Nintendo issues profits warning

[Dos_Box]

Hardly surprising really: Nintendo's profit falls as talk of new NX console grows - BBC News

 

There are also a couple of errors in that article particularly this bit:

 

But one company watcher said total sales of 10.25 million of Nintendo's own Wii U games over the last three months of the year were disappointing.......

 

That should be, of course, total sales since launch.

I'm quite curious about the NX, but with fans bitten by such a poor showing by the Wii U I'm wondering whether the NX will receive a bit more of a cautious reception this time.

I had read an interview with one of the Nintendo heads who said that the NX would possibly sell 10 million by the end of the year once launched.

Possibly is was a Nintendo Ballmer moment.

By all accounts, dev kits are with software houses and games in development for launch but I really hope that Nintendo have got their third party support sorted out.

By all accounts after the Wii U development\launch fiasco where many houses vowed never to get involved with Nintendo again I'm wondering who is brave enough now to take the plunge!

[flyinghaggis]

I'm quite curious about the NX, but with fans bitten by such a poor showing by the Wii U I'm wondering whether the NX will receive a bit more of a cautious reception this time.

 

I can see that being their main issue. How many buyers are going to be willing early adopters on launch of a new Nintendo system given how the Wii U turned out? Then you end up in a downward spiral where devs wont make games because there isn't the market share and people wont buy it because there aren't any games.

 

Spec-wise the PS4 and Xbox1 are pretty mediocre so it would be fairly easy for Nintendo to make theirs the most powerful by a noticeable margin. Maybe they could use the power advantage to aim at 4k displays or VR which I think the current MS/Sony offerings will struggle to run. The previous two generations of Nintendo consoles have been built around gimmicks to differentiate them from the competition so there's almost an expectation that the NX will have a similar party trick. The Wiimote/nunchuck was fairly successful but the touchscreen controller on the WiiU less so IMO.

 

I'm keen to see what the Big N release next though.

[Dos_Box]

Nintendo are known for keeping things close to their chest, but I suspect unless they start to let fans get a few sneak peeks of the NX and it's games soon then they really do risk isolating themselves.

Given the potentially all-or-nothing scenario this could mean as regards Nintendo future they have to play this just right.

[Mr_Jiminy]

I really hope Nintendo don't stuff this one up, however the pessimist inside me keeps reminding me about the ill-fated Game Cube.

 

I'm not surprised about the profit warning, the fact that they haven't followed Sega staggers me.

[Dos_Box]

I really hope Nintendo don't stuff this one up, however the pessimist inside me keeps reminding me about the ill-fated Game Cube.

 

I'm not surprised about the profit warning, the fact that they haven't followed Sega staggers me.

 

If the NX bombs then they just may well do that!

[Michael]

I think Nintendo will eventually go the same route as Sega - becoming a software only company, developing games for the millions of devices out there. I'd say they'd make more money in doing so, as profit margins on hardware are zero or even worse, minus zero.

[Dos_Box]

One problem with that is that Nintendo have traditionally made great games utilising the hardware platforms they have developed whereas Sega was never afraid to license titles.

I don't think they could ever do that IMO!

Edited February 3, 2016 by Dos_Box

[Mr_Jiminy]

I think a lot of the brand identity associated with the Nintendo of old, needs to stripped away with the new NX console. If Nintendo don't target the more 'grown-up' hardcore game player, the NX will be dead in the water.

 

Hard to admit this, but perhaps Mario needs to be laid to rest.

 

OR another thought would be to create a Mario first person platform using a VR headset.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Mr_Jiminy

[CAM]

I think Nintendo will eventually go the same route as Sega - becoming a software only company, developing games for the millions of devices out there. I'd say they'd make more money in doing so, as profit margins on hardware are zero or even worse, minus zero.

 

It's not uncommon for consoles to make a loss. Sony and Microsoft push the platform expensive for the early adopters then cut the price and make it so cheap they make a loss. The real money comes from dev licencing, adverts and high software sales. Nintendo is lacking all three of these in the gaming market.

 

They do have other avenues though and a massive pile of cash to sit on. Mario merchandise still sells, Pokémon is an enormous cash cow in the stuffed toy and general rubbish market (I even have a Jolteon in my car's back window ) and trading cards are getting big. I'm surprised they haven't tried pushing a Pokémon trading card app over mobile as it's a genre hitting the virtual space that won't affect their core handheld market where they are still doing pretty well.

[X-13]

I think a lot of the brand identity associated with the Nintendo of old, needs to stripped away with the new NX console. If Nintendo don't target the more 'grown-up' hardcore game player, the NX will be dead in the water.

 

Ninty are still in the mentality of being a toy manufacturer... I can't see them changing.

 

Hard to admit this, but perhaps Mario needs to be laid to rest.

 

And replaced with what? There are hardly any good platformers any more, and I like them.

 

It's all brown, cover-based shooters.

 

OR another thought would be to create a Mario first person platform using a VR headset.

 

No.

 

VR.

 

Also every criticism I heard about the Wii/U was to do with "gimmicks". VR is a gimmick.

[korifugi]

Thing is - if they go down the "gimmick" route with VR, it'll probably sell well to start and then die out very quickly as the novelty wears off - then, the pain to develop for it'll mean less is made for it and it loses out.

 

I can't see Ninty going south too quickly though - Mario, Pokémon et. al. are all strong franchises that manage to hold a good fanbase.

 

Sega died off with the Saturn, such a pity as the Dreamcast was a brilliant swansong of a system - but look at what the games were on offer with the Saturn, many of the exclusives were beaten by similar games on the Playstation. As for Ninty - there's not really a franchise to take on Mario, Pokémon or even Monster Hunter.

[X-13]

Monster Hunter.

 

Which is a Capcom game...

 

And could go back to Sony.

Or move to PC.

 

It'll never be on Xbox though, nobody in Japan has one.

[korifugi]

Which is a Capcom game...

 

This is what confuses me about MH. I loved the original PS2 game, it's almost as if it was decided that there's no market for it on Sony over here though as after a couple of PSP ports it moved full time to Ninty.

[localzuk]

Nintendo are still very much an 80s company, operating out of their comfort zone.

 

In order to survive, they need to accept the reality of the world - that not every country is like Japan, and even Japan isn't really like Japan any more. In order to do well, they need to sell to a larger audience. That means selling games that are outside of their usual niche, ie. they need to loosen their rules. As it stands, they won't license games that are in any way sexual, have random/gratuitous violence, profanity, drug use, etc... Sad to say, but that is what sells.

[Michael]

It's not uncommon for consoles to make a loss. Sony and Microsoft push the platform expensive for the early adopters then cut the price and make it so cheap they make a loss. The real money comes from dev licencing, adverts and high software sales. Nintendo is lacking all three of these in the gaming market.

 

They do have other avenues though and a massive pile of cash to sit on. Mario merchandise still sells, Pokémon is an enormous cash cow in the stuffed toy and general rubbish market (I even have a Jolteon in my car's back window ) and trading cards are getting big. I'm surprised they haven't tried pushing a Pokémon trading card app over mobile as it's a genre hitting the virtual space that won't affect their core handheld market where they are still doing pretty well.

 

I think the opportunities to have Mario on multiple platforms is huge and definitely worth tapping into, even if they made separate titles for their own console(s) and third party devices.

[Mr_Jiminy]

I think the opportunities to have Mario on multiple platforms is huge and definitely worth tapping into, even if they made separate titles for their own console(s) and third party devices.

 

That would surely put the nails firmly in the coffin for their own hardware?!

[korifugi]

That would surely put the nails firmly in the coffin for their own hardware?!

 

Do they just accept this and move on though? I've felt they've been playing catch-up since they took a step back and entered the Fifth Generation late (with the N64). By the time the N64 hit - the Playstation was already entrenched in most of the market, leaving Nintendo without most of it's 3rd party support.

 

The Gamecube never really seemed to take off, and whilst the Wii was innovative - the image of a child, mum, dad & grandma all clustered round playing as a family is not one I've ever seen occur outside of the adverts. They've never seemed to try and change this image though.

 

Handheld-wise though - they are the king. (Although I have a Vita due to integration / PS+).

Edited February 3, 2016 by korifugi
making sense and takin' names!

[Michael]

That would surely put the nails firmly in the coffin for their own hardware?!

 

The main issue Nintendo have is convincing customers to part with £100+ for a console (depending what it is) and that in turn impacts on the volume you'll sell. There are literally millions if not billions of Android and Apple devices out there, so it's just a matter of coding games accordingly to work on one or both. Well within Nintendo's capability.

 

You have to consider both Microsoft and Sony are technology companies, whereas Nintendo are just a games developer/manufacturer. They're much, much smaller than their competitors.

[Dos_Box]

Do they just accept this and move on though? I've felt they've been playing catch-up since they took a step back and entered the Fifth Generation late (with the N64). By the time the N64 hit - the Playstation was already entrenched in most of the market, leaving Nintendo without most of it's 3rd party support.

 

The Gamecube never really seemed to take off, and whilst the Wii was innovative - the image of a child, mum, dad & grandma all clustered round playing as a family is not one I've ever seen occur outside of the adverts. They've never seemed to try and change this image though.

 

Handheld-wise though - they are the king. (Although I have a Vita due to integration / PS+).

 

The N64 was another oversight when it came to seeing how the games market was developing. Both Sega and Sony went with cheap and easy to produce on demand CD based format whilst Nintendo elected to go with the expensive to manufacturer cartridge based system.

I also agree with teh previous comment about Nintendo often being quite insular and looking at the Japanese market more than it does the rest of the world.

However with China now opened up to the global consoles market (and with reportedly low sales to date) it may be that Nintendo, should they choose to manufacturer in China, may find sucess with a well specced next-gen console.

We'll certainly find out in the next 18 months if it's sink or swim time and never in Nintendois history have the eyes of the gaming industry been so focussed on them.

I'm still buying Legend of Zelda when released in the next couple of months though. The kids are dying to get their teeth into it

Edited February 3, 2016 by Dos_Box

[sted]

the wii-u isn't a bad console imo and has some good games (though in will admit a lot of whats on mine are ye old virtual console stuff from snes I just wish they would vc some game cube games preferably damn fire emblem im not paying £100 for a disc copy and digging out my wii/gamecube)

 

give Nintendo their due they arnt afraid to try new things the wiimote oit the wii u tablet which when used well are really good (though often used very badly I still think Mario galaxy for instance would be so much more fun on na normal controller) unlike say ms or sony where a ps4 is just a more powerful ps3. Sometimes this dosent work sometimes it does

 

as to the nx latest rumors ive heard is the handheld component will be out this year the tv bit next but we all know how wrong rumors can be.

 

as to Nintendo being lucky depends how you call it they have made profits for many a year they have just gotten bogged down with 3rd party support moving elsewhere though in the past they didn't need it now you need a fifa sport 20xx and a call of duty to draw people in and their stance on youtube is I suspect self defeating as lots of people watch lets plays etc to get an idea of the game and channels I watch now just wont touch their software so less "free" advertising

[Dos_Box]

the wii-u isn't a bad console imo and has some good games (though in will admit a lot of whats on mine are ye old virtual console stuff from snes I just wish they would vc some game cube games preferably damn fire emblem im not paying £100 for a disc copy and digging out my wii/gamecube)

 

give Nintendo their due they arnt afraid to try new things the wiimote oit the wii u tablet which when used well are really good (though often used very badly I still think Mario galaxy for instance would be so much more fun on na normal controller) unlike say ms or sony where a ps4 is just a more powerful ps3. Sometimes this dosent work sometimes it does

 

as to the nx latest rumors ive heard is the handheld component will be out this year the tv bit next but we all know how wrong rumors can be.

 

as to Nintendo being lucky depends how you call it they have made profits for many a year they have just gotten bogged down with 3rd party support moving elsewhere though in the past they didn't need it now you need a fifa sport 20xx and a call of duty to draw people in and their stance on youtube is I suspect self defeating as lots of people watch lets plays etc to get an idea of the game and channels I watch now just wont touch their software so less "free" advertising

 

Agreed, the Wii U isn't a bad console. Just very badly managed at all levels from launch, support and teh way Nintendo messed users around with it's online services. How many accounts do (did) you need again?

One thing I read recently was a Nintendo exec bemoaning how no one made any real use of the Wii U controller whilst omitting that even Nintendo (with the possible exception of Mario Maker) haven't really made any title thjemselves which did either.

Nintendo have 6 Wii U titles scheduled for release this year out of a total of 16 from all developers for the platform. Seriously 16 games for your flagship platform in 12 months! If that's not an indicator of deep, deep problems then nothing is.

It's not as if indy devs have flocked back after their earlier treatment by Nintendo either.

The industry needs Nintendo. It also needs Nintendo to stop being bloody idiots.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Dos_Box

[sted]

Agreed, the Wii U isn't a bad console. Just very badly managed at all levels from launch, support and teh way Nintendo messed users around with it's online services. How many accounts do (did) you need again?

One thing I read recently was a Nintendo exec bemoaning how no one made any real use of the Wii U controller whilst omitting that even Nintendo (with the possible exception of Mario Maker) haven't really made any title thjemselves which did either.

Nintendo have 6 Wii U titles scheduled for release this year out of a total of 16 from all devgelopers for the platform. Seriously 16 games for your flagship platform in 12 months! If that's not an indicator of deep, deep problems then nothing is.

It's not as if indy devs have flocked back after their earlier treatment by Nintendo either.

The industry needs Nintendo. It also needs Nintendo to stop being bloody idiots.

 

is it better to have 16 good games or 200 bad ones though look at just ea for instance the last need for speed was utter garbage and fifa is the same game with different names and microtransactions every year

[CAM]

Agreed, the Wii U isn't a bad console. Just very badly managed at all levels from launch, support and teh way Nintendo messed users around with it's online services. How many accounts do (did) you need again?

One thing I read recently was a Nintendo exec bemoaning how no one made any real use of the Wii U controller whilst omitting that even Nintendo (with the possible exception of Mario Maker) haven't really made any title thjemselves which did either.

Nintendo have 6 Wii U titles scheduled for release this year out of a total of 16 from all devgelopers for the platform. Seriously 16 games for your flagship platform in 12 months! If that's not an indicator of deep, deep problems then nothing is.

It's not as if indy devs have flocked back after their earlier treatment by Nintendo either.

The industry needs Nintendo. It also needs Nintendo to stop being bloody idiots.

 

The Wii U is supposed to support 2 tablets, I still haven't seen anything support that. Not that the tablets can be bought separately as they are too expensive (so if it breaks, you are in trouble). And whilst the games Nintendo produce are very high quality, when the "trash" like CoD and NFS are selling like hot cakes on rival systems they need to support it to draw people to the console and subsequently to their own titles.

 

What they need is a console that doesn't force you to use an oversized plastic toy or motion to control it, some just want to sit down with a controller on the sofa and press buttons. It also needs to be backed up by a decent online service to appeal to the older demographic that uses the console, not a service hobbled because Nintendo think their audience is younger and they are obsessed with child protection. Yes you won an award for it, now let me build a proper profile to show off on and let me search for Mario Maker levels by name not some silly code (seriously Nintendo? Still not supporting name search even with the new portal). Thankfully their embracing of drawing in Miiverse and the release of Mario Maker shows they are opening up to user generated content.

 

Miiverse still sucks though.

[sted]

It also needs to be backed up by a decent online service to appeal to the older demographic that uses the console, not a service hobbled because Nintendo think their audience is younger and they are obsessed with child protection. Yes you won an award for it, now let me build a proper profile to show off on and let me search for Mario Maker levels by name not some silly code (seriously Nintendo? Still not supporting name search even with the new portal). Thankfully their embracing of drawing in Miiverse and the release of Mario Maker shows they are opening up to user generated content.

 

Miiverse still sucks though.

 

that said splatoon is the first game ive played online in years thats been fun because the lack of voice chat means you dont get a constant stream of swearwords from some 14 year old yank who want to do things to every female relative youve got. Its actually fun again like what i remember xbox live being in the early days of pgr where i met loads of random people and could have a good game even with voice chat on

[Zoom7000]

I wrote a post in a forum back in 2005 asking "if nostalgia was the way forward for Sonic and Mario" and I still think this would apply to this day. Nintendo really needs to get off it's high horse of trying to impose what it wants on the market. It hasn't worked for them, for many years and where it might have worked, it wasn't sustainable. Look at the Wii - It took the market by storm with it's cheap price tag and motion sensor gameplay that allowed even granny and grandad to get involved in gaming. Sure, it was fun for all of 2 months, but once the initial hype died away, and you realised that other than Wii Sports and Wii Play and a few other select games, there wasn't much for the hardcore gamer (which is where the real money is!). Indy game studios have never been able to release on recent Nintendo consoles and simply put they couldn't match the power of the Playstation and Xbox.

 

Sega kinda got it right going down the software route, but even then, they need to play on their strengths. Just do a Google search on Sonic remake and you'll be plastered with sites and dead projects. Give the gamers what they want. A proper Sonic remake and then a proper new game, following the old mechanics. Not the flop that was Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode Blah Blah Blah! I don't understand Sega and Nintendo's thinking. If they simply released a back to basics game across ALL platforms, PC, PS4, Xbox, iOS, Android the sales would go nuts! Not some stupid Freemium game where you have to pay for power-ups and whatnot, no, a simple pay once, play like 100 levels game. The work is practically done for them! In this day and age, with the equipment they have available they should be able to knock something like that out in a matter of months!

 

Don't try to compete with Sony and Microsoft, you've done it before, look how that worked out. Don't try to take on Activision, EA, 2K, Konami, Rockstar and all the other super graphics 3D gaming publishers, it's not working for you. Go back to basics, go 2D (or even 2.5D), go mobile platform, and sit down and count the money away.

 

The trouble is, Nintendo won't listen. I really don't think people want another DS or NX or even a Game Boy! People have enough mobile devices already than to have to worry about charging another. I have a phone in my pocket that is probably far greater in power and performance than any of your previous handheld consoles, it has an App Store, let me download your games and play them. Personally, I think this is the only way they can survive.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Zoom7000