The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => Hobbies and Recreation => Gamers Zone => Topic started by: DarkHououmon on September 19, 2011, 06:12:23 PM
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I was on Yahoo earlier today and found an article talking about well-known companies with employees losing hope in them. And one of them is Nintendo. Seems Nintendo has started to fall a bit. Here's what they had to say about it:
6. Nintendo's once nearly insurmountable lead in the video console sector has been lost, and its sales have fallen further and further behind rivals Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT - News) and Sony (NYSE: SNE - News). The rise of the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG - News) Android operating system has also encouraged video game publishers to make more products that run on that platform. The 2010 market share of Nintendo DS fell from 70% in 2009 to 57%. Nintendo's growth has also been damaged by the rise of the iPad and iPhone. The future is even grimmer. "iSuppli predicts Nintendo will sell 70 million 3DS gaming systems by 2015, a figure that is 21 million less than the 91 million in sales racked up by the original DS at the same point in its sales cycle," according to the Unofficial Apple Weblog. Nintendo announced an unexpected quarterly loss on July 28, and its shares plunged 20%. The stock is down from a 52-week high of 26,780 yen to 11,850 yen. In late 2007, shares reached 80,000 yen.
Not a lot, but I found it interesting, and a little surprising (considering Nintendo's success in the past). Whether or not things will continue going downhill for Nintendo, I can't say for certain. We'll just have to wait and see.
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Well, I think every company has their highs and low points. Even Nintendo isn't immune to this.
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Yeah, true. I wasn't trying to imply that Nintendo was "going under". I just thought it was an interesting read, as I'm used to Nintendo being in the lead. The fact their sales are starting to fall behind Microsoft and Sony surprised me.
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Interesting. Sounds like they may have to rethink some stuff, strategy, marketing and other stuff too. Thought the good point of having so many competitors is folks have more options today it would seem.
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Though yet to be released, the only Nintendo console games I'm really looking forward to ATM is Mario Kart 7 and Kingdom Hearts 3d.
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Piracy could also be blamed. People who use R4 flash carts can download roms to the card and play games on the system without having to pay for them.
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Well, Niuntendo is a company that's been around for over 100 years, so I think they'll make it through this one. They made it through the Gamecube era afterall, where they're sales were pretty low.
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Yeah a lot of people have been stealing stuff so Nintendo's sales have dropped. And I hope they drop there prices. If they did that there sales will not drop Nintendo is greedy when it comes to raising there prices.
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Well, Niuntendo is a company that's been around for over 100 years, so I think they'll make it through this one. They made it through the Gamecube era afterall, where they're sales were pretty low.
I agree
I've pointed out some problems that could hurt the Vita's sales. (http://gangoffive.net/index.php?showtopic=10161)
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I doubt piracy would have a noticeable hit on Nintendo's sales. How about instead of blaming things directly we can just admit that they took a fall in some way or another. Whether it be the 3DS or lack of games lately period. I don't know too much about this though since I don't purchase Nintendo products anymore.
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Also let's not forget that there have been some big name games that have come out recently such as Gears of War 3 and Dead Island. Most people are probably turning their attention to those and not really concerning with Nintendo. I have faith that Nintendo will garner more sales in the future.
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If nintendo has been in the video game business for as long as they have it's unlikely they'll go poof anytime soon.
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We'll just have to wait and see what happens. I'm not saying they are going to disappear anytime soon. It would take a lot before that would happen. But I'm not going to say that Nintendo is invincible. Ultimately, no company is.
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I'm sure a lot of the companies in this industry are seeing record lows in sales and profits due to this rotten economy. I mean, who the hell spends money on games and consoles when they can't even afford food? Unfortunately that's where a lot of American's are nowadays. It's no surprise that companies that sell non necessity items are hurting.
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I think a big part of the sales dropping is the recent attachment for the 3DS. From a design perspective, it really should have been included on the handheld from launch, and it's strange to think that Nintendo didn't realize this during production. I'm sure there are good reasons as to why they chose not to add it on before launch, but ultimately it's probably coming back to bite them in the butt now.
Of course, when Nintendo eventually re-releases the 3DS in the next format, the added control stick will more than likely be embedded into the original design like it was meant to.
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Nintendo really needs to bring a next-gen console to the table. Their latest handheld, the 3Ds, is just that: a handheld. Most people will see that and think "I could spend $170 for a little handheld system, or $250 for an xbox 360 and play action-packed games in high definition". The fact is, those little handheld systems are WAY too overpriced. The hardware in them can't even come close to competing with the hardware that is in systems like the xbox 360 and ps3. When it comes down to it, the majority of gamers will favor the more appealing, larger, and powerful systems for a little bit more money, than spending all that on a little system with hardware probably on-par with the gamecube. Portability is nice, but we've long moved into the next generation of graphics and processing power. Nintendo really needs to start acknowledging that.
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Plus I'd guess most with cellphones would use those for portable gaming.
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Nintendo needs to acknowledge nothing. They beat out their supposed more advanced rivals for half a decade with supposedly inferior hardware. When their next console comes out, they'll be back on top.
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Nintendo really needs to bring a next-gen console to the table.
Funny you say that. I looked into it and Wii unit sales have been the highest out of the 7th generation consoles. The recorded total number of worldwide sales since it's release (as of September 30) is 89.36 million while PS3 and Xbox 360 sales number 55.5 million (as of November 2nd) and 57.6 (as of September 30) respectively. I honestly can't explain why the sales are so high. I didn't expect them to be. Also, handhelds are a different kind of gaming system and I don't think their hardware can really fairly be compared to that of the Xbox 360 and PS3. However, the Wii's hardware can. Clearly, Nintendo has yet to release a console with hardware to play with graphics like that of the PS3 and 360, but, as sales numbers indicate, the console is doing strong in its sales despite lacking the amazing graphics of the other two consoles.
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That would be because it takes far more than top-of-the-line graphics to make a good game (hell, you don't even need the best graphics to have an absolutely awesome game). You can have fantastic graphics, and still have a game no one wants to touch with a twenty foot pole (I'm looking at you, Far Cry 2).
What makes a great game is gameplay and design, and in some cases, good story and acting. The Wii had many games that had both the former, and as well as many but as many that also had the latter. I'm satisfied playing a game with sprite graphics, so HD is meaningless to me.
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I've loved Nintendo games since I was very young, and since a few years I got my hands on a N64. However I must say I was neither impressed with the DSi or 3DS (nothing much better than the NDS, which at the time was of course a great handheld console (especially the lite version)), and only in the beginning was I a fan of the Nintendo Wii. The games on this system though have been poor so far, there is none I would consider buying the system for. The Wii U looks like nothing much different from the previous, though I'm very glad they're finally going for HD (honestly, graphics are a big deal in this era).
I guess I'm simply oldschool. I played on a NES recently, and was wondering why I just haven't been able to have as much fun on a Wii. I can understand that the sales are going down, which is sad for a great company as Nintendo, founder of so many awesome games. In any case, I hope the Wii U is better than I imagined initially and that I might even get it eventually. Ehh.. And for now I hope they can come up with another kind of console.
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Let's see here...
# of games I enjoy on XBox 360 - 9
# of games I enjoy on Wii - 20
# of games from VC I play - 12
# of games from XBLA I play - 6
As you can see, graphics really don't matter to me. It has to do with the games themselves. :)
EDIT: Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I don't have anything for PS3, I just simply don't have one, but at this point, I don't plan on getting one, period. I have my reasons.
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I agree that although Nintendo themselves can make great Wii games (MKWii, Wii Sports Resort, and Mario Galaxy 2), the 3rd party titles on the console....are kinda lame. I did like the Klonoa remake and Guilty Party however.
As for the Wii U....thinking back to 2006, even though I intially wasn't interested in the Wii, I could tell at the time that it was indeed an innovation in technology. The Wii U.....well, I'm not saying it's going to fail for sure, don't interpret it as that, it to me, personally, just seems like a "gimmick" console.
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I know that Nintendo can make great games on their own without the need for flashy graphics, as I am one who greatly appreciates gameplay over graphics. But the fact is that the majority of the buyers out there are drawn in to high definition, killer graphics. Modern Warfare 3 made something like $770 million in sales in the first 5 days of its launch. There are just far more people out there who favor cutting edge graphics and simple straightforward gameplay.
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Great games can still have great graphics. I don't get this whole argument that talks trash about enjoyable "next gen" titles just because they're good looking games. If anything I just consider it a plus, not a minus. If it doesn't look visually amazing, oh well, doesn't kill the gameplay. I don't play many nintendo games anymore because I prefer fleshed out stories and depth in my games, and overall I'm just more attracted to dark mature titles. I also find the argument hypocritical coming from Nintendo supporters, considering nintendo jumped on the whole 3D bandwagon thing and now they're going for HD
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@Littlefoot fan: If more people favored graphics over gameplay, the Wii wouldn't have outsold everyone else.
@campion: I'm not trashing this gen's other game companies for having flashier graphics. I'm saying "top-of-the-line-graphics=/=great game". It takes much, much more than "killer" graphics to make something great.
I also happen to think that Nintendo does gameplay better than anyone else and always has.
When did I bash the other companies for having flashier graphics or were you not talking about me?
It's not hypocritical at all to defend Nintendo just because they've integrated HD recently.
Fine. Whatever. Nintendo sucks and they should be ashamed of making games the way they do and I should be ashamed of liking their games and finding them more fun than anything that's been produced by another since...ever. There, happy?
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To keep it all in perspective, Nintendo is a company that's been on-going for nearly 30 years. There are bound to be points in it's financial status where sales and profits are going to slump. This doesn't mean that Nintendo are going bankrupt or they are getting worse. Despite the fact that there is a worldwide recession in place for the past few years (last time I recalled, video games were NOT an essential life purchase), the earthquake and reactor disaster earlier this year saw Japan's productivity take a tumble in huge measures.
Granted, Nintendo have made a few cack-handed decisions and not everything has played out to script, but just coz their sales have slumped this year doesn't signify they're on they're way out. They are still one of the industry's top-dollar companies and still one of the three major players on the console scene. 2011 has been a terrible year for game companies with loads shutting down due to lackluster returns on releases, project cancellations and other issues. THQ this year alone has closed about five global sectors of it's empire for various reasons. It's been a hard year financially for all games companies, Nintendo included, but it's not stopping them from looking forward to future investments and building on these experiences.