Can Nintendo Survive Gaming's Brave New World? 277
Nerval's Lobster writes "Jon Brodkin talked to indie developers (including the creator of Super Mario Bros. Crossover), former Nintendo employees, and a number of others about where exactly Nintendo went wrong over the past few years. Their conclusions? Nintendo made a number of mistakes, including a lack of an indie-developer ecosystem, a refusal to license out core properties such as Super Mario to other gaming platforms (or even iOS and Android), and platforms that don't appeal to hardcore gamers. While the developers suggest Nintendo is taking steps to broaden its horizons, such as by reaching out to smaller studios, it's questionable whether such efforts will succeed in a world where the PS4 and Xbox One are about to enter the market, and iOS and Android are swallowing up mobile gamers' time and dollars. What do you think?"
smash bros (Score:4, Interesting)
Mario on iOS (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's pretend for a moment that Nintendo was to make a Mario game for iOS. Would it be in full 3D like Mario 64, or a classic platformer like Super Mario 3?
Neither, it'd be an endless runner where you simply tap the screen to jump on Goombas and over gaps, because touch screens lack the control for anything more sophisticated.
Sure, there are games on the App Store that are fully fledged platformers, but are they any good? No, because (in my experience) your hands are covering 80% of the screen making it impossible to see what's actually going on.
If this is the future of gaming, you can count me out.
Actually I was thinking reverse (Score:2, Interesting)
I think Nintendo should pull a SEGA and get out of the hardware business. they have plenty of software IP franchises to sustain them. I'd also _love_ it if they embraced SteamOS and started publishing to SteamOS (thus preventing Microsoft and Sony from getting their business)
Actually I think the reverse. Sega had to leave the hardware business because of the expensive (read Billions in losses) cost of hardware. Todays ARM devices can be profitable for a few dollars. They have a large back catalogue; great brand; experienced staff...with connections. Many companies are fighting for the ARM console. Sega has a better chance than most with little risk.
Re:Nintendo is here to stay! (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a lot of money to be made in appealing to non-hard-core gamers, in appealing to those who might casually game, but aren't going to play every day or even every week. There are lot more of those than there are hard-core gamers, and if you can get significant market penetration in a group that probably shouldn't even care, then you can make a lot of money.
Nintendo appears to be able to do that, moreso than other companies. Sega's position was what the other game makers' positions are today, and it ultimately cost them when they slipped and their hard-core gaming clientele left, and they didn't have a casual gaming business to sustain them.
Re:Not saying Nintendo is doing well but... (Score:4, Interesting)
That was no fluke; it was the logical extension of the same strategy that made the DS so successful after a rocky start. Nintendo built a system with a unique feature (motion control), made new IPs that leveraged that feature (Wii Sports, Wii Fit), targeted the nongamer crowd by offering a pleasant "Mii" aesthetic and offered classic Nintendo franchises for everyone else (Mario Kart). The end result was wildly successful.
By contrast, the Wii U is bombing because although it also has a unique feature (gamepad), its new IPs are mostly niche titles (Wonderful 101) instead of mainstream ones and the next iterations of Nintendo franchises are either also niche (Pikmon) or late (Wii Sports, Mario Kart).
These articles are so exhausting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a response I wrote for Game Zero about the whole "Nintendo is gonna fail" stupidity... back in 2000... still relevant.
The Future of Console Gaming: Part 2 - The Five Year Plan [gamezero.com]