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Nintendo's profit drops for first time in 6 years
- Thread starter Wario64
- Start date
timetokill said:
Which never really left the Top 30 and wouldn't qualify as a popular game that doesn't really sell anymore. I'm being particular for a reason. I'm not suggesting the evergreen titles get discounted. I'm talking about titles that basically aren't available for purchase anymore, because sales dried up and stores stopped ordering.
timetokill said:
Oh, you mean the one that was a year after launch and wouldn't apply to my example.
Again, I'm particular with my scenario for a reason.
timetokill said:
That's great. When was the last Twilight Princess ad again?
2 Minutes Turkish
Banned
Not printing AS much money?
timetokill
Banned
donny2112 said:
I get what you're saying, really. But I think we have to consider some details that we don't necessarily have a lot of data on (though I'm sure those with full NPD data would have a little more insight on this).
How much would Twilight Princess sell at $20? For how long? Is it worth firing up another production cycle to print the discs and manuals, new boxing, etc.? It's a "core" game, and core gamers tend not to buy games 3 years after release, even when discounted to $20. At least not in huge quantities.
Will the time limit be transparent to consumers? Consider the consumer that decides that with a Player's Choice line around, they will wait for X and Y games to drop in price before picking them up. Then, after 3 years have passed and the game finally comes out, their interest in the game has evaporated and they end up not purchasing it at all. How much does that come into play?
Is Nintendo willing to put these games out and ask for shelf space, when they can put their advertising behind a few current, hot, evergreen titles that are dominating the charts?
And again, we're only talking about Nintendo's titles, correct? Third-parties can drop prices easily and they frequently do.
Also, with the Player's Choice line they'd be competing with the used games market. Games like ExciteTruck can already be found used at dirt cheap prices. A lot of those titles you're mentioning that have stopped being ordered by stores can still be pretty easily found used.
I'd be interested in a list of what you think would be appropriate for a Player's Choice line from Nintendo, though. I'm just not seeing a lot of upside for Nintendo. I'd love to see what research Nintendo has done into it though, and what their takeaways were from the Gamecube days.
Of course, who knows -- they could announce a Player's Choice line at E3.
We did have full NPD numbers last gen though.timetokill said:
Nintendo had a healthy variety of Player's Choice successes with the Cube. Mario Sunshine, Zelda Wind Waker, Luigi's Mansion, Metroid Prime, Paper Mario, Smash Bros. (although this was only dropped to $39 instead of $29 iirc), Pikmin, Star Fox, etc. all sold very well as Player's Choice titles. Many of them regularly sold 15-20k month after month after they became Player's Choice, and they all put up nice yearly totals as discounted titles.
The problem for Nintendo is that they don't want to undercut their evergreen full-price titles with a selection of discounted popular titles. They didn't really have to worry about that during the Cube era. Mario Kart (and Smash Bros., even though it got a minor price drop) were really the only evergreens they had at full price last gen.
Now they have Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Kart, Smash Bros., NSMB, etc., that all keep selling big numbers month after month at their full price. So they have to decide if they would increase overall sales by adding some titles that would currently fit nicely into a Player's Choice line (Mario Galaxy, Zelda Twilight Princess, Smash Bros. Metroid Prime 3, Paper Mario, Punch-Out, Wario Land, WarioWare, Mario Party, etc.), or if renewed sales of these discounted titles would simply cut into sales of their numerous full-price evergreen titles.
It's a problem that they didn't really have to worry about last gen.
As a consumer, I would love to see the Player's Choice lineup come back - and I personally think it would be an overall net positive for Nintendo. But I can understand the hesitation on their part. No other company has anything even remotely resembling the quantity and duration of full-price evergreen titles that Nintendo has cultivated - and they don't want to do anything to harm that.
Dalthien said:
What are you talking about?
both Mario Kart AND Smash got into the player choice thingy and quickly at that!
Seriously they tried budget releases with the New Play Control line, it failed HARD.
They could release a player choice line but would it not cost them sales on their more successful titles?
I mean if you can get Zelda TP for 25bucks or NSMBW for 50 which will most people chose?
And hey if you listen to all the publishers, since they're not ever greens you should be able to find them cheap on the used market, right
timetokill
Banned
Speevy said:
Publishing more titles doesn't necessarily mean making more profit.
It MAY -- and Nintendo is expanding with teams like Sora -- but they are very calculated about how they do it.
I think they rather like making millions of dollars per employee :lol
Speevy said:
Yeah but without good coordination you end with a Grin situation of shitty games that don't sell, and they know since that's not how they worked for very long time (Pilotwing 64 was an external team with supervision if an old interview is to be trusted, heck they did that for RetroStudio and they own them....Look at the Other M project too).
They already have something like 2 internal divisions related to working on external projects (which didn't release anything since a long time to boot)
And writing blank checks is usually never a good idea
Of course it's impossible to tell from raw numbers if all of them are developers or not, but Nintendo apparently actually hired ~300 employees during last 12 months (went from 4130 to 4425).Speevy said:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2010/100506e.pdf (page 22)
Nuclear Muffin
Banned
Turrican3 said:
Project Sora staff perhaps?
BudokaiMR2
Member
I just wanted to come in and say that I actually saw this news on one of the LCDs while riding the train to work today.
that's all
that's all
Cosmonaut X
Member
Nuclear Muffin said:
Possibly, but more likely is that they are support/networking etc. staff. There was a recent news piece about Nintendo's issues with this following the explosive growth of the past few years.
Who knows?Nuclear Muffin said:
They announced it becoming a new Nintendo first party entity in early 2009, the timing surely matches, but I have no idea how many people they plan(ned) to hire.
Entering raw speculation mode, expanding first party teams seems completely logic to me considering they're going to launch a new handheld and the company (Iwata IIRC) blamed the lack of resources itself in the recent past. Can't find the article unfortunately, but I'm almost sure it wasn't older than 6 months.
EDIT: I just noticed that Nintendo had 3373 and 3768 employees at the end of FY2007 and 2008 respectively.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2008/080424e.pdf
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2009/090507e.pdf
So they have roughly 33% more workforce in just 3 years; now I'm definitely NOT an expert, but it looks like a pretty impressive grow to me.
balladofwindfishes
Member
timetokill said:
I'd double dip Twilight Princess if that were the case. I've been dying to play through it with Wii Controls, but couldn't bring myself to pay 50$ for a game I originally got on the GCN for 30. I'd also pick up Battle Revolution if I could get it on the cheap, just for some quick fun.
Obligatory "oh noes Wii is going 3rd party!"
You know what would boost sales from me? Some more NPC games. I love 'em, mostly because I hate memory cards, and I don't like fiddling around with my Wavebirds since they're starting to die on me. Too bad nobody else really like them, other than Metroid Prime Trilogy. We need Chibi Robo and Pikmin 2 over here
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
PounchEnvy said:
that's not really how these lists work
they are not meant to be complete. they rarely contain announcements. i'm not saying The Last Story is getting a western release, i'm just saying this release list doesn't change anything.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
A few interesting notes from the investor's presentation
1) Nintendo again admits that Animal Crossing / Wii Music failed. They also acknowledge that they have not launched compelling software in 2010, but say that they ended up getting saved by good carry-over sales from 2009 games (presumably WSR, WF+, and NSMB). Nintendo mentions that Q1 was packed full of titles delayed from Q4 due to CoD MW2. Oddly enough, what he doesn't mention is that neither MW2 nor any of those delayed titles are on the Wii, preferring instead to emphasize the strength of their back half of 2009.
2) NSMB Wii was the #1 best selling software Q1 2010. Nintendo's briefing includes a top 30 from NPD. Galaxy 1 over 4 million according to NPD in US. Layton 1 closing in on 4 million non-Japanese sales, Layton 2 well over 2 million non-Japanese sales. Style Savvy 2 million worldwide.
3) Just Dance is mentioned as a third party game that vindicates Nintendo's social phenomenon strategy. Over 1 million in the US according to NPD, first week sales ~10k in Europe and now over a million or something.
4) NSMB Wii sold millions in Europe, but Europe was the weakest market for the game. Iwata notes that it's highly unusual that Japan will outsell Europe for anything based on the relative sizes of the market. He claims the cause of this is because Americans and Japanese have "warm memories in their hearts" of Super Mario Bros, but Europeans don't because the NES didn't sell as well there.
5) Widespread Q1 inventory problems, particularly with WF+, at major US retailers.
6) DSi XL caused a sales bump everywhere, but a much smaller one than the DSi. There hasn't been a hit (first party) DS title in a long time. This has been felt especially hard in Europe, where the DS hardware and software substantially missed projections. In other regions, hardware/software met projections. HG/SS is mentioned as a decent seller.
7) Iwata feels that Galaxy 1 failed in Japan because 3d gaming is confusing to the Japanese population. One design objective with Galaxy 1 was to use spherical worlds so that even in 3d, newbie players wouldn't get lost, and he feels that this failed. As a result, they're including a "Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Beginners" DVD in the Japanese SMG2. Of course, everyone out there would point out "but the Wii doesn't play DVDs", and they'd be right, and this is what Iwata thinks;
"Some may feel this is unusual because Wii does not have a DVD playback capability, but given the wide penetration of DVD players at home, we have concluded that it is most useful for the players if they can confirm the contents even while they are playing with Wii and decided to provide the footage in DVD format."
I'm not buying the explanation.
Yeah, pretty much Nintendo's stance is that 2009's software was disappointing until WSR, and really the only thing they released before WSR was the NPC games, so I think that's a tacit admission that NPC was disappointing for them. Can't imagine we're getting any more.
1) Nintendo again admits that Animal Crossing / Wii Music failed. They also acknowledge that they have not launched compelling software in 2010, but say that they ended up getting saved by good carry-over sales from 2009 games (presumably WSR, WF+, and NSMB). Nintendo mentions that Q1 was packed full of titles delayed from Q4 due to CoD MW2. Oddly enough, what he doesn't mention is that neither MW2 nor any of those delayed titles are on the Wii, preferring instead to emphasize the strength of their back half of 2009.
2) NSMB Wii was the #1 best selling software Q1 2010. Nintendo's briefing includes a top 30 from NPD. Galaxy 1 over 4 million according to NPD in US. Layton 1 closing in on 4 million non-Japanese sales, Layton 2 well over 2 million non-Japanese sales. Style Savvy 2 million worldwide.
3) Just Dance is mentioned as a third party game that vindicates Nintendo's social phenomenon strategy. Over 1 million in the US according to NPD, first week sales ~10k in Europe and now over a million or something.
4) NSMB Wii sold millions in Europe, but Europe was the weakest market for the game. Iwata notes that it's highly unusual that Japan will outsell Europe for anything based on the relative sizes of the market. He claims the cause of this is because Americans and Japanese have "warm memories in their hearts" of Super Mario Bros, but Europeans don't because the NES didn't sell as well there.
5) Widespread Q1 inventory problems, particularly with WF+, at major US retailers.
6) DSi XL caused a sales bump everywhere, but a much smaller one than the DSi. There hasn't been a hit (first party) DS title in a long time. This has been felt especially hard in Europe, where the DS hardware and software substantially missed projections. In other regions, hardware/software met projections. HG/SS is mentioned as a decent seller.
7) Iwata feels that Galaxy 1 failed in Japan because 3d gaming is confusing to the Japanese population. One design objective with Galaxy 1 was to use spherical worlds so that even in 3d, newbie players wouldn't get lost, and he feels that this failed. As a result, they're including a "Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Beginners" DVD in the Japanese SMG2. Of course, everyone out there would point out "but the Wii doesn't play DVDs", and they'd be right, and this is what Iwata thinks;
"Some may feel this is unusual because Wii does not have a DVD playback capability, but given the wide penetration of DVD players at home, we have concluded that it is most useful for the players if they can confirm the contents even while they are playing with Wii and decided to provide the footage in DVD format."
I'm not buying the explanation.
balladofwindfishes said:You know what would boost sales from me? Some more NPC games. I love 'em, mostly because I hate memory cards, and I don't like fiddling around with my Wavebirds since they're starting to die on me. Too bad nobody else really like them, other than Metroid Prime Trilogy. We need Chibi Robo and Pikmin 2 over here
Yeah, pretty much Nintendo's stance is that 2009's software was disappointing until WSR, and really the only thing they released before WSR was the NPC games, so I think that's a tacit admission that NPC was disappointing for them. Can't imagine we're getting any more.
TunaLover said:
if by golden era incoming you mean only basement dwellers get to play their shooters online against other basement dwellers I don't see how that's a good thing or worth the mention golden (unless you're describing the corner they go when they're too lazy to go to the loo)
Cosmonaut X
Member
Mael said:
Hiroshi? Is that you?
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
gerg said:
Here's my beef, and this is true with a lot of things Nintendo does.
Nintendo's products often start from the standpoint that they ought to be inclusive. For example, conventional controllers were seen to be too complicated, so that's why we have a TV remote. At every corner, whether it's robust tutorials, stuff like super play, this DVD, hardware design, even Wii Speak enabling "natural" voice chat rather than headset stuff. Hell, look at how the Wii and the DSi count storage in "blocks" so people who aren't tech savvy don't need to understand mega-whoozits or giga-whats. I have absolutely no problem with any of this because it's an objective that makes sense.
But sometimes their systems end up making things more complicated, not less. Using "blocks" for storage just replaces one arbitrary unit with another, and while all but the most tech stupid have heard the term megabytes, no one really knows what a block is.
I think asking a player to switch back and forth between video inputs on their television and from their Wii Remote to their DVD remote alienates the exact same kinds of people they hope this product will help--the absolute bottom of the barrel consumer in terms of video game skill, tech awareness, and lacking the sort of intuition/experimentation/creativity intersection required to learn how to do new tech or gaming things.
I don't think it's possible to demonstrate this either way and I don't think good sales for Galaxy 2 will suggest that this was a good strategy or bad sales for Galaxy 2 will suggest that this was a bad strategy... Hell, I'm skeptical even that the average customer will even have an awareness that this disc is included when they lock in their intent to buy.
Really, I think the DVD aspect is just a pretty obvious cover for the fact that a) The Wii is so RAM starved that they can't necessarily embed this stuff in the game engine, b) The Wii is so storage starved that they can't put the data on the Wii, and c) Wii discs are so storage starved that they can't put the data on the same disc. It just so also happens that the Wii doesn't play DVDs, so you need a separate DVD player for it anyway
charlequin
Banned
timetokill said:
Not true at all. Player's Choice/Greatest Hits games, even completely "core"-focused ones, sell tons of copies. Lots of games actually sell better at GH than they do at full price -- the original God of War did more than half its LTD at $20. These are the games people who buy a console late (or just don't spend as much money on games) are seeing on the big endcap at Wal-Mart or picking up along with the system.
One of the biggest disservices Nintendo's new direction (and the industry response to it) has done for gaming discussion is creating the idea that "dedicated/core" and "casual" describe what kinds of games people play rather than how often they play them. Before this generation, most people would correctly understand that a "casual gamer" was often (maybe even "mostly") someone who played more or less the same types of games as other gamers but did so less frequently and paid less attention to "gaming" as a hobby.
No, nobody is going to do this. People only wait out price drops on games they'd otherwise pay full price for when they're fast.
Those are unrelated issues. Big box stores will go out of their way to order lines like Player's Choice and fill endcaps with them because having as many $20 "impulse purchases" as they can catching people's eyes as they shop is beneficial to them. Stores like Gamestop will naturally devote space to titles like this as a system matures because they make easy "adds" for someone purchasing a console -- it's easier to convince someone to put a $20 extra game on top of their console purchase than a $50 one.
And you don't advertise Greatest Hits games, you just put them out there and let the price do the talking.
Errr... right, which means that instead of getting no money for these games being sold they can make some money? This is a good thing.
I'm sorry if my answers are a little curt, but, like, these might have been sensible questions to ask in, like, 1997 before anyone had ever tried this sort of promotional structure, but at this point we've had thirteen years of all three current hardware companies using these systems and it's not really in question whether or how well they work anymore.
Dalthien said:
I think this is kind of an overblown concern, though. Nintendo of Japan remind me of an immigrant Depression-era grandmother a lot of the time, making bullheaded decisions out of a poverty mentality that usually just doesn't apply to the actual situation they're in. None of the titles I'd propose for first-party Player's Choice selections really compete with any of the evergreen titles since they'd all either be purely single-player (SMG, TP) or feature-light multiplayer "arcade" games (Excite Truck).
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
charlequin said:
The hilarious thing is that they've basically done Player's Choice with the DS and yet they claim to be against it. They reprinted both Hotel Dusk and Clubhouse Games, both of which had stopped selling, at $19.99 and added Touch Generations branding. If it looks like a player's choice, and it's priced like a player's choice, it's basically a player's choice
Unfortunately, it's much harder to implement Player's Choice later on in the generation than it is to do it from the start. It's obviously more cost effective to do a few big print runs than dozens of smaller ones, so if you release a batch of 3-5 titles every few months in PC, stores can balance inventory better. Plus, having that "budget" section helps ensure that PC versions of prequels to upcoming games don't outshine the new product launch, but if you dump the games in now it'll cause some internal competition in that regard.
Good candidates, from a business perspective, for Player's Choice:
DS:
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Strong IP, launched a little too early in system's life, no longer in print, has an in-print sequel but wouldn't likely be much competition)
- Super Princess Peach (did well, no longer in print, hits an audience no current Nintendo first-party title hits, no direct competition with recent releases)
- Tetris DS (setting aside the licensing issue, did well, no longer in print, very strong IP, no direct competition with recent releases)
- Star Fox Command (did well despite iffy reception, no longer in print, popular brand, no direct competition with recent releases)
- Yoshi's Island DS (did well, no longer in print, would only mildly compete with ongoing offerings)
- Planet Puzzle League (did ok, strong concept for a game, some competition with ongoing puzzle entries)
- Rhythm Heaven (did well, if not out of print then likely to be out of print soon, no competition with recent releases)
I'll leave someone else to hypothesize how the Wii line would work, but Fire Emblem would be a good suggestion.
But first-party is just one aspect of Player's Choice. Third parties have prospered from Sony making the Greatest Hits branding available to them, ditto Microsoft's Platinum Hits line.
Also Nintendo themselves just dumped out what amounts to a Player's Choice lineup in Japan, so it's not like they don't get it, just as is typical they only get it when they actually need to as opposed to the regions where they don't need to but could still benefit from it.
jcm said:
That's what Nintendo thinks they'll do. Seems convoluted to me.
Stumpokapow said:
We're talking about switching buttons on a TV remote; I think you're overblowing the "techniness" of doing so.
Really, I think the DVD aspect is just a pretty obvious cover for the fact that a) The Wii is so RAM starved that they can't necessarily embed this stuff in the game engine, b) The Wii is so storage starved that they can't put the data on the Wii, and c) Wii discs are so storage starved that they can't put the data on the same disc. It just so also happens that the Wii doesn't play DVDs, so you need a separate DVD player for it anyway
Sure.
I just think that being able to simultaneously play the DVD and the game at the same time is a neat offshoot of the solution, whether or not it was the main reason for putting the content on the DVD and regardless of how many people actually use the DVD (while simultaneously playing the game). That's all.
@jcm: See above.
charlequin
Banned
Stumpokapow said:
My proposed list based on a quick glance at Wikipedia would be Excite Truck, Twilight Princess, Fire Emblem, Galaxy, and then maybe, I dunno... WarioWare, Super Paper Mario, and a $30 MP Trilogy?
No, it really doesn't.clashfan said:
Btw, the supplementary information is out.
Some excerpts of updated LTDs:
NSMB: 22.49 million
MKDS: 17.90 million
Brain Training: 18.72 milllion
Nintendogs: 23.26 million
Wii Sports: 63.46 million
Wii Sports Resort: 16.14 million
NSMB.Wii: 14.70 million
Wii Fit: 22.61 million
Wii Fit Plus: 12.65 million
Mario Kart Wii: 22.55 million
Wii Play: 27.38 million
You think Nintendo isn't concerned about falling sales, revenues, profits, and stock price? I think it's probably good you're not running Nintendo. Of course they're concerned. It doesn't mean they're doomed or anything, just that they're smart guys who pay attention.Jokeropia said:
timetokill
Banned
charlequin said:
Eh, I disagree. The way I used "core" was correct. I was saying the game appeals to the core demographic, which has X buying habit. That has existed long before Nintendo's new direction. The core demographic of game purchasers is less interested in older games as a rule. I wasn't referring to the type of game, I was saying that a console Zelda appeals to the core demo of 12-34 y/o males. The expanded market (say, my mother, who has bought around 6 Wii games now) isn't going to buy a Zelda game.
I know a lot of games sell better at GH than their original price, but I question whether that would happen for Nintendo's titles in particular. It might not take much to outsell Excite Truck, but for Nintendo it might be a question of whether it's worth the cost to bother with it again. God of War was a big budget title that had a gameplay style with a lot broader appeal than Excite Truck. It sold well at the GH price because it reduced the risk for interested parties who would like to try it but wouldn't bite at the full price. I don't think Excite Truck even has the pool of interested parties to make the price drop mean anything.
Oh, I guess I'm the only one who does it, perhaps.
Personally, as many do, I hit a point where I really can't afford every game I want. When I hit a point where I want both Game A and Game B to pretty much the same extent, and I know Game A is going to drop in price eventually while Game B will stay at its current price, it makes sense for me to buy Game B now and play it while waiting for Game A to drop in price eventually.
I agree with comments that I think you made before (not bothering to recheck now) that not all games should be priced at the $50/$60 price. I bought Katamari mostly because it was at a discount price and I was willing to take the risk. I think that's what we're dealing with a lot when we talk about price -- risk for the consumer. But before that we have to consider the total pool of interested consumers for whom price is keeping them from purchasing. With a quirky racing game like Excite Truck, how big is that group?
True, many stores will go out of their way to populate their shelves with the lower-priced games. But at this point, probably at the cost of shelf space for third-party titles, I'd imagine.
GameStop is more interested in sales of used titles. Selling a used game at $18 will often be more beneficial to them than the Player's Choice title at $20. I could see the argument that the Player's Choice line would get more consumers to come in and seek out those titles which makes it easier for GameStop to sell them, but that doesn't really help Nintendo.
GameStop is already using their used games as adds for their console sales. That's what they like.
The reason I said that was because they can't really beat the prices of the used market. Right now you can get Excite Truck EASILY for $12-$15. Why pick up Excite Truck at $20 when it's so easy to get it cheaper? Will Excite Truck have any appeal to people outside of those who already purchased it? I think Nintendo realizes that not many more are really going to care about the game, and if they do get interested in the game due to the PC branding, they will also see the used price version right next to it.
I don't mind you being curt about it. I'll admit that to some degree (not entirely) I'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of discussion. I've found that you and I generally echo the same sentiments in threads so I'm taking this opportunity to explore some territory from the other side
Moving on, I think the recent history of this stuff is actually what has made Nintendo so hesitant to do it again. I'll get into this more in a moment.
I think we can safely say that these titles are evergreen because of the expanded market that Wii is appealing to, where people are buying the console fresh and looking to these titles, or simply buying games "whenever" as opposed to at release.
Do you think that an officially branded Nintendo "Player's Choice" line, however, would make the expanded market consumers think twice about paying full price for NSMB Wii? This other Mario game (Galaxy) is $20. Why is NSMB Wii so expensive?
I think that Nintendo does make bullheaded decisions a lot of the time, but let's also consider that they're coming off of a generation where, with the GameCube, they resorted to almost firesale tactics with frequent price drops that I think ended up hurting the brand image. Nintendo at this point, I think, wants to position themselves as a "premier quality" brand as opposed to the "budget" brand.
Lastly, I think a Player's Choice line at this point would actually hurt third-parties by calling more attention and requiring more shelf space for the PC titles, and also drawing more consumers into purchasing the discounted PC titles than the "risky" third-party titles.
Here's something that I've been thinking about recently:
What I would be more in favor of at this point would be something closer to a PC line that highlighted only high-quality third-party titles that have passed their initial "big sales" run. This could have the effect of improving third-party sales and be a goodwill gesture to some publishers and developers. When the game purchaser comes in for their high-quality, "safe" Nintendo software, they may consider these Nintendo-approved third-party titles because Nintendo is sort of giving them their nod of approval. It would be a low-cost way for Nintendo to promote third-party efforts as well as improve the overall image of their library while not discounting their own "premier" software.
I think something else to consider is the major expansion of the used games market and how prevalent it is becoming, even outside of Gamestop now. It's possible that as it has grown, it has and will continue to limit the effectiveness of Player's Choice lines.
timetokill
Banned
HK-47 said:
To be clear: While I would love it personally, I am partly playing devil's advocate while saying that it might NOT be a huge financial boon to Nintendo to create one right now.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
gerg said:
Would someone savvy enough to do that really need extensive instruction on how to play a goddamn Mario game? And if the technical angle doesn't convince you, who would WANT to expend that kind of effort to learn a Mario game? I'm not just talking about the minimal effort of switching TV inputs, but the cognitive effort and patience required to receive non-interactive instruction from a video. Why would anyone do that rather than just push buttons on the controller to see what they do? If the DVD explains the goals of the game, and those are not decipherable from the game design itself, then the designers have failed massively at their jobs.