Nintendo's Future

[Viper]

It has been the assumption of many in the industry that they've made the moves to prevent investors from making hedges against the performance of individual products segments. I know they claim it is to enable them to allow their departments to work together better but that's just PR. Those divisions have the same communication and convergent capabilities now as they've always had. The department changes are just financial.

I personally think the Games segment should be given full autonomy much like the Movies segment is. Not so much that I can see the direct profit and loss of the division but because I think it's one of the few segments that has the capabilities to stand on its own. Should Sony ever need to sell off departments to another company, say the TV business to LG or Samsung (Sony already sold them their panel fab), it would keep the Games division clear of the mess.

[Gribble-Grunger]

Sony is nowhere near close. They made a shitload of profit from their first 2 consoles, and while the losses from PS3 have erased that, it isn't about to shut the company down by any means. Just like how the original Xbox losing 6 billion didn't kill Microsoft's gaming division. No gaming company has ever gone belly up because of one bad console generation. Sega had 2 back to back where they got the shit beat out of them (both times by sony) before they went belly up. Nintendo actually survived 2 shitty generations and went on to release the Wii. Not to mention Sony is a multi-billion dollar corporation that owns half of the entertainment industry, unlike Sega or Nintendo.

That said, after seeing Wii U, Nintendo is about to lose some more money. Lots more. Wii's motion control fad wore out (told you it was a fad, even though that fad lasted longer than I'd ever expected it to), and now it's sales are tanking. Wii U brings nothing new or exclusive to the table, so they have one hell of a hill to climb right now.

I wouldn't say that Wiiu doesn't bring anything new to the market. What I will say is that both MS and Sony have already got an answer to it; although smartglass isn't nearly enough to emulate the complete Wiiu experience.

[Segitz]

Why not? They could as well sell a 360 smartglass with gamepads added to it... not that I think they'd do it... but they can.

[Viper]

Why not? They could as well sell a 360 smartglass with gamepads added to it... not that I think they'd do it... but they can.

Have fun holding both at once.

[masteratt]

It has been the assumption of many in the industry that they've made the moves to prevent investors from making hedges against the performance of individual products segments. I know they claim it is to enable them to allow their departments to work together better but that's just PR. Those divisions have the same communication and convergent capabilities now as they've always had. The department changes are just financial.

I personally think the Games segment should be given full autonomy much like the Movies segment is. Not so much that I can see the direct profit and loss of the division but because I think it's one of the few segments that has the capabilities to stand on its own. Should Sony ever need to sell off departments to another company, say the TV business to LG or Samsung (Sony already sold them their panel fab), it would keep the Games division clear of the mess.

Yeah I was thinking why the fuck all this push Sony made about "putting everything together" didn't at all payoff. I was thinking they can't be this incompetent. So good thing I know the real reason now....Not that it improves their image by any means.

And yeah I gotta agree the company in the biggest shit right now is Sony. They just never "got with the times" in all departments and everyone just blew them away. Their premium image was gone when competition made same or better quality products without Sony's premium price and when people latched on to that, there was no reason left to go Sony.

[OmniStalgic]

And that's an extremely dirty business practice. Highly dishonest and shows they're just trying to cover the butts.

Viper beat me to it...But I smell Ninty love seeping from your pores

lol, no harm in it really, I am a bit biased towards Sony because of there gaming division. But, improvements can me made across the board really. I love Nintendo's franchises, but seriously screw them for Wii. They didn't have to go cutting edge to make it look better than that. Sony may get arrogant at times (who wouldn't after the amazing PS2) but there gaming department is just as dedicated to innovative titles as Nintendo is, and they always THROW THE F'N SINK in there hardware designs while Nintendo plays safe and profitable and releases 13 Mario spin-offs before you ever see Metroid, Kid Icarus, Link, DD, or Kirby -_- The argument can be made that Nintendo is even more original and ballsy (Wii-remote as a main input device!?! Only Nintendo), and I would mostly agree, but Sony's WWS is more well rounded IMO.

I do agree that WWS should be separate from the rest of Sony though, they need to stop getting smashed by Samsung with there electronics, they still pioneered in the TV section though, just didn't keep up, and now there premium, highest quality image is gone, even though they still make great tech.

[Viper]

Omni, one of the reasons that Nintendo plays it safe is because they don't have the support of other major consumer electronic or software departments to fall back on like Sony and MS do.

Sony can drop a billion or two on the PS division and make up for it with TV's, cameras and movies. Nintendo drops a billion or two in their games segment and, well, that's a billion or two they just lost.

This gives Sony the advantage of being capable of throwing in the kitchen sink. MS throws it in too but they charge you for it.


Something I'm surprised Sony never got into doing is computer monitors. Or perhaps they were at one time but I figured with the emergence of flat panel screens that they'd take a huge chunk of the computer monitor market and yet they conceded it entirely to Samsung, LG, Acer, Dell and others. I never understood that one. And with their work in AMOLED screens, why are they still hesitant to go in that direction?

[Crazybone126]

Viper beat me to it...But I smell Ninty love seeping from your pores

lol, no harm in it really, I am a bit biased towards Sony because of there gaming division. But, improvements can me made across the board really. I love Nintendo's franchises, but seriously screw them for Wii. They didn't have to go cutting edge to make it look better than that. Sony may get arrogant at times (who wouldn't after the amazing PS2) but there gaming department is just as dedicated to innovative titles as Nintendo is, and they always THROW THE F'N SINK in there hardware designs while Nintendo plays safe and profitable and releases 13 Mario spin-offs before you ever see Metroid, Kid Icarus, Link, DD, or Kirby -_- The argument can be made that Nintendo is even more original and ballsy (Wii-remote as a main input device!?! Only Nintendo), and I would mostly agree, but Sony's WWS is more well rounded IMO.

I do agree that WWS should be separate from the rest of Sony though, they need to stop getting smashed by Samsung with there electronics, they still pioneered in the TV section though, just didn't keep up, and now there premium, highest quality image is gone, even though they still make great tech.

This isn't a debate about software, this is a debate about financials, though. There's no fanboyism going on here, these are cold hard financial facts.

Anyway, I guess to continue on what was said...The reason you see Mario more often is because it's a TRUE first party title that has about 4 different studios who have the possibility to work on a title that contains Mario (Mario Party devs, Mario Kart devs, etc.) In the grand scope of things, there's only TWO Mario games from the main Nintendo development team and those titles are the two Super Mario Galaxy games which were 3 years apart. And there's reason why the other series are much rarer to see. The Metroid and Donkey Kong series now come from just one second party developer (Retro Studios). Kid Icarus (Sora Ltd), and Kirby (HAL Laboratories) do as well. Nintendo chooses to take their time with the Zelda franchise because they know it has a heavy cult following and that they should. So if you ignore the Mario cash-in spin-off titles (Kart, Party, etc) there were only two Mario titles from the core Nintendo team and two Zelda titles. The rest (DK, Kirby, etc) all came from 2nd party developers with quite small teams.

But now, let's continue on where Viper left off above.

[OmniStalgic]

tks for the insight...

about the monitor, I DUnno?! They do seem to not being able to keep up with reading markets, perhaps the talk of synergy wasn't all PR and the company, globally, simply hasn't been commuicating well. There TV's are ace, so I also don't understand why the monitor segment doesn't have a Sony branded one by now.

[Segitz]

Have fun holding both at once.

Don't be so dense... or do you have to hold two devices with WiiU, too?

[Viper]

Don't be so dense... or do you have to hold two devices with WiiU, too?

I see what you were saying now. A tablet device with standard controller buttons and sticks added to it. Might as well buy a Wii U then.

However, I don't see many tablet makers adding 2 analog sticks, 4 face buttons, 2 shoulders buttons and 2 triggers to their devices anytime soon. And even if they did, the developer would have to develop specifically with that tablet device in mind or else it wouldn't have any support. That would suck real hard to buy the next tablet device just because it has gamepad buttons only to have your favorite X360 Smartglass game not support that tablet gamepad function.

[Segitz]

Depends on how capable the pad is... with WiiU, you'll always be bound to the home device (at least I assume there's no real computation happening inside the pad, beside video decoding). With a "gaming pad" (similar to PSPhone, but with more though put into it), it could happen... not that I see it happen, with MSs massive move away from "real" gaming.

[Viper]

The Wii U GamePad is basically a terminal, no processing.

My point is that I cannot envision a tablet manufacturer designing and releasing a tablet with standard gamepad controls build in. This is what separates the Wii U from Smartglass. With Smartglass, you are limited to utilizing just the touch interface of the tablet. Unless you want to hold both the tablet AND an X360 controller.

Tablet makers are not marketing their tablets to core gamers nor will they. And again, even if they did develop such a device, you would need the game developers to develop their game to take advantage of the standard controller input functions or you'd be limited to just using the touch interface like all other tablets.

If you mean MS developing their own tablet + gamepad controller, you still run into the same problem. Developers still have to program to take advantage of it or you're stuck with just touch interface. Imagine buying MS's game tablet only to have the games you want play not support the gamepad functions. This is the reality tablet manufacturers face and they know it...hence why they'll never make a tablet + gamepad unit.

[Segitz]

As I say... I don't think it'll happen either. I was just saying it isn't impossible.

[Gribble-Grunger]

Well that's essentially why I say that Sony have the advantage when going head to head with the Wiiu. MS would have to develop a new controller essentially. The Vita already exists. It may only have a userbase of about 4 - 5 million when the Wiiu releases and there might only be 1 million of those people that own a PS3 too, but that's still a good enough reason for devs to consider covering any losses on Wiiu investment by offering the same tech to an already established market

[frosty]

Considering the Wii U is not highly regarded as being all that much more powerful than PS3, this may actually help extend PS3's lifespan well beyond the PS4 launch if you think about it.. Devs being able to port Wii U games to PS3 with Vita cross play functionality. Sony would encourage it, and it'd give the devs another market with a well established user base. That actually will fare well for Wii U as well, making developing games that take advantage of it's features a little less risky... = more games for everyone.

[Theo]

Hey everyone, this is my first post in like forever....

But, I was looking at Nintendo's stock today and saw it closed under $14 a share... 2 years ago it was at almost $40 a share. I began doing some research and heard Nintendo was in some financial trouble with the 3DS and such. Does anybody think Nintendo could go out of business in the next few years if the Wii U isn't a smash hit?

There is pretty much zero chance of Nintendo going out of business next generation. It is highly unlikely to happen in future generations as well IMO, due to things already explained by others here. The main thing about it all is how they do business (mainly as in making profit from just about everything starting from hardware). They may not sell in such massive in volumes as they did with wii, but they will sell, so the real remaining question is: How much money they are going to make?...

It's amazing how people always pull out the red flag when it comes to Nintendo. If there's any 1st party video game hardware & software company we need to worry about right now, it's Sony Computer Entertainment. How many CEOs, "top dogs," and salary reductions have they gone through in just 2011-2012 alone? Luckily, SCE has other Sony affiliate divisions to fall back on and pick up the slack because, if they didn't, they'd be on their way out by now. And if they make one more bad business decision, they just might be. Because, from a business standpoint, they aren't doing too hot and haven't been doing so for the past half-decade. They sold PS3 at a loss, it's still yet to turn them a profit, Vita just the same, Move didn't meet expectations, PSPGo was nearly an insult to all tech consumers, they had their entire online network compromised, SixAxis was canned, and why did they even MAKE an Eyetoy3?

People always ask "Will Nintendo make out like Sega" and the answer is simply "no." Sony, on the other hand, getting damn close. Nintendo has plenty of things that have turned them major profits throughout the years to fall back on. They have the Wii, the DS and all of its redesigns, the 3DS which was being sold at a loss at one point but is now no longer, and they may still even have funds from way back in the Gameboy Advance era. Sony, in turn, practically spent all of the earnings they made from PS2 and made the PS3 and look what that's done to them financially. If they don't get their act together by next fiscal year, that's right, next...fiscal...year, you're gonna be seeing some maaajor changes at Sony Computer Entertainment. Major changes. And if they come out of the gate blindly swinging like they did with PS3 for PS4, you can just say goodbye to hardware from SCE altogether which would explain the "PS4 probably won't be that much of a HUGE update from PS3" rumors. But I wouldn't even considerate that a rumor considering someone from Sony ACTUALLY said it. It boggles my mind how shareholders drop their shares from Nintendo, but don't drop from Sony.

I have said it before and I can't fight the temptation of saying it again... What many do fail to see is the awesomeness of Sony doing something like they did with the ps3. They could have just as well played it far safer and developed a quite a bit lesser console than the ps3, but instead they used their considerable resourses at the time and took a huge gamble in delivering their vision. That is something quite brave to do and to me as a gamer shows they do care a lot about gameing it self, not just the business part of it. Too bad it did not deliver them economically...which will have it's impact in the developing of the ps4.

Nintendo on the other hand have done something, well...if not exactly the opposite, but atleast with a clearly different ideology now with the WiiU. Don't get me wrong though. I'm interested in it way more that I ever was for Wii in fact, but I can not help the situation of the gamer in me being dissapointed about the just released specs of the console. I mean where is the passion of doing a powerful and unique console with a wow factor never seen before. Nintedo if any can afford it and back in the day had the balls and enthusiasm to venture out and doing something like that. It is business sure, but come on! They could have put atleast a bit more effort to it IMO. I wonder will it recapture the huge selling success of the Wii or will it get even near that....