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[Jokeropia]

You think Nintendo isn't concerned about falling sales, revenues, profits, and stock price? I think it's probably good you're not running Nintendo. Of course they're concerned. It doesn't mean they're doomed or anything, just that they're smart guys who pay attention.

Eh, it depends on what you mean. If by concerned you mean worried, troubled or anxious then no I really don't think they have any reason to be. FY2009 was absolutely insane (the two fastest selling systems in history both at full power at the same time caused the most successful year for any company in the industry ever) and it was pretty much a given that they couldn't just keep growing indefinitely at that rate.

They certainly pay attention though and I'm sure they've tried to pinpoint exactly why they couldn't quite repeat this record performance in FY2010.

 

[donny2112]

I don't think Excite Truck even has the pool of interested parties

That's ... also part of the point of doing a Player's Choice line. Let people experiment and take a gamble on a game without much monetary risk. It's a way for franchises to get more popular. You don't think Nintendo's titles are "core"ish enough for Player's Choice? It worked with Animal Crossing on GameCube. Not exactly a "core" title. IIRC, it was the first time I started seeing debates on the term "non-game." :lol

When I hit a point where I want both Game A and Game B to pretty much the same extent, and I know Game A is going to drop in price eventually while Game B will stay at its current price, it makes sense for me to buy Game B now and play it while waiting for Game A to drop in price eventually.

You're also part of the core audience. That's not the typical target of a Player's Choice line. It's designed much more for the mainstream consumer who doesn't follow game sites to know what's good or not. Player's Choice/Greatest Hits/Platinum Collection would typically be your "safe" games for a cheap price. Who is it "safe" for? People who don't follow these things like us.

But before that we have to consider the total pool of interested consumers for whom price is keeping them from purchasing.

No. We have to consider people who don't know the difference between a game at $50 and a game at $20 other than its cover. The mainstream consumer wouldn't know if they'd be interested in a game or not, but they might be willing to take a risk on an unknown game at $20 over an unknown game at $50.

But at this point, probably at the cost of shelf space for third-party titles, I'd imagine.

Null issue. Did you see the size of PS2 shelves last generation? If people are buying the games, stores will make room to stock them.

Lastly, I think a Player's Choice line at this point would actually hurt third-parties by calling more attention and requiring more shelf space for the PC titles, and also drawing more consumers into purchasing the discounted PC titles than the "risky" third-party titles.

This can only be a good thing. Save the space on the shelves for the games publishers try to sell through quality and advertisements. :lol

When the game purchaser comes in for their high-quality, "safe" Nintendo software, they may consider these Nintendo-approved third-party titles because Nintendo is sort of giving them their nod of approval.

Most consumers don't know the publisher of games.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

Now that I've been playing video games in high def for 3 years, it is really, really hard to go back, and I think it keeps me from playing on my Wii as much as I otherwise would.

I've been playing in "high def" and higher resolutions since the late 90s. Yet I had no problem playing console games for the last decade. You console only gamers are behind the fucking times.

 

[iidesuyo]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

 

[[Nintex]]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

For some reason I doubt that Nintendo will ever go down. Even when Sony beat them and Microsoft pissed on the GameCube grave they came out kicking and took back an even bigger slice of the gaming market than they had in their early days. Not to mention that their profits are way higher than the money they pour into R&D.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

Nintendo's warchest is huge. It would take a solid decade of failed consoles (consoles that not only don't sell well, but don't make a profit, which Nintendo has never made) to bring them to that point.

Sega had one failed and one canceled console before the Dreamcast. And the Dreamcast didn't exactly sell hotcakes either before the PS2 finished it off.

In fact, the Genesis was really the only really successful piece of hardware Sega ever made. In terms of console wars, Nintendo's won three (not counting GB/DS), and every piece of hardware they've ever made has been completely profitable. Except Virtual Boy, don't know if that made them any money.

 

[timetokill]

You're also part of the core audience. That's not the typical target of a Player's Choice line. It's designed much more for the mainstream consumer who doesn't follow game sites to know what's good or not. Player's Choice/Greatest Hits/Platinum Collection would typically be your "safe" games for a cheap price. Who is it "safe" for? People who don't follow these things like us.

I think here is the disconnect. A lower price obviously lowers the risk for all parties involved. But are Player's Choice games really selling mostly to those outside the core demographic? I know I purchased a lot of them last generation, and I'm definitely within the core demo. And yes, I was picking them up because it was a "safer" bet in a lot of cases. I brought up Katamari for exactly this reason: I know I would've have bit on that at $50. Same with FFXII. I wasn't happy with FF8-10, so it took a price drop before I picked it up. Lessened the risk for me.

Most consumers don't know the publisher of games.

Hm, maybe. I really wish we had concrete data on that. I think purchasers might not know the publisher of each game, but I think they can also tell, for the most part, what a "Nintendo" game is, even if that usually just means Mario is on the box. I think they can generally sense a "knockoff" product.

 

[Jokeropia]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

:lol :lol :lol

You are clueless. Nintendo has existed for over 120 years and is one of the most financially stable companies in the world. They haven't posted a single FY loss since going public in 1967.

 

[boiled goose]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

Ummm... do you know how much nintendo has saved up?

and their extremely conservative financial nature means that they will rarely take, make it or break it gambles.

 

[charlequin]

Eh, I disagree. The way I used "core" was correct.

But enthusiasm for gaming and category of games one likes to play are not causally linked; they are two different axes that may correlate to some degree, but nonetheless have a huge amount of variance. There are lots of people who only buy one or two games a year but absolutely love Zelda or Starcraft (just like conversely there are plenty of people who register forum accounts just to talk to other Farmville players about how much Farmville they all play, or who compete in the top tiers of online leaderboards -- but only for "casual" puzzle games.) These people are just as real as dedicated GAF posters (in fact, they make up a dramatically larger group overall, and the majority of sales for games like MW2 and GTA) and they're the people I'm talking about here -- people who only play videogames occasionally and don't go out of their way to talk about them very often but who select very "traditional" games to play.

but for Nintendo it might be a question of whether it's worth the cost to bother with it again.

The cost of such a line is pretty minimal, especially if you launch it early on so you can start mass-producing the first inductees (printing 200,000 copies or whatever that you can parcel out over a couple years.)

God of War was a big budget title that had a gameplay style with a lot broader appeal than Excite Truck.

The PS2 Greatest Hits line also included niche and artsy titles like Beyond Good and Evil and Shadow of the Colossus, tons of random licensed crap like Ben 10 and Dragon Ball Z, stuff that got mixed reviews like Star Ocean 3 and State of Emergency, etc. It's not like the

Oh, I guess I'm the only one who does it, perhaps.

I am deeply skeptical that you, specifically, will wait out a game on a drop to $20 if it's on a system with a Greatest Hits line but would happily pony up $60 for the same game if you knew it wouldn't come out as a GH release -- especially since you said "core gamers don't buy old games" a little earlier. :lol

People certainly do wait out game pricedrops all the time -- I do it for almost everything. But generally it's because they aren't willing to pay full price no matter what so waiting for a drop is the only way they'll ever play the game. For someone taking this stance, not formally dropping the price either loses a sale completely or (more likely) converts it to a used sale that only benefits the game shop they bought it from.

But before that we have to consider the total pool of interested consumers for whom price is keeping them from purchasing. With a quirky racing game like Excite Truck, how big is that group?

The purpose of a Greatest Hits line is, basically, to tap the "why the heck not?" market and the "my children, don't you want a cheap game for your new system" market. Excite Truck isn't something a whole lot of people were insanely excited about, but I don't think it's hard to see how someone could muster moderate enthusiasm for it when it's selling for $20 and buying it is as easy as grabbing it off one shelf and tossing it on the belt. There are tons of ultra-generic

But at this point, probably at the cost of shelf space for third-party titles, I'd imagine.

All three budget lines (Player's Choice/Greatest Hits/Platinum Hits) encompass third party titles. A quick look at my shelf suggests 3/4s of my budget-line games are third-party, actually.

The reason I said that was because they can't really beat the prices of the used market. Right now you can get Excite Truck EASILY for $12-$15. Why pick up Excite Truck at $20 when it's so easy to get it cheaper?

Probably because you're shopping at Wal-Mart or Best Buy (or another comparable big-box retailer), which together sell something upwards of 50% of new videogames sold in the US. (Gamestop and EB used to actually position the budget line titles very prominently five or six years ago, but I agree that nowadays they've tried to bury these titles somewhat in order to push their own used portfolios.)

Do you think that an officially branded Nintendo "Player's Choice" line, however, would make the expanded market consumers think twice about paying full price for NSMB Wii?

I honestly don't, partially because I think the way these brandings work have been refined pretty carefully over the years to convey the message that these games are older stuff that's been bargain-binned, and partially because Nintendo's evergreen titles tend to sell well very specifically on a certain kind of "word of mouth" principle -- I think someone who buys a Wii and is considering NSMBW is doing so because they hear it's really good and if they think anything about seeing a $20 SMG it's probably something like "that game isn't as good."

This is also one area that actually doing sequels is kind of helpful, I would say: when you have a new game coming out, it's easy to mentally justify its predecessor being $20 by seeing it as a way for people to "catch up."

I think that Nintendo does make bullheaded decisions a lot of the time, but let's also consider that they're coming off of a generation where, with the GameCube, they resorted to almost firesale tactics with frequent price drops that I think ended up hurting the brand image. Nintendo at this point, I think, wants to position themselves as a "premier quality" brand as opposed to the "budget" brand.

Well, I've never said their decisions don't make sense. The way they've stiff-armed third parties makes perfect sense too after the history of the GameCube era -- but I think both of them "make sense" only in that you can explain how they came to their current conclusions by looking at the past, not that their current actions are the most rational and profitable choices they could make.

Lastly, I think a Player's Choice line at this point would actually hurt third-parties by calling more attention and requiring more shelf space for the PC titles, and also drawing more consumers into purchasing the discounted PC titles than the "risky" third-party titles.

Well, if third parties had bothered to develop for the Wii, they could've gotten in on the action. :lol

What I would be more in favor of at this point would be something closer to a PC line that highlighted only high-quality third-party titles that have passed their initial "big sales" run.

Isn't this exactly what Nintendo did in Japan? (a PC-style line whose criterion was high review scores instead of sales, composed entirely of third-party games) I'd be quite happy to see something like that in the US, even if it meant that some of the first-party titles that I do believe could still have some sales life to them never got an official pricedrop.

 

[jcm]

Eh, it depends on what you mean. If by concerned you mean worried, troubled or anxious then no I really don't think they have any reason to be. FY2009 was absolutely insane (the two fastest selling systems in history both at full power at the same time caused the most successful year for any company in the industry ever) and it was pretty much a given that they couldn't just keep growing indefinitely at that rate.

They certainly pay attention though and I'm sure they've tried to pinpoint exactly why they couldn't quite repeat this record performance in FY2010.

I'd be more inclined to agree if they hadn't missed their already lowered estimates. That ought to be a concern.

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

That's simply impossible. Nintendo has roughly $14B in cash and short term investments. That could support several disastrous console generations.

 

[Jokeropia]

I'd be more inclined to agree if they hadn't missed their already lowered estimates. That ought to be a concern.

They missed their net income target by 1.4 billion yen, or ~0.6%.

Again, I think it's a matter of semantics here. They're not concerned as in worried, but they certainly concern themselves with finding out how they can do better in the future. On a larger perspective they're still at profit levels that would've been considered pipe dreams by any company last generation.

 

[timetokill]

But enthusiasm for gaming and category of games one likes to play are not causally linked; they are two different axes that may correlate to some degree, but nonetheless have a huge amount of variance. There are lots of people who only buy one or two games a year but absolutely love Zelda or Starcraft (just like conversely there are plenty of people who register forum accounts just to talk to other Farmville players about how much Farmville they all play, or who compete in the top tiers of online leaderboards -- but only for "casual" puzzle games.) These people are just as real as dedicated GAF posters (in fact, they make up a dramatically larger group overall, and the majority of sales for games like MW2 and GTA) and they're the people I'm talking about here -- people who only play videogames occasionally and don't go out of their way to talk about them very often but who select very "traditional" games to play.

I kind of find it funny that you're preaching to me about how real these other consumers are, when that's what I've been doing almost constantly for the past several years. But anyway, I recognize where I conflated the "core" demo and the "active consumer" of videogames.

The cost of such a line is pretty minimal, especially if you launch it early on so you can start mass-producing the first inductees (printing 200,000 copies or whatever that you can parcel out over a couple years.)

Is it pretty minimal, though? I'd love to see some numbers. I wasn't claiming that it was certainly too expensive or not, I was actually questioning how profitable it would be. My guess is that Nintendo sees it as posing too little return on investment. But again, who knows -- maybe Nintendo announces a Wii Player's Choice line at E3.

The PS2 Greatest Hits line also included niche and artsy titles like Beyond Good and Evil and Shadow of the Colossus, tons of random licensed crap like Ben 10 and Dragon Ball Z, stuff that got mixed reviews like Star Ocean 3 and State of Emergency, etc. It's not like the

I don't think you finished this statement. At any rate I would be interested in how well these titles did in the GH line, purely out of curiosity. But I know it's probably a pain in the ass to compile those numbers.

I am deeply skeptical that you, specifically, will wait out a game on a drop to $20 if it's on a system with a Greatest Hits line but would happily pony up $60 for the same game if you knew it wouldn't come out as a GH release -- especially since you said "core gamers don't buy old games" a little earlier. :lol

My uncommon mistake in conflating the two earlier aside, why would you be so skeptical? If there are too many games that I want, I have to start choosing things that make the decision easier. Does the game have a multiplayer component? Is it likely to become rare? Is this going to be dropping in price? Etc. I simply don't have enough money to buy everything, even if I really want to play it right away.

People certainly do wait out game pricedrops all the time -- I do it for almost everything. But generally it's because they aren't willing to pay full price no matter what so waiting for a drop is the only way they'll ever play the game. For someone taking this stance, not formally dropping the price either loses a sale completely or (more likely) converts it to a used sale that only benefits the game shop they bought it from.

Admittedly this happens, but there are also the cases where there are simply too many games at one time and something has to give. For instance, at this exact moment I want Monster Hunter Tri and Edgeworth, but I also have Super Mario Galaxy 2 preordered. I want Red Dead Redemption the day it comes out. I'm considering Alan Wake.

In light of all that, I'm fully anticipating buying MH Tri for $50 sometime in August. I'm totally willing to buy the game at full price, but there are some other games that I want to pay full price for in the more immediate term.

The purpose of a Greatest Hits line is, basically, to tap the "why the heck not?" market and the "my children, don't you want a cheap game for your new system" market. Excite Truck isn't something a whole lot of people were insanely excited about, but I don't think it's hard to see how someone could muster moderate enthusiasm for it when it's selling for $20 and buying it is as easy as grabbing it off one shelf and tossing it on the belt. There are tons of ultra-generic

You didn't finish this comment either, but anyway -- there are a ton of games selling used for well below the $20 Player's Choice pricepoint. Those consumers can grab a cheap game off the shelf for $5-$15, even at Best Buys and Wal-Marts when things are on clearance.

Probably because you're shopping at Wal-Mart or Best Buy (or another comparable big-box retailer), which together sell something upwards of 50% of new videogames sold in the US. (Gamestop and EB used to actually position the budget line titles very prominently five or six years ago, but I agree that nowadays they've tried to bury these titles somewhat in order to push their own used portfolios.)

The big-box retailers are starting to get into the trade-in market as well, and they sell a lot of discount games that are just sitting in a box in the middle of the store or something.

Again, I'm not trying to imply that a Player's Choice line would definitely not be profitable -- it may be profitable. The amount of profitability is important, though. There are a lot of things that Nintendo could do that would be profitable, but they aren't going to do all of them.

I honestly don't, partially because I think the way these brandings work have been refined pretty carefully over the years to convey the message that these games are older stuff that's been bargain-binned, and partially because Nintendo's evergreen titles tend to sell well very specifically on a certain kind of "word of mouth" principle -- I think someone who buys a Wii and is considering NSMBW is doing so because they hear it's really good and if they think anything about seeing a $20 SMG it's probably something like "that game isn't as good."

I think that last thing is something they're trying to avoid though, that was one of my points.

This is also one area that actually doing sequels is kind of helpful, I would say: when you have a new game coming out, it's easy to mentally justify its predecessor being $20 by seeing it as a way for people to "catch up."

True, but Nintendo often doesn't do sequels to these main franchise games. In this case I could see Mario Galaxy getting a pricedrop when Mario Galaxy 2 comes out, but that alone wouldn't justify a Player's Choice line.

Well, I've never said their decisions don't make sense. The way they've stiff-armed third parties makes perfect sense too after the history of the GameCube era -- but I think both of them "make sense" only in that you can explain how they came to their current conclusions by looking at the past, not that their current actions are the most rational and profitable choices they could make.

Agreed, and again I'm not saying that a Player's Choice is definitely a bad idea. I would obviously like it because it means I get to buy more games. But it doesn't necessarily mean Nintendo is getting more dollars from me overall. If I walk into a store with $50, I may decide on two Player's Choice titles that I had been interested in instead of Metroid: Other M. I'm not sure if that's the best situation for Nintendo.

Of course, it could be an insanely profitable thing for Nintendo to do. But honestly, and trying to avoid logical fallacy here, if Nintendo saw vast untapped reserves of profit just sitting there waiting to be had, why wouldn't they do it? I'm trying to imagine potential reasons, which is primarily the reason I'm "debating" this.

Well, if third parties had bothered to develop for the Wii, they could've gotten in on the action. :lol

Yes, of course :lol

Isn't this exactly what Nintendo did in Japan? (a PC-style line whose criterion was high review scores instead of sales, composed entirely of third-party games) I'd be quite happy to see something like that in the US, even if it meant that some of the first-party titles that I do believe could still have some sales life to them never got an official pricedrop.

Is it? Pretty awesome if so, I'd love to see more things like that. I think it's a pretty simple way for Nintendo to lend some of their brand power to third-parties and help them thrive, but I wonder if they did do it before, how it worked out for them.

 

[iidesuyo]

:lol :lol :lol

You are clueless. Nintendo has existed for over 120 years and is one of the most financially stable companies in the world. They haven't posted a single FY loss since going public in 1967.

I think you are clueless. At times business has been so bad that Nintendo tried their luck in Love Hotel business. And without Pokémon Nintendo would have been fucked in the late 90s.

 

[loosus]

So...I don't think Nintendo is going to stop making consoles any time soon, but some of you people think it can't happen? What the fuck is wrong with you. Even fucking Nintendo itself doesn't think that.

 

[GDGF]

I think you are clueless. At times business has been so bad that Nintendo tried their luck in Love Hotel business. And without Pokémon Nintendo would have been fucked in the late 90s.

The fuck?

The love hotel thing was before Nintendo even entered the videogame industry. Hell, it was before Nintendo entered the toy industry. And they were still turning a profit, btw. And even without Pokemon in the late 90's Nintendo was still making money hand over fist because of Mario, Zelda, Goldeneye and the many other IP's they had. And that's a crazy argument anyway. Without the iPod Apple would have been fucked in the early 21'st century. See how nutty that sounds? :lol

 

[donny2112]

So...I don't think Nintendo is going to stop making consoles any time soon, but some of you people think it can't happen?

If Nintendo stops making consoles, then they stop making software. They can stop making consoles, but they won't go third-party.

 

[Forkball]

The only way Nintendo would ever go third party is if on their next console they stopped making Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Star Fox, Nintendogs, and all their other first party franchises, and if it instantly gave the player cancer. And even then there would probably be a few people on this board that would buy it.

 

[iidesuyo]

The fuck?

The love hotel thing was before Nintendo even entered the videogame industry. Hell, it was before Nintendo entered the toy industry. And they were still turning a profit, btw. And even without Pokemon in the late 90's Nintendo was still making money hand over fist because of Mario, Zelda, Goldeneye and the many other IP's they had. And that's a crazy argument anyway. Without the iPod Apple would have been fucked in the early 21'st century. See how nutty that sounds? :lol

I was responding to that "existed for 120 years" stuff

I mean seriously? So many long existing companies have gone recently, nothing is granted. They post super-awesome profits this year and three years later they're gone. Being around for >100 years doesn't help a bit.

 

[charlequin]

Is it pretty minimal, though?

Well, I don't really see many factors that would make it expensive. Packaging design for it is quite a small expense overall; printing up batches of the games might not be incredibly cheap, but you should be able to plan these print runs around order sizes from your major customers and not be worried about returns or rotting stock (since most places will be more likely to just buy an assortment of titles and let them sit there 'til they sell.)

I don't think you finished this statement.

Happens to me a lot. :lol

At any rate I would be interested in how well these titles did in the GH line, purely out of curiosity. But I know it's probably a pain in the ass to compile those numbers.

Yeah, the main reason I use the God of War example over and over is that I know it offhand. There are other big games that I know of that sold tons and tons of copies "off the charts" (FFX and FFXII both more than doubled their launch month in LTD copies as one example) but I don't have any convenient data that I can break down easily to reveal exactly what portion of sales came at GH pricing. :/

My uncommon mistake in conflating the two earlier aside, why would you be so skeptical?

Mostly I don't believe that you'll actually buy the same game at $60. My own experience suggests (and economic models kind of support) that people would generally have a "target price" they'd be willing to buy at, and that in a rich marketplace with many goods competing for their dollar, rather that buy at above that price when no discounts were available, they'd usually just buy something else.

That's really what I'm getting at here -- the naive economic model, at least, would suggest that if a game sells 200k copies at full price and another 200k later on at $20, in a world where it never price dropped it wouldn't have sold 400k or even 300k at full price -- by far most of those $20 purchasers would have just bought something different.

In light of all that, I'm fully anticipating buying MH Tri for $50 sometime in August. I'm totally willing to buy the game at full price, but there are some other games that I want to pay full price for in the more immediate term.

I can see this, but do you think the presence or absence of a Player's Choice line changes your decision to buy it in August in any significant way?

Those consumers can grab a cheap game off the shelf for $5-$15, even at Best Buys and Wal-Marts when things are on clearance.

I actually don't see stuff on clearance for that cheap at either store all that often (there's a giant shelf of rotting Wii stock at my local Best Buy, but it's still all priced at $16+ even though no one ever touches it.) Regardless, it's true that someone can get a game cheaper than $20, but in many ways $20 is the "good enough" price, and the convenience of your typical GH display (just a big rack with a bunch of front-faced games you can grab something off of and toss it in the cart) is a fairly strong argument for impulse buys.

There are a lot of things that Nintendo could do that would be profitable, but they aren't going to do all of them.

I think they have been leaving a lot more low-hanging fruit this generation than other hardware companies, and (more importantly, IMO) have been skipping a lot of, like, 90% safe bets out of excessive concern for the 10% in ways that I think have created an overall drag on their Wii business.

I think that last thing is something they're trying to avoid though, that was one of my points.

I basically think it makes more sense ultimately for Nintendo to purposely cultivate a line of proven, "safe" titles that give off the air of "B+"s than to allow the status quo, where Nintendo's hit games are proven AAA but once you move away from them the entire Wii software shelf is a murky sea of Ds and Fs. Basically, I think people having no lifeline or guidance for how to find pretty good cheap games means that all the really terrible discount shovelware and price-collapsed licensed crap hurts the Wii brand more than it would otherwise.

Of course, it could be an insanely profitable thing for Nintendo to do. But honestly, and trying to avoid logical fallacy here, if Nintendo saw vast untapped reserves of profit just sitting there waiting to be had, why wouldn't they do it?

Well, like I say above, Nintendo tends to be extremely risk-averse -- a trait that helped them survive (and even profit from) a terrible performance like the GameCube when most companies would have folded, but that makes it difficult for them to make rational decisions in a time of plenty. Almost every time I, myself, think Nintendo "should have" done thing X, Y, or Z, it's something that's a little bit risky but not really that risky, where they can know for certain they won't lose any money by doing it the way they actually are but where they'd almost definitely see a positive return if they went the other way.

Is it?

Something like that. donny can fill in more details.

 

[cvxfreak]

Nintendo should extend Player's Choice to third party titles on the Wii.

What was the best selling/highest shipping non-new Resident Evil game last quarter? Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition. Why? Probably because of it's budget pricing. If Nintendo can help formalize such a lineup and fill it with hits, they can simultaneously give third parties a more visible presence and increase such sales. I'm not sure if a fixed price point is even necessary. I think labels can speak for themselves.

And I know Nintendo is certainly capable of this because they're doing it in Japan.

 

[timetokill]

And I know Nintendo is certainly capable of this because they're doing it in Japan.

Can you elaborate on this? I had mentioned doing a line purely of third-party games and charlequin mentioned that he thought they had been doing this in Japan. Would you mind giving more info on it? (or donny, if you're out there)

Well, I don't really see many factors that would make it expensive. Packaging design for it is quite a small expense overall; printing up batches of the games might not be incredibly cheap, but you should be able to plan these print runs around order sizes from your major customers and not be worried about returns or rotting stock (since most places will be more likely to just buy an assortment of titles and let them sit there 'til they sell.)

I don't imagine it would cost tons of money, but again I think it comes down to exactly how much Nintendo can squeeze out of it. I think they're looking almost entirely at the bigger fish at the moment, which admittedly might not be the best thing for them. But maybe the Player's Choice is a "card" that they're not sure they want to play just yet. Philosophically it would contrast with what Iwata was saying about price drops and adding value rather than cutting the price.

I wonder if the New Play Control series and Nintendo's unhappiness with it is at all related to the Player's Choice thing.

Mostly I don't believe that you'll actually buy the same game at $60. My own experience suggests (and economic models kind of support) that people would generally have a "target price" they'd be willing to buy at, and that in a rich marketplace with many goods competing for their dollar, rather that buy at above that price when no discounts were available, they'd usually just buy something else.

That's really what I'm getting at here -- the naive economic model, at least, would suggest that if a game sells 200k copies at full price and another 200k later on at $20, in a world where it never price dropped it wouldn't have sold 400k or even 300k at full price -- by far most of those $20 purchasers would have just bought something different.

Oh, I agree that in general people have a price they are willing to pay for something. I know with Deadly Creatures and Cursed Mountain I wasn't willing to take the plunge at $50. Same with Uncharted 1 at $60, or the Condemned games. But I do think there are many situations where people simply have a lot of choices and not enough money to purchase all of them, they are going to "wait" on one game or another not because they're waiting for a price drop, but because there are "too many" goods and buying them all at launch doesn't help. (The "backlog-limiting effect" or some such). I think that outside of GAF, people have some restraint when it comes to buying their games, and it's not always a wait for a price drop.

I can see this, but do you think the presence or absence of a Player's Choice line changes your decision to buy it in August in any significant way?

That's a good question. I think it would have an effect but it's hard to quantify. A very good question though. The presence of a lot of other games at a discounted price may cause me to spend my limited income on those discounted games rather than the new ones. Of course I'm predisposed to want the new games more, but that can change when it's a bunch of quality games for the same price as one quality game.

I actually don't see stuff on clearance for that cheap at either store all that often (there's a giant shelf of rotting Wii stock at my local Best Buy, but it's still all priced at $16+ even though no one ever touches it.) Regardless, it's true that someone can get a game cheaper than $20, but in many ways $20 is the "good enough" price, and the convenience of your typical GH display (just a big rack with a bunch of front-faced games you can grab something off of and toss it in the cart) is a fairly strong argument for impulse buys.

Granted.

I think they have been leaving a lot more low-hanging fruit this generation than other hardware companies, and (more importantly, IMO) have been skipping a lot of, like, 90% safe bets out of excessive concern for the 10% in ways that I think have created an overall drag on their Wii business.

Definitely an arguable position. Of course it's hard to argue with success, but I agree that they are leaving opportunities on the table.

I basically think it makes more sense ultimately for Nintendo to purposely cultivate a line of proven, "safe" titles that give off the air of "B+"s than to allow the status quo, where Nintendo's hit games are proven AAA but once you move away from them the entire Wii software shelf is a murky sea of Ds and Fs. Basically, I think people having no lifeline or guidance for how to find pretty good cheap games means that all the really terrible discount shovelware and price-collapsed licensed crap hurts the Wii brand more than it would otherwise.

Totally agreed, which is more or less why I'd like to see the third-party highlight group that we've been touching on. I think Nintendo has done a pretty good job of establishing themselves as the reliable choice for great games, and it would be good for them to use that goodwill to point consumers toward other quality games on their platform, thus improving the image of the platform as a whole. This is the main area I think they need work in (and as a part of third-party relations, is just the tip of the iceberg).

Well, like I say above, Nintendo tends to be extremely risk-averse -- a trait that helped them survive (and even profit from) a terrible performance like the GameCube when most companies would have folded, but that makes it difficult for them to make rational decisions in a time of plenty. Almost every time I, myself, think Nintendo "should have" done thing X, Y, or Z, it's something that's a little bit risky but not really that risky, where they can know for certain they won't lose any money by doing it the way they actually are but where they'd almost definitely see a positive return if they went the other way.

I agree, they tend to be pretty risk-averse. But that would beg the question, if this is something that isn't risky, why doesn't Nintendo do it? It would seem to be an obvious way to make some cash.

But then again, while Nintendo is risk-averse, they also are somewhat "obvious-averse." We could make a list 10 miles long of things that Nintendo "should" have done, but for one reason or another they haven't. I could definitely see a Wii Player's Choice line falling into that group.


I think we need to do a special edition of Iwata Asks

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Nintendo should extend Player's Choice to third party titles on the Wii.

What was the best selling/highest shipping non-new Resident Evil game last quarter? Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition. Why? Probably because of it's budget pricing. If Nintendo can help formalize such a lineup and fill it with hits, they can simultaneously give third parties a more visible presence and increase such sales. I'm not sure if a fixed price point is even necessary. I think labels can speak for themselves.

And I know Nintendo is certainly capable of this because they're doing it in Japan.

What about the red and gold boxes?

 

[donny2112]

Yeah, the main reason I use the God of War example over and over is that I know it offhand.

Here's another.

GCN Animal Crossing
~500K before Player's Choice, < 10K per month
~1m after Player's Choice, 15-30K per month

Might've played a hand in how the DS and Wii versions performed. :lol

Something like that. donny can fill in more details.

Okay. Nintendo took third-party games rated Silver or Gold on the Nintendo Channel (i.e. by actual players of the game) in Japan and re-released them (with a nifty red sleeve over the original packaging) as the Minna no Susume (Everyone's Recommendation) Selection at a discounted price. Basically, exactly what timetokill was suggesting.

 

[Pureauthor]

I was responding to that "existed for 120 years" stuff

I mean seriously? So many long existing companies have gone recently, nothing is granted. They post super-awesome profits this year and three years later they're gone. Being around for >100 years doesn't help a bit.

This has very little to do with current profits and a heck of a lot more to do with their massive warchest.

Never mind that Nintendo has never posted a fiscal year loss. Ever.

 

[donny2112]

Never mind that Nintendo has never posted a fiscal year loss. Ever.

There was that one quarter. That one quarter.

 

[timetokill]

Here's another.

GCN Animal Crossing
~500K before Player's Choice, < 10K per month
~1m after Player's Choice, 15-30K per month

Might've played a hand in how the DS and Wii versions performed. :lol


Okay. Nintendo took third-party games rated Silver or Gold on the Nintendo Channel (i.e. by actual players of the game) in Japan and re-released them (with a nifty red sleeve over the original packaging) as the Minna no Susume (Everyone's Recommendation) Selection at a discounted price. Basically, exactly what timetokill was suggesting.

Nice, thanks for the data. I'd imagine the memory card probably helped with Animal Crossing as well. But very strong data. Thank you.

Also thanks for the info on the Everyone's Recommendation. I remember it now! I even posted on the thread that it was mentioned in on GAF :lol I'd forgotten it, but I guess subconsciously I thought it was an awesome idea They've got to bring that to the other territories! I vote on that occasionally myself.



As far as the Player's Choice goes, very interesting. Since then Animal Crossing has become something of a huge franchise, so I wonder if the effect would be as dramatic now as it was back then, when Animal Crossing was a "risky" game to buy from Nintendo.

At any rate, maybe they will bring it out here at E3. I'm happy to continue the discussion but I think we've somewhat reached an end point. Thanks to everyone for an interesting discussion!

There was that one quarter. That one quarter.

I can only assume there was a LOT of heavy drinking going on the day when that was posted.

 

[Busaiku]

It's great to see Nintendo managed to sell 820k more copies Super Mario Galaxy during their past year.
It should probably fly by 9 million soon enough.

 

[Fewr]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

I was responding to that "existed for 120 years" stuff

I mean seriously? So many long existing companies have gone recently, nothing is granted. They post super-awesome profits this year and three years later they're gone. Being around for >100 years doesn't help a bit.

Coca-Cola

 

[m3k]

It's great to see Nintendo managed to sell 820k more copies Super Mario Galaxy during their past year.
It should probably fly by 9 million soon enough.

damn i didnt know it had sold near that amount... good good

 

[T'Zariah]

For those loling at the numbers, and says Nintendo has nothing to be upset about...um...you DO realize that it's in yen right? Which is significantly less valued than the dollar right?

 

[AceBandage]

For those loling at the numbers, and says Nintendo has nothing to be upset about...um...you DO realize that it's in yen right? Which is significantly less valued than the dollar right?

It's billions in revenue that they made, even in dollars.

 

[mugurumakensei]

For those loling at the numbers, and says Nintendo has nothing to be upset about...um...you DO realize that it's in yen right? Which is significantly less valued than the dollar right?

They made 2.4 Billion dollars in profit.

 

[The Technomancer]

I think you are clueless. At times business has been so bad that Nintendo tried their luck in Love Hotel business. And without Pokémon Nintendo would have been fucked in the late 90s.

Well, yes, one can say without Pokemon, Nintendo would have been fucked in the 90s. Without the runaway success PS2, Sony would have been fucked last gen. See, I can do it too.

 

[mugurumakensei]

I think you are clueless. At times business has been so bad that Nintendo tried their luck in Love Hotel business. And without Pokémon Nintendo would have been fucked in the late 90s.

Pokemon came out during the height of the snes era, and Nintendo had software titles that sold several millions of copies for both the GB/GBC and the N64. Nintendo was not in any way fucked during the late 90s with or without Pokemon.

As far as I understand, most japanese companies have quite a diverse set of assets as compared to us companies.

 

[Aaron Strife]

nintendo sales

Jesus Christ, NSMBWii. Yet Zelda is pretty damn low

 

[The Technomancer]

Jesus Christ, NSMBWii. Yet Zelda is pretty damn low

So, something like 1 in 5 Wii households own a copy of NSMBWii, WSR at roughly one 5 as well. Mario Kart is currently at like one in 3.5. Can we even understand that? One in just over three Wii households own a copy of Mario Kart, a game that didn't even come bundled with the system. Thats...thats....nuts! And if you combine Wii Fit and Wii Fit +, than just under half of all Wii systems are running Wii Fit. I mean, I had known it was ridiculous, but this is the first time I'm actually running the numbers.

Has there ever been a generation with this ridiculous level of software homogeneity in the past? (excepting bundled games)

 

[legend166]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

We've got one example of an established console maker with a worldwide presence going third party. Sega. Even then, it was around 7 years between the highs of the Genesis and the killing of the Dreamcast and going third party. If you compare the position Sega was in at the peak of the Genesis, it's nothing to the position Nintendo is is now, with relation to financial security, mind share and popularity of IPs.

Barring some scandal, like Nintendo accidentally releasing New Super Mario Bros Wii 2 with porn as the opening movie, or a console that overloads peoples electricity when they plug it in, it's going to take two disastrous generations before Nintendo would contemplate going third party. Especially after this generation where they've just shown they can come back after a very poor showing.

 

[GCX]

It's impossible for Nintendo to just lose the game by making a few disastrous business decisions and go 3rd party. They're a stable company that always operates at profit (they've never had full fiscal year of loss during their 100+ year history) and even if they started to lose money, it would take multiple generations of Xbox 1 style money holes (aka losing billions of dollars) before Nintendo's money vault would start to get empty.

 

[Kujo]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18739/1/

lol

 

[Vizion28]

It's ridiculous to even imagine Nintendo going 3rd party with thier massive wealth. Nintendo is way to clever and experienced to come out with a failed console. Even the GC being the their least successful console made them more profit than Sony has with PS3 and perhaps Microsoft with 360. A lot of it has to do with their software sales. Nintendo almost completely dominated the GC software sales.

 

[Kilrogg]

(they've never had full fiscal year of loss during their 100+ year history)

Er... They almost went bankrupt at some point though, or rather, they almost got into a situation where eventual bankruptcy would be unavoidable.

 

[DNF]

There was that one quarter. That one quarter.

Ha ! You see ? There we have it. So it is human after all.
If you make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come.

EDIT: Question, maybe anyone can answer me that: How big is Nintendo's "Warchest" when compared to the amount of money that Sony or MS have lost since the started their gaming divisions ?

 

[donny2112]

If you make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him.

JesusOnTheCross.jpg

Hmmm.

EDIT: Question, maybe anyone can answer me that: How big is Nintendo's "Warchest" when compared to the amount of money that Sony or MS have lost since the started their gaming divisions ?

For the entire company or just the gaming division? I don't know Sony's first few PS1 years off the top of my head, but I think they are at < $1B going from 1998 to today. Microsoft is like -$6B overall in the gaming division. Microsoft as a whole has multiple times the on-hand cash as Nintendo. Not sure about Sony. They've had hard times the last few years.

 

[deadhorse32]

Those people who laugh about Nintendo going 3rd party: this can happen so incredibly fast. One has a few years with record earnings, high expectations everywhere, and suddenly everything goes downs. Within a short time, some bad business decicions are made, and BOOM you're a part of another company

Nothing stays forever...

Nintendo was making money with the Gamecube ! THE GAMECUBE !!

They are not going down anytime soon.

 

[Diablos]

Is this really all that surprising? Wii has basically reached its ceiling sales-wise.

 

[gerg]

Is this really all that surprising? Wii has basically reached its ceiling sales-wise.

:lol

Really?

I struggle to think that a console that is still outpacing the PS2 has reached its sales limit.

 

[Kunan]

Some crazy things noticed in the release:

Nintendogs managed to sell yet another million last year, bringing it to 23, despite having released 5 years ago.
NSMB DS sold another 4 million last year bringing it to 22.5.
Brain Age sold another 1.3 million last year bringing it to 18.7.
Mario Kart DS sold another 3.3 mill last year bringing it to 17.9.

None of those were released last year, and some have been out for years like Nintendogs.

Mario Kart Wii sold another 7 mill bringing it to 22.5. Remember when people were predicting it would outsell GTA4 on all platforms combined? Well its slammed right by and continued off into the sunset.
Wii Sports Resort passes 16.
NSMB Wii has already hit 14.7, and does not appear to be slowing down. If it keeps it up it can catch up to the combined platforms of MW2.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl sells another mill to bring it to 9.5
Link's Crossbow sells another mill to bring it to 4.8


Another thing of note is just how small those release lists are for this year. E3 is going to be jam-packed

 

[FortunateSon]

Wii is a one hit wonder. Mark my words.

Just what I think though. I personally dislike Nintendo practices. But who am I to say.

Bring it on Nintenbots!

 

[Celine]

For the entire company or just the gaming division? I don't know Sony's first few PS1 years off the top of my head, but I think they are at < $1B going from 1998 to today. Microsoft is like -$6B overall in the gaming division. Microsoft as a whole has multiple times the on-hand cash as Nintendo. Not sure about Sony. They've had hard times the last few years.

Uh ? I think he is asking how much each company has in the bank.

Nintendo should have something like US$ 10 billion in "cash and cash equivalent" ( you can get the exact figure in yen in the last IR ).

Well, yes, one can say without Pokemon, Nintendo would have been fucked in the 90s.

No, he can't.