Just as the Nintendogs/Brain Age bubble burst, the tablet/iDevice game craze will too. I don't see what it offers for real enthusiasts, and I don't think it's sustainable.
Enthusiasts aren't the main market.
Just as the Nintendogs/Brain Age bubble burst, the tablet/iDevice game craze will too. I don't see what it offers for real enthusiasts, and I don't think it's sustainable.
If you want his professional analysis you will have to pay him for it.
Are you saying the don't place more weight in opinions that are backed up by data?
I don't think Nintendo can save the console all by themselves. They need third party support as well. And they need a larger install base to grab third party support. Kind of a catch-22.The problem (aside from the constant changing of opinion) is that you discuss hardware sales without any sort of context. Forget Nintendo, industry wide you can't just pluck numbers in isolation or even just tying it to price.
Hardware and software go hand in hand, you have to look at what titles are coming out. It's all well and good talking about the need for the Wii U to see more games to do better, anyone can say that - but Nintendo have resorted to short run ups from announcement to release for most games now. Mario Golf, for example, was announced this month slated for summer release. In contrast, you've got Bungie teasing Destiny and we're unlikely to see it for at least 12 months, if not longer.
Well you can't really have securities analysis without analysing data. I'm not really sure what your point is.
The other questions you asked are good questions, but I doubt Pachter is about to give you the answers here. He is posting probably from his office. I'm guessing that if you want the answers you will have to become one of his paying customers.
But it's been proven that non-enthusiasts have no alliances and change what they like very quickly.Enthusiasts aren't the main market.
Pachter's only true (and reasonable) prediction is about next gen graphics underwhelming compared to expectations.
Everything else is mostly hyperbole for the moneyhats (no offense).
But it's been proven that non-enthusiasts have no alliances and change what they like very quickly.
I don't think Nintendo can save the console all by themselves. They need third party support as well. And they need a larger install base to grab third party support. Kind of a catch-22.
Nintendo will recover. That I don't doubt. I feel folks are making their situation come off worse than it is. I also know what response that statement will attract.
Still, what's the term? Self fulfilling prophecy? With all this negative press Nintendo is getting even before the console was released, it's no wonder why it's performing under expectations.
In any case, I've no doubt of their recovery. Then this short period right now when they're stumbling will likely be quickly forgotten and folks will move on to the next failure to mock.
But what's the value of a statement such as that? If we look at the past, specificaly to Nintendo in the home space, after the SNES the comapny was in a downward spyral. Most people took for granted the company losing relevance with each succesive cycle.Given that he says they "may" never recover from it, I think this is reasonable.
Sure, it's possible. It's certainly looking like fairly large errors were made. I'm not necessarily betting on Nintendo's doom, but of course when things go wrong in a competitive industry it's possible for any false step to be your last.
Given that he says they "may" never recover from it, I think this is reasonable.
Sure, it's possible. It's certainly looking like fairly large errors were made. I'm not necessarily betting on Nintendo's doom, but of course when things go wrong in a competitive industry it's possible for any false step to be your last.
I haven't looked it up, but as far as I can remember, they haven't bought anything big of bought back stock for close to 10 years. They have been sitting on their profits, have lost a bunch on foreign currency translation (not their fault, of course, but they could have purchased assets in the U.S. and Europe where their cash is located, and it would have cost less), and have been paying a dividend of 1/2 of their profits for the last 10 years or so.
They SHOULD consider licensing their content more, much in the way Disney does. It wouldn't hurt game sales if they licensed Mario pajamas or Link Halloween costumes, but they don't. They should also consider making iOS and Android games of their old content, like the original SMB on the GBA. Those games aren't selling now, could be sold on phones and tablets for $5, and might convince new players to buy Nintendo hardware in order to play newer titles.
As far as use of cash, it is probably best if they just buy back stock, since it is trading so cheaply. If they can't invest the money at a higher rate of return than they expect their stock to return, they should buy stock. I am clearly not a creative guy (even less so than a technical guy), so I can't tell them to buy studios. There is something to be said for the Nintendo magic, they really make great games, and if they bought more studios, they risk diluting their product. Software isn't the issue, it's their stubborn reliance on hardware. If the hardware isn't working as well as they would like, they should consider other forms of revenue, and licensing is an obvious one.
Pachter's only true (and reasonable) prediction is about next gen graphics underwhelming compared to expectations.
Everything else is mostly hyperbole for the moneyhats (no offense).
And this is the one point where your expertise is lacking. The gaming part itself. Nintendo would never even consider porting a gba game to an ios device. Obvious business reasons aside - it's about the game itself. It's all about the games. Nintendo designs their games around their hardware. You simply cant play a gba game on an ios device the way it ment to be. This is not a business decision it's one about quality. A point Nintendo cares about. The frequent mentioning of ios ports just shows a deep misundersterstanding of nintendos philosophy. Actually this might be the missing variable which is always screwing with your predictions.
postet from a wii u.. not on purpose..
CONFIRMED: The Wii U is going to sell so well next year that MS and Sony will discontinue their consoles. Also, Apple will be bankrupted by 3DS.
It's funny how people dissect his analysis like it's the gospel. And then when he comes into the thread it's like Jesus clarifying stuff he said in the bible.
Pachter: "I just got off of a 12 hour workday and fired off a 2 sentence reply to an email I got about Nintendo"
Honestly the response to his comments is more about the state of neogaffers than anything that he said. Lots of Nintendo love/hate and people love to argue about it.
Glad to hear they'll recover from it.
So Pachter is right when he tells you that PS4 and Xbox games won't look nice, but he's being paid off when he tells you that Nintendo may have some issues? The pretzel you have to wrap yourself in just to reach that line of thinking is unbelievable.
At least if he's saying that the opposite will happen.
ohhh shit, this guy. where my gifs at bros? some ether getting laid down right here.
Here's the question I got:
From: Jeff Grubb [mailto:jeff.grubb@venturebeat.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 8:56 PM
To: Jeff Grubb
Subject: If you're Nintendo, what do you do next?
Let's forget what we think Nintendo will do. What would you do if you were Nintendo?
Apparently, according to the NPDs, the Wii U only sold 55,000 units in January.
First of all, are you worried about NIntendo?
Second, what would you do to turn things around?
I'll assume there's a possibility you will say "get out of the hardware business and make iOS games," and that's fine, but I'd also like to know what you would do to turn around the Wii U.
Thanks. Look forward to hearing from you.
--
Jeff Grubb
Reporter
VentureBeat | GamesBeat
Notice the time stamp, 8:54 p.m. on Thursday night. Please note that I get up at 3:15 a.m. every weekday, and had to do so on Friday to speak to my sales force about the NPD data. I finished writing my NPD note around 9:35 p.m. at the office, was about to log out and go home, and decided to answer Jeff.
My answer, time stamped 9:37 p.m.:
I think they misfired on the Wii U. It’s just not that differentiated from the other two consoles, and the game play isn’t as unique as the Wii. They made a mistake, it’s something they probably can’t recover from.
I do think iOS games would be smart, especially if they recycled old GBA games and converted people to Nintendo fans. I don’t really think they can recover, think that they have made a costly mistake, and their handheld business can’t save them in the face of cannibalization from smart phones and tablets.
______________________________________________________________________
The point is that I needed to get home (at 10:20), get to bed, and get up to work the next day. I decided to answer Jeff's question, and "misfired" and "can't recover" were my words, but I wasn't in a position to look up all the numbers and address profitability. Notice how my comments were edited.
Anyway, my day job takes from 4:20 a.m. till 9 p.m. at least 100 days a year, this was one of them. I don't have a lot of time to reflect on my answers, don't actually know what the article is going to say, and certainly don't know which other analysts are going to be contacted or quoted, or even whether they will use what I say. I try to be responsive, and to work with the limited time I have.
I don't think Nintendo is going bankrupt, ever. I do think that they will have trouble making money on the Wii U, since I see the installed base ending up pretty small, and don't think they will see the strength in handhelds they saw last generation. At least, that's what I thought I said ;-)
I agree. I don't think Nintendo is doomed and it would take a long series of failed hardware to bring them down. But barring some bold and brilliant moves this year, the Wii U might be doomed. The Dreamcast was selling a whole lot better than the Wii U before Sega pulled the plug.See, there's plenty of nuanced discussion to have here. I own a Wii U and I'm not afraid to say that it's not doing particularly well. However, a large part of that is owed to perception, the theoretical competition from Microsoft and Sony. Everyone makes the Dreamcast comparison but if that exact same scenario were to occur, Nintendo would be far better equipped to see it through.
The thing is Nintendo's weakness is also their saving grace - they're a conservative company and I like to think of them as a Japanese company competing globally than a global company operating out of Japan.
People ask why Nintendo didn't take advantage of their market position with the Wii - it's the same reason they didn't drown with the N64 and the Gamecube. They're risk averse and mitigate as much as they can. Their 'risk' with the Wii U doesn't even register with some of the shit Sega, Sony and Microsoft have pulled over the years.
This is why I struggle to go along with statements like Nintendo are doomed. Your point is a different one - to fight for market share, Nintendo have to adjust particularly their attitude to third parties. As you said, it's a catch 22 situation and it's a reasonable stance to have.
I just think for a professional to sway from one opinion to another publicly isn't a particularly good image to foster.
Coming right up... wait, are you trying to get me banned, ghst?
so, why is nintendo not buying back stock if they can? and what about buying shares of the pokemon company? they only have like 1/3 of pokemon, so...?
And this is the one point where your expertise is lacking. The gaming part itself. Nintendo would never even consider porting a gba game to an ios device. Obvious business reasons aside - it's about the game itself. It's all about the games. Nintendo designs their games around their hardware. You simply cant play a gba game on an ios device the way it ment to be. This is not a business decision it's one about quality. A point Nintendo cares about. The frequent mentioning of ios ports just shows a deep misundersterstanding of nintendos philosophy.
Not to be too anal here, but DC was selling better at heavy discounted price. I can't believe anyone would take the DC comparison seriously, Nintendo is not even close to the amount of damage Sega sustained by the time the DC was released.I agree. I don't think Nintendo is doomed and it would take a long series of failed hardware to bring them down. But barring some bold and brilliant moves this year, the Wii U might be doomed. The Dreamcast was selling a whole lot better than the Wii U before Sega pulled the plug.
Changing positions in a rapidly changing market is normal. It's the people that maintain the same position despite the indicators that it's wrong that I regard with suspicion.
That's not a very good counter argument if you think it more throughly.So how do you explain the Virtual Console and things like that, then? Are those games not taken from their "pure" original environment, playing on hardware that was never designed for them?
I don't think Nintendo can save the console all by themselves. They need third party support as well. And they need a larger install base to grab third party support. Kind of a catch-22.
When the market moves from one type of device to another (gaming dedicated handheld) to a multifunction device (tablet), it's going to be next to impossible to get them to go back.
Not to be too anal here, but DC was selling better at heavy discounted price. I can't believe anyone would take the DC comparison seriously, Nintendo is not even close to the amount of damage Sega sustained by the time the DC was released.
Wii U has hit rock botton it can only go up when some decent software starts landing.
So how do you explain the Virtual Console and things like that, then? Are those games not taken from their "pure" original environment, playing on hardware that was never designed for them?
That's not a very good counter argument if you think it more throughly.
But... The real problem that Nintendo has about putting their catalogue in iOS has to do with the price of software and the perception of brand depreciation. Iwata tried really hard to prevent the traditional players of the industry about the potential danger of adopting the iOS model for their software.
Even 3DS plays DS games in a poor way, but at any rate see above.linkratos said:The hardware WAS designed to play them. Hence the accurate performance and readily available controllers (with actual buttons) to do so.
Wii U has a good chance, games are what will do it
And again, Dreamcast comparisons are way off-base because Sega released the Dreamcast after the Sega-CD, 32X, and Saturn, all of which could be considered flops of varying degrees. The Wii U is the less successful follow-up to one of the best selling video game systems of all time.
I agree with him for the most part. Nintendo needs to launch a new console in 2 years, more powerful than PS4 and 720. Or maybe that is what they planned all along?
A real gamer is someone who considers video games to be more than just a futile exercise in jumping from one platform to another. Someone who realizes its potential as an art form, someone who supports constant innovation and ingenuity shown by the best artists in the industry. Unfortunately such companies as Nintendo keep thinking that video games are for man children unable to distinguish real works from cheap reproductions. But as the numbers lately show, they are a dying breed. Soon they will be an insignificant minority forever trapped in their own unfullfilled fantasies of plumbers having an affair with dumb-looking blond girls.
Of course you can simultaneously have a Nintendo console and be a real gamer as most likely you own at least one since childhood. But when you reach puberty, you realize there is more to life and upgrade to better, more mature gaming systems that show the potential of gaming in its true form.
What a beautiful disaster this post is. LOL