5 ms·
Are you kidding? Of the big three, I consider Nintendo dead-man walking. The reality is that the console business is a big company game, and Nintendo is just to
by macspoofing 13y ago
Are you kidding? Of the big three, I consider Nintendo dead-man walking. The reality is that the console business is a big company game, and Nintendo is just too small. You need to sink billions of dollars to develop and subsidize the console, be willing to lose money for years and then do it all over again 6-10 years later. Microsoft can do it, and Sony can do it, Nintendo can't. They need to make money because unlike Microsoft and Sony, they don't have other revenue streams. This necessities them releasing under-powered consoles. They got lucky with the Wii. They are not so lucky with the WiiU.
They are still the king of mobile console gaming ... sort of. Tablet and smartphones are eating away their bottom line, and the trend will continue (the minute that Apple and Google decide to focus on mobile gaming in earnest will spell the end of Nintendo). The problem for Nintendo is that mobile gaming is an afterthought for Apple and Google. They don't need to do well in that area to survive, however every point of marketshare that Nintendo loses because little Johnny is fine enough playing games on his iPad instead of buying a 3DS hurts Nintendo incredibly. Everyone will have a smartphone or a tablet, so justifying a 3DS purchase is that much harder.
They make good games, yes, but it won't change the fact that they are in a lot of trouble.
- Afforess 13y agoI agree. I don't see Nintendo still being a hardware company in 10 years. They are either liquidated, sold to someone else for IP's, or transform into a software game company. I hope it's the latter. There is no money in hardware, it has no future outside of ever-tinier margins.
- kamaal 13y ago>>There is no money in hardware, it has no future outside of ever-tinier margins. You've got to be kidding me. People don't go around put an iPhone with an app, in places where they need a $5 embedded system.
- Keyframe 13y agoPeople have been saying they're good as dead since N64. It seems to me they are doing just fine.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoIMO, net income falling for five years with no end in sight is not "doing just fine." Just because people have wrongly claimed something in the past does not mean that they can't be rightly claiming it now.
- mkr-hn 13y agoThat fall is from the high of the Wii's unprecedented success.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoIt doesn't matter where you're coming from if the destination is zero (or negative, as it was last year). http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ntdoy/financials http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ntdoy/financials Can anyone honestly look at these numbers and tell me Nintendo is doing "just fine?" I can see, "might be OK," or, "will not definitely die," but "just fine," is a total self-deception, especially with the recognition that the bump at the start of this year includes the sales of a new console.
- mkr-hn 13y agoIf I recall correctly, they always go in or near negative when they launch a new system. Launching something like a console is expensive and causes much trepidation in a volatile place like a stock market. You can't judge a 124 year old company by the occasional bad quarter.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoI'm not judging them by one quarter -- for starters, the financials for 2012 on my link are the whole year. Anyway, if they were still developing consoles that had staying power or mass appeal, I wouldn't consider these financials significant. (The Wii did not have staying power -- many people bought it because it was neat but then didn't use it. That's not a recipe for long-term success. The WiiU doesn't even have the mass appeal the Wii had, and its staying power has yet to be proven.)
- neovive 13y agoThis could be another Sega situation here -- trouble financing hardware, but great at making games.
- banachtarski 13y agoThis makes me sad. Nintendo games (even the sequels) exhibit creativity and appeal an order of magnitude beyond the "mainstream" games which simply rehash visuals and weaponry. I think they are the closest to mastering games as an "art form."
- macspoofing 13y agoNintendo has many great games and they certainly have great brands, but let's no go overboard here. Nintendo is perfectly willing to "rehash visuals and weaponry" by releasing yet another Mario or Zelda game.
- jug6ernaut 13y agoI don't think you can look at what Nintendo does in that light, especially because of the usual sense "rehash" is used in. For example, COD(yes i know this is the obvious dead horse, but it is so for a reason). It is a fact, that every game since COD4 till present is running on the SAME GAME ENGINE, updated yes, but the same game engine. Virtually the exact same game mechanics. Same for games like "Madden". But then you have Nintendo. Lets look at Mario. Every console has had a different style of Mario, platforms all, but incredibly different and yet people love them for the same reasons. THAT is what makes Nintendo awesome, its that they can make games that both the aspects of being different and the same add to the game. Zelda, while not as much the same recipe, is mostly the same.
- alwaysinshade 13y ago> For example, COD [...] Virtually the exact same game mechanics. For single player, sure, but COD is a multiplayer focused game. The meta game in Black Ops 2 (the pick 10 system) is new to COD and has really changed up the game mechanics. You see a lot of diversity in player load-outs and strategies, making the game on the whole a lot more entertaining and have a lot of replay value.
- banachtarski 13y agoI disagree. Have you played the "yet another Mario or Zelda" games? They are all entirely unique in their own way and I never feel like I'm repeating myself when I play them.