody, and not for most people I'd wager.
  - chc 10y ago
    The Switch doesn't have any NES or SNES games for it at all.
    - chadgeidel 10y ago
      *yet I would be shocked if the Virtual Console wasn't running on the Switch by the end of the year.
      - metaphorm 10y ago
        rumor mill suggests as early as this summer
- trapperkeeper79 10y ago
  They really have the worst supply chain out there. A bunch of people I know wanted this and/or the Switch. These are casual gamers who may not care later.
takeda 10y ago
Releasing it or discontinuing it? Discontinuation makes sense, because that console was a dead end, you couldn't add more games etc, so IMO it was more of a novelty. As for releasing, it would be better if they make it not a dead end product. Someone mentioned here that many chips using there were already EOL when it was released, so maybe this was a creative way to get rid of some components and make money out of them that otherwise they would throw away?
- chc 10y ago
  > Discontinuation makes sense, because that console was a dead end, you couldn't add more games etc, so IMO it was more of a novelty. That doesn't make much sense. Not everyone who currently wants one has got one. They're absolutely flying off shelves. You wouldn't discontinue something like that because it's "a novelty."
  - takeda 10y ago
    You would, if you would run out of components to build them. All I'm saying is that when they came up with it, they planned it to be a dead end, e.g. fixed number of games, no ability to purchase games (either physically or download from internet), build using components that are EOL and no longer being produced...
- EpicEng 10y ago
  A "novelty" with massive demand and no supply. I don't get your logic.
padobson 10y ago
Exactly this. Nintendo and Twitter are extremely similar. Twitter lucked into an AAA product, and management hasn't been able to leverage it to anything like the Facebook competitor it should have been. Nintendo lucked into hiring a game design genius (Miyamoto) who also happened to be a great mentor and producer, meaning they've had a steady stream of AAA games for 30+ years. If either one of these companies had great CEOs, they would easily be dominating their respective industries.
- astrange 10y ago
  Nintendo has had several great CEOs who are no longer with us.
- EpicEng 10y ago
  Nintendo is a 127 year old company. Pretty sure they didn't stagnate for 100 years before finally hitting their stride with Miyamoto.
  - padobson 10y ago
    70 years of being a family-owned, regional playing-card company is pretty much the definition of stagnation. Hiroshi Yamauchi deserves credit for having the vision to expand into electronic games, but nothing they did before Miyamoto could truly be considered a market-shaping event. Other than switching to electronics and hiring Miyamoto, Yamauchi was a middling CEO at best. Super Mario is one of the most recognizable characters in the world. The NES sold 60 million units. The SNES sold 50 million units. If a great CEO had been running Nintendo at any point since ~1983, Nintendo would be Disney right now.
bobajeff 10y ago
It's important to understand that some business decisions aren't based off of money. Sometimes they are based on the emotions of the people working at the company. Like a TV network cancelling a series with good ratings because an executive wants to put something else in it's slot to further his legacy. Or a company hiring and promoting someone unqualified because they remind the director of themselves earlier in life. Or a game company ending a successful series because the head of software was tired of making it.
Raphmedia 10y ago
I've always heard of Nintendo that they only cared for the Japan market and that all else was simply an happy side effect.
indy 10y ago
This reminds me of Disney releasing one of their classic films for a limited time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault) In the future if Nintendo were to re-release the NES Classic (or a SNES Classic) the demand, hype and publicity would be astronomical.
- mcphage 10y ago
  > This reminds me of Disney releasing one of their classic films for a limited time I believe that decision almost killed Disney—they stopped making new films, and they made their classic films difficult or impossible to come by, and ended up with kids that didn't know or care who any of their characters were. I'm glad they turned that one around.
matthewbauer 10y ago
I think they'll bring it back later for maximum kitsch value like McDonald's does with the McRib.

I know right?! Either that, or they know something I don't. They could probably make a lot more from selling these. It's like they don't need it and want to keep it limited in numbers, which doesn't rhyme with how many original NES' were sold and how OK they were with that. :) Or maybe they want to start selling NES titles on the Switch and they don't want to compete with themselves or something?

azeirah 10y ago
> they know something I don't Am I weird for thinking that it's very likely that an entire company with over 100 years of experience _does_ know something that you don't?
- greedo 10y ago
  Institutional knowledge gets lost everytime an employee dies or leaves the company.
  - chongli 10y ago
    Tell me about it! Squaresoft is no longer the company that made the great games of my childhood (SNES era). All of the key talent that went into those games has left the company.
    - lcfcjs 10y ago
      FFXV is pretty awesome though!
- mattnewton 10y ago
  Well, they can think they know something that isn't true anymore. I've seen it before at companies, the circumstances leading up to their success are often repeated as sacrosanct steps not to be questioned.
- EpicEng 10y ago
  If only it worked that way. Besides, Wii U anyone? They have plenty of recent fumbles we could bring up.
brilliantcode 10y ago
Anytime I see Switch mentioned, I think about nintendo's ol' switcheroo 22 years ago that ultimately outdid nintendo.
- aaronbrethorst 10y ago
  Are you referring to the Pokemon Company?
  - scrame 10y ago
    More likely the Sony drive for SNES that they scrapped and Sony made into the playstation.
    - brilliantcode 10y ago
      Yes, it's my favorite story. tl;dr: Sony gets backstabbed by Nintendo, proceeds to destroy them in their own staple industry for the next few decades by releasing Sony Playstation.
notadoc 10y ago
You'd expect some virtual console on the Switch but that is still missing the point of the NES Classic, which is cheap enough to be an impulse buy or a gift, and cashes in on the nostalgia of an entire generation. I know a lot of people who haven't played video games since they were kids who wanted the NES Classic, it has a unique appeal.

duskwuff 10y ago

The only possible explanation I can think of is that a replacement product is in the works (e.g, wider game selection, SNES support, downloadable games, etc). Otherwise... WTF.

Asooka 10y ago
That product is called the Switch.
- wernercd 10y ago
  The Switch has a lesser appeal than a $50 box that has a lifetime of nostalgia.
  - tartuffe78 10y ago
    Not for everybody, and not for most people I'd wager.
- chc 10y ago
  The Switch doesn't have any NES or SNES games for it at all.
  - chadgeidel 10y ago
    *yet I would be shocked if the Virtual Console wasn't running on the Switch by the end of the year.
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      rumor mill suggests as early as this summer
trapperkeeper79 10y ago
They really have the worst supply chain out there. A bunch of people I know wanted this and/or the Switch. These are casual gamers who may not care later.

takeda 10y ago

Releasing it or discontinuing it? Discontinuation makes sense, because that console was a dead end, you couldn't add more games etc, so IMO it was more of a novelty. As for releasing, it would be better if they make it not a dead end product. Someone mentioned here that many chips using there were already EOL when it was released, so maybe this was a creative way to get rid of some components and make money out of them that otherwise they would throw away?

chc 10y ago
> Discontinuation makes sense, because that console was a dead end, you couldn't add more games etc, so IMO it was more of a novelty. That doesn't make much sense. Not everyone who currently wants one has got one. They're absolutely flying off shelves. You wouldn't discontinue something like that because it's "a novelty."
- takeda 10y ago
  You would, if you would run out of components to build them. All I'm saying is that when they came up with it, they planned it to be a dead end, e.g. fixed number of games, no ability to purchase games (either physically or download from internet), build using components that are EOL and no longer being produced...
EpicEng 10y ago
A "novelty" with massive demand and no supply. I don't get your logic.

padobson 10y ago

Exactly this. Nintendo and Twitter are extremely similar. Twitter lucked into an AAA product, and management hasn't been able to leverage it to anything like the Facebook competitor it should have been. Nintendo lucked into hiring a game design genius (Miyamoto) who also happened to be a great mentor and producer, meaning they've had a steady stream of AAA games for 30+ years. If either one of these companies had great CEOs, they would easily be dominating their respective industries.

astrange 10y ago
Nintendo has had several great CEOs who are no longer with us.
EpicEng 10y ago
Nintendo is a 127 year old company. Pretty sure they didn't stagnate for 100 years before finally hitting their stride with Miyamoto.
- padobson 10y ago
  70 years of being a family-owned, regional playing-card company is pretty much the definition of stagnation. Hiroshi Yamauchi deserves credit for having the vision to expand into electronic games, but nothing they did before Miyamoto could truly be considered a market-shaping event. Other than switching to electronics and hiring Miyamoto, Yamauchi was a middling CEO at best. Super Mario is one of the most recognizable characters in the world. The NES sold 60 million units. The SNES sold 50 million units. If a great CEO had been running Nintendo at any point since ~1983, Nintendo would be Disney right now.

bobajeff 10y ago

It's important to understand that some business decisions aren't based off of money. Sometimes they are based on the emotions of the people working at the company. Like a TV network cancelling a series with good ratings because an executive wants to put something else in it's slot to further his legacy. Or a company hiring and promoting someone unqualified because they remind the director of themselves earlier in life. Or a game company ending a successful series because the head of software was tired of making it.

Raphmedia 10y ago

I've always heard of Nintendo that they only cared for the Japan market and that all else was simply an happy side effect.

indy 10y ago

This reminds me of Disney releasing one of their classic films for a limited time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault) In the future if Nintendo were to re-release the NES Classic (or a SNES Classic) the demand, hype and publicity would be astronomical.

mcphage 10y ago
> This reminds me of Disney releasing one of their classic films for a limited time I believe that decision almost killed Disney—they stopped making new films, and they made their classic films difficult or impossible to come by, and ended up with kids that didn't know or care who any of their characters were. I'm glad they turned that one around.

matthewbauer 10y ago

I think they'll bring it back later for maximum kitsch value like McDonald's does with the McRib.