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[Visualante2]

The thing that always gets me is that Nintendo can make such a move at any point. Their back is not exactly against the wall, yet.

Either way, they could take Apple's route and design their own damn friend code enabled tele communications handset or their own neon bible if they had to.

 

[Tripon]

Can a mobile denier please make the case that it is a bad move financially? I would really like to see the business case.

- Unable to charge premium on any and all titles. Example: Activision is charging $60 plus more via DLC maps, guns, etc. The price they charge for COD: Strike team, their Mobile game companion is $7. Strike Team does have in app-purchases. Which likely means that Nintendo will likely have to price their games aggressively to gain any market share in the gaming market. Or go fully free to play with in app purchases.

- Nintendo doesn't have experience making free to play outside of making a niche 3DS eShop game that is Japan only, and the unreleased Steel Diver F2P game that is currently in development. So if Nintendo does go the free to play game model, it will take time for them to figure out how to get that balance of getting their customers to pay for IAP without scaring off its user base.

- Currently Nintendo enjoys around 100% revenue on their 1st party titles in retail, minus retail shares, and 100% revenue on their digital storefront. They also gain a standard 30% royalty rate from all 3rd parties that makes games for their platform. If Nintendo went 3rd party and release games on a mobile platform that was not their own, they instantly lose the 30% royalty rate from 3rd parties, and start paying a 30% royalty rate of their own to whatever platform they do use.

- To Nintendo, there is no more controlling its own financial destiny. It now has to constantly rely on somebody else to provide a platform to sell their games on. If they get into a dispute, and if they are not allowed to sell on a popular platform, such as Steam, the iOS app store, or Google Play, it would hurt them financially.

 

[Shinta]

The only people that want Nintendo games on mobile devices are short-term interest shareholders that want the stock to triple so they can sell it.

In the long run it is literally the single stupidest thing Nintendo could ever possibly do. This advice comes from the same people who said Zynga is the untouchable future of the game industry just a short few years ago.

There is no faster way to prove you are not at all interested in gaming than to suggest that Nintendo put their games on mobile devices.

Ironically, you never hear calls for Halo 5 on mobile, or Gran Turismo. Nintendo is the only "bull-headed" one. So tired of these lazy articles from people who think they're smart.

 

[Zinthar]

Gamepad is a integral component of the console. It's essentially the BIOS of the Wii U.

I strongly suspect that you misunderstand what a BIOS is.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

The only people that want Nintendo games on mobile devices are short-term interest shareholders that want the stock to triple so they can sell it.

In the long run it is literally the single stupidest thing Nintendo could ever possibly do.

There is no faster way to prove you are not at all interested in gaming than to suggest that Nintendo put their games on mobile devices.

Ironically, you never hear calls for Halo 5 on mobile, or Gran Turismo. Nintendo is the only "bull-headed" one. So tired of these lazy articles from people who think they're smart.

Because MS and Sony have 80m people to sell those games to with 360 and PS3. Nintendo don't. If either of the PS4 or Bone fails like the Wii U, I'm sure there will be calls from the investment community for MS/Sony to get out of hardware or even gaming entirely.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

The only people that want Nintendo games on mobile devices are short-term interest shareholders that want the stock to triple so they can sell it.

Or, y'know, people that don't want to shell out money for their terrible hardware.

Just ask SmokyDave.

 

[mightynine]

Tangent: How come Sony and Microsoft seemingly never catch as much gump for being hardware providers/having first party software developers that are exclusive to their ecosystems but Nintendo is always being asked (with varying degrees of intensity) to put stuff on the iOS and Android marketplaces?

Oh good, I'm not the only one.

 

[Tripon]

Microsoft do have a few games on Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Microsoft+Corporation&hl=en

Not many yet but it's bound to increase

Plus there's also Windows Phone where they have more games.

Windows Phone store

The only game there(for Android) is Kinectimals, well that and Wordament. And I'm guessing you need the Kinect to play that game. Everything else are either companion apps, or apps designed to get you into the MS ecosystem.

And MS owns the Windows phone and obviously wants to help it succeed.

 

[MagiusNecros]

What.

Basic Input Output System. Most functions on the Wii U can only be performed via the Gamepad. The Wii Remote can't do as much. Example would be changing the volume. A feature that so far for Nintendo controllers, only the Gamepad seems to have. Not sure on the Pro Controller though. Furthermore the Gamepad is capable as a streaming device for off TV play.

 

[The Boat]

Can a mobile denier please make the case that it is a bad move financially? I would really like to see the business case.

Nintendo could make a lot of money on the mobile market. Or maybe that market there wouldn't care. Maybe the market is a bubble waiting to burst. Maybe doing so would devalue Nintendo's brand and game quality.

Who knows? The fact of the matter is, even if Nintendo is a business and it comes down to money, Nintendo's corporate identity and that of its figure heads is one that prides itself on doing its own thing, and that includes hardware and exclusive games. It's perfectly clear they don't intend to bow down to every shareholder pressure and that maintaining that identity and the company alive in the long run is a very important matter to them.

By the way, I might be wrong of course, but I don't think a single dev has ever made as much money on mobile as Nintendo usually makes and if any did, they're a rarity and they certainly can't have a proven track record of solid revenue and profits for long enough to prove that the mobile market is a fantastic alternative.

I certainly can't provide a business case proving why it's a bad idea, but shouldn't the ball be in the other court?

 

[watershed]

Going forward I think the 3ds is going to be just fine. It is putting up great numbers. It won't reach the insane highs of the ds line but I think we shouldn't brand the 3ds a failure just because it doesn't touch heaven.

The Wii U on the other hand is a total disaster. That probably isn't going to change in a substantial way for the rest of its lifetime.

If we take these things as true, I don't know how a jump to mobile games helps them when their handheld is strong but their home console is weak.

 

[Shinta]

Because MS and Sony have 80m people to sell those games to with 360 and PS3. Nintendo don't. If either of the PS4 or Bone fails like the Wii U, I'm sure there will be calls from the investment community for MS/Sony to get out of hardware or even gaming entirely.

They said those same calls about "Nintendo should be on mobile" all throughout the Wii success years. They want to see the stock soar. That short term gain is literally all they care about.

 

[Freezie KO]

Mobile is not the answer. But they are bull-headed and often lacking in foresight.

 

[RurouniZel]

Nintendo is bull-headed, but they're not the one being stubbornly stupid here, that title belongs to the ones who keep clamoring for them to go 3rd party and/or mobile.

This.

 

[UNCMark]

“A single game has the power to change everything in this industry,” President Satoru Iwata

Yes, when the hardware gimmick you bet on is rejected, dream of a single game that can salvage your console. Probably have a better chance of that if you started making new IPs instead of releasing another Mario platformer, another Wii Party game, an up-rezzed 10 year old Zelda game, Wii Fit etc

Mobile is not the answer. But they are bull-headed and often lacking in foresight.

Mobile is the answer. They could raise awareness to all of their games by releasing little apps promoting them. But no, they'd rather just do Nintendo Directs that the world never sees.

 

[Manmademan]

Can a mobile denier please make the case that it is a bad move financially? I would really like to see the business case.

Sure. The case for NOT putting nintendo's franchises on mobile is that the entire point of nintendo's platforms is that you can ONLY find their franchises there. There's literally no other reason to buy one.

They've never really been technical marvels, and third party titles are few and far between. If I know that pokemon is going to show up on iOS, why wouldn't I just buy it there instead of shelling out for a nintendo 3DS?

mobile titles also sell for FAR less than console and handheld games do, so having the new pokemon, donkey kong, etc in the app store for 1.99 or whatever makes it harder for nintendo to charge 39.99 or whatever on their own platforms where their money is actually made.

Finally, mobile really doesn't make all that much revenue. it's high growth, but GAMING in the app store as a whole really only brings in about as much as any one of the platform holders does in a weak year. Nintendo's share of that likely wouldn't be high enough to risk screwing the rest of their business.

There's a case to be made for putting cheap spin offs on the store to boost awareness (I think sony is doing this) but I can't say that even that has really paid off.

 

[Cody_D165]

Basic Input Output System. Most functions on the Wii U can only be performed via the Gamepad. The Wii Remote can't do as much. Example would be changing the volume. A feature that so far for Nintendo controllers, only the Gamepad seems to have. Not sure on the Pro Controller though. Furthermore the Gamepad is capable as a streaming device for off TV play.

"Most" functions is a little extreme.

I can't think of too many things in the console's operating system that absolutely require use of the gamepad. (Eshop and Miiverse I suppose being the most notable examples.) I don't quite get your volume example, yes you can change the volume of the TV simply because of the remote feature, but you can just use the TV remote...

Some games obviously require it for touchscreen controls and whatnot but of course that's entirely up to the dev.

 

[Zinthar]

Basic Input Output System. Most functions on the Wii U can only be performed via the Gamepad. The Wii Remote can't do as much. Example would be changing the volume. A feature that so far for Nintendo controllers, only the Gamepad seems to have. Not sure on the Pro Controller though. Furthermore the Gamepad is capable as a streaming device for off TV play.

You defined the acronym, but what a BIOS actually is is a firmware interface that's typically stored in a ROM chip on the motherboard. The Wii U probably has one in the console itself, and possibly also in the gamepad.

In any case, there's probably nothing technical stopping Nintendo from updating the console's firmware to move functionality off of the gamepad so that it's not required.

 

[UNCMark]

Sure. The case for NOT putting nintendo's franchises on mobile is that the entire point of nintendo's platforms is that you can ONLY find their franchises there. There's literally no other reason to buy one.

So put bite-sized versions of their games on mobile devices to promote the full games on their console. Wii U is a disaster. Someone at Nintendo needs to pull their head out of their ass and think outside of it.

 

[Tripon]

You defined the acronym, but what a BIOS actually is is a firmware interface that's typically stored in a ROM chip on the motherboard. The Wii U probably has one in the console itself, and possibly also in the gamepad.

In any case, there's probably nothing technical stopping Nintendo from updating the console's firmware to move functionality off of the gamepad so that it's not required.

They're been solely removing gamepad only functionality little by little. Before, you could little without the gamepad, but basically the only thing that needs the gamepad now is the eShop.

 

[MagiusNecros]

In any case, there's probably nothing technical stopping Nintendo from updating the console's firmware to move functionality off of the gamepad so that it's not required.

Do you think Nintendo will ever get to the point where they will make a different version of the console that does not require the Gamepad?

 

[Tripon]

So put bite-sized versions of their games on mobile devices to promote the full games on their console. Wii U is a disaster. Someone at Nintendo needs to pull their head out of their ass and think outside of it.

So you want to put bite-sized Demos of Wii U games on mobile.

Think about what you said for a moment.

 

[Cody_D165]

Do you think Nintendo will ever get to the point where they will make a different version of the console that does not require the Gamepad?

Nintendo made a version of the 3DS without 3D.

Anything's possible with them

Honestly though gamepad functionality is such a huge selling point for a lot of their first party titles so I don't think it'll happen. A redesigned gamepad perhaps but I don't think they'll ever ditch it entirely.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Tangent: How come Sony and Microsoft seemingly never catch as much gump for being hardware providers/having first party software developers that are exclusive to their ecosystems but Nintendo is always being asked (with varying degrees of intensity) to put stuff on the iOS and Android marketplaces?

Because Sony and MS have things to fall back on. Sony has TVs, phones, DVD players etc. MS has a little thing called Windows. If Sony and MS start having issues with gaming, they can leverage money from their other divisions to carry the load. Besides, they HAVE started doing stuff with iOS/Android with SmartGlass and PlayStation Mobile.

Nintendo does one thing and one thing only...make consoles, and make games. In this day and age where technology companies are expected to be diverse, Nintendo is seen as stubborn, archaic, and just plain uncool.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Nintendo made a version of the 3DS without 3D.

Anything's possible with them

You have a point there.

 

[-COOLIO-]

Nintendo is not interested in short term profit that will ultimately hurt their IPs in the long run.

im not sure if it would hurt their ips. i think they could charge $40 on mobile platforms if they wanted to.

 

[Manmademan]

So put bite-sized versions of their games on mobile devices to promote the full games on their console. Wii U is a disaster. Someone at Nintendo needs to pull their head out of their ass and think outside of it.

See the above. Sony has done spin off games for some franchises, but can anyone say this has actually been worthwhile?

 

[Tripon]

im not sure if it would hurt their ips. i think they could charge $40 on mobile platforms if they wanted to.

See how that worked for Square-Enix.

 

[Zinthar]

Do you think Nintendo will ever get to the point where they will make a different version of the console that does not require the Gamepad?

I have no clue -- that would probably be smart seeing as how the Gamepad has done little to convince gamers of the value of owning a Wii U, and they might end up selling a lot of them after the fact if they could only get the initial price point for the hardware down low enough to drive up the install base.

But Nintendo has been notoriously slow to react to changing market conditions...

 

[Shinta]

im not sure if it would hurt their ips. i think they could charge $40 on mobile platforms if they wanted to.

"The Bullheaded Nintendo still charges a premium for their games" etc.

 

[RurouniZel]

Nintendo made a version of the 3DS without 3D.

Anything's possible with them

Honestly though gamepad functionality is such a huge selling point for a lot of their first party titles so I don't think it'll happen. A redesigned gamepad perhaps but I don't think they'll ever ditch it entirely.

A good point, but I think a more realistic approach would be to make a new version with a smaller gamepad. 4 inches instead of 6 for example. Less plastic would be less expensive to manufacture.

 

[-COOLIO-]

See how that worked for Square-Enix.

fairly well, im guessing? they seem to still be doing it and their ports are pretty trashy and low quality imo.

 

[MrSaturn99]

The PlayStation blew away Nintendo’s game systems with better graphics and music, but Nintendo managed to hold its own in sales.

Er, wasn't it the other way around?

 

[knkng]

Mobile is the answer. They could raise awareness to all of their games by releasing little apps promoting them. But no, they'd rather just do Nintendo
Directs that the world never sees.

I think this would be fine, but we both know that this is not what people are requesting when they say they want Nintendo games on mobile. They want full NES/SNES libraries, and so forth.

Can a mobile denier please make the case that it is a bad move financially? I would really like to see the business case.

Well, for starters, it's their home console business that's dying. Although the 3DS is not reaching the levels of the original DS, it's still doing extremely well. Why release games on other mobile devices in order to compete with their own hardware in the same market? Or to put it another way, why doesn't Sony release Puppeteer on 360 and WiiU in order to recover sales?

 

[Tripon]

fairly well, im guessing? they seem to still be doing it and their ports are pretty trashy and low quality imo.

No, they keep on trying to charge high prices in the vain hope of its selling, not because they actually can get people to pay $15.99 on a bad port of FFV.

 

[Shinta]

Or to put it another way, why doesn't Sony release Puppeteer on 360 and WiiU in order to recover sales?

Perfect analogy.

 

[Coolio McAwesome]

If you look at a list of the best-selling games of all time, you will see more games from Nintendo than any other company. If you look at a list of the best-reviewed games of all time, you will see more games from Nintendo than any other company. This is not a coincidence. Generally speaking, the games Nintendo makes are pretty awesome and this is why they have remained relevant for over 30 years while most of their competitors went out of business.

It likely goes without saying, but mobile games kind of suck. It's not an appropriate platform for games outside of a few select genres. Nintendo could almost certainly make a few quick dollars by releasing a Mario game on iOS, but the game would almost certainly suck and they'd end up burning their IP. It's not worth harming the long-term health of the company for the sake of a quarterly profit.

I'm sure Nintendo could create a brand new IP that takes the mobile world by storm, but most of the games that they are interested in making wouldn't be appropriate for a mobile device. A game like Super Mario Galaxy would never work on a cell phone. Heck, a game like Super Mario Bros. would never work on a cell phone. That said, games like Brain Age or Wii Fit could work very well with mobile devices. It could be very profitable for them to release an mobile app that communicates with the balance board without the necessity to have a dedicated game console.

Still, investors are pretty short-sighted. I don't think a lot of investors fully realize understand how Nintendo has managed to be so profitable in the past. The single biggest reason why Nintendo has so much power in the industry is because they consistently release great games. (Having control over the hardware is a contributing factor to this.) If Nintendo has their way, Mario is still going to be relevant long after everyone reading this has died. If they start releasing shitty cell phone games like so many other companies are content in doing, they could potentially destroy 30 years of good will.

 

[Trevelyan9999]

Nintendo just needs to go back to the basics one more time.

In regards to Nintendo's next console they need to do just a few simple things and it will sell just fine:

-Give a clear understanding of what the console does

-Give a name to the console that does not cause confusion

-Show why their new system is the better choice

 

[POWERSPHERE]

The carousel of clicks continues. Drop a bomb, Nintendo and shut these fools up.

 

[Y2Kev]

There are two prongs, in my mind. The first is the immediate financial benefit of releasing software on mobile.

This includes the potential profit based on the revenue generated and the work the goes into making or porting the games.

The second prong is more complicated because it does with forecasting certain factors. Some of which include, quality assurance and the costs of doing properly QA on more platforms, extra QA for porting to mobile platforms. Pricing comes into play also because the licensing fees they avoided on their own platform is actually being reversed and paid out to the mobile platform holder. Then there is the issue of price of software, and then Nintendo software would then have multiple price points and the behavior of consumers would be harder to predict here. But it definitely would make people less willing to pay for a $60 console game.

Ultimately, even if you consider a Nintendo Mobile division as producing a consistent and reliable cash-flow, I don't think that it positively affects their total operations.

I haven't provided numbers, and the only ones I possibly could provide right now is simply the size of the iOS and Android games market compared to Nintendo's revenue for the last 5-10 years.

Thanks. Interesting perspective.

Nintendo is not interested in short term profit that will ultimately hurt their IPs in the long run.

How does it hurt their IPs?

Brand dilution is the only thing I can think of. Offering F2P/microtransaction games or straight up free demos of big titles would be a decent way of advertising on iOS/Android though.

Brand dilution meaning what though? Let's assume for a second they go fully mobile. Their release schedule doesn't really change and their pricing structure doesn't really change. Well, maybe decreases slightly as overhead as retail costs go away. Is the brand diluted?

- Unable to charge premium on any and all titles. Example: Activision is charging $60 plus more via DLC maps, guns, etc. The price they charge for COD: Strike team, their Mobile game companion is $7. Strike Team does have in app-purchases. Which likely means that Nintendo will likely have to price their games aggressively to gain any market share in the gaming market. Or go fully free to play with in app purchases.

I think Nintendo could get away with a premium price honestly.

- Currently Nintendo enjoys around 100% revenue on their 1st party titles in retail, minus retail shares, and 100% revenue on their digital storefront. They also gain a standard 30% royalty rate from all 3rd parties that makes games for their platform. If Nintendo went 3rd party and release games on a mobile platform that was not their own, they instantly lose the 30% royalty rate from 3rd parties, and start paying a 30% royalty rate of their own to whatever platform they do use.

Eh, the 30% loss is probably comparable to what they lose on retail and distribution costs.

- To Nintendo, there is no more controlling its own financial destiny. It now has to constantly rely on somebody else to provide a platform to sell their games on. If they get into a dispute, and if they are not allowed to sell on a popular platform, such as Steam, the iOS app store, or Google Play, it would hurt them financially.

I'm not sure how much this is worth to them. They control their financial destiny now and are driving themselves into a ditch. I mean the same is true of like EA and Activision. They're not in control either then.

Sure. The case for NOT putting nintendo's franchises on mobile is that the entire point of nintendo's platforms is that you can ONLY find their franchises there. There's literally no other reason to buy one.

Yeah, well, I'm suggesting that selling to a base of 500 million or 1 billion or whatever ridiculous number of smartphones are out there is a better alternative.

They've never really been technical marvels, and third party titles are few and far between. If I know that pokemon is going to show up on iOS, why wouldn't I just buy it there instead of shelling out for a nintendo 3DS?

You wouldn't buy a 3ds because it won't exist anymore probably. Nintendo's margins on hardware have been slimming over the years. Is it really a business they want to be in?

mobile titles also sell for FAR less than console and handheld games do, so having the new pokemon, donkey kong, etc in the app store for 1.99 or whatever makes it harder for nintendo to charge 39.99 or whatever on their own platforms where their money is actually made.

I don't think mobiles sell for much because there is no premium content. People would pay for premium content.

I think this is not an easy discussion but people just toss out dismissals of the idea so cavalierly. Like it would be a "short term gain" or it would "ruin Nintendo's IP". Would it really? I mean can you really think about all the scenarios and ways in which it could and could not work?

 

[axisofweevils]

Nintendo made a version of the 3DS without 3D.

Anything's possible with them

Honestly though gamepad functionality is such a huge selling point for a lot of their first party titles so I don't think it'll happen. A redesigned gamepad perhaps but I don't think they'll ever ditch it entirely.

I think the thing is with the 3DS with 3D, it was never required. No game ever used the 3D depth switching as a mechanic, because Nintendo was always aware that a lot of people didn't like it or couldn't see it.

Removing the gamepad, on the other hand, is the equivalent of removing the Wiimote. Given that there's still Wii/Wii U confusion - I can't see Nintendo removing the biggest differentiator.

 

[Manmademan]

Er, wasn't it the other way around?

Depends on how you look at it. Commercials for PS1 games at the time were almost ENTIRELY CG scenes. promo shots were all CG scenes. a lot of gamers were convinced PS1 games looked like this- refer to the infamous FF7 advertisements.

The N64 couldn't do this, and got a reputation as a weaker console.

Audio wise the PS1 was definitely superior though.

GC vs. PS2 and PS3 vs Wii are clearly different cases, and don't really fit the statement there. The GC got obliterated vs the PS2 (and definitely did not "hang in there" in sales) and the Wii won outright, despite being weaker.

 

[Scum]

Geez. I mean, Nintendo's in a rough spot no matter what, but can we calm down with the "mobile pls" WSJ?

Tangent: How come Sony and Microsoft seemingly never catch as much gump for being hardware providers/having first party software developers that are exclusive to their ecosystems but Nintendo is always being asked (with varying degrees of intensity) to put stuff on the iOS and Android marketplaces?

I blame the lack of a prominent online infrastructure. If Nintendo had a Steam/PSN like service in place where you had access to your library across their handhelds & consoles, then there will be less talk of mobile, I reckon...

 

[UNCMark]

So you want to put bite-sized Demos of Wii U games on mobile.

Think about what you said for a moment.

I think just fine thank you. There's nothing stopping Nintendo from making a touch-based mini-app that promotes a mario game without actually replicating every aspect of the Wii U game. It's a glorified advertisement that happens to be playable. It promotes their games. But I know that asking Nintendo to promote or market something is asking too much.

 

[PotionBleue]

I think just fine thank you. There's nothing stopping Nintendo from making a touch-based mini-app that promotes a mario game without actually replicating every aspect of the Wii U game. It's a glorified advertisement that happens to be playable. It promotes their games. But I know that asking Nintendo to promote or market something is asking too much.

You said “bite-sized versions of their games” that magically got transformed into “promoting app” which, I believe, is a different story. Gotta word better to prevent confusion.

 

[BruiserBear]

Nintendo is bull-headed, but they're not the one being stubbornly stupid here, that title belongs to the ones who keep clamoring for them to go 3rd party and/or mobile.

Right. If things keep up how they are, they're not going to have a choice. There is no magic bullet for Nintendo's problems.

 

[Doctor Decimate]

"Nintendo's console is doing poorly and their handheld is doing very well.

THEY SHOULD SELL PHONE GAMES!"

 

[SmoothRunningGun]

Can a mobile denier please make the case that it is a bad move financially? I would really like to see the business case.

Wouldn't it hurt their mobile console sales? Those are still pretty good.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

One thing I don't get is why Nintendo hasn't unlocked all the virtual console possibilities across both Wii U and 3DS.

Where's the GBA and DS virtual consoles? There's a ton of games that could be sold on these systems. Now that the Wii U has an extra screen in the gamepad, they could even have the DS and 3DS virtual consoles on the Wii U if they wanted to. Maybe there's some people who would rather buy and play 3DS games on their Wii U instead of buying a separate system? Or, if they have both shouldn't there be crossplay built in? They need to sort out an account system.

 

[Tutomos]

Judging by the size of Super Mario 3D World being only 1.7GB, they are ready to port their games on iOS devices.