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Polygon: Nintendo may be drowning, but it's invested in doing so silently

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Poetic.Injustice

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Nintendo is hurting. The Wii U isn’t selling, it’s lacking mainstream publisher acceptance, and the core Nintendo titles don’t seem to be energizing the company’s base of fans. Product lines are being bifurcated in uncomfortable ways; the latest Smash Bros. is coming to the 3DS line of consoles first, and will then hit the Wii U console later.

The business has turned stagnant, even if the company’s new releases remain highly-polished and fun. Sadly, that just isn't enough when you're fighting more powerful systems with better developer support, better outreach to press and fans and of course the mobile market chipping away at your market share.
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Sony and Microsoft at least attempt to tell their own story, even if they sometimes stumble, but Nintendo is drawing inward in a way that will only hurt it moving forward. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emphasis downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends in interesting ways.

Microsoft is making a large bet on video, while Sony focused on power and price. The two companies are competing on multiple fronts, and players have already seen the rewards of that competitive space. Nintendo simply isn’t part of the discussion.

Which is the problem; Nintendo gives us nothing to talk about. It says nothing. Nintendo releases a video every now and again that announces some aspect of a game that will likely be fun, but will also look very much like the last game in the series. Nintendo seems to have ditched any attempt to do novel things with the Wii U’s tablet-style controller, and is instead hoping that high definition graphics are going to be enough for its latest games.

It watches us from behind their veil of carefully constructed silence as savvier companies like Sony pile on social media wins, including developers speaking up in the company’s defense. Nintendo is changing its strategy to deal with its downward trajectory, but the result is a company that’s even more guarded and impenetrable. We're asking each other if Microsoft is going to kill the cable box, while the conversation around Nintendo is whether it's going to kill itself.

Nintendo has the cash reserves and IP needed to stay alive for a very long time, even if it continues to drown. We shouldn’t be worried about the company’s possible death, we should be worried that the closer it gets to that possibility the quieter it becomes.
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/29/5664588/nintendo-wii-u-struggling-death
 
Dat URL. "wiiu struggling death" in it for no reason.
Butthurt press is butthurt.
 
From the conclusion, before people take this the wrong way.
Nintendo has the cash reserves and IP needed to stay alive for a very long time, even if it continues to drown. We shouldn’t be worried about the company’s possible death, we should be worried that the closer it gets to that possibility the quieter it becomes.
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Isn't this a kinda "no shit" scenario? I mean, I wouldn't draw attention to my failing console, when there's very little to shout about it. Nintendo focuses on their games foremost, for better or for worse, and 99% of the time they deliver.
 
Yes, they are SO doomed because they're not standing in front of you with confetti falling from the sky as they unveil a big and huge "hype" game.

Please, even if Nintendo did a live conference they would write doom articles after it anyway because of the "lukewarm" reveals/unveilings like every freaking year during the Wii years.
 
"The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emphasis downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends in interesting ways."

It's like who ever wrote that article doesn't even know about the Miiverse (or the eShop for that matter).
 
The Wii wasn't really "part of the discussion" between 360 and PS3 last gen. That's not the problem, it's just that the product doesn't seem to be compelling to consumers on its own.
 
Everytime I see an article like this it just comes off as another entitled videogame journalist bitching about access and how Nintendo doesn't give them enough of it.

I suppose before the Wii hit Nintendo was just an open book eh?

Yeah, no. Not really. Didn't seem to hurt their success there.

Nintendo wants videogame journalists to talk about games and lately it seems Videogame journalists want to talk about anything but games.

It's all resolutiongate, sexism, who's getting fired from where, who's getting hired where, how mobile is just making money hand over fist.....and to me all that shit is just god awful fucking boring as sin.
 
There's nothing novel about Nintendo being relatively secretive or Japan-centric in its communications and behaviors. It has done this for thirty years. Through thick and thin. Success and failure. It's just part of the company's culture.
 
The lines between Sony/MS and Nintendo are very arbitrarily drawn. Nintendo trumpets and talks to its fans constantly, and releases as much game info as any other company at the moment. Miiverse is...well, not booming, but it's a thing. I don't really understand where the opinions in the article are coming from.
 
wrowa said:
"The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emphasis downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends in interesting ways."

It's like who ever wrote that article doesn't even know about the Miiverse (or the eShop for that matter).
Click to expand...

The Miiverse is in no way a replacement for all the features they're talking about there.
 
Stinkles said:
There's nothing novel about Nintendo being relatively secretive or Japan-centric in its communications and behaviors. It has done this for thirty years. Through thick and thin. Success and failure. It's just part of the company's culture.
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Sure, but in the short-attention span modern social media age where there is an almost daily drip of information coming from its competitors, nintendo's silence is even more deafening compared to the past.
 
Ah Polygon, continue striving and you might climb the ranks of Kotaku's journalistic integrity.
Soar little dove.
 
I feel like i've been reading the same articles every since the Nintendo 64 launched. But they're still around and i dont see them going anywhere soon.

Also, i'm buying a WiiU soon.
 
They are an extremely insular company and it doesn't seem to be doing them any favours lately. They seem to allow everyone else to dictate the narrative surrounding them and do very little to respond to the concerns of critics or fans. I think it would take fresh blood in upper management to even begin to steer their corporate culture into more contemporary waters.

Edit: the word 'doom' should be bannable. Or punished with a hammer to the knees. Or both.
 
axisofweevils said:
Dat URL. "wiiu struggling death" in it for no reason.
Butthurt press is butthurt.
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Nice spot. Ridiculous of them.


I kind of want a wii u, I really want to play Zombi U or however it's spelt but other than that there's nothing I'm really interested in. I wish I liked 3D mario games or Zelda games but I don't and I feel like I'm missing out.
 
ugh

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emphasis downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends in interesting ways.
Click to expand...

sounds like they have never actually used the systems. Miiverse is the most interesting and fresh way of interacting and sharing with friends than the other consoles. Let alone all the local multiplayer games on the system compared to the others.

I dig my ps4, but really its more of the same than the WiiU is. And what this article would like you to believe.
 
*Nintendo once again decides to report information directly to consumers than through the media via a press conference at E3*

"Nintendo's not telling us anything, they must be dying."
 
wrowa said:
"The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emphasis downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends in interesting ways."
Click to expand...
Whatever happened to just, you know, playing games?
I must be getting too old for this hobby.
 
BruiserBear said:
The Miiverse is in no way a replacement for all the features they're talking about there.
Click to expand...

Literally break down the quote here:

"downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends"

The WiiU doesn't have a video streaming option or an achievement system, but it's capable of doing everything else quite easily through Miiverse, eShop, or other various bits and bobs. It's a different setup than the other two, but we're looking at generalities here. If the article was more specific, then we'd have a case.
 
If you have nothing to write about concerning that Nintendo means:

1) You suck at your job as gaming press
2) Your job must not be necessary because your service is less useful than the Nintendo first-party PR machine.

Oh but the editorial content is still good you say...
 
The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emphasis downloading games, sharing your accomplishments, streaming your video, keeping your favorite moments and interacting with your friends in interesting ways.
Click to expand...

I don't really understand the point of this comment. Nintendo's committed to releasing all their games day 1 on the eShop, so how are they not emphasizing downloading games? And Miiverse covers the other things. Maybe not streaming video, but they've made it really easy to share screenshots at least. Whether Miiverse has been successful at these things is up for debate, but it's at least an attempt at doing something new and different in the social aspect of consoles, so you gotta give Nintendo props for at least trying.

We're asking each other if Microsoft is going to kill the cable box
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...They're not serious, right? Who in their right mind is asking such a thing?
 
So their conclusion is that Nintendo might be doomed one day if they continue to make undesirable products? No shit, Sherlock.

We're asking each other if Microsoft is going to kill the cable box
Click to expand...

Well, no, but we are asking if Polygon is going to kill any hope for good game journalism.
 
The image for the article comes off to me as kind of demeaning. It seems to insinuate Iwata's Japanese cultural bowing connotes shame rather than a pleasant greeting. At best it robs it of its intended context.
 
I think some people are overreacting here. Nowhere does it say Nintendo is doomed. The Wii U is dying a slow death with spread out releases here and there and a bunch of unconfirmed release dates. It can't compete power wise or third party wise with Sony and Microsoft and the gamepad, the tool that was supposed to make the Wii U unique, isn't being used in major games and doesn't seem to be a focus anymore.
 
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