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Media Create Sales: Week 14, 2013 (Apr 01 - Apr 07)

Takao

Banned
Scamco should've released the Dragon Ball Budokai HD Collection in Japan around this time, since the movie's promotion seems to really be helping Ultimate Mission.
 
DS was only out for 4 years until it got replaced with an enhanced system capable of playing a new range of games. I wouldn't say you're crazy but I think they'd want to bring out something similar if they decided to prolong the 3DS line. Beyond DS+DSi.
My guess is it will just be a 3DS with an HD screen.
 
My guess is it will just be a 3DS with an HD screen.

Yes that's one possibility, and they could throw in some extra inputs and make it double as a second Wii U controller.
HD would be unlikely to work on old games so you'd need a new batch, but there would be a possibility of some new games working on both systems with enhancements, like GBC.
 

Bruno MB

Member
After Wii & DS success, I think Iwata deserves at least another generation before deciding whether to give him the boot or not.

3DS may easily be the least profitable Nintendo handheld, let alone Wii U on the console front.

So that's reason enough for a company like Nintendo to fire Iwata. The worst thing about him is that you feel that he doesn't have a well-defined strategy if any.
 

DaBoss

Member
3DS may easily be the least profitable Nintendo handheld, let alone Wii U on the console front.

So that's reason enough for a company like Nintendo to fire Iwata. The worst thing about him is that you feel that he doesn't have a well-defined strategy if any.

Yup, that is a big problem. They should really cut down on R&D. I remember seeing the comparison of R&D rising every year.
 

serplux

Member
3DS may easily be the least profitable Nintendo handheld, let alone Wii U on the console front.

So that's reason enough for a company like Nintendo to fire Iwata. The worst thing about him is that you feel that he doesn't have a well-defined strategy if any.

I sincerely doubt anything would change if another person replaced him.
 

majik13

Member
If it were a Wii U game it wouldn't be out; and it wouldn't have worked as well as it does on 3DS.

why wouldn't it have been out? The game started development before they even knew about the 3ds, or what platform it would have been on if I remember correctly. Yeah it may have been delayed a bit, but I dont think the choice of platform would have been a big postponement. Perhaps making it in HD, would add time. But i think just designing the game in general was the biggest time sink.

Hopefully with Nintendo conjoining their handheld and console development, and with the possibility that their next system could be a home console handheld hybrid. I think we wont have to worry about this issue in the future. They are definitely spread too thin across 2 platforms.
 

DaBoss

Member
...How? No seriously, how on earth did this happen?

I imagine it was the hardware stuff they were doing. Like during the GC era, I understand that R&D would have steadily increased due to the Wii and DS being new things entirely. Then the 3DS and the Wii U had things that were new too (glasses-less 3D, low-latency streaming).

The important thing to note is that the R&D during the Wii era increased a hell of a lot more than the GC era. I'm trying to find the numbers exactly.

EDIT: Closest thing I could find is this:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=222838

Their 2006 and 2007 IR Earnings Releases don't seem to have R&D costs there, gonna look into it further.

EDIT2: They apparently put R&D with with other expense accounts on the financial statements

Isn't that what's already happening? It's not as though Iwata's the one making all of the decisions by himself.

The thing is that there seems to be a lack of a long-term vision/strategy.
 
He'll retire if he's no longer CEO. Anyway the bloodbath earnings report is only 2 weeks away, but he won't be gone then although their stock will probably plummet.
Doubt it. This isn't high school, there's no shame in stepping down as CEO and take on another role, he's a developer at heart.

3DS may easily be the least profitable Nintendo handheld, let alone Wii U on the console front.

So that's reason enough for a company like Nintendo to fire Iwata. The worst thing about him is that you feel that he doesn't have a well-defined strategy if any.
The 3DS is doing pretty well, and the Wii U is less than 6 months old, like I said, give him this generation at least to see how things play out.

The thing is that there seems to be a lack of a long-term vision/strategy.
Make products that sell well like they have always been doing? If they managed to get through the Gamecube and making profit, I'm sure they keep it up. Their software is their bread and butter and I don't see that changing any time soon.
 

big youth

Member
I wonder if they did have plans of releasing Wii Fit U and Pikmin 3 in April/May when he made that statement, but when sales kept getting worse they made the call to execute a price drop/relaunch this summer and pushed those titles back.
It's almost inconceivable to me that games like Wii Fit U could miss their target. Same goes for Pikmin 3, but for a different reason (time in development rather than simplicity of development)
 

DaBoss

Member
Make products that sell well like they have always been doing? If they managed to get through the Gamecube and making profit, I'm sure they keep it up. Their software is their bread and butter and I don't see that changing any time soon.

That is the goal of any business that creates products. The Gamecube had a successful Gameboy Advance. Their software has had no problem really, but they need hardware that is selling well to support that software.
 

Dalthien

Member
The Gamecube had a successful Gameboy Advance. Their software has had no problem really, but they need hardware that is selling well to support that software.
And the WiiU has a successful 3DS to look forward to. The 3DS has a likely shot at matching (if not surpassing) the GBA HW and SW totals overall, and the 3DS is now profitable with hardware as well. If anything, I'd say that 3DS has a bigger upside on hardware profitability than the GBA, because the GBA was at $99 and then $79. So there just wasn't room for much of any profits on hardware at those prices.

Even if the WiiU turns out to be GC 2.0, there's no reason (barring another 3 or 4 years of getting hammered by the strength of the Yen) that Nintendo can't have similarly profitable years coming up (as compared with the GC/GBA years). But they have to be careful with how they treat the WiiU. If they cut the price too deeply, too quickly, they could easily find themselves in a spot where the WiiU losses become too much for the 3DS to adequately compensate for.

It's going to be tricky seeing how they handle the WiiU. But it doesn't need to be an impediment on them repeating the GC/GBA financial situation.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Has the chart with the all the systems been updated recently? I think Kazerei used to post it. I want to see how the Dreamcast and Vita tracking has been recently.

Good sales by Luigi Mansion 2 and Muramasa Vita. I guess that Marvelous are glad that they decided to port Muramasa :)


But Vita owners told me that the system was going to stabilize at 30k per week for the rest of the year!
Who said that? I think i saw someone asking question if it could happen, but i dont think i saw anyone who claimed that it would happen, hence why i ask about who said it :)
 

duckroll

Member
This is what I call complete and utter delusion, where one person's myopic fanboy view of a person overwrites all business reality and likely what the individual actually wants:

Let Iwata still host Nintendo Directs and stay at the company and I'll agree with you.

Let him become president of HAL again, then. He's done too much for Nintendo to simply leave.

He's a Nintendo guy as much as Sakurai and Aonuma are. He'll stay at Nintendo until he's retired. In what capacity, who knows.

Pssh, he's programmer at heart. He's a gamer at heart. He'll work on games at Nintendo.

I'm sure you remember what this guy did as a programmer. He's much too experienced for that now, but he'll go back to designing games if he's not a CEO.

This is all speculation anyways. I doubt he's stepping down soon. But he'll always have a spot at Nintendo.
 
Dat year of Luigi

Also I didn't know Mario Kart 7 was already at two million in MC. New Super Mario Bros 2 is getting closer, perhaps in two weeks it will get it

And damn! That Vita drop wasn't expected, I though it could do 5 or 10 k more

Yes it was. The only unexpected thing was how long the bump was. It'll be below 10K again soon.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
You're right, but are you then suggesting that the PS4 has even potential heavy hitters (later in it's life) greater than those that are coming to the Wii U? IF the launch of the PS4 is a complete mess, as it could well be, you're surely suggesting that games coming out later for the PS4 will bring it up to levels above Wii U after it receives it's dose of Mario (Kart)/Donkey Kong/Animal Crossing/Smash.
Again, I'd wait till TGS to make any final judgements but as it stands now the entire revealed catalogue of the PS4 doesn't stand a chance of even matching NSMBWU (in Japan.) If it weren't for Deep Down I'd even suggest the entire revealed line up wouldn't reach half of NSMBWU.
Consider how the Wii U is selling with backwards compatitability, NSMBWU and likely a lower price point than the PS4, then imagine the launch of the PS4 especially given the declining reputation of Sony. (Again, TGS may well have something suprising but so far PS4 will make the Wii U look good.)

Nintendo has strong IPs but third party games are a large driving force for HW sales. It's why the PS3 is still selling in Japan, and why the Wii has fallen into obscurity. If the PS4 has a large bulk of third party support of next-gen third party support for consoles, which it most likely will, it's practically impossible for it to falter. Not with a strong library. Better yet if it's reasonably priced.

The Wii U could certainly pick up with major games at a time when PS4's library is still meager, but that's just a short term hindrance for PS4.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Nintendo has strong IPs but third party games are a large driving force for HW sales. It's why the PS3 is still selling in Japan, and why the Wii has fallen into obscurity. If the PS4 has a large bulk of third party support of next-gen third party support for consoles, which it most likely will, it's practically impossible for it to falter. Not with a strong library. Better yet if it's reasonably priced.

The Wii U could certainly pick up with major games at a time when PS4's library is still meager, but that's just a short term hindrance for PS4.

That is certainly true, but it took PS3 a long long time to get a steady enough stream of 3rd party games to really have it start selling decently.

Sony lacks the first party power to carry a console the first year- 3rd party support needs to be there in force right from the start.

Given the 3DS and the continued viability of the PS3, I have my doubts that we will see a ton of PS4 exclusive stuff for launch and well into 2014.
 
What annoys me is when people talk about baselines. Hardware does not have baselines. Sales go up when software comes out. Sales go down when software doesn't come out. Holidays increase sales. There has never been a "baseline" for any console that is still alive.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
That is certainly true, but it took PS3 a long long time to get a steady enough stream of 3rd party games to really have it start selling decently.

Sony lacks the first party power to carry a console the first year- 3rd party support needs to be there in force right from the start.

Given the 3DS and the continued viability of the PS3, I have my doubts that we will see a ton of PS4 exclusive stuff for launch and well into 2014.

Seems likely. We'll see at TGS and throughout the year after E3 to see some announcements for PS4, but I expect some publishers to still stick on PS3 (in addition to handhelds) for a while. I still think that even if the PS4 starts slow in the beginning, it should really pick up in the long term.
 

jeremy1456

Junior Member
Who said that? I think i saw someone asking question if it could happen, but i dont think i saw anyone who claimed that it would happen, hence why i ask about who said it :)

I don't remember who specifically, but there were a lot of insane predictions about the baseline rising even in the face of an upcoming software drought.
 
The only reason Nintendo is still relevant is because of Iwata's leadership in the seventh generation. We can all agree the eighth is on a bad start for Nintendo, but it would be way too rash of a decision to fire Iwata now. I give him until at least next year before firing him could be a good idea.
 

big youth

Member
I don't remember who specifically, but there were a lot of insane predictions about the baseline rising even in the face of an upcoming software drought.

yep, people here are often too extreme with their predictions. I was very surprised by the Vita optimism in last weeks media create thread. I don't know about 30k baseline predictions, but almost everyone was predicting 20k+. I'm sticking with my 12k prediction from last week.

What annoys me is when people talk about baselines. Hardware does not have baselines. Sales go up when software comes out. Sales go down when software doesn't come out. Holidays increase sales. There has never been a "baseline" for any console that is still alive.
I understand your point, but for practical purposes baselines clearly exist. Vita and Wii U are perfect examples of it, with numerous weeks with no increase or decrease of more than 1k.
 

jeremy1456

Junior Member
yep, people here are often too extreme with their predictions. I was very surprised by the Vita optimism in last weeks media create thread. I don't know about 30k baseline predictions, but almost everyone was predicting 20k+. I'm sticking with my 12k prediction from last week.

12k for Vita sales on next week on media create or as the new baseline?

We've seen tons of price drops in the past, and without compelling software none have ever raised a baseline alone.
 

Raist

Banned
I imagine it was the hardware stuff they were doing. Like during the GC era, I understand that R&D would have steadily increased due to the Wii and DS being new things entirely. Then the 3DS and the Wii U had things that were new too (glasses-less 3D, low-latency streaming).

Nintendo's not doing much R&D stuff on that. They use existing tech, not create it.
 

JavyOO7

Member
Hmm. Thinking about it more and more as of late, I can see why and sympathize with the argument Iwata should be replaced by someone else. Whoever that someone else may be would maybe/maybe not do the right things for Nintendo.

I personally feel where Nintendo falls short right now is the little things. Weekly sales on their eShops, an account system, dish out all the VC titles they can and etc.

At that same token, that NES article I read last week is pretty much right why I'm so leery about replacing Iwata right away. I don't even know the guy personally, and for all I know he could be a massive pendejo outside of Nintendo, but he's pretty adorable whenever he speaks on ND and seems like he has a big time passion for Nintendo and his job. Its just being adorable and having that passion doesn't pay the bills unfortunately. =p
 

jrDev

Member
Well done Luigi

ibyhBS6tEO8Qq1.gif


Defending the top spot like a queen
Lmao! Video link naow!
 

DaBoss

Member
And the WiiU has a successful 3DS to look forward to. The 3DS has a likely shot at matching (if not surpassing) the GBA HW and SW totals overall, and the 3DS is now profitable with hardware as well. If anything, I'd say that 3DS has a bigger upside on hardware profitability than the GBA, because the GBA was at $99 and then $79. So there just wasn't room for much of any profits on hardware at those prices.

Even if the WiiU turns out to be GC 2.0, there's no reason (barring another 3 or 4 years of getting hammered by the strength of the Yen) that Nintendo can't have similarly profitable years coming up (as compared with the GC/GBA years). But they have to be careful with how they treat the WiiU. If they cut the price too deeply, too quickly, they could easily find themselves in a spot where the WiiU losses become too much for the 3DS to adequately compensate for.

It's going to be tricky seeing how they handle the WiiU. But it doesn't need to be an impediment on them repeating the GC/GBA financial situation.

Do we know how much of a loss they took on each unit sold with the 3DS? They've been selling it at a loss for a year. They aren't suddenly gaining a large margin on each unit sold. :p

Do we know at how much of a profit they made with each unit sold with the GBA? I don't doubt that the 3DS could overtake the GBA in terms of sales, but in terms of profit/money, I wouldn't be able to say whether it is better. The GBA has rarely seen pricedrops, and was hovering around at a nice $99.

Though I do think Nintendo's next handheld should be around the $100-150 price point. It will be very attractive.

Who said that? I think i saw someone asking question if it could happen, but i dont think i saw anyone who claimed that it would happen, hence why i ask about who said it :)

I only recall only one person saying 30K as the baseline. I remember because I asked them about it lol.

Nintendo's not doing much R&D stuff on that. They use existing tech, not create it.

As frankie said, I didn't claim they created it, but they must have done quite a bit of work to figure out how to use it.

Lmao! Video link naow!

I found it and posted it in a previous thread, lemme go and find the link.

EDIT: Found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8qQT5oAcSc

Though I found a news link that explained what was going on before.
 

big youth

Member
Do we know how much of a loss they took on each unit sold with the 3DS? They've been selling it at a loss for a year. They aren't suddenly gaining a large margin on each unit sold. :p

Do we know at how much of a profit they made with each unit sold with the GBA? I don't doubt that the 3DS could overtake the GBA in terms of sales, but in terms of profit/money, I wouldn't be able to say whether it is better. The GBA has rarely seen pricedrops, and was hovering around at a nice $99.

Though I do think Nintendo's next handheld should be around the $100-150 price point. It will be very attractive.

We know that XL was selling at a profit from day 1, and we can safely assume 3DS became profitable sometime in the past year.

When comparing it to the GBA, the key distinction is 3DS has only been out for just 2 years, so 3DS should have 3 (or 4 imo) more years of being profitable before the successor launches. And of course, it should only become more profitable as the parts become cheaper.

I understand the idea that Nintendo could follow up 3DS with a $100-150 handheld for the sake of NA consumers, but it seems extremely unlikely. It makes more sense to release more powerful hardware (perhaps something like Vita) and have 3DS be the cheaper option 4 years from now.
 

DaBoss

Member
We know that XL was selling at a profit from day 1, and we can safely assume 3DS became profitable sometime in the past year.

When comparing it to the GBA, the key distinction is 3DS has only been out for just 2 years, so 3DS should have 3 (or 4 imo) more years of being profitable before the successor launches. And of course, it should only become more profitable as the parts become cheaper.

I understand the idea that Nintendo could follow up 3DS with a $100-150 handheld for the sake of NA consumers, but it seems extremely unlikely. It makes more sense to release more powerful hardware (perhaps something like Vita) and have 3DS be the cheaper option 4 years from now.

Wouldn't that make it possible to have it at around the $100-$150 pricepoint with that? Maybe slightly more powerful.
 

Raoh

Member
Well done Luigi

ibyhBS6tEO8Qq1.gif


Defending the top spot like a queen

Sorry to just jump in and not even talk about the threads subject..

But did she just catch a chair one handed? After passing off her purse from her left hand to her right hand like its a daily operation?
 
Nintendo must already have the NLG guys working on their next few projects after how good Luigi has been performing.

Something something LinkedIn Secret project something something hiring for a new project with a big publisher something something watch it be Ubisoft something something

Agreed. The man is a liar, and I'm sick of his half-assed apologies.


What qualifies as a steady stream?

March: Game & Wario
April: Pokemon Rumble U
May on: It's not too late to announce something for May and on.

:p
 

Raist

Banned
sorry but just because they 'use existing tech' doesn't mean they dont do much r&d on it, if anything its more, researching how it all can fit together usably

You seriously believe that, say, sticking a Sharp tech into the 3DS costs more than developing the tech in the first place? Really?
 
This is what I call complete and utter delusion, where one person's myopic fanboy view of a person overwrites all business reality and likely what the individual actually wants:

You mean you wouldnt want to be demoted, go back to doing something you haven't done in over a decade in a field that has rapidly advanced

Doubt it. This isn't high school, there's no shame in stepping down as CEO and take on another role, he's a developer at heart.

This empathy some people seem to have with a person they've never met or spoken to is weird
 

Dalthien

Member
Do we know how much of a loss they took on each unit sold with the 3DS? They've been selling it at a loss for a year. They aren't suddenly gaining a large margin on each unit sold. :p

They announced back in late July 2012 that 3DS hardware was no longer losing money. The timing of the announcement (just a few days before the XL launched in Japan and Europe, but a good month before the XL launched in NA) makes it difficult to know if they were referring to each model individually breaking even, or if the profits from the XL that would have already been shipped by that announcement were already making up for whatever small losses were still left on the original model.

But either way, the 3DS hardware has been profitable (or at least break-even) for almost a year now, so I'm guessing that the margins have started moving into a pretty decent place by now. If they really want to give the 3DS a strong push in NA and Europe this fall heading into the holiday season, I wouldn't be surprised if the margins are strong enough to allow them to drop the price to 149/179 (or maybe just $169 for the XL, with the original model phased out completely if it would be a drag on profits at $149) somewhere around the launch of Pokemon, and still keep the hardware right around break-even at that pricepoint.
 
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