But they're not even paying the bills. Expectations from them have reached an all-time low, both creatively and financially. Their approach to most of their cash cows has run them into the ground - NSMB is a great example of the much broader toxicity that has seeped across their software development approach. Many of their big franchises have squandered their relevance and missed the boat on opportunities that other publishers and franchises in similar spaces - with which Nintendo competes regardless of how much they'd prefer otherwise and how many "fundamental differences" you can point out - have been more than capable of seizing.
The critiques of Nintendo are monstrously different than the critiques leveled at most other companies, precisely because Nintendo isn't actually getting good results and especially because their figurehead makes these kinds of professions about the industry while not really doing anything to change the tempo within his own company.
if you release a huge game and it brings in $500MM dollars in Q4, and you run a big company and it's public and you have investors who care about Quarterly Stability with a focus on YoY growth, how do you at least match that revenue the following Q4?
if a "big, innovative" new game requires 1 year of pre production and 2 years of dedicated development (so, 3 years to launch), and executive management tells you that you need to bring in at least $500MM to match last year's Q4... how do you propose you do that?
How do you maintain that revenue?
If the game you want to make - that you're referencing in your post above, this fictional game - really needs 3 years, what do you do?
I'm seriously asking you, what would your product strategy be?
Have a dozen studious all at different timelines that have pre pro going on at different stages all building huge games that only come out every 3 years? that's a massive amount of employees on payroll... and the risk of one game flopping and having to fire a lot of people is kind of rough. and games delay, so if you miss one, how do you fill that?
It's clear what Nintendo's builds toward with their various Mario lines on the image that's floating around.
You have to maintain some baseline of revenue while you build your 3-year game.
Companies can take slightly different approaches, but the math tends to lean in the same direction.
Ubi had a huge hit with AC and now annulaizes it to maintain that revenue - roughly with the same launch dates. And takes 3-4 years and releases big new IPs on top of that with the money they are making from other games (AC keeps them from shrinking as an organization).
Rockstar releases 1 GTA every 5 years, and pretty much makes the same revenue as AC does in 5 years but with 1 game. they also do not grow really as a company, and keep their team sizes lean and small and fit within an organization that's larger than itself. And is managed by 2 people very closely.
both are succesful business strategies.
EA has it's sports line which come out the same time every year as well as it's base, and then grows into social and mobile and tries the occasional hot new thing and then builds on that success.
Activision operates specifically like a CPG company in it's mentality, taking very few but very big risks and increases their attach rates and grows those brands typically over an entire generation.
Nintendo has it's strategy too, and it relies heavily on annual mario.
Does that mean they are creatively bankrupt? not at all, they do the same as a lot of people. it's clear which product lines are for revenue and which are for advancement of the industry, or however you want to spin in. but they can't be blamed for not wanting to lay off a ton of people every year because they can't hit their revenue goals and need to shrink, in the hopes they have another huge hit every 3 years and can re-hire those people again. it's just not how they operate.
and yes, the wii u is a tank. the product didn't take off. but that's not really what we are talking about here, are we?
okay, /businesstalkout!
