Is Nintendo hitting the skids? | Hacker News Reader

Is Nintendo hitting the skids?

nohighscores.com

Every major announcement Nintendo makes is met with this type of cynicism. The truth is that Nintendo is the only company who has the balls to try something new, and is willing to fail in order to bring gamers fun new experiences they couldn't have before. The fact that the Wii caused the competitors to react by incorporating motion controls into their games makes it pretty clear that we should expect to hear about Sony and Microsoft's amazing new touch-screen based controllers sometime in 2014.

I think the big cause for concern isn't Nintendo's innovation, it's the fact that they can't inspire third party developers to really innovate on their machine. As Gimicky as the controls were on the Wii, it was and is a decent system (granted mine has collected dust for 2 years) but it just didn't have the support to make it a gaming system worth mention in the mind of traditional gamers.

Nintendo originally assumed that their slimmed down hardware would be attractive to 3rd parties because they wouldn't have to change their toolchains. Unfortunately the industry was already moving on and dropping the Wii meant less complication in the workflow.

I know that I was truly disappointed and deceived by the Wii. Other than Zelda, I feel the console was a waste of money. Sure, Wii sports and some other games are fun from time to time, but it gets old fast.

I bought the Wii on launch day and haven't used it in well over a year, however, my xbox on the other hand is used much more frequently, along with the kinect. IMO, xbox 360, xbox live, and the kinect is just a better experience.

I won't be fooled again, and in the case of Wii U, I'll just rent the console to play whatever new version of Zelda and that'll be that.

I'm discouraged to see that Nintendo is going to continue using physical media as the primary channel for sales. Sony and MS are already experimenting with full game downloads on the current generation, and it's not too much of a stretch to think that the sales distribution for their next consoles will heavily favor downloads.

How do you sell downloaded titles on the secondary market?

It might just be the games I've purchased but on the PS3 I haven't gotten any discount at all by purchasing a new game via download.

With physical media I can buy it, play it and sell it back for almost half price when I'm done, I don't keep games for very long.

With a download, i'd have to pay half the price to make it worth my while.

Though I'll admit i like to browse video game stores so I don't really put in a value for the time it takes to go and purchase the game since i'm going to be at the store anyway. I guess this may be different for others.

I'm ok with sacrificing the second hand market on the alter of digital downloads. Getting away from the constraints of physical distribution has opened up so many options for pricing on services like Steam, and it's allowing startup companies like Runic Games to really thrive. The future of game companies is going to be so much leaner then they are right now.

> I'm ok with sacrificing the second hand market on the alter of digital downloads.

I am as well, as long as it works out monetarily in my favor. Under my current scenario all downloaded games must be about 50% cheaper to make it worth my while.

Otherwise there isn't a value proposition there for me.

The reaction from the game industry as a whole, even including the fringe elements, has been pretty lukewarm. Another gimmicky peripheral, unknown hardware capabilities, and it sounds like Nintendo hasn't locked down silicon yet, meaning that next year will be all first party titles and it'll launch, again, without third party support.

And then you get response from people like the developer of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, which highlights exactly what a lot of people are thinking:

https://twitter.com/#!/the1console/status/81023029114699776 https://twitter.com/#!/the1console/status/81023726652624897

Couple that with Nintendo's level of hostility against indie devs, and their complete failure to grasp what it is that is making iOS such a threat to their gaming business (hint: it's the app store, not the touch screen), I can't help but think that Nintendo has peaked and is now on the way back down.

They may still make a lot of bank off of their wacky controller and kid friendly gimmicks (though I wonder how friendly it will be in a group of children and only one of them gets to use the special controller), but their days of influence in the game industry are coming to a close, methinks.

They seem to be trying to position themselves so that they're not viewed as competing with App Store games. Granted, they still, to some degree at least, have to compete over developer resources, and their attitude toward indie developers is incredibly ill-advised.

I really don't see the controller as gimmicky, though, at least in the sense that touch screens in general aren't really seen as a gimmick anymore, and other aspects of the controller have been done before. Moreover, someone upgrading this time would actually have to buy fewer peripherals than for previous systems.

Harsher things were said of the Wii, and it was ultimately pretty successful. I'd wager Nintendo will stay relevant precisely long as it continues to produce quality first party titles, but not a moment longer.

If the only thing keeping Nintendo relevant is their first party software, I would expect them to go the way of Sega fairly quickly. I don't think Nintendo will be in the hardware business in 15 years unless they dramatically change their corporate culture and attitudes towards third party development. That means everything from who they allow to develop titles to what tools they provide for development. Given the overall level of enmity they've created amongst the indie development community and the large third party devs (thanks for telling everyone about the motion plus about half a year too late, jerks), I strongly doubt they'll win any hearts and minds. The only reason any third parties even bother with Wii dev now is because of the marketshare, even then, that marketshare has not resulted in the expected returns for most third parties.

Not insignificantly, though, Sega dropped the ball on their (already limited selection of) first-party software before they dropped out of the hardware business. Nintendo has multiple franchises that are all at least as strong as Sonic was in the Genesis days. Nintendo's console sales have always been held up by first party franchises - they burned bridges with 3rd parties long ago by charging extortionate license fees on the SNES. It'll be interesting to see how far they need to go to tip the scales against them.

I don't really understand all of the characterizations of the new controller as "novel", "risky", or even "innovative", for that matter. It's essentially an application of the concepts behind the (very successful) DS, and the idea of having a separate screen for one player has been done before on a home console with the Gamecube's Gameboy Advance connectivity - which mostly only seemed unsuccessful because it was non-standard (Pac Man Vs. was great, but no one had all the hardware to play it).

The concepts aren't new - the same is essentially true of the 3DS (aside from the occasional game that uses Augmented Reality, which hasn't, as far as I've seen, been heavily advertised). The bottom line is - are customers ready to shell out for a hardware upgrade, and does the ratio of price to quality/number of good games convince them to do so? So far with the 3DS the answer has been "no", but whether or not the same will be true for the WiiU is anyone's guess.

"More and more, Nintendo is looking like a lumbering, hubristic giant overconfident in their brand identity and almost unresponsive to industry trends and changes."

Nintendo reminds me a lot of Sony. A Japanese company used to winning by always doing things its own way. Wii was an incredible success, but it all seemed so random, the product of a cool novelty coinciding with an economic boom. Nintendo has coasted for a long time on the considerable goodwill/might of their brand and properties. The marketplace never really cared about a lack of genuine innovation or progress, so long as there was a new Mario or Zelda around the corner - consider that even now they are releasing a console whose tech will only be on par with consoles released 6 years before it. In a way it's refreshing because Nintendo is a game company that just cares about games.

But I really think Nintendo is in real trouble now. There are ridiculously cheap (and very good) mobile games for the smartphones everyone already has, while consoles now live and breathe with rich internet-based ecosystems (which Nintendo couldn't have cared less about with Wii). I'm very curious to see how Wii U will sell considering 9% unemployment and the Wii paperweights currently sitting in living rooms across America.

Didn't people just like this say the first Wii had behind-the-times hardware, and that it would fail from lack of DVD support? It's like all the tech geeks who've spent years trying to line up the specs-to-price ratio of Apple vs. PC products, and are bewildered that so many people prefer the former, applying math where intuition is needed instead.

You may be impervious to design, but I assure you, users are not.

Things that have changed:

1) Xbox+Kinnect outclasses the Wii/mote in a pretty incredible way.

2) iOS is eating into DS sales and making even $10 games look "expensive" (good $.99 apps are smaller but have updates/new content which makes them seem like amazing deals).

3D was a foolish key-feature to tout in their new handheld, they should have copied Apple's AppStore (which they tried to do with the DSi but it compares poorly).

I have yet to see Kinect actually achieve the range of motion play the Wii did. While the tech is cool, having buttons is still very important to most kinds of games. Maybe developers will figure this out but so far MS lacks breadth in their motion play.

Satoru Iwata has been quote say that Apple is the "enemy of the future." I'm sure they are watching this very closely. Regardless, Nintendo is very strongly set into its "blue ocean" business strategy and I think the Wii and now the Wii U are very good examples of how they make it work.

3D on the 3DS was a little more questionable and I think we'll see that affect the lifetime of their mobile system. It's cool like more polygons are cool and that hasn't been the deciding factor in the past. I don't see them turning this around either. Top it off with Reggie Fils-Aime's statements that Nintendo is not interested in working with indie developers, we're very likely going to see this be a stagnant handheld propped up by first party titles (sound familiar?).

1) Nintendo Wii release date: November 19, 2006 Kinect release date: November 4, 2010

I should hope the Kinect outclasses the Wii. But Nintendo is already moving on so I'm not seeing a point here.

2) You made this up? The release of the Iphone (June, 2007) had no affect on DS sales. http://i.imgur.com/Z7kkd.png I couldn't find breakdown stats for game sales but I don't see why people would continue buying DSes but not buy games. Also Nintendo doesn't loss lead their consoles so every sale is profit, unlike launches by Microsoft and Sony.

Note: I said iOS, not iPhone. The competitor to the DS is the iPod Touch (all my friends kids' of about 7y+ have one now - 4 years ago it was DS/PS3/Wii). The last kid-friendly home party, the kids weren't crowded around a Wii/PS3 like years before, but an iPad.

Check out their stock price over the past 5 years: http://www.google.com//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1...

Their precipitous decline (and lack of recovery) pretty much coincides with the debut of the Apple App Store (mid-2008).

Nintendo even recognizes the fact: http://www.businessinsider.com/nintendo-execs-admit-apple-is...

More like the release of the app store caused massive growth for apple

http://www.google.com//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1...

Comparing the two it's obvious to see Nintendo ran into the same trouble apple did, followed by apple creating an entire new market segment for itself to grow into. Nintendo on the other hand has reached market saturation and is trying to up-sell DS owners into a new model. I find your analysis lacking.

And yes, obviously now that Apple is selling games Nintendo sees them as a competitor.

I'm interested in the hand wringing motivation. This is the company that had the 'GameCube' if you will recall and completely missed participating in the generation of consoles before the current one.

So while current technology is long in the tooth as it were and market saturation is cutting into sales. That doesn't mean they are dead unless they are mismanaged (see Sega, Coleco).

Somehow I don't expect really creative changes like we saw with the Wii and its controller technology coming from Sony or Microsoft, in that I think it seems to be outside their risk profile. Of course the new crop at Microsoft seems to be a bit more aggresive. (I believe that because Kinect was a much more interesting response to WiiMotion than the Move was).

>Particularly in light of all that promise and potential that was squandered (or possibly illusory) in the Wii's original incarnation.

...the what?

What exactly was squandered in the Wii's original incarnation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii

>As of June 2011, the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales,[7] and in December 2009 broke the record for best-selling console in a single month in the United States.

What more could you possibly want?

>When I saw the controller, my first thought was "$500".

Probably not. Nintendo has never launched a console at $500. The Wii was noted for being cheap, and I really, really doubt they'd launch this without being able to make it at a similar price point to their previous offerings.

>Sure, the Wii U looks impressive. But no Blu-Ray or DVD support? Really?

I sure as hell hope not!

...okay, maybe not that emphatically. Still, there's a Blu-Ray player built into my TV, and as far as I can tell that's becoming common. I don't need a peripheral to do that for me, and I certainly don't want them to tack on an extra $50 for a capability I already have.

Besides, who uses DVDs anymore? It's all about Netflix.

>As Microsoft and Sony move ever closer to evolving into that mythological set-top box that does it all, how do you justify buying a presumably expensive console that does just one thing anymore?

Because I don't want a set-top box that does it all. It's bad enough (but acceptable) that video games are closed-source; hopefully my media doesn't have to be the same way.

>Mario and Zelda brands no longer sell systems in the long term when the competition is so stiff,

...alright, my Zelda fanboy is showing, but Skyward Sword is probably going to make me shell out for a console and I haven't bought one in a decade (I habitually use my friends' consoles, though).

>They know this, which is why they bend over backwards to assure everyone that they have the support of firms like EA, Activision, THQ, and Ubisoft. But when you're releasing behind-the-times hardware that has features and peripherals completely different than competing platforms, it makes the prospect- and return on investment- of developing much riskier.

This I agree with, but on a slightly different point than the author.

Last I checked it wasn't close to easy to get a license to develop games for the Wii or 3DS. You have be a big company to afford a site license for the dev kit and you need specialized hardware to load your stuff onto the system. Nintendo doesn't need EA and Ubisoft; for one thing, EA sucks. Nintendo really needs to open up to independent developers. This is where Microsoft really shined with the Xbox ecosystem, obviously bringing some of their desktop expertise to gaming.

Forget weirdness worries -- indie devs love developing for unique hardware and odd platforms. Independent game developers thrive on the iPhone App Store. They also built the Facebook application ecosystem. By contrast, large, established firms shy away from developing for unique hardware, because of the uncertainty involved.

The proper strategic direction for Nintendo is to stop chasing EA and learn to open up to independent game developers. Even Apple, the infamously elitist company's infamously elitist company, has figured that out.

Incidentally, as one other commenter has pointed out, Apple and Google via iOS and Android seem to pose more of a threat to Nintendo than do Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo had an unshakeable stranglehold on the handheld gaming market until the iPhone came along.

I wholly agree with you, though I think what he may have meant by "squandered potential" was their decision to target their marketing (and many of their first party titles) at more casual gamers, seemingly abandoning their core audience.

I interpreted "squandered potential" to the motion-based controls being relegated to cliche or uninspired gameplay.

Good point. There was an absolute dearth of games where mouse-like control would make sense, which is what the controller was actually good at. A few mediocre FPSs, a port of Pikmin, and I don't even remember any Tactical RPGs or RTS games.

For people with a limited budget, a Nintendo console does need to do it all to be the one stop set top box entertainment shop. Their omission of DVD playback on the Wii (to save money on licensing, the hardware is perfectly capable of doing it) was a pretty bad move for them.

The one encouraging thing I've heard out of Nintendo Japan was the vision for the Wii U as something that you always have on, that you constantly go to while you're at home, and the controller with the screen facilitates that. Some interesting things could come out of that. Unfortunately, I just don't think the hardware is up to snuff for that kind of usage.

I played with the Wii U controller at E3, and it is unfortunately not going to be particularly useful for doing much other than playing games. It has a big ridge across the back, which makes it somewhat more pleasant to hold horizontally when you're using the game controls, but makes it totally useless and uncomfortable for holding vertically, which is how most people would want to hold it if they were surfing the web. It also just feels cheap and low grade.

I completely agree with what you said about appealing to indie developers, but that strongly clashes with Nintendo's corporate culture. In general, Nintendo's business practices and overall philosophy are laughably outdated by international business standards. Nintendo Japan is the only entity with any power or control over products at all, every other entity is just a glorified marketing arm for NOJ. Reggie Fils-Aime and the other apes over at NOA have no say whatsoever when it comes to long term strategy or product development.

You're also spot on when it comes to the smartphone threat against Nintendo. During the lean years of the N64 and Gamecube, Nintendo could fall back on the huge success of the Gameboy, GBA, and DS, but that market will be almost completely eroded by smartphones in the next few years.

It's a good time to short Nintendo.

"Yeah, we all know that Nintendo's first party development is the best in the business"

Is it, though?

Microsoft makes Halo and Gears of War, plus others. Sony makes God of War and Team Ico's awesome games (Shadow of the Colossus, etc.), LittleBigPlanet, etc. (I know both make even more than this, but I'm not a big gamer anymore)

I think "Nintendo makes the best first party titles" just isn't true anymore. At least in a "we all know" sense. I'd say it is at best debatable, and at worst simply untrue.

(Zelda and Metroid ARE really awesome, though.)

the generation's top titles either pass you buy

Or get better editing.

I don't know. I've had some of my best gaming experiences with the Wii, but they're all Nintendo games, and they are widely spaced. Too widely spaced in my opinion to really justify getting a Wii again. There really wasn't much of any other developer on the console.

It's sad that Nintendo is starting off the next generation by continuing with a disk based system. Every console now has an online store, why not keep it to that? Why not open up with an Apple like app store (but don't call it that) and get more developers involved?

Nintendo is just lumbering forward until AppleTV finally supports the app store and kills whatever Nintendo was thinking about.

All you need is an app store on the AppleTV and you can have a iPad or an iPhone controlling the system. What does Nintendo bring to it? The balance board?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com