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Iwata: I misread the market, the company needs to keep track of foreign trends better
- Thread starter hongcha
- Start date
Blackage
Member
AltogetherAndrews
Member
They should have gone the PS4 route. I'd buy a decently well powered system (no super specs necessary) to play beautiful games like Wind Waker and main Mario entries. I'm not buying any system for a goofy controller.
Exterminieren
Banned
Well, there's the investor briefing next week, and there have been one or two hints that we might be getting a Nintendo Direct this Friday.
Fiction can be fun.
Hey heh I have to believe when he says he "misread the market" and they "need to keep track of foreign trends better" he has to only mean "hey Westerners want FPS/TPS games! We need to give it to em!" and "Westerners want more powerful devices, so lets compromise!"
And as for the different quality level, there's been talk of that kind of device for awhile, i don't think it's farfetched, and it'd solve their "software" issue on their own front since they'd not have to develop software for two devices.
Q3 earnings release and presentation on Jan 29.
Yeaaaaaaah, I wouldn't bet on that.
This is the problem with Iwata, every once in a while he will say he will make changes and what not to please investors. Truthfully, the change will not come, Iwata and the other Nintendo executives are too stuck in their ways. There's nothing wrong with being a Japanese company, but there is something wrong when you are a global company that is focused on making games for a Japanese audience.
Look at Sony's game division, they understand the American and European market. Nintendo just goes for blanket games for everyone, which is ambitious and does work in some cases, but it can not fulfill every culture's wants. The dramatically underpowered but cheaper device method can only work for so long.
When you include 3D screens or expensive tablets with the cheap devices, the price benefit to the consumer becomes unclear.
Smarthphones are not the answer.
cartman414
Member
Better communication with 3rd parties, Iwata.
R
Rösti
Unconfirmed Member
Unless there are multiple presentations, the event where Iwata presents new strategies etc. to investors will be the Corporate Management Policy Briefing on January 30th. The earnings release is on the 29th though, that's correct.
Christopher
Member
Lmao at best you'll get Mario 3D world 2 now with doggie suit.
weevles
Member
It's not even that, because Japanese gamers aren't buying what they are selling with Wii U either. They are just stuck in their ways and have no idea how to adapt what they have to grow their business. They have things that work well (handhelds), and IPs that are invaluable for brand identity, but clearly that alone isn't enough.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Rösti;97962749 said:
48-hour live Nintendo Direct as you watch Iwata in a voyeuristic peek into a tech CEO on the edge in his most stressful period, a far cry from the lighthearted fare of the previous editions. Heartbreaking segment showing no third parties returning his calls.
Climactic end with The NintenTrial of Satoru Iwata by investors.
This is true as well. Even if they were big in Japan, the population is so small in comparison to the global market.
On this paragraph alone I just went and purchased $10,000 of Nintendo stocks. I'm going to be rolling in it!
Seriously though, those are all things they need to do and I am a big advocate of either tiered hardware and/or upgradeable hardware for someone like Nintendo that seems to struggle for anything longer than a few years at a time on a console, even though they wait 5-6 for a refresh. It would allow them to keep ahead/up with the tech curve better, and refresh their creativity more often. They would have more chances to get third parties onboard, as opposed to lose them at the beginning and have none for 5+ years. It would give gamers something to get excited about every few years too. Nintendo could build on it with peripherals. So they could refresh with a VR unit for instance. I'd be very interested to see if something like this could be pulled off.
Climactic end with The NintenTrial of Satoru Iwata by investors.
GUILTY!
I'm not in on the whole fire/don't fire iwata schadenfreude, but my only question is whether Iwata actually believed himself when he said that the Wii U's increased power would allow them to get more multi-platform games. (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have his exact statement on hand)
If he was just saying that, it means he was straight up lying to save face. If he truly believed it, even with next-gen consoles with higher specs on the horizon, then he's truly delusional and isolated from market trends. Either way, that statement just doesn't make him look good.
If he was just saying that, it means he was straight up lying to save face. If he truly believed it, even with next-gen consoles with higher specs on the horizon, then he's truly delusional and isolated from market trends. Either way, that statement just doesn't make him look good.
Herb Alpert
Banned
Yeah, totally agree with you on this. Reggie telling bullshits, OK, he doesn't know jack about games. But Iwata should know this.
My guess is that Iwata (and most of the senior management) greatly oversestimates the "prestige" of the Nintendo brand, towards gamers and developers. they failed to see how damaged the "wii" brand was at the end of its life cycle and still saw themselves as the market leaders. that is probably their biggest mistake. They didn't realise that their conception of the market (and of their own brand) began to take the slippery slope towards irrelevancy. "Well, let's call it WiiU, people love Wii and find it very cool". Well, it was right until, 2010, I would say.
Father_Brain
Banned
I would bet on the latter, but the former wouldn't shock me either.
I don't know how they could overestimate the Nintendo brand toward developers. The Wii was the first market leader that repeatedly missed out on major third party games in a generation.
I wouldn't discount Reggie as just a PR spinning machine, either. Rather, I think he was very much just spouting the company line - and thus giving us insight into what Iwata&Co were thinking. HD? Check the box. Programmable shaders? Check the box. No more friend codes? Check the box.
It's as if Nintendo attempted to meet some of the criticism of the Wii, but mistook the trees for the forest. The problem with the Wii wasn't that it was a 480p console, per se. It was that it was a 480p console when its competitors were fighting over 720p vs. TRUE HD. The problem wasn't just friend codes - it was that the Wii, competing with the Xbox 360, didn't have the network connectivity of the OG Xbox. Etc. etc.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
With all that's come out recently, the picture in my head goes like this:
- Nintendo thinks market isn't ready for Orbis and Durango, and adoption will be very slow. PS360 will remain dominate core game consoles through 2015/16. Could think this in part due to how Japan has cooled on consoles.
- Prepares the fabled Wii HD that many talked about, project greenlit a couple of seasons too late. Needs unique feature to set it apart besides just "new HD output". Settles on tablet controller after experiments.
- Feels need for Wii HD to fit in tightly with existing Wii customer base while trying to placate core gaming market that has shunned Wii in favor of PS360. Therefore Wii HD is burdened with requirements for small size, ultra low power consumption, "won't bother Mom sitting next to the TV".
- Result is a theoretically efficient console approximately as powerful as PS360, but difficult to develop for compared to established practices and technology on the HD consoles. Late development results in poor toolchain support and explanation to anyone outside Nintendo.
- Nintendo's own software development lags severely behind with underestimated HD transition, move to new facilities and expanding workforce come too late.
- Nintendo fails to secure too many noteworthy 3rd party games of 2012 (and 13 like GTA) sealing Wii U as an invalid choice for customers who need the biggest games in addition to exclusives.
- Wii HD released as Wii U, fails to garner hype in the west as all eyes are on Orbis and Durango. A round of mediocre multiplatform games resulting from terrible dev support instantly establishes Wii U's reputation as bad hardware, can't run 3rd party games. Reggie goes into surreal damage control mode with one silly statement after another.
All of it ending with Nintendo finally catching up to themselves on the software development side, as PS4 and XBO launch with way more public demand than Nintendo could have conceptualized - it will be very interesting to see what happens with PS4 in Japan though.
Well summarised and the bolded is what I'm really looking forward to now.
CoffeeGames
Member
It's not just Iwata and Reggie, it's analysts like Pachter overestimating as well. It's analysts telling Nintendo they could sell cardboard to fans, and not even try. Then NoA apparently listening to those type of stupid comments, and NOT trying to market the Wii U in any decent way for almost the entire first year. (Not one, single, ZombiU Wii U bundle TV ad in the U.S., where The Walking Dead is one of the most popular shows.)
At the very least, we do know that Iwata and NCL didn't rely on just the "prestige" of Nintendo's name and games in Japan when they launched it. Why do we know that? They at least launched it with a third party bundle, that being Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
NoA though, look at almost everything out of Mr. Fils-Aime's mouth:
"Mario, Zelda. Only Nintendo games, on our consoles."
It took NoA almost an entire year, before they advertised one single third party game. What was it? Rayman Legends.
When was it? November 2012, thrown into the middle of a commercial with other NINTENDO games.
Why would NoA wait until November 2012, to advertise a game that came out in September? I'm glad to see them FINALLY do it, but seriously, where is NoA's management at that is actually paying attention to their own region?
NCL and Mr. Iwata can at least point out, "Well, we did understand the power of Monster Hunter in Japan, and that's why we bundled it in at launch." Even Europe had a THIRD party bundle at launch.
And as for the name, I don't think it's an issue with a decent marketing team. Apparently, NoA doesn't have that though. If you haven't seen how NCL addressed the "name issue" with its launch ad, here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJuVSdbjU-Q
Screamapillar
Member
I remember when Nikkei spoiled Nintendo's E3 2009 announcements like a day before E3. A new "Super Mario Bros" and a new "Wii Fit" to be announced at E3. Great. Thanks, Nikkei. Nintendo loves you for ruining half of their surprises for the show.
Screamapillar
Member
EDIT: Sorry, double post*
F-Zero doesn't really sell. So, there's that. If everyone yelling about how there's no F Zero actually bought a copy when Nintendo used to make them, then maybe they'd give it another shot. And it's not really up to Nintendo if there's a Pokemon console MMO or not. GameFreak calls the shots and they have said over and over again that adventure-type Pokemon games should stay on handhelds because of the portable nature of the games, trading and meeting with friends at school and what not. I don't know that many Nintendo fans asking for "more capable" hardware, and unless you're just asking for better graphics I don't even really know what that means. But Nintendo can't just make games for the hardcore fanboys. They focused on that for GameCube and the audience just continued to shrink.
The 30th, yes.
JordanN
Banned
Nintendo controls the IP. Gamefreak only develops the games (but they would still be at Nintendo's mercy).
The Wii transcended gaming and became a toy. Therefore, it sold like a toy. And went away like a toy. Sales of the WiiU are what the Wii would have been, give or take, if it hadn't became the "it" toy for the masses. Had Nintendo realized that, they could have done something different to make the WiiU more relevant to the masses. Most kids who even started out with the Wii are going to get a Xbone or PS4 as teenagers if they are "gamers" like us. The numbers didn't lie, Nintendo's interpretation was faulty.
That's the sad truth. Ignoring the Wii, each Nintendo home console has sold less than the one before it. The Wii U performing below the GCN is what should happen, given the data.
NES ~ 62
SNES ~ 49
N64 ~ 33
GCN ~ 21
Wii U ~ 16 (guess)
It would have been an amazing idea 9 years ago when WoW was at its peak.
Now, it seems silly to bring out MMOs and expect them to do great.
Even then there would have to be lot of changes to the mechanics that would be extremely annoying and younger kids aren't exactly going to be able to pay for it.
I'll say that this is what killed my view of my new WiiU, before I started being more aware of the gaming industry. As a casual "visit IGN.com to check up on the gaming news" gamer, it was the delay of Rayman Legends that was the sign that this platform was one that perhaps I wasted my money on. That a game I was looking forward to, only a couple months from launch, was delayed to be ported to the older consoles. Was this new console of mine not worthier of new games than those older consoles? The thought was, "If ithis is the experience I can expect as a WiiU owner, then I shouldn't bother to invest so much into this console." I believe sales of games in Spring 2013 represented people's last attempts to support their WiiU's (for instance, I got Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate as it was a somewhate hyped exclusive), then after the big third party games continued to skip the WiiU, and with news of publishers dropping support, people stopped bothering to invest in their console as the attention surrounding the PS4/Xbox One was in high gear. (And 360/PS3 continued receiving new and hyped games, and continue to receive new games that WiiU does not.) The thought was, at the time, "If these big multimillion dollar publishers don't see the value in the WiiU and are vocal about it, being so candid and open about it (and the gaming news easily letting everybody know), why should I?" But thankfully I know the full story and am happily trying all kinds of new games like Wonderful 101, but for the casual gamer who isn't as invested in gaming and casually follows the gaming news, the "tone" of the discussion surrounding the WiiU was depressing.
Plenty of kids got their parents to buy them WoW cards and such. But, again, doesn't matter now. That ship long sailed.
48-hour live Nintendo Direct as you watch Iwata in a voyeuristic peek into a tech CEO on the edge in his most stressful period, a far cry from the lighthearted fare of the previous editions. Heartbreaking segment showing no third parties returning his calls.
Climactic end with The NintenTrial of Satoru Iwata by investors.
I laughed. I wonder if Nintendo Directs will just flat-out end, or the format will change. I mean, NintenGAF loves them, as do I, but it's pretty clear that it's a waste of resources on Nintendo's part. Especially right now.
I really can't see Nintendo Directs really being a drain on anything. They're super cheap to produce (it's mostly a white screen with Iwata just talking and then a trailer plays). And they don't take long to edit.
A Pokemon MMO, made by a competent MMO developer, would have been amazing, even today.
However, I don't trust in Nintendo's abilities enough to believe they'd be capable of making a great MMO. Hell, they barely just figured online out.
As such, I'm glad it's an idea that's never been attempted.
I'm talking about the really young kids that are waking up early in the morning to watch the anime.
To make a Pokemon MMO last you would have to slow down things like leveling and acquiring certain Pokemon and that kinda takes away from the fun of battling with your favorites.
If their parents are buying them $30-60 games, a $15 a month points card wouldn't be a big deal for a game they'd likely play all the time (if it was good).
Pokemon doesn't need to be an MMO or anything like that.
The crazy thing is that you own (kinda) an IP like Pokemon and you can't figure out how to leverage one of the most powerful brands in the history of gaming to move some of your console hardware. They seemed to be able to do this with the N64, but haven't really successfully expended on the ideas of that time (stadium/snap/hey you 'chu).
They did experiment with the Wii with PokePark, but rather than having the broader appeal of Stadium or Snap, it seems like those games targeted a specific younger audience.
On the Gamecube, they released 2 RPGs. The first of which is the best selling RPG on the Gamecube without even being critically received well. And as much as I want a proper Paper Mario or Monolith's X, another Pokemon RPG on the Wii U would probably end up outselling those easily which is kind of annoying to be honest.
Idk, so far we just have that Pokemon Rumble U NFC Figure Game but it seems like that was so halfheartedly done. Just like GCN RPG, they took a "slam dunk" idea, put in the least effort possible and made sure it wasn't as successful as it could be.
The crazy thing is that you own (kinda) an IP like Pokemon and you can't figure out how to leverage one of the most powerful brands in the history of gaming to move some of your console hardware. They seemed to be able to do this with the N64, but haven't really successfully expended on the ideas of that time (stadium/snap/hey you 'chu).
They did experiment with the Wii with PokePark, but rather than having the broader appeal of Stadium or Snap, it seems like those games targeted a specific younger audience.
On the Gamecube, they released 2 RPGs. The first of which is the best selling RPG on the Gamecube without even being critically received well. And as much as I want a proper Paper Mario or Monolith's X, another Pokemon RPG on the Wii U would probably end up outselling those easily which is kind of annoying to be honest.
Idk, so far we just have that Pokemon Rumble U NFC Figure Game but it seems like that was so halfheartedly done. Just like GCN RPG, they took a "slam dunk" idea, put in the least effort possible and made sure it wasn't as successful as it could be.
I believe Tehrik-(something
) said that the hope was for Nintendo Directs and Iwata Asks to be a sign of a more open Nintendo (there's some stuff in Iwata Asks that are more candid than anything I expected before). But it seems that they invite people to mock the mannerisms of a foreigner and in turn, Nintendo grows to be the butt of a joke. Is it worth harming Nintendo's image? I'd say no, and that Nintendo Directs should be stopped and the gaming press should be more involved with Nintendo's announcements. (That is, only if the concept of Nintendo Direct does in fact harm people's perception of Nintendo.) I suppose my unease is that they make it seem that only "super fans" can be interested in the news surrounding Nintendo consoles, and in turn, only people who have already decided they are super fans can allow themselves to consider a Nintendo console as an option.CoffeeJanitor
Member
The problem with Directs is that they only hit the most enthusiast of Nintendo's fanbase, while missing any consumers that actually need to be marketed towards. Do they're pretty useless for getting out new info to the average consumer.I believe Tehrik-(something
DragonSworne
Banned
It takes atleast a half days worth out of Nintendo most important resource, Iwata.
That's where the gaming media comes in. They in turn report what is said and announced in the Nintendo Directs. The same as if they'd would report on on a PR statement. These media outlets still go to press events held by Nintendo as well. The gaming media isn't cut out of the loop. I don't get where the idea comes from that they have.
The issue could be that Nintendo doesn't make announcements fast enough or there simpliy aren't enough announcements and news in general for Nintendo hardware. So there is less for these outlets to even report and it gets buried. That isn't a fault of Nintendo Directs as a production but Nintendo's own decisions to keep games hidden for so long and just not talking about them. Them having so much of their development in Japan and not in Europe or the US where the gaming media outlets exist. When they're almost the only game in town with major releases (even if there are third party multiplatform releases those companies choose to talk about the other versions and always have) that the gaming media is even interested in it makes matters worse. That action would still be taking place even if Nintendo Directs didn't exist. That was going on long before Nintendo Directs even started.