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[Interceptor]

Most of that (besides I guess the Kyoto HQ) has been in the past 2-3 years, no? I thought the question in the OP was more referring to the massive amount of money they made in the Wii/DS days, a lot of which was seemingly not invested in much of anything around that time.

It's definitely a fine strategy to have a lot of liquidity that can be used like they're using it now- to diversify their business efforts in order to survive when their primary business takes a downturn- but I personally think this is a process they should've begun closer to 2008 when they were pulling in record profits.

Typically investors expect businesses to grow, and there was no better time to start doing that on a larger scale during the heights of the Wii/DS era.

- Building the new HQ actually began around 2008.
- They spend insane amounts on R&D
- Unlike Apple they paid dividends during their success
- Their was a minor earthquake in 2011 which is always forgotten, they donated a lot.
- 10% of DENA
- They rebought their own stock
- all the other stuff already mentioned.

 

[AntMurda]

- Building the new HQ actually began around 2008.

Nintendo built a new main R&D plant, not a new HQ. Their HQ is still their HQ. Just saw this posted like a hundred times here.

 

[KojiKnight]

people forget that nintendo bought all the yamaguchi shares from his sons so nobody could take over them, but you know! nintendo is doomed

This was kind of my point... Nintendo could do this because they don't spread themselves thin. Ubi doesn't have the money to do things like that (Nintendo also probably released a lot of those shares back into the wild at this point though)

 

[Interceptor]

Nintendo built a new main R&D plant, not a new HQ. Their HQ is still their HQ. Just saw this posted like a hundred times here.

[/QUOTE]

True.

 

[pastrami]

Here's a SIE/Nintendo comparison. Still not perfect because they each do a couple different things (PSN videos/music/Vue, Amiibo).

Hardware revenue / Total revenue / Employees
Nintendo: 267 / 504 / ~5,000
SIE: 721 / 1,479 / ~8,000 (from wiki, so unsure of this number)

Revenue in billions of yen.

 

[aBarreras]

This was kind of my point... Nintendo could do this because they don't spread themselves thin. Ubi doesn't have the money to do things like that (Nintendo also probably released a lot of those shares back into the wild at this point though)

yeah, thats my point to, people say they did "nothing" with the money, when that´s factually wrong

 

[AntMurda]

Here's a SIE/Nintendo comparison. Still not perfect because they each do a couple different things (PSN videos/music/Vue, Amiibo).

Technically NCL's R&D also heavily vested into system / network / service features. Just nowhere as expansive or good as SIE.

 

[jblank83]

So you're saying that (besides the new HQ) they decided to start really utilizing their Wii era profits after the Wii went out of production? Obviously they spent some of it on Wii U/3DS R&D but all reports from then indicated that there were still sitting on billions in cash.

That probably isn't the best way to do business- it seems a bit too slow and reactionary, rather than forward thinking.

R&D for new hardware typically begins immediately on release of the previous hardware (forward thinking), if not sooner, i.e. as far back as 2006. With the Wii/DS selling like crazy, there was zero cause to question their approach to product design anytime before 2010-ish, when sales of 360/PS3 started to overtake the Wii.

Wii U released in 2012. There is a buildup time of a year or more leading up to a new product launch, as we're seeing with all the bits of NX news and rumors, meaning their preparations for launch would stretch back into 2011.

Even if they realized the casual market shift occurring in 2010-2012, it was too late for them to drop everything, reorganize, and redesign a new product from scratch. They were committed to the U launch. I'm sure they were hoping they could revitalize the Wii brand with their new product, not unreasonable given their near 300 million Wii/DS sales.

I don't think that's very slow and reactionary, more constricted by the timelines involved.

Every company gets restricted by timelines, blind sided by market shifts, and misreads of the market. Microsoft thought it was time for an all digital always online console. Sony thought they could sell a bluray player ("it's not a video game machine") all in one entertainment center for $599 without negative consequences. Apple thought it could sit on the iPhone design forever without having to change anything.

Shit happens, you deal with it. The real question is whether Nintendo can recover from the dropoff they experience during the U/3DS years.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Okay I understand they were building the new center in Kyoto as early as 2008, but a lot of their other projects people are discussing are much more recent.

This is the article I was talking about- Link- if that information is accurate, as of 2012 they had over $10 billion in the bank- not in assets, but in liquid cash.

What I (and others in this thread I think) have been getting at is that allowing that money to sit in the bank even until 2012 probably wasn't the best business decision. Good business practice states that you should be investing, expanding, diversifying when your business is doing its best. That protects you against future downward trends (cough Wii U cough) because it supposedly allows you to profit in multiple areas, which aren't currently trending down.

In the past few years I think they've started to do a good job in this. Amiibo has clearly been a success, their theme park business should do well, their TV/film business should do a great job too, and all of this should help drive the primary business by exposing more people to the IP. All I'm trying to say is that these initiatives should have been happening back in 2008, rather than 2012+ when their primary business wasn't generating the same profits that help drive these investments.

For the record I am not a "Nintendooomed" poster. I personally have a decent amount of stock in Nintendo and have high hopes for the future of their business, I just realize that they were a bit slow in investing their massive Wii profits, and it sorta bit them in the ass.

 

[Shig]

Did they invest in anything with those absurd profits? Didn't they just let the cash sit around in their massive warchest? Which to be honest was a pretty poor decision in hindsight (probably poor at the time too).

Pretty much. It's absolutely insane that they didn't pursue any significant expansion during the Wii/DS mania.

Especially considering that devs were dropping like flies throughout the gen and they could have swooped in and picked many up for a song. Lots of western devs went to the chopping block that could have worked on some uniquely western-appealing genres that Nintendo very clearly lacks in their portfolio.

In addition, these devs had on-hands experience with HD development and online features and functionality best practices in a time when Nintendo was developing their first HD console and needed better online functionality. Acquisitions would have been useful just to pick some brains on those subjects. Instead they decided to wing those hurdles all by their lonesome, and thus they got the Wii U stumbling along out the gate while they moved goalposts and figured things out.

 

[jblank83]

- Building the new HQ actually began around 2008.
- They spend insane amounts on R&D
- Unlike Apple they paid dividends during their success
- Their was a minor earthquake in 2011 which is always forgotten, they donated a lot.
- 10% of DENA
- They rebought their own stock
- all the other stuff already mentioned.

It was significant too, $1.1 billion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...tes-buyback-as-founding-family-to-sell-shares

Yamauchi's children inherited his shares, incurring a significant inheritance tax. So they sold them back to the company instead.

 

[entremet]

Fun fact: Microsoft spends several times more in a year than Nintendo's net worth.

Their gaming division? If we're talking about MS mothership, yeah that makes sense. They're huge in IT.

 

[LegendofLex]

Did they invest in anything with those absurd profits? Didn't they just let the cash sit around in their massive warchest? Which to be honest was a pretty poor decision in hindsight (probably poor at the time too).

Their R&D spending is around 4-5x what it was just prior to the Wii/DS era.

(in million yen)
2004 - 15,825
2005 - 20,513
2006 - 30,596
2007 - 37,725
2008 - 37,001
2009 - 42,254
2010 - 45,471
2011 - 52,756
2012 - 52,675
2013 - 53,483
2014 - 71,726
2015 - 63,336
2016 - 69,066

 

[Skittzo0413]

Their R&D spending is around 4-5x what it was just prior to the Wii/DS era.

(in million yen)
2004 - 15,825
2005 - 20,513
2006 - 30,596
2007 - 37,725
2008 - 37,001
2009 - 42,254
2010 - 45,471
2011 - 52,756
2012 - 52,675
2013 - 53,483
2014 - 71,726
2015 - 63,336
2016 - 69,066

Those more recent numbers are pretty encouraging actually. I really think the NX will have some very interesting and different features.

I don't think I phrased my original post that well- obviously they invested some money but the fact that they had $10 billion in cash as of 2012 and weren't putting a good majority of that into other investments at the time wasn't a good decision in my opinion. They should have been doing a huge amount of investment and diversification when they knew their primary business was stronger than it had ever been, rather than only now when their primary business has become somewhat stagnant.

 

[jblank83]

What I (and others in this thread I think) have been getting at is that allowing that money to sit in the bank even until 2012 probably wasn't the best business decision. Good business practice states that you should be investing, expanding, diversifying when your business is doing its best. That protects you against future downward trends (cough Wii U cough) because it supposedly allows you to profit in multiple areas, which aren't currently trending down....

...For the record I am not a "Nintendooomed" poster. I personally have a decent amount of stock in Nintendo and have high hopes for the future of their business, I just realize that they were a bit slow in investing their massive Wii profits, and it sorta bit them in the ass.

There were also political concerns. Again, I can't find the articles, but I recall some mention of Iwata dealing with more conservative factions in the company in order to put into place the reorganization efforts. A lot of younger executives have moved up while some staunch old timers have stepped down. Miyamoto has said as much as well, stating that he is handing the reins to the next generation of young designers.

There is a good argument to be made that Nintendo could have acquired a few more studios, especially Western ones.

However another issue was Iwata's health. I'm sure that had some impact on decisions. You can already see how many more decisions are being made after his death. I'm not saying his death was a "positive", but rather that the end of his life and his illness tied the company's hands.

There's not much to do about that either. A similar problem happened at Apple during the end of Steve Jobs' life. I realize his death was only recently, however his diagnosis goes further back. And I think it's remarkable how much he accomplished in those last years of his life.

I don't think I phrased my original post that well- obviously they invested some money but the fact that they had $10 billion in cash as of 2012 and weren't putting a good majority of that into other investments at the time wasn't a good decision in my opinion. They should have been doing a huge amount of investment and diversification when they knew their primary business was stronger than it had ever been, rather than only now when their primary business has become somewhat stagnant.

Contrarily, it is good to have a healthy amount of liquid reserves. The stock buyback is a good example of why. The economic downturn in Japan and then in the US are other examples. When dollar-yen ratios change, it changes how you move money between countries, and where and when you invest money.

In comparison, here are the liquid reserves of other large companies:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/11/technology/overseas-cash-tech/

Apple (AAPL, Tech30): $178 billion - 89% overseas
Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30): $90.2 billion - 91% overseas
Google (GOOG): $64.4 billion - 60% overseas
Cisco (CSCO, Tech30): $53 billion - 94% overseas
Oracle (ORCL, Tech30): $44.7 billion - 90% overseas

Which isn't to say investing is bad. Just that holding reserves is also good.

 

[lo zaffo]

I think decrease is a strong concept world in economics in Japan, and being Nintendo a Japanese company, Nintendo will easily manage its decrease rather that its growth.
They already know incoming years they will decrease market shares and they are prepared for that.
They already greenlit less and less software projects and NX project itself has the sole goal of decreasing workload of software and hardware departments.

 

[James Scott]

Yeah, they're half the size of Ubisoft and have to support their own hardware themselves.
They really should invest in creating new studios or buying existing studios that want to be purchased especially if they're not going to compete with MS and Sony directly getting all the 3rd party publishers on board.
They are very efficient as is and can put out like 15+ games per year, but they should consider expanding further especially if their shared library concept goes through since it's a lot of cheaper games that sell to a larger audience.
To keep expanding their audience they should consider making or buying studios that can make the games that they can't. They had Retro and Next level but put them to make 2D platformers and a Luigi's Mansion sequel.

 

[daemonic]

Yep, being hired at Nintendo requires an insane amount of work.

For everyone who's curious about this:


http://www.bizjapanese.com/blog/7-s...endo-a-guide-to-nintendo-s-recruitment-system

Thanks for posting this. Really interesting stuff.

 

[Skittzo0413]

There were also political concerns. Again, I can't find the articles, but I recall some mention of Iwata dealing with more conservative factions in the company in order to put into place the reorganization efforts. A lot of younger executives have moved up while some staunch old timers have stepped down. Miyamoto has said as much as well, stating that he is handing the reins to the next generation of young designers.

There is a good argument to be made that Nintendo could have acquired a few more studios, especially Western ones.

However another issue was Iwata's health. I'm sure that had some impact on decisions. You can already see how many more decisions are being made after his death. I'm not saying his death was a "positive", but rather that the end of his life and his illness tied the company's hands.

There's not much to do about that either. A similar problem happened at Apple during the end of Steve Jobs' life.




Contrarily, it is good to have a healthy amount of liquid reserves. The stock buyback is a good example of why. The economic downturn in Japan and then in the US are other examples. When dollar-yen ratios change, it changes how you move money between countries, and where and when you invest money.

In comparison, here are the liquid reserves of other large companies:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/11/technology/overseas-cash-tech/

Apple (AAPL, Tech30): $178 billion - 89% overseas
Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30): $90.2 billion - 91% overseas
Google (GOOG): $64.4 billion - 60% overseas
Cisco (CSCO, Tech30): $53 billion - 94% overseas
Oracle (ORCL, Tech30): $44.7 billion - 90% overseas

Which isn't to say investing is bad. Just that holding reserves is also good.

Can't argue with any of that, though I think looking at liquidity as a percentage of net worth might be a better comparison. Based on the article I linked they had $10B in cash and $6B in assets. I'm no MBA but I would think that a multibillion dollar company would be better served having more in assets than in cash, but as of 2012 they almost had double the amount of money as cash.

Nintendo is obviously a conservative company and having that much cash can be very attractive to a conservative company as a fallback, but in hindsight it just doesn't seem like it was the best decision for them. Again, I'm no MBA though.

 

[120v]

I always thought they should expand their software division by as much as feasible. Would make up for lack of 3rd party

 

[ECC]

I'm happy to see this discussion. In particular, I'm happy with to see both hard numbers and diverse points of view. That's a whole lot better to me than the common line of: "Nintendo have a lot of money". Sometimes followed up with: "they should by xxx developer".

Since we are having this discussion I would like to point out one aspect I'm quite sure we don't discuss all that often. Nintendo's way of operating the company, how they build their business model and indeed how they structure the production of their commodity (games and entertainment) is driven by an underlying model of stability.

With that, I mean that Nintendo has made a company model where short-term financial success does not dictate the mid- to long-term ways of operation to a dramatic degree. This is visible in both the hiring strategy, hard processes aimed at getting the right smart people in place for long-term development within the company, as well as their actions during bad years, famously so when Iwata answered that developers under the thread of yearly financials couldn't possibly keep it together to produce good games with any kind of consistency (paraphrased). This is again something we see in the Nintendo way of handling studios where they favour long-term partners, with a mutual interest in the wellbeing of a Nintendo platform, as well as in their general hesitant approach to studio acquisitions, due to a fear of the creative talent cashing out and simply leaving upon acquisition.

With this in mind, I think that the relative low staffing of Nintendo, focused mainly in Japan, is a deliberate choice in order to keep the company of a sufficiently small size. I.e. of such a size that it can withstand the problems of e.g. a Wii U, without putting the company finances at risk.

This would undoubtedly be different if Nintendo were present in more diverse markets with different, uncorrelated market cycles. However, they aren't so they have developed into this structure in order to accommodate the fundamental risks of the business.

Now, please don't take this to mean that I think Nintendo is perfect. That they don't need more third party etc.. I simply feel it is an important point, relevant to why they are the size they are, which isn't brought forth nearly enough.

 

[AntMurda]

I always thought they should expand their software division by as much as feasible. Would make up for lack of 3rd party

Again, Iwata mentioned Nintendo was interested in exploring potential M&A, which sounds like a great strategy. I'm not sure who exactly would be a perfect fit for that, seeing that most Japanese developers have already done it.

 

[Dingens]

Thanks!
They grew about 15%. Nothing massive but also not insignificant.
I wish they expand their euro operations beyond NERD and add one or two studios in US & Canada.

with the high turnover in employees, especially in the US, I can absolutely see why they would be reluctant to open up/invest in more studios. I mean, just look at retro... how many of the original staff are still there?

 

[gconsole]

From that chart, Capcom is too big for themself and their output. How could they have 2k employees working with almost no output for last 3 years?

 

[Ck1]

Small and dumb. Instead of expanding and instead of trying to understand their own values and appeal, they just sat down like idiots.

Now think about what you just said and instead of growing a studio to make games like SmashBros, they just Outsourced the work to a company that specializes in fighting games. This is what Nintendo needs to continue to do, not hire a bunch of people and then lay them off because a game isn't as successful as one hoped it would be.

 

[Ridley327]

Now think about what you just said and instead of growing a studio to make games like SmashBros, they just Outsourced the work to a company that specializes in fighting games. This is what Nintendo needs to continue to do, not hire a bunch of people and then lay them off because a game isn't as successful as one hoped it would be.

Nintendo isn't in the habit of laying people off in the first place. They generally hire on talent that tend to be lifers. It actually says a lot about what it's like to work there when there's been just two high profile departures since they entered the home console business, and one of them came back to them after a couple of years.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Nintendo isn't in the habit of laying people off in the first place. They generally hire on talent that tend to be lifers. It actually says a lot about what it's like to work there when there's been just two high profile departures since they entered the home console business, and one of them came back to them after a couple of years.

Their game development staff has a very high retention rate. But they have lost a few younger members here and there, mainly to film industry or other ventures not game related. Their system/application/network staff on the other hand, VERY high departure rate.

 

[VLQ]

people forget that nintendo bought all the yamaguchi shares from his sons so nobody could take over them, but you know! nintendo is doomed

they have only 15,20% treasury shares (as 30 september 2015), i am not sure it's a big number

 

[jblank83]

I always thought they should expand their software division by as much as feasible. Would make up for lack of 3rd party

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

While this book is focused on the seemingly counter-intuitive truth that adding developers to a delayed project only ends up delaying the project further, it's also true in terms of software development expansion. You can't simply spend a ton of money and buy up a ton of developers to double or triple your output.

Every new developer on an existing project takes time to educate and orient. That education and orientation process takes time away from existing project members. Likewise, new studios take time to acclimate to the new business culture, time to go through the pitch process, time to implement new oversight processes by the parent company, time to change their design and engineering workflows to accommodate the parent company. Sometimes, especially in Western studios, you get high turnover rate or outright studio closure (see EA). Which means productive quality is not guaranteed in the short term or even in the long term, if the core talent at the studio decides to leave.

That makes steady expansion preferable to just laying out a ton of cash to buy big name Western studios. Even adding nearly 20% more employees (going from 4200 to 5100) is a significant organizational task.

However, Nintendo did acquire NERD in France. Likewise, they formed a strong relationship with Next Level Games, a good relationship with Platinum Games, and entered into a partnership with DeNA. These sorts of "one or two offs" seem to make good economic sense in that they can be severed more easily than liquidating a 1st party studio with all of its employees.

they have only 15,20% treasury shares (as 30 september 2015), i am not sure it's a big number

The Yamauchi buyback cost $1.1 billion US.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

A decent amount went to buying back the Yamauchi family shares.

 

[Xiao Hu]

It's not the size but far more the structure that is detrimental to their current state, plus the lack of foresight in the leadership. Nintendo is too conservative in managment practices to benefit from its size in a bigger scale because its subsidiaries can't operate freely (hell they even cut jobs in Germany if we're talking about size). A globally operating company that can't see beyond the natural borders of its home country is simply a joke.

 

[ReyVGM]

Nintendo owns a lot of other companies that make games for them, so counting only internal employees is not really fair. Also, they work with 3rd parties which make "nintendo-like" games for them too.

Isn't the OP aware that a lot of games we consider to be made by Nintendo are actually made by other companies?

Hyrule Warriors, Smash Bros, Pokemon, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Donkey Kong Country and many others are not made by internal Nintendo employees.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

A globally operating company that can't see beyond the natural borders of its home country is simply a joke.

With Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln that wasn't the case. NOA was basically signing licenses for first-party products (Mike Tyson, Ken Griffey, Kobe Bryant, Goldeneye, Star Wars, etc.). This also lead to them creating a network of US/Euro studios like RARE to develop first-party Nintendo games outside of Kyoto. Think of how important that was to Nintendo succeeding in America and Europe with their previous consoles.

Nintendo owns a lot of other companies that make games for them, so counting only internal employees is not really fair. Also, they work with 3rd parties which make "nintendo-like" games for them too.

Isn't the OP aware that a lot of games we consider to be made by Nintendo are actually made by other companies?

Hyrule Warriors, Smash Bros, Pokemon, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Donkey Kong Country and many others are not made by internal Nintendo employees.

Nintendo Co., Ltd. (2,200) Employees Non-Consolidated (Only NCL)
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (5.064) Employees Consolidated (Includes NCL, NOA, NOE, NST, NTD, NNSD, iQUE, NERD, NDCUBE, RETROSTUDIOS, NES MERCHANDISING, MONOLITH SOFT. 1-UP STUDIO, MARIO CLUB)

Affiliates like IS, SRD, Genius Sonority, HAL Laboratory, The Pokemon Company, Creatures INC. are not included. But that's also like 300-400 people tops.

 

[Fredrik]

What should blow all out minds - They also make 2 different hardware in-house in addition to all the software they make. While everyone else on that list does not.

Impressive! It's like they're a bunch of smaller software and hardware studios.

 

[Orniletter]

Most of the above companies do significant outsourcing / contracting as well though.

Sony and EA aren't even close.

Sony throws some pocket change at indie developers and funds a japanese exclusive once in a blue moon.

EA closed their partners label because they wanted to refocus on internally developed games and now....publishes Respawn's games and sometimes something like Unravel.

 

[Shig]

With this in mind, I think that the relative low staffing of Nintendo, focused mainly in Japan, is a deliberate choice in order to keep the company of a sufficiently small size. I.e. of such a size that it can withstand the problems of e.g. a Wii U, without putting the company finances at risk.

The Wii U's underwhelming appeal owes a lot to their reluctance to diversify and invest more broadly in their own output when they could have easily afforded to do so.

They sat on their cash as a safeguard against disaster; Disaster struck because they sat on their cash. It's self-fulfilling prophecy.

Focusing on Japan is a very myopic strategy to take for them, as well. Western markets have historically carried Nintendo more reliably than the Japanese market has. The N64 was a boondoggle in Japan, but in international markets it did great. It's no coincidence that Nintendo was investing good money and front-facing exposure into publishing games from a western dev at this time.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I always thought during their Wii/DS heyday they should have used more of their enormous profits to set up some first party development studios in Europe and North America. Establishing, say, a 100-person development team in the UK, one in France or Poland, one in the USA and one in Canada would give Nintendo A) some western development talent, which is something they desperately need, and B) more development teams to help support their platforms, which they could always do with more of.

 

[Skittzo0413]

The Wii U's underwhelming appeal owes a lot to their reluctance to diversify and invest more broadly in their own output when they could have easily afforded to do so.

They sat on their cash as a safeguard against disaster; Disaster struck because they sat on their cash. It's self-fulfilling prophecy.

Focusing on Japan is a very myopic strategy to take for them, as well. Western markets have historically carried Nintendo more reliably than the Japanese market has. The N64 was a boondoggle in Japan, but in international markets it did great. It's no coincidence that Nintendo was investing good money and front-facing exposure into publishing games from a western dev at this time.

This is what I was trying to get at, but you put it much more eloquently than I did.

And it's not even just investing in more studios, developers, partnerships, etc. that would have helped safeguard them against the Wii U issues- they should have been diversifying in the way they are now, so that they had other revenue streams to offset the losses from the Wii U. They could have done that then (and are doing so now) easily while retaining enough cash to safeguard for future failures.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

Nintendo does a lot of stuff I don't like

Spoiler

and makes a ton of stuff I adore

, but I have to respect how cautious and deliberate they are in their decision making. That must explain their resilience as a company, as well as flat-footed response to industry shifts.

 

[AntMurda]

Sony and EA aren't even close.

Sony throws some pocket change at indie developers and funds a japanese exclusive once in a blue moon.

SIE produces a great deal of indie software, then they fully fund AAA first-party games from outside developers like Quantic Dream, From Software, Level 5, Clap Hanz, Shift, Dimps, AQ Interactive, Ready At Dawn, Supermassive, Tarsier, D3, Wholesale Algorithms, Bluepoint, Sumo Digital, Insomniac Games, Sanzaru Games, Mass Media Games, etc. The list goes on man. Don't know what you are dismissing!

 

[Orniletter]

SIE produces a great deal of indie software, then they fully fund AAA first-party games from outside developers like Quantic Dream, From Software, Level 5, Clap Hanz, Shift, Dimps, AQ Interactive, Ready At Dawn, Supermassive, Tarsier, D3, Wholesale Algorithms, Bluepoint, etc. The list goes on man. Don't know what you are dismissing!

I have to admit your list is longer than I anticipated (and I hate it when people nitpick things to death and declare everything doesn't count), so fair enough !

 

[Chewy Chipmunk]

I am not going to pretend like I know how to run a multi-billion dollar corporation.

But I'm assuming that while being so small maybe keeps them from reaching full potential, them being so small and against taking big financial risks is one of the reasons why they are so alive and healthy despite the Wii U bombing.

 

[AntMurda]

I am not going to pretend like I know how to run a multi-billion dollar corporation.

But I'm assuming that while being so small maybe keeps them from reaching full potential, them being so small and against taking big financial risks is one of the reasons why they are so alive and healthy despite the Wii U bombing.

Wii U bombed, but Nintendo still sold a lot of software. Especially in Japan.

 

[TSM]

I think that Nintendo kind of rode out the Wii and DS years thinking that they would just replicate that success without having to expand or focus on other markets. There was this enormous influx of cash, and it's hard to find anything they did during those years that did much other than maintaining the status quo. The market has changed drastically since then and it's hard to see any changes other than their commitment to making "hit" mobile games at some point.

Someone there is eventually going to have to make some really tough decisions, and it's hard to see how the company that had the Wii and DS success managed to end up where they are now.

 

[beril]

If you look at how many studios Sony, EA and Microsoft has bought and then shut down over the last decade, Nintendos conservative approach is probably a good thing

 

[MacTag]

SIE produces a great deal of indie software, then they fully fund AAA first-party games from outside developers like Quantic Dream, From Software, Level 5, Clap Hanz, Shift, Dimps, AQ Interactive, Ready At Dawn, Supermassive, Tarsier, D3, Wholesale Algorithms, Bluepoint, etc. The list goes on man. Don't know what you are dismissing!

Level 5 hasn't made a game for them in nearly a decade. I'm hesitant to call anything this gen from most of those other Japanese devs really AAA either, the obvious exception being From Software.

 

[AntMurda]

Level 5 hasn't made a game for them in nearly a decade. I'm hesitant to call anything this gen from most of those other Japanese devs really AAA either, the obvious exception being From Software.

The discussion was about publisher's outsourcing, Not necessarily about Japanese developers.

 

[Interceptor]

Many people would be surprised how many games Nintendo actually publishes every year. Problem is their output is too fractured among multiple devices. If only there was a way to change that...

In my opinion many of the criticism comes from people who recognize Mario and Zelda and nothing else. It's the age old "They should do more than Mario" and if they eventually do its "meh, thats not Mario, that doesn't count".

 

[MacTag]

The discussion was about publisher's outsourcing, Not necessarily about Japanese developers.

Yes, I was just taking issue that the specific JP devs you mentioned were contracted for AAA projects. I think it's debatable in most of those cases.

 

[Ridley327]

Their game development staff has a very high retention rate. But they have lost a few younger members here and there, mainly to film industry or other ventures not game related. Their system/application/network staff on the other hand, VERY high departure rate.

I remember that they lost some fairly big Pikmin team members, who went onto make Army Corps of Hell for Squenix. It certainly didn't seem to impact the quality of Pikmin 3 one bit, and given the rather tepid response to the game that they made, it always seems like something stays with Nintendo that makes it really hard to replicate elsewhere.