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Nintendo full year financial results [23.2B yen loss, 3.6M Wii U/12M 3DS forecast]
- Thread starter zomgbbqftw
- Start date
biggersmaller
Banned
Losing mass appeal with franchises. Much more damning than any console sales data. Nintendo has never had it this tough and I doubt it will survive as a console maker after this generation.
The Wii U doesn't emulate a Wii and couldn't emulate a Wii. And I'm pretty sure you can't download every single PS1 and PS2 on PS3. I believe you can't download any PS1 and PS2 games, or PS3 games for that matter, on PS4.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Stock buybacks.
The problem with that is that the Wii was so badly compromised that they couldn't take the chance to create an emulator.
Piracy on the Wii was out of control. The hackers had more control over the Wii than Nintendo themselves.
ErrorMacro
Member
Personally, I think this is gonna be were Nintendo will focus more from now on. With HD development taking longer, and Nintendo not having that many development teams to begin with, I can see them starting collaborations with 3rd parties in order to release more games of 1st party franchises. Not only crossovers, but also stuff in main series.
Of course this is not new to Nintendo (see games such as Star Fox Assault, FZero GX, and the GB Zelda's), I just think it will become more common from now on, and I'm curious to see the results!
DrROBschiz
Member
I guess im am thinking more about the Legacy support on Vita. The convenience and wealth of the PSP/PS1 library is probably the best Ive seen.
Its ten times worse if you try pressing the PS button ingame on PS3, its like the whole console is locking up. Hard to believe that the OS was so poorly implemented. WiiU gets flack but I doubt its as bad as the PS3 is right now.
Bel_Air_Jeff
Banned
Not unexpected numbers and losses. Especially when Nintendo does not bother to advertise and actively sell their hardware (going a full year, doing nothing significant during the holiday season and allowing Sony and Microsoft to fully push their hardware.) and only tepidly advertise games when they launch and even then only few of them and it last for what a week if lucky. By advertise I mean TV advertisements when the buying market (kids, parents, and anyone in between) will see them and that doesn't mean purely kids channels where the only kids that might see them during the day aren't capable of explaining to their parents what they want. I haven't seen them even in the evenings when kids would be home from school during primetime on kids channels!
I don't understand how Nintendo (meaning Iwata, whom ever they have handling their budgets, etc) expects their products to sell when they don't inform people they exist or showcase them in ways that makes them interested. Nintendo Directs are press releases for the most part. Good sources of information. However not a replacement for actual marketing, advertising all businesses have to do. They did this with the Wii. Which makes it extremely confusing why they didn't bother with doing this for the Wii U and I'm talking about from the very start to now. People say the market has rejected the Wii U and I still firmly believe that that hasn't been the case because Nintendo never actively tried to inform the market at large about the system. Not the way they did the Wii. Not the way Sony and Microsoft are attempting to do with their systems. You can't actively reject something you haven't seen or had marketed to you.
I don't understand how Nintendo (meaning Iwata, whom ever they have handling their budgets, etc) expects their products to sell when they don't inform people they exist or showcase them in ways that makes them interested. Nintendo Directs are press releases for the most part. Good sources of information. However not a replacement for actual marketing, advertising all businesses have to do. They did this with the Wii. Which makes it extremely confusing why they didn't bother with doing this for the Wii U and I'm talking about from the very start to now. People say the market has rejected the Wii U and I still firmly believe that that hasn't been the case because Nintendo never actively tried to inform the market at large about the system. Not the way they did the Wii. Not the way Sony and Microsoft are attempting to do with their systems. You can't actively reject something you haven't seen or had marketed to you.
Chilling.
No doubt your post will hang over that dudes head like the Sword of Damocles.
That's because they have to release SOMETHING on vita. Vita is not a healthy platform that nintendo needs to look at for advice.
Kageshinzo
Member
And I would rather that this industry have a console maker/company that marches to a different beat rather than become a generation of HD triplets.
eXistor
Member
That's what I keep saying to myself as well, but they never do. WiiU is a great console, it's a real shame it never took off but they have nobody to blame but themselves.
VITA isn't a home console.
Something something lost 1.3 billion even tho I ignore stock buybacks and R&D ramping something something.
outunderthestars
Banned
The fact that you have to compare it to an 8 year old console is telling. What makes it worse is that the 8 year old console still has more features.
DrROBschiz
Member
I dunno man
The Wii Mode is already compromised and can run pirated software. I feel like having the WiiU run the games in a different way would have prevented piracy.
Maybe that was the only way they could do it.
Doesn't address the Virtual Console mess but I think they ran into the same licensing nightmare that Sony currently has with the PSN.
Still all Nintendo Published games should be in the library
After SNES, Nintendo has been ace on handhelds, but I still think every console since could be considered a failure (despite the amazing Nintendo games). When I say failure, I mean that, considering the incredible franchises and brand strength Nintendo has, I think Nintendo should have dominated every generation. Each time, though, the system seems to aim for innovations (or gimmicks) that just plain misses out on the way the industry is headed. It's always a step behind, but in the hardware as well as in Nintendo's practices. Their approach to third parties on their console has been one of the biggest gaming blunders in the last 20 years. It's either bad business sense or arrogance, or both.
Anyway, I still love my 3DSs. Here's to hoping Nintendo turns the console biz around next gen.
I also find it interesting that so many are comparing the Wii U to PS3.
AstroNut325
Member
Good luck Nintendo. You're going to need it. But like others have said the loss seems to be R&D and marketing.
My entry point is $199 USD with MK8.
My entry point is $199 USD with MK8.
Interceptor
Banned
Vita is only doing well in Japan and they are playing catch.
So a $140 console? Even the cheapest ps3 is $250
FYI: All PS3s can play PS1 disks.
DrROBschiz
Member
PSN is going to be accessible across the board though eventually
Would like to see Nintendo have a connected network at the same level.
Can't everyone just be Steam?
Yea...that does suck. But seeing how most games required the motion controller and Nunchuk....what could they do.....
Maybe too much focus on that type of motion control hurt Nintendo. Sony and MS never went all in with theirs....maybe they saw something Nintendo didnt. MS might being seeing some backlash over forcing Kinect on XBO users.
The next couple of years is gonna be interesting for Nintendo...
Bony Manifesto
Member
Why? It always gets dropped as some sort of self-evident truth of why Nintendo will be making their own hardware forever, yet I don't see any evidence other than "well look at what happened to Sega". The notion that Sega would still be around today if they hadn't spun off all their internal development teams and left the hardware business is laughable.
I'm not necessarily saying that going third party is the best path for Nintendo right now, but disingenuous scare stories about how Nintendo would be forced to cancel every non-Mario game and release nothing but annual updates really piss me off.
DrROBschiz
Member
I think there IS stuff they can do
They really need to reboot the ecosystem and it sounds like they recognize that.
Just goes to show that Nintendo still has strong IP.
It is a shame that they refuse to build a competitive platform to put it on. I am still in shock they released a 176 Gflop machine in 2012 without backend feature parity to their rivals...probably bourne out of arrogance after the wii/ds gold strike.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
One could argue that Nintendo no longer makes competitive console hardware. If any of these ARM SoC rumors pan out, the next console will be obsolete out of the box as well. It will be great for their handheld, of course. Since console hardware is no longer a money-making business for them, the logical train of thought is to dedicate all of their resources to making handheld hardware, mobile games, and games for other dedicated home platforms/PC.
No, but it's very telling that the hardest supporters of "nintendo should go 3rd party" often don't currently own a nintendo console/hardware.
They are often just interested in playing the 2-3 "big" games nintendo releases (mario kart/smash/zelda/3D mario).
Thanks
Because adapting to contemporary industry trends worked our great for Konami / Capcom / Square and their fans. The only thing that will get erased is Japanese design if they can Iwata.
lol warchest...this is the same thing people bring up about the Xbox. This warchest won't change the reality. If their hardware numbers are shit (or in the 3DS' case, rapidly decreasing due to smartphones) and their software numbers for all of their biggest IPs are going down, that's a problem.
The ever decreasing war chest...
This boggles my mind too. SO many missteps. I love the console but damn did they stumble every step of the way.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Maybe I'm an optimist, maybe I'm naive, but no I don't see it as nonsense at all. I look at the games that sell on Steam, new IP's that make money, and I have to think that Nintendo with all of their assets and experience could do an even better job. I look at some of the new IP's over the years that have been successful on PS3 and X360 and yes I believe that Nintendo could be very successful competing in the same space with games like Pikmin, Bayonetta, and W101. And even more so with the Mario's, Zelda's, Pokemon's, etc. I simply don't see Nintendo having a hard time competing as a software / handheld hardware only company in today's market. Now imagine if they also put some games out on portable devices, I believe they would be hugely successful with the freedom to compete on huge userbases like that.
The Wii's problem was that a huge chunk of it's users were not gamers at all but rather fitness fad users. Nintendo wouldn't have that problem as a software company releasing on portables, PS4, X1, and Steam.
I suppose I just have faith in Nintendo's software quality speaking for itself.
IIRC, there was a thread recently that quoted Iwata as having said something like 'I thought of QOL shortly before the investor meeting in Jan 2014".
Am I remembering that correctly? Has qol only been under development for < 5 months?
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Wow. Crazy numbers. Let's hope they pull out some stops at E3, they need a price cut, badly.
People seem to be under the impression that they're switching gears to QOL when they've made it a point that they're expanding to accomodate that stuff and that videogames is still the core business.
Look at it this way, QOL will give them an oppurtunity to shove all the dumb ideas out the door while keeping the sane ideas for their videogame platforms.
Look at it this way, QOL will give them an oppurtunity to shove all the dumb ideas out the door while keeping the sane ideas for their videogame platforms.
DrROBschiz
Member
The sad thing is that its possible to get some great performance out of cheap hardware but they refuse to do the work.
Instead releasing a bloated and slow OS and then taking over a year to not quite fix it.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
Thats the best you have? Really?
Nintendo Network, including Miiverse, work on both Wii U and 3DS, same account and all. The functionality on 3DS is quite limited because the system wasn't designed with a unified extensible online infrastructure in mind, but future platforms will be.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Which would still leave Nintendo in a better financial position than they are in now. Every 3rd party except EA and Activision also invest in AA and download only titles as well, with cost spread over multiple platforms these games can see a return on investment.
I heard that before. It was when the GB line was phased out despite the DS being just a third pillar.
Narpas Sword0
Member
The one that has shrunk from 11 billion to 3.4 billion in the last 4 years?
If they fired 2000 people, maybe.
Bel_Air_Jeff
Banned
Nintendo has already pulled it around when DOOM strikes.
This situation will be no different.
nintendo is always doomed, and they are never doomed