t's tough, but I do think it's possible. Right now we are in the very early days of this new generation, but from what I could tell, I think Sony wants to take that Xbox audience that dominated North America during the last gen. The same Xbox audience that has been integrated into the Xbox Live infrastructure for the last 8 years, and win them over to Playstation 4 and PS Plus. Sony has been pushing all the right buttons since they unveiled the PS4: their marketing has been great, their console is clearly more powerful than the XBox One, and it's $100 cheaper! Thanks to all of this good will they've won from gamers, they were successfully able to implement a paywall for their online multiplayer. Not to mention all the great stuff they throw in with a subscription, such as free, retail games on a monthly basis. A month of PS Plus is a greater value than a month of Xbox Live Gold.
With this, I think it's simple: Give gamers the greater value, treat them with respect, market yourself well, and "brand loyalty" will only take them so far. I honestly believe that Sony is doing such a great job of this that players who only owned 360s for the entirety of last gen will drop that shit and flock over to Sony and the PS4 when they realize not only is it a better deal, but all of their friends are over there too.
sony's marketing team is fantastic, and i think it's the only reason the ps4 is succeeding to the degree they are right now. it certainly isn't its vast library of exclusive games, the huge back catalog of psn games, or even high quality multiplatform titles. i'll touch on this later and i think it's the main thing nintendo somehow completely forgot how to do in any way with the wii u.
Nintendo needs to do these things, and I think they can. Create an online, paid system that offers a greater value than Sony provides with the PS4 and PS Plus. Market yourself better. A LOT BETTER. If they have all the games, and the infrastructure is better than the competition, and they market this to the masses properly (as Sony did the PS4), then who's to say whether the Xbox or Playstation audience won't make the jump over to Nintendo?
i don't think nintendo needs to do a lot of things, much less create a paywall the same way microsoft and sony have theirs set up. if we're running under the idea that this market is gone, then there's no sense in appealing towards them it's not a smart plan to play on that field with what they have.
Well, of course, these are two completely half assed attempts that trying to go after that fanbase.
Number one, the portable market is irrelevant. Honestly, I think they are doing fine in the portable market. As well as they could be doing considering the circumstances (mobile/tablet gaming domination). Third party support won't really make a difference there, because, unlike the console space, in the portable space, the biggest games are Mario, Mario Kart and Pokemon (and in Japan, Monster Hunter). They have the biggest portable game franchises, so they will continue to be successful.
This isn't the case in the console space. Like I've said, Mario and Mario Kart aren't the biggest games in the console space. It's COD, GTA, Minecraft, Skyrim, FIFA, Madden... all games that they simply don't have. They can't find success with the 7th and 8th biggest games in the world driving the console forward, when the competition has #1, #2, #3...
Ninja Gaiden 3 and those late ports are proof that Nintendo had no idea what the fuck they were doing when going for the "hardcore" audience. Late ports do absolutely nothing, especially when they perform worse than the 360/PS3 versions. Nintendo was getting Mass Effect 3 and selling it for $60 when PS3/360 was getting Mass Effect Trilogy for $40!
The clean, sterile, dubstep commercials with children and a narrator reading a PR statement were NOT cool, and did a terrible job explaining what exactly the Wii U is.
agreed all-around. i think nintendo had thought third-parties would chomp at the bit and western gamers would be lined up for those offerings, but they honestly, truly misread the market to an insane degree. it's nothing new though- they had geist and metroid prime made in an age of halo. they never really understood what made that market tick. at the time it was okay because that market was a subsection of a larger industry. now the traditional video game industry is almost only that market.
Iwata needs to go, Reggie needs to go, and the entire fucking marketing team in North America needs to go. The tone of marketing needs to shift, like when PS3 commercials went from
this to
this.
see i don't know who would replace iwata and reggie, or why they need to be replaced. i think the worst thing iwata did was shut down the western side of things as hard as he did from 2002-2004. centralizing power in japan might have been a response to what happened with sega (sega of america and sega of japan did not get along), as well as a money-saving measure when it came to dealing with so many western developers that wasted too much time and resources (retro, silicon knights, and rare all had problems with delaying games and having too much on their plate). i think right now they're slowly regrowing, but i'll get to that later too.
iwata made some great decisions in backing unusual hardware and providing the right software. i would like to think that the problems with the 3ds and wii u that are obvious to us are evident to him as well.
While this is true, I think it was inevitable that a large portion of the audience they captured with the Wii was going to move on to 99 cent/free games they had on their phones. They may have extended the Wiis life, sure, but the successor? Do you think that audience would have been willing to spend $350 on a new Wii? $250?
Exactly. That Wii userbase isn't coming back, nor did they really want a successor to the Wii (or the DS, to an extent). The half assed attempt to capture the MS/Sony userbase obviously did nothing, too.
only the sith deal in absolutes. i don't think the wii userbase is gone forever and not coming back- they just wanted something new and interesting. microsoft offered them kinect and in 2010 and 2011 (when smartphones were all the rage), microsoft managed to sell 5-6 year old hardware at $300 and more. what nintendo and microsoft did was tap into people's imaginations and get them excited about something they normally didn't care for. microsoft more or less copied what nintendo did, but both the wii remote and the kinect were accessible and more about life improvement through social activity and exercise.
nintendo doesn't have to go for social activity and exercise again, but they're two examples of things that weren't being targeted by the ps3 and xbox 360 crowd between 2005 and 2009. i can't think of any solid ideas right now, but there are a ton of ideas out there relating to user interface and how we view video games.
So what you're suggesting here is basically that they double down on their current ideology. "Fuck third parties, we can handle this ourselves". Except
actually handle it, and not just release 100 Mario games and hope for the best.
I think, while this is possible, is it not more risky than just getting on the good sides of third parties? They need to look at the market right now. What are the biggest selling games?
1. First Person Shooters
2. Sports games
3. Open World games
4. NFC Figure games
5. Fitness/dance games
6. Platformers
I think we can agree on this.
Nintendo has ZERO first party games that fall into the genres described by 1-4. 5 and 6 they have covered, for sure. I guess Skylanders and Disney Infinity is on Wii U, but how are they selling? 1-3 they simply don't have, and without the help of EA, Activision, Rockstar, 2K, Ubisoft, Bethesda... they'd have to do it all themselves? How?
First thing's first, they'd need to spend that Wii/DS money, big time. What is there, 5 EAD teams? If they're going to do this all themselves, there needs to be 15. They have Retro Studios in America? If they want to take a serious stab at capturing the largest audience for games in the world, AMERICA (and Europe, really), they're going to need 5 Retro Studios. Obviously I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, but my point is THEY NEED TO EXPAND. Big time. It is
not enough that their only Western Team has pumped out two Donkey Kong platformers over the span of 4 years.
Can they buy the James Bond license and get Retro to start working exclusively on AAA, high quality James Bond games (instead of fucking Donkey Kong platformers that cover the same audience as Mario platformers)? Bond being Nintendo exclusive would be pretty huge. The films are more popular than ever (Skyrim did over $1 billion at the box office), and many players have nostalgia for playing Goldeneye on their old Nintendo 64. The connection between Bond and Nintendo makes sense.
Can they effectively create a new, Uncharted style third person shooter? Would a Japanese team work on it?
Sports games. They're boned without EA support on Football games, unless that contract isn't renewed in a couple of years. However, this is a space where I think they could make some noise. Bring back 1080 Snowboarding. Bring back NBA Courtside. Bring back Wave Race. Bring back Excite Bike. Of course, you still have Wii Sports, for that other crowd. If they're good enough and well made, who's to say Nintendo can't be the home for sports games? NBA Live dominated the basketball gaming world, until 2K picked up their shit and started releasing better and better games every year. The sales were representative of this. Then they got Jordan involved, and now look at the last two years. 2K KILLED LIVE, and while Live came back this year, it was basically a zombie.
...
To me, that sounds a little risky. And a little expensive. What makes more sense for Nintendo: trying to take on EVERY genre themselves, or just playing nice with third parties for once and getting the third parties to work with them? Ideally, there would be a combination of both. Nintendo sleeping on all of their sports franchises is a travesty, as
Emily Rogers explains in this article. They should really invest in a shooter or two, considering the popularity of the genre.
i think it was a mistake to let go of left field and stop making sports games themselves, but aside from that, this again plays into the existing marketplace. nintendo shouldn't be wasting their time with the james bond license. they shouldn't be tripling the size of ead and hugely expanding retro. they can't afford to waste $800m on enormous expansion projects before any games get out the door. the time for that was a couple of years ago and they missed that window. they could do it now, but they'd have to be ready for a next-generation where they'd be far far behind the times and (and i hate this word) mindshare of the two other main first-parties.
instead, they should be working with what they have. nintendo has some great designers and problem-solvers. i think that nintendo and valve honestly have the best in the business. i think the 3ds and wii u were good in the sense that they needed to find out who they were- are they the other guys who make consoles like microsoft and sony? or are they the guys who make nintendo consoles? my guess is they thought the wii was one of the former, when they should now know it was the latter.
so how to fix that is to use what they got and market it. and i mean really get in there and find a solid marketing team that knows what they're doing.
one thing that sony's done extremely well with the ps4 is marketing. just from every angle people want one and for no particular reason other than the many good things about it. and the good things are things that aren't particularly special.
1. the ps4 would play used games. sony got on stage and loudly proclaimed that their next-generation console would do the same thing that every console of theirs has ever done. they made a video of it, they had it as part of their powerpoint presentation, and they did it on a big stage to an eruption of cheering. they completely played into people's emotions and it worked.
2. the ps4 has a ton of indie games. again, optics. sony actually showcased fewer indie games than nintendo during e3, but the takeaway after the show (even until now) is that nintendo really needs to do
something to get indie games on the wii u. what sony did was just have a bunch of people on stage, 'the wizard' style, all playing demos of indie games. and at their booth there were only indie games and free-to-play titles and knack.
there are a couple other things, like paywall being accepted because free games, and 8gb gddr5 ram being the blast processing of this generation, but it all came down to confidence and staging. this is something the wii would like to play commercials did extremely well and something nintendo lost with the wii u. instead of showcasing why the wii u would benefit your life, it became this weird device that played annoying music. at least now there is a direction, and that is nintendo specifically trying to get the family market (probably for this generation).
if nintendo was to do what sony did, and they did it for the next generation, it would mean doing the following:
1. advertise the virtual console. people think it's cool that you can download old games, but they don't know this is a possibility before purchasing. hell, show the nes, snes, n64 all converging into one system like it's some new idea. show dad, who grew up with super mario bros. 3, playing it with his son. stuff like that.
2. advertise indie games. nintendo's going to have to work with what they have, and they have a good amount of indie support right now. in a few cases, they're getting console-exclusive games from these developers. if the wii u was in any better condition, this is when it would be a good idea to market these games on television as though they were retail games. if nintendo's not being represented in traditional third-party games, they're going to have to try another way.
3. work with indie developers. this may be nintendo's solution to their third-party problems. instead of getting huge traditional companies to make giant-budget games that won't sell on their platforms, they should be trying to make a platform that sells a variety of games that appeals to their userbase. it also means striking deals and inspiring some level of trust, so whatever titles they do have don't go to competing platforms right away.
it's all predicated on a good idea though. again, i'm not sure what that is, but i think they can support themselves with what they have. i just don't believe that there need to be anymore uncharteds, call of duties, assassin's creeds, etc in the world. perhaps the benefit of being almost shut out of that market is that nintendo has even more freedom to grab something completely different.
