Are Nintendo's Fans Killing them?

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...ii-u-is-costing-it-billions.aspx#.Urk0mPRDuSo

I have, early-and-often over the past decade, made the claim that the worst thing Nintendo has going for them are they're own fans. They were Nintendo's worst enemies during the Wii generation... often giving them in a free pass in such important sectors as: "Securing 3rd Party Support," "Making quality games with Depth," (I'm still kinda angry about Punch-Out...), "Console shortages."

You can say all you want about their niche in the market... but, as pointed out in the article above, that only helps if they have a strong installed base. And the installed base of the Wii has pretty much evaporated with the Wii U.

But the problem is actually worse than that... The Wii was really less of a successful platform and more of a successful toy, A-la Guitar Hero. And like guitar hero... millions of people bought the Wii... played with it... and then let it collect dust in their closet next to their plastic guitars.

It was so long in-between releases of 1st party software (which were often pretty short to begin with) and the 3rd party software was generally so horrible that there was rarely any reason to keep it connected to the television while people were running out of places to plug other things in.

Now their biggest 1st party game struggled to reach 1 million sales... this time not due to its quality... but due to the small install base of the Wii U.

I don't think, even at this point, it's too late for Nintendo to turn the system around. I just know that they want. This is the same company that decided against going disc-based initially and wanted to hold onto cartridges for as long as they could. This is the company that decided against DVD playback even though many of their consoles would've been cable of it. This is the most stubborn video game company in the entire world, and they still have enough money in their coffers to remain so...


But if they weren't... They held onto the rights for Killer Instinct for two decades and did absolutely nothing with them until they finally relinquished them to Microsoft. But they still have dozens of other franchises that they haven't touched in 10-20 years. Nintendo's biggest success may have been Mario, but the NES was also strongly supported on sales of Metal Gear, Double Dragon, the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, Final Fantasy, and the support of many other third party licenses... almost all of whom Nintendo would later lose touch with.

They could reach out to these parties again and attempt to re-establish some sort of working relationship. Develop exclusive games for their unique platform. If they were able to establish ties with even one of the above franchises, and release a bona-fide hit that sold systems... then it may convince others that Nintendo is worth taking a chance on.

What WON'T convince anyone else to invest in Nintendo are the people that have already invested in Nintendo. The stalwarts. The faithful who Nintendo's been counting on since the N64 to get them over the hump. But if those gamers actually started demanding more from Nintendo, then they might finally be compelled to listen.

I honestly dont think there are many of the people you speak of other than children, ie under 13. I can't think of anyone I personally know over that age that who owns that console without young children in that age bracket.

Just look at their best selling games, Pokemon and Skylanders; both children's games. To be honest the WiiU is just an extension of their handhelds which is where they make most/all of their money. Sega is doing just fine as a devolpment house just like Nintendo will. That said while I agree with the majority of the article I think they left out a glaring ommission. Nintendo's absence in the mobile space will be the death of them not their lack of 3rd party titles.

Their key market, ie casual and children are almost entirely in the tablet & mobile market, a place they for some stupid *** reason they refuse to enter.

Sentential said:

I honestly dont think there are many of the people you speak of other than children, ie under 13. I can't think of anyone I personally know over that age that who owns that console without young children in that age bracket.

Just look at their best selling games, Pokemon and Skylanders; both children's games. To be honest the WiiU is just an extension of their handhelds which is where they make most/all of their money. Sega is doing just fine as a devolpment house just like Nintendo will. That said while I agree with the majority of the article I think they left out a glaring ommission. Nintendo's absence in the mobile space will be the death of them not their lack of 3rd party titles.

Their key market, ie casual and children are almost entirely in the tablet & mobile market, a place they for some stupid *** reason they refuse to enter.

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That's a valid point about mobiles. But my point was a little different than the article's. Sure nintendo keeps MAKING things for children... but it's currently not the Children that are interested in buying them. As you just said, the kids have all moved on to tablets. They don't give a damned about nintendo anymore. Every kid I see at a Burgerking is using a tablet. Just the other day I saw two young brothers on their ipads. They looked like a tiny board meeting...

No... the owners of Wii U that I know of are all adults... most of them bought it for Monster Hunter. I strongly believe nintendo's strongest market right now is "the faithful"... not the kids.

And that's why they haven't moved into mobile... they're still preaching to the choir.

I'm a WiiU owner for the last 3 weeks. No kids (yet...) And the wife and I are 28. I've owned all of their consoles minus the GameCube and enjoyed them well enough for the first party games, but I would not consider myself a fanboy by any definition. It has been a while since a 3rd party game was really worth getting on a Nintendo console especially if it was multiplatform.

I bought it for WindWaker HD (didn't play the original) which was excellent. Playing through 3D world right now with the wife. Bought Pikmin (never played before) and Monster Hunter to try out. Wife pre-ordered Smash Bros and Mario Kart for me for Christmas. Can't really complain about that lineup of games, at least for maybe the next year there will be more AAA games worth playing on it than on my PS4 or (eventual) XB1.

rainless said:

That's a valid point about mobiles. But my point was a little different than the article's. Sure nintendo keeps MAKING things for children... but it's currently not the Children that are interested in buying them. As you just said, the kids have all moved on to tablets. They don't give a damned about nintendo anymore.

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That right there is what is going to kill nintendo long term; because....

most of them bought it for Monster Hunter

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I bought it for WindWaker HD (didn't play the original) which was excellent. Playing through 3D world right now with the wife. Bought Pikmin (never played before) and Monster Hunter to try out. Wife pre-ordered Smash Bros and Mario Kart for me for Christmas.

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.....the adults who bought it are trying to regain nostalgia from their years as a child. Children's system beghets children, either way you slice it; their new problem is their market isn't growing with new children interested in playing nintendo games. Once we get older/busier/dead there will be no one interested anymore. So in a sense you are right, those would be the "faithful", the issue is not them, its that nintendo isnt making any effort whatsoever to go mainstream.

That's a valid point. We're talking GENERATIONS at this point.

They're eventually going to run out of people with nostalgic interest in their systems and franchises. (They're actually at the tail end of that already.)

And Mario could've CLEANED UP on the iPad and Galaxy Tab... probably could've blown angry birds out of the water. I mean how hard could it possibly be to port New Super Mario Bros?

Then they'd have a whole new generation of nintendo fans.

I was actually shocked to learn my nieces both wanted iPads for Christmas... I mean even *I* don't have an iPad anymore. But kids these days are growing up with them...

rainless said:

That's a valid point. We're talking GENERATIONS at this point.

They're eventually going to run out of people with nostalgic interest in their systems and franchises. (They're actually at the tail end of that already.)

And Mario could've CLEANED UP on the iPad and Galaxy Tab... probably could've blown angry birds out of the water. I mean how hard could it possibly be to port New Super Mario Bros?

Then they'd have a whole new generation of nintendo fans.

I was actually shocked to learn my nieces both wanted iPads for Christmas... I mean even *I* don't have an iPad anymore. But kids these days are growing up with them...

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It's only accelerating at this point to be honest, Baytrail and Android is going to be a hot ticket as a platform for years to come. Once the Chrome OS / Android gains X86 support you'll see a whole host of things come about. Sadly unless nintendo makes a "phone" or similar they are going to be pushed further and futher out of range of everyone else.

I think Nintendos problem now is theyre trying too hard to reinvent the wheel. I dont want a control system that makes me jump around in front of my TV, I dont want a massive controller with a touchscreen on it that, to me, looks like the most uncomfortable controller ever made. I dont want a controller I have to stand on, talk to, that tracks eye movement etc etc etc. When I play games I just want to sit back on my sofa in front of my big *** LCD TV, with a beer next to me, and play. No gimmicks, just a controller and a screen. Leaving out things like DVD playback was also a massive mistake. And I always found the online part of the wii to be more of a chore than a pleasure, they made adding friends to your list a pain with the stupid friend code system, instead of just having a searchable name like the xbox and ps do. My wii ended up unused after the novelty wore off, and I ended up selling it. My DS is going the same way.

Really Legend of Zelda is a kids game? Have you SEEN some of the topics going on?

Love,Violence,Death,The decimation of Hyrule,Kidnapping, Big Rock dudes with man nipples, A cute princess with huge jugs, The sneaking Suspicion that there's something intimate going on between Link and Zelda in every game. All things I want my 5 year old experiencing.

It's not Grand Theft Auto or full on porn but it's NOT a children's game either.

By that logic Mario brothers also isn't a kid's game (or at least isn't playable by one). I think they are both playable for all ages.

@slh I'm actually impressed by the wiiu gamepad. I went into it expecting as you said a very uncomfortable experience, but it actually feels pretty good.

Mario at least has non obvious violence. Link has bombs and a large variety of weapons,gear and magic, Mario jumps on turtle's heads. When's the last time the mushroom kingdom was completely decimated by Bowser? Ganon does it almost every game which would be depressing for a kid to see this area they love so much completely destroyed. Oh I forgot about those scary mummy humping things that paralyze you and have their way with your leg.

Yes, Mario and Peach are suspected to be lovers but never in any game that I've played anyway have they ever kissed or showed any hints at romance the best thing Peach did for Mario was bake a cake for him in SM64. Nearly every game involving Link and Zelda they either hold hands, kiss, ..etc and the devs make it clearly obvious that they will one day be lovers if they're not already. And there's the Gorons with man nipples. That'd give me nightmares for weeks.

Mario has giant bullets/tanks, a fire breathing dragon/dino, guys that throw hammers and boomerangs, lava and acid pits, and drowning. Kidnapping is in virtually every game.

Now don't get me wrong, the spirit/re-dead guys in the zelda games are scarier than any level I can think of in Mario (although there are ghosts, and skeletons).

Really? I honestly didn't know that they were romance scenes between Mario and Peach. I was more of a LOZ fan. I was just trolling anyway. I was bored and figured I'd make people LOL. I don't care that I play games made for kids I watch Anime anyway at 27 years old so... I'd also let my kid play Grand Theft Auto. Okay... maybe not Grand Theft Auto but make Duke Nukem, BF4, or something. I grew up on violent video games and RPG's. Doom and Diablo was my crack cocaine at 6-7 years old. Mom didn't approve but dad let me play anyway lol.

Redead, that's what they were called I forgot. Those are creepy, I can see how they would be scary to kids. *Mummy walks up to Link paralyzes him, screams, and then starts to hump him to death* "Daddy what is he doing? Please, make him stop I keep having nightmares." ahh I can see it now... Why Nintendo hasn't received lawsuits on some things I have no idea...

I didn't find to many things scary when I was a kid. I was more afraid of the Brave Little Toaster (not trolling) than what was considered scary to most kids.

The idea that Link would go through all this unbridled INSANITY without any romantic interest in Zelda at all is enough to make me never buy another Zelda game again for the rest of my life.

BUT ANYWAY... like I was saying: Nintendo's problem is that they keep preaching to a rapidly diminishing choir.

End of story.

Nintendo's problem is that the third party developers aren't interested enough to make exclusives for the Wii U. The console isn't powerful enough for cross platform games, but it's a risk making a game for only one console. And while Nintendo knows how to properly make games for it there are so few of them. Starfox anyone? Hello?

My brother got a Wii U for Christmas and the remote play feature is more useful then I thought it would be. Also while the gamepad is very large, it isn't heavy and it comes with a charging dock. In order for the console to be more then a mediocre Mario system it's going to need a third party developer that can properly utilize the gamepad.

I think that there is a bit of a catch22 with Nintendo releasing a lot of high-stature games (as you mentioned StarFox) all close to each other. I can see there being multiple mindsets where they don't want to blow their development/game load early in the generation and nothing else to come out for the rest of the generation. They also I believe share development time (I think they have people that work across multiple games)

Janus67 said:

I think that there is a bit of a catch22 with Nintendo releasing a lot of high-stature games (as you mentioned StarFox) all close to each other. I can see there being multiple mindsets where they don't want to blow their development/game load early in the generation and nothing else to come out for the rest of the generation. They also I believe share development time (I think they have people that work across multiple games)

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Well they would have to. Nintendo is big... but they aren't MICROSOFT big... or SONY big...

Hell... they aren't even Blizzavision Big... (Or 1990's Nintendo Big either...)

They sold off a lot of their game studios over the years (Rare anyone?). They even sold that baseball team they used to own. (Or the owner of nintendo sold it.. or I forget how it worked...)

So they aren't as big as they once were. They've got no Bungie, no Team Ninja, no Kojima... they're lacking in a lot of critical areas.

But the problem isn't that third party studios aren't coming to them... and it's not that nobody's willing to take a risk on one system (they all did with the NES)... the problem is that neither of Nintendo's last TWO systems was even designed to attract third party developers.

The Gamecube was probably the last system that did that. (And who what glorious days those were... you had all the nintendo exclusives plus simultaneous releases on PS2, Xbox, AND Gamecube.)

I already know what they were thinking with the Wii... but I have NO IDEA why the Wii U was invented. It seemed specifically created to attract as few third parties as possible while lowering banishing sales to the astral planes.

Madame Cleo looks on in wonder...

I don't understand this criticism about Nintendo not releasing "mobile games" and by "mobile games" I imagine you guys are talking about android iOS type of games of which I have to say....

what other console company has done that?

Be more specific, do you mean only compared to Sony and Microsoft? As there are Sega games on mobile devices. M$ released a halo game for the win8 app store made for win8 tablets.

I don't think twitch games belong on mobile devices but pokemon would probably be perfect for it

Even a fool would be able to see that nintendo is done after the Wii U. Poor sales, lack of games that arent "already done" (i.e. copies with slightly better graphics), and many problems... Gonna be sad, and unless they do something radical in the next couple years, they will be out of the game, at least in this fashion. Perhaps nintendo and sony should team up again?