Nintendo Is Hurting :(

[CavZee]

To clarify: by "right the ship" I was referring to the future direction of Nintendo as a whole, not saving the Wii U. It's pretty much toast at this point. They just have to salvage what they can with it.

[BoringSupreez]

Nintendo's course is fine if you leave the Wii U out of the picture. The 3DS is a success by pretty much any measure. They survived the Gamecube years on the back of the GBA, I think they can do the same with the 3DS. And like someone already said, if they cut the Wii U off they'll lose so much trust and support.

[Gunstar Green]

OK, maybe not like a "crash" per say like the early 80s but their are some major studios that are not doing so hot right now. Capcom comes to mind in a second which I think will be dead soon. It is becoming too much to make a game in today's market since most are hitting multi-million dollars to just make the game and it must sell x amount of money within a few days to just make cost and too many game companies are putting all of their eggs in one basket. What would happen if GTAV did not sell or the sales numbers were much lower than Rockstar had hoped for? They would be hit big time.

That's no different than the motion picture industry really and people have been predicting the death of giant special effects blockbusters for years because of it (there weer a lot of major blockbusters bombs and under-performances last year especially). If the money isn't going one place it's just going somewhere else. We're seeing the fall of a lot of names that have been in the industry for a long time and the rise of others. That's just business unfortunately.

As for the 32X debacle I think that the 32X's effect on Sega has been exaggerated by the Internet. If people didn't buy the Saturn because of the 32X it's more likely due to the confusion it generated. If anything people lost trust in Sega after the Saturn failed, not the 32X.

Nintendo is between a rock and a hard place though. They risk alienating users by dropping support for their current system or they continue losing money by developing games for a system that isn't selling while having to support the system almost entirely by themselves because other developers are losing interest. Like I said in my last post they can keep this up for a while, but the shit's got to hit the fan sometime.

I do hope the 3DS is strong enough to hold things together. The GBA had irrelevant competition but the 3DS still has to hold out against smart devices. They can be thankful Pokemon has managed to remain such a phenomenon.

[CavZee]

This was a pretty solid read so I figure I'll share it.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/how-wou ... ndos-bacon

I was always against the GamePad-less bundle but I think now is the time. $199 console with a Pro controller instead of the GamePad just in time for Bayo2, DKC:TF, Mario Kart, and of course Smash Bros. would be an enticing package even for the most casual fence sitter no? You can already navigate everything with Pro controller just fine already anyway, aside from the eShop. So it wouldn't take much work on the OS side of things.

[Gunstar Green]

From that article:

And I'd think long and hard about letting the Western arm of the company find some more autonomy. Let Retro and Next Level work on some of their own properties; with digital it becomes much easier to experiment with smaller titles.

Yes. This dammit.

[Konacha]

That's no different than the motion picture industry really and people have been predicting the death of giant special effects blockbusters for years because of it (there weer a lot of major blockbusters bombs and under-performances last year especially). If the money isn't going one place it's just going somewhere else. We're seeing the fall of a lot of names that have been in the industry for a long time and the rise of others. That's just business unfortunately.

I agree but there is more than just that. However, I feel that we will get wayyyy off topic if we go in depth about it.

As for the 32X debacle I think that the 32X's effect on Sega has been exaggerated by the Internet. If people didn't buy the Saturn because of the 32X it's more likely due to the confusion it generated. If anything people lost trust in Sega after the Saturn failed, not the 32X.

As someone who did buy a 32X at the time (mainly for Knuckle's Chaotix) I felt bad and cheated that the system was already dead yet I still got my parents to get me a Sega Saturn and then I got them later on to get me a Dreamcast. Granted I wasn't a huge mega gamer when I was younger and didn't follow up on stuff but at that point it felt stupid that I was buying more systems that were dropping support (and yes, I know I kept buying them so I was an idiot because I was a big Sonic fan back then). Yet that is just me.

[CavZee]

From that article:

And I'd think long and hard about letting the Western arm of the company find some more autonomy. Let Retro and Next Level work on some of their own properties; with digital it becomes much easier to experiment with smaller titles.

Yes. This dammit.

Yeah I agree there too. They should also invest money into smaller western studios with the goal of growing talent and eventually maybe adding to their first party developers. I'm also curious as to what Reggie and co. actually do at NoA besides localize and market games? Shouldn't they be out there wining. dining, and cutting checks like NCL seems to be doing to JP Publishers?

[ZeroAX]

Ditch the gamepad controller (have it bundled with Nintendo Land for 100€ like the fitness board, and say that it's used for special games and allows you to play your games without a TV), bundle it with a classic controller, reduce the price by 100€ for the PREMIUM model, and most of all: re-brand. New name, new casing (add a hard drive to this one please, flash memory is expensive and stupid) and hope to god that your amazing games can drive sales.

[Violent By Design]

OK, maybe not like a "crash" per say like the early 80s but their are some major studios that are not doing so hot right now. Capcom comes to mind in a second which I think will be dead soon. It is becoming too much to make a game in today's market since most are hitting multi-million dollars to just make the game and it must sell x amount of money within a few days to just make cost and too many game companies are putting all of their eggs in one basket. What would happen if GTAV did not sell or the sales numbers were much lower than Rockstar had hoped for? They would be hit big time.

Yet at the same time there are many, many, many tiny studios that are making huge profits off of their games. The gaming industry is way bigger than it has always been. More people are playing video games, talking about video games and making video games than ever before.

As for the "major" studios like Capcom going out of business. Fuck them, who cares? They'll be replaced by video game studios and businesses that are more efficient.


The fact of the matter is, like film, when games/movies become to "expensive" to make -...studios would merely go back to making cheaper films. There will be no video game collapse.

[CavZee]

Ditch the gamepad controller (have it bundled with Nintendo Land for 100€ like the fitness board, and say that it's used for special games and allows you to play your games without a TV), bundle it with a classic controller, reduce the price by 100€ for the PREMIUM model, and most of all: re-brand. New name, new casing (add a hard drive to this one please, flash memory is expensive and stupid) and hope to god that your amazing games can drive sales.

No need to rebrand, it's too late to change that. People who are into games know what the Wii U is, they just dont want one for X number of reasons. Also releasing a new hardware revision would just lose more money right? They should just focus on making the next piece of hardware the best it can be while still delivering critically acclaimre software for the Wii U salvaging what they can.