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Is Nintendo back, or almost back at having a monopoly?

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Two Words

Member
Yes, Nintendo has a monopoly on the mobile gaming market as long as you ignore 95% of the mobile market. Nintendo could disappear overnight and nobody would notice the loss of revenue made in mobile games.
 
I don't think the NES was a monopoly.

There were several other 8-bit systems.

Nintendo did have a real monopoly on third party consoles developers in the 1980's to 1990. I don't know what it was like in all regions, but in North America, and possibly even Europe, Nintendo did sign contracts with publishers that would give Nintendo exclusivity (I don't know it it was timed?) over their console developed games. But this contract did not include microcomputer/ PC ports. Nintendo did manufacture every NES third party published cartridge game that had a Seal of Quality sticker on it. The third party publishers had to pay the bill.

If you look at the Master System library, you will see that just about every game was ported and published by Sega themselves. Sure there were a few obscure publishers, but third parties didn't show up on the Master System until 1991. There were developers like EA that worked with Ultra Games/ Konami on the Skate or Die series, just so they wouldn't have to get tangled with Nintendo's contracts. EA was a company that use to cater to the home computer market. But their first real success was on the Genesis/ Mega Drive. There were some early European companies on the Mega Drive that would create alternate branches and brands for the Genesis/ Mega Drive, just so they could get around Nintendo's contract.

This monopoly was actually investigated in 1990 by the US FCC, and caused Nintendo to loosen their ties on third party licensing. It also opened up the Sega Genesis to new third party publishers.

They also had a very strong influence on retail distribution back in the day too. They would pull licenses away from retailers if they ever stocked unlicensed NES games that did not have the Seal of Quality.

Here is a neat piece of video from 1991 that gets into the Nintendo Monopoly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwd56K7rp7A

Though this is really more on how they ran the retail side than limiting what platforms third parties could develop for.

Those kinds of Monopolies will never happen again from Nintendo.
 
Only way I can ever see them getting dethroned is if Apple or Google ever decide to make a serious effort to push a standard for physical controllers and push for developers to have higher priced games with traditional development cycles.

Apple has sorta been doing that with Apple TV now, they're promoting a standard wireless controller for that device. But I doubt they or Google want to encourage games that need gamepads on smartphones, because they don't want to take away from what what makes mobile gaming so successful for casual gamers, nevermind they don't want to annoy the hell out of casual gamers who really don't want to buy a peripheral just to play games on the go - mobile gamers are already cancerous enough and hostile to games you actually have to pay for, if Apple or Google allowed games that can't be played exclusively with a touchscreen and gyro, there would be an absolute shitshow.
 

danm999

Member
You are basically throwing up a lot of pointless qualifiers to try and pretend Nintendo has a monopoly. Mobile doesn't count, PC doesn't count, etc.

Some qualifiers even Nintendo does not agree with; they see the value in mobile gaming and have entered it. Super Mario Run.

Nintendo is a company that is now in a great position with a promising future thanks to the Switch, but no, they don't have a monopoly.
 
Nintendo has a monopoly on hybrid console gaming.... But is that a monopoly people want considering their third party support will be incredibly lacking as a result of ARM-based hardware? So far, everyone I know that has or wants a Switch was a Nintendo fan that buys their hardware as "Nintendo boxes"
 
Yes, Nintendo has a monopoly on the mobile gaming market as long as you ignore 95% of the mobile market. Nintendo could disappear overnight and nobody would notice the loss of revenue made in mobile games.

Doesn't Pokemon Go continue to have the biggest userbase in mobile gaming still?
 
Nintendo has a monopoly on hybrid console gaming.... But is that a monopoly people want considering their third party support will be incredibly lacking as a result of ARM-based hardware? So far, everyone I know that has or wants a Switch was a Nintendo fan that buys their hardware as "Nintendo boxes"

iyVSavR.jpg


Uggggggggghhh.

ARM has absolutely nothing to do with porting. It's about as ubiquitous as x86 these days due to mobile development, every modern game engine has support for both, especially both Unreal and Unity, and compilers and toolchains make porting between architectures much easier, x86 is more of a buzzword these days than a proper selling point since only the two most widely-used and and familiar CPU architectures are being used in game development anymore. You might've had a point if the Switch was still using, say, PowerPC, but, nope. (Not that PowerPC is practical for a handheld device anyway.)

Hell, power really isn't a massive hurdle either, the gap between the Switch and the Xbone/PS4 is much smaller than the gap between the Wii and the 360/PS3 in practical terms. Even Snake Pass, a UE4 game that was based around animation and physics too intensive for the PS4 to handle at native res, plays and looks fine on Switch at just lower res and a couple of missing effects. The Tegra X1 is a remarkably modern chipset. Ports are more than viable if the dev is willing to compromise a bit in terms of visual fidelity.

If the system sells well, third parties will come. The problem is, publishers are skittish after the Wii U failed, the Switch is a mid-gen emergency reboot, and western AAA devs tend to avoid handhelds like the plague because reasons.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
They sort of do already they have a monopoly on games published on a Nintendo console.

You know cos the third party situation is shit.
 
iyVSavR.jpg


Uggggggggghhh.

ARM has absolutely nothing to do with porting. It's about as ubiquitous as x86 these days due to mobile development, every modern game engine has support for both, especially both Unreal and Unity. Hell, power really isn't a massive hurdle either, the gap between the Switch and the Xbone/PS4 is much smaller than the gap between the Wii and the 360/PS3 in practical terms. Even Snake Pass, a UE4 game that was based around animation and physics too intensive for the PS4 to handle at native res, plays and looks fine on Switch at just lower res and a couple of missing effects.

If the system sells well, third parties will come. The problem is, publishers are skittish after the Wii U failed, the Switch is a mid-gen emergency reboot, and western AAA devs tend to avoid handhelds like the plague because reasons.


Nintendo has had experience with ARM based CPU's going all the way back to the Game Boy Advance. The GBA line, DS, 3DS and now Switch. Using ARM benefits Nintendo in a big way, as it is something their teams are all familiar with and already have development environments set up for it. I expect ARM to be something that Nintendo will stick with for a few of their future consoles. It also makes sense for BC as well.

And yeah, so many third party publishers have teams specialized in making ARM powered mobile games, and have engines that support ARM architectural. The popular third party engines (Unity, UE4, GameMaker, etc...) all support ARM as well. Nintendo using ARM going forward could benefit them.
 
I'm not saying it has anything to do with porting but when you're dealing with an architecture that is significantly less powerful than the consoles that released in 2013, it's not reasonable to expect third parties to target Switch performance or make all sorts of concessions to get it functioning on Switch. Especially when talking about games that have lots and lots of simulation (open worlds). I'm a believer in ARM but it's just a fact that ARM processing is several generations behind X86 processing performance.
 
Mobile phones are still considered handheld gaming devices. It's not dedicated but they still count and devs, especially Western devs, are more likely to release a mobile game then a Switch and 3DS game.
 
Nintendo has had experience with ARM based CPU's going all the way back to the Game Boy Advance. The GBA line, DS, 3DS and now Switch. Using ARM benefits Nintendo in a big way, as it is something their teams are all familiar with and already have development environments set up for it.

And yeah, so many third party publishers have teams specialized in making ARM powered mobile games, and have engines that support ARM architectural. The popular third party engines (Unity, UE4, GameMaker, etc...) all support ARM as well. Nintendo using ARM going forward could benefit them.

Yeah, pretty much what I'm saying. ARM is slowly catching up to x86, and in the long run is more power-efficient and far more portable. I could actually see Microsoft and Sony switching to ARM at some point to stay competitive in the long term, even if that doesn't necessarily mean making hybrid consoles of their own, but considering the Switch is eating the PS4's lunch in Japan (and will shit all over it when the inevitable Pokemon and Monster Hunter games come out), I sincerely doubt there hasn't been discussions on the notion in Sony's boardrooms.

I'm not saying it has anything to do with porting but when you're dealing with an architecture that is significantly less powerful than the consoles that released in 2013, it's not reasonable to expect third parties to target Switch performance or make all sorts of concessions to get it functioning on Switch. Especially when talking about games that have lots and lots of simulation (open worlds). I'm a believer in ARM but it's just a fact that ARM processing is several generations behind X86 processing performance.

Have you compared the Tegra X1 and the chips used in the Xbone/PS4? Jaguar is so shit that the X1 CPU is actually pretty close, albeit with a few less cores, but multicore processing only gets you so far with gaming. Open worlds are another matter entirely, but not everything is going open-world, and more modern architecture helps bridge the gap. Again, devs have released PS4 games without sacrificing much in terms of visual fidelity, and the most prominent example was a two-month porting effort using UE4, and Epic claims there's a lot more where that came from.

The next Tegra SoC, Xavier, is gonna be a proper octo-core device, likely with at least 2.0GHz processing frequency, and basically double the GPU power of the X1 at least, and probably is what is gonna be in the Switch 2. The Switch is already an absolute beast for a handheld, I can envision the Switch 2 being a PS4+ device. "Several generations behind", my ass.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
will shit all over it when the inevitable Pokemon and Monster Hunter games come out), I sincerely doubt there hasn't been discussions on the notion in Sony's boardrooms.



Have you compared the Tegra X1 and the chips used in the Xbone/PS4? Jaguar is so shit that the X1 CPU is actually pretty close, albeit with a few less cores, but multicore processing only gets you so far with gaming. Open worlds are another matter entirely, but not everything is going open-world, and more modern architecture helps bridge the gap. Again, devs have released PS4 games without sacrificing much in terms of visual fidelity, and the most prominent example was a two-month porting effort using UE4, and Epic claims there's a lot more where that came from.

The next Tegra SoC, Xavier, is gonna be a proper octo-core device, likely with at least 2.0GHz processing frequency, and basically double the GPU power of the X1 at least, and probably is what is gonna be in the Switch 2. The Switch is already an absolute beast for a handheld, I can envision the Switch 2 being a PS4+ device. "Several generations behind", my ass.

No, the next MH isn't gonna come out on the Switch specifically MH World. It's already confirmed.

When the Switch 2 is at PS4 quality then PS5 and the next Xbox would be multiple times more powerful then. It'll still be a generation behind. Any technical problem the Switch is currently having would still come over to Switch 2. Of course, if you truly value the portable aspect of it then it would still be great.
 

D.Lo

Member
For consoles perhaps, since C64 was popular in Europe in the 8-bit days. That's also why the crash of 1983 didn't affect Europe as much as it did America.
This gets said a lot, but NO 80s home computing platform came anywhere close to the NES worldwide. Even the Master System sold more than the C64 IIRC.

Europe was just a much more immature, fragmented, hobbyist market, it didn't crash because there was nothing much to crash, not because of home computers.

No, the next MH isn't gonna come out on the Switch specifically MH World. It's already confirmed.
Lol whatever you say. MHP5 or some equivalent will come to the Switch in Japan, lock it in.
 

Trace

Banned
This gets said a lot, but NO 80s home computing platform came anywhere close to the NES worldwide. Even the Master System sold more than the C64 IIRC.

Europe was just a much more immature, fragmented, hobbyist market, it didn't crash because there was nothing much to crash, not because of home computers.


Lol whatever you say. MHP5 or some equivalent will come to the Switch in Japan, lock it in.

Monster Hunter 5 is Monster Hunter World. World isn't coming to the Switch.

Will Switch get a Monster Hunter? Obviously. MHXX is already confirmed.

Will it get Monster Hunter World? No.
 

D.Lo

Member
whatever you say. The facts can speak for themselves. Unless proven otherwise.
Monster Hunter 5 is Monster Hunter World. World isn't coming to the Switch.

Will Switch get a Monster Hunter? Obviously. MHXX is already confirmed.

Will it get Monster Hunter World? No.
Lol 'facts'. So games that haven't been announced will never exist, got it. There will never be another Mario after Odyssey because none have been announced yet I guess.

Capcom is not throwing away 4 million+ sales to the portable MH fans in Japan. XX is just a cheapie teaser, either a version of World or a MHP5 will be released on Switch, count on it.
 

Atheerios

Member
Monster Hunter 5 is Monster Hunter World. World isn't coming to the Switch.

Will Switch get a Monster Hunter? Obviously. MHXX is already confirmed.

Will it get Monster Hunter World? No.

whatever you say. The facts can speak for themselves. Unless proven otherwise.

He never mentioned the next MH. He specifically was talking about an hypothetical MH5.

Do you believe Capcom will never return to a number-based sequel?
 

Trace

Banned
He never mentioned the next MH. He specifically was talking about an hypothetical MH5.

Do you believe Capcom will never return to a number-based sequel?

Capcom has stated World entered development as Monster Hunter 5. They called it World because they liked the name, simple as that.
 
Monster Hunter 5 is Monster Hunter World. World isn't coming to the Switch.

Will Switch get a Monster Hunter? Obviously. MHXX is already confirmed.

Will it get Monster Hunter World? No.

Obviously Capcom will port MHW to Switch, it will most likely get some kind of MHW Ultimate some time after MHW is out.
 
They're definitely the only real player left in the handheld console, dedicated hardware section of the mobile gaming market.

That's kind of pyrrhic victory though, given that the overwhelming majority of that market are clearly being better served by Smartphones now. Handheld gaming is still a healthy, sustainable market, but I still expect it to contract further, and I think it's a sad symptom of that contraction that the only player left in the market is the traditional leader.
 
Monster Hunter 5 is Monster Hunter World. World isn't coming to the Switch.

Will Switch get a Monster Hunter? Obviously. MHXX is already confirmed.

Will it get Monster Hunter World? No.

Switch may not get World, but it will receive a fifth generation title.
 

WhatNXt

Member
They're squandering the first year hype and success of this thing so far, IMO. Nintendo Direct needed soon. The shine is wearing off the initial software slate for me.
 
They're squandering the first year hype and success of this thing so far, IMO. Nintendo Direct needed soon. The shine is wearing off the initial software slate for me.

I like to think that they're stuck in this awkward spot where whatever they were saving to hype up the machine continuously over the year in the case it were not as huge of a success as it ended up being is now being held back because they can't even stock enough of them in stores. When they get manufacturing enough of them under control, then they'll let info out to build up even more hype. At least, I'd hope so since I feel like we are long overdue to see Retro's game and I really felt like we were going to see a Smash or Mario Maker port this year.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
OK thanks for that, didn't realize GB sold that much. Still though, for someone to enter that space at that point and put up those numbers was impressive.80 million is nothing to sneeze at...
The Gameboy number also includes Gameboy Color.


Yeah, pretty much what I'm saying. ARM is slowly catching up to x86, and in the long run is more power-efficient and far more portable. I could actually see Microsoft and Sony switching to ARM at some point to stay competitive in the long term, even if that doesn't necessarily mean making hybrid consoles of their own, but considering the Switch is eating the PS4's lunch in Japan (and will shit all over it when the inevitable Pokemon and Monster Hunter games come out), I sincerely doubt there hasn't been discussions on the notion in Sony's boardrooms.
How will they be more competitive with ARM CPU?
 

Memento

Member
This is a weird question.

Of course they have a monopoly in the dedicated handheld scenario. They are literally the only player on it.
 

Eumi

Member
Sure, if you discount mobile gaming.

Which is stupid and disingenuous but everyone seems fine with doing it.
 
I don't at all understand how the Switch is hyped here - Sales are good so far, but a monopoly? 5 million Switch units sold vs. 60 million PS4s speaks a different language to me.
 
No, the next MH isn't gonna come out on the Switch specifically MH World. It's already confirmed.

Well, I was talking about XX and whatever hypothetical MH game would come after, but ruling out the possibility of World not coming? Really? Have we learned nothing from the Capcom Five debacle?

It's Capcom. They'll make a port if they see money in it, even if they promise exclusivity, unless the game is explicitly money-hatted, and those guys love ports, even if they're really old games (see RE4, which was ported to practically every console after it was supposed to be a GC exclusive, and the inexplicable Switch port of SSF2T). I wouldn't be surprised if a port of World with extra content is announced after both the other versions and XX are released, because they know MH sells best on handhelds in Japan, and the Switch is basically going to eat the PS4's lunch in Japan anyway, so they'd be crazy not to release another MH game on it after XX, might as well port over the HD game they're already making. And we know World is fair game because it's not console-exclusive.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I'm not saying it has anything to do with porting but when you're dealing with an architecture that is significantly less powerful than the consoles that released in 2013, it's not reasonable to expect third parties to target Switch performance or make all sorts of concessions to get it functioning on Switch. Especially when talking about games that have lots and lots of simulation (open worlds). I'm a believer in ARM but it's just a fact that ARM processing is several generations behind X86 processing performance.
I don't know what you believe in, but you, sir, exhibit flamboyant ignorance of what an architecture entails (hint: an ISA is an instruction set). ARM are not just in Japanese hybrid consoles, but soon in Japanese supercomputers: https://www.top500.org/news/fujitsu...-k-supercomputer-will-ride-arm-into-exascale/
 
I don't know what you believe in, but you, sir, exhibit flamboyant ignorance of what an architecture entails (hint: an ISA is an instruction set). ARM are not just in Japanese hybrid consoles, but soon in Japanese supercomputers: https://www.top500.org/news/fujitsu...-k-supercomputer-will-ride-arm-into-exascale/

I mean, it's hard to ignore his point though. Unless the Switch continues to sell like hotcakes, I doubt most developers will spend what's required to downport their games to Switch, especially now with PS4Pro and X1X out there.

Simple math: The Switch so far sold only 5m units. Even if you make a game that 10% of the entire Switch install-base buys (which would be a massive hit), you'll only have sold 500k copies. So it's just a question of: Can you make a port that'll become profitable even if you 'only' sell 100-200k units? And downporting to Switch is no easy feat at all due to hardware limitations. I highly doubt that most big AAA games will get a proper port before the Switch hasn't broken through 20+m units sold.
 
I mean, it's hard to ignore his point though. Unless the Switch continues to sell like hotcakes, I doubt most developers will spend what's required to downport their games to Switch, especially now with PS4Pro and X1X out there.

Simple math: The Switch so far sold only 5m units. Even if you make a game that 10% of the entire Switch install-base buys (which would be a massive hit), you'll only have sold 500k copies. So it's just a question of: Can you make a port that'll become profitable even if you 'only' sell 100-200k units? And downporting to Switch is no easy feat at all due to hardware limitations. I highly doubt that most big AAA games will get a proper port before the Switch hasn't broken through 20+m units sold.

Firstly, why are you bringing up PS4Pro and X1X? They're a non-issue in this discussion because we know neither Sony or MS will permit exclusives for either for entirely sensible reasons. They're completely irrelevant, they're basically the equivalent of the New 3DS except with a focus on fancier graphics when games are played on them.

As for whether a port is profitable, that depends on how easy the port is. If you're using an existing engine that supports the Switch out of the box like, say, UE4 (and especially UE4), your porting job is significantly easier, and I doubt it'd add millions of dollars to the budget in any case. 500K would sound like a pretty decent profit to me.
 

KtSlime

Member
I mean, it's hard to ignore his point though. Unless the Switch continues to sell like hotcakes, I doubt most developers will spend what's required to downport their games to Switch, especially now with PS4Pro and X1X out there.

Simple math: The Switch so far sold only 5m units. Even if you make a game that 10% of the entire Switch install-base buys (which would be a massive hit), you'll only have sold 500k copies. So it's just a question of: Can you make a port that'll become profitable even if you 'only' sell 100-200k units? And downporting to Switch is no easy feat at all due to hardware limitations. I highly doubt that most big AAA games will get a proper port before the Switch hasn't broken through 20+m units sold.

That's probably the realistic range for the majority of games released regardless of platform. While I am sure it is not a trivial amount of money, the cost of changing assets, tweaking code, and doing validation testing on the game, it probably does not require an extraordinary amount of units to make back the investment. Besides the Switch will be to 20+ units before you know it.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I mean, it's hard to ignore his point though. Unless the Switch continues to sell like hotcakes, I doubt most developers will spend what's required to downport their games to Switch, especially now with PS4Pro and X1X out there.
Why would switch suddenly stop selling? And are you implying devs will stop supporting ps4 OG and xb OG?

Simple math: The Switch so far sold only 5m units. Even if you make a game that 10% of the entire Switch install-base buys (which would be a massive hit), you'll only have sold 500k copies.
Why are you making projections based on a 5M install base? By that logic, no game for a new console should ever be developed.

So it's just a question of: Can you make a port that'll become profitable even if you 'only' sell 100-200k units? And downporting to Switch is no easy feat at all due to hardware limitations.
I agree in principle, but your figures are rather arbitrary.

I highly doubt that most big AAA games will get a proper port before the Switch hasn't broken through 20+m units sold.
So once switch hits 20M ARM will suddenly stop being the 'underperforming architecture' by Alexander DeLarge's metric? You do realise his point and what you're arguing are orthogonal things, right?
 
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