Tchay's theory about Nintendo's "new direction"

[Tchay]

Its 1am, and I decided to look up overall glabal sales of Metroid Prime and then global sales for Donkey Kong Returns.

And it finally hit me.

Nintendo knows what they're doing. Donkey Kong Returns sold DOUBLE what Metroid Prime did. Obviously there are other factors, such as the time in the lifespan of the console, when the game was released, but still.

So, I thought about it a little, and I came up with a theory about what Nintendo is doing. Basically, I think Nintendo is trying to grab the young gamers and family/casual audience RIGHT NOW to kickstart the WiiU and get sales closer to where they should be. But there's more, Nintendo also has a plan for it's hardcore gamers. Nintendo is going to build up a NEW fanbase of young gamers right now and then pull in its OLD fanbase in a year or two. It really sucks for us older gamers, but I think its Nintendo's best move right now. They need games, and they need them fast.

Also, to be more exact, I think Nintendo is doing a hybrid of what I mentioned above. They are going to use the new Smash Bros game, Mario Kart, and X to try to hold over the core gamers, while building up a new fanbase of younglings and casual gamers. You see, Smash bros and Mario Kart will actually bring in new and old nintendo fans, so those two games are VERY important for the WiiU right now. Then maybe in 2 years, Nintendo will release a new Zelda, a Metroid/starfox game, some star wars games hopefully, and then some new IPs to pull in the rest of the old nintendo fanbase.

I don't think Nintendo is terribly worried about the older fanbase because we are emotionally inclined to want to be loyal to their new game lineup and we are more likely to wait for Nintendo to come around. The new fanbase is very volatile and Nintendo can't afford to lose them to the PS4 and XboxOne.

tl;dr - I am still pissed off at Nintendo, but I totally understand why they were so lame at this E3.

 

[Kickback]

Nintendo are probably going for that audience considering the older audience will definitely be looking towards the PS4 or Xbox One again, honestly other than X or whatever it ends up being called, Nintendo are really struggling to show me personally why the Wii U even needs to exist at this point.

 

[Antome]

Nintendo isn't in a position to take risks. They took those risks at the console and handheld launches. Now they know they are on the back foot with the console hardware, and they have the experience with the gamecube to what its like to be on the back foot. They are also not blind to the industry and how it's playing out this decade.

From that It is entirely understandable why Nintendo is playing the very conservative role at the moment, sticking to their guns and working on the software and making the partnerships which matter(key franchises, helping out any developer who turns to them and should make a profit ala bayonetta).

They got left out in the blue with the hardware, not having an architecture remotely as equally portable as it will be between xbone and ps4, so It is already apparent that porting to Wii U is a "financial risk". So they are quite clearly presenting the sort of software at the moment which they will know will help sell the console both on widespread entertainment and on a goodwill scale. And lets not forget japan, where the wiiu and ps4 will more directly compete for a spot in people's homes. Nintendo America will focus on netting in the widest audience possible, but in in Japan it's going to be a more strategic battle of who gets what Japanese Dev on board I imagine. (xbone isn't even a region in consideration according to MS, gg for them.)

Cost factor could also be quite interesting. I bet Nintendo Is going to drop the price as much as they can later this year, I think last year they were selling close to cost price, and will probably scale the price with their mass production economics. Vying the Wiiu as the "cheap next gen" with enough of the right software should secure Nintendo's console for a few years to come.

Of course lets not forget that the 3DS is doing fine. Its selling well and there's plenty of software, it will last this generation for sure and with a solid redesign every couple years and a re-imaging next portable gen they should continue to have a handle in the portable space.

 

[Aux]

PREFACE: I apologize for excessive use of "quote terms" below, but I wanted to make it obvious I'm using "marketing terms" and not "flaxting all over Nintendo".

I agree with KB. Nintendo's got much more of a market with the youngin's. WiiU clearly isn't a console to compete with XB One and PS4- those two blow it out of the water performance-wise, and any "hardcore gamer" is going to be picking one of those up in November. Ninty can't stand toe-to-toe with them in that kind of market. That's never been its strength. This year people will get their Xbones or Praystations and it's not going to be a great Q3-4 for them. But next year, if they drop the price and release a few must-have games... those people will consider getting WiiUs as "add-ons" to their console collections.

Honestly, you can call the WiiU a next-gen console because it technically is the same generation as XBO/PS4... but it isn't. It's last-gen hardware repurposed for a completely different market. Your hardcore gamers are never going to see it as a primary console. It's just a fun distraction while you wait for the next Fallout or Bioshock or Battlefield. And since this year is full on with what that market sees as "real games", Ninty isn't going to waste their breath trying to get those people in.

 

[ShockSlayer]

Megaman in Smash. New gamers don't *Can'tSayThisOnTV*in' know Megaman.

They still love us.

SS

 

[Prog]

The problem with the "budget and simple" console direction is that they did that with the Wii. This strategy didn't quite make it through the whole generation, and I think it would probably be shorter the second time around.

I think that what they went for back in November with the Wii U release was to try to put the first party exclusives on the back burner in favor of more third-party exclusives to try to get today's "hardcore" market to buy into it. Let's face it, your typical modern-day "hardcore" gamer is going to have a brand-name bias against Nintendo no matter how awesome/violent a game is. The problem with this approach was the lack of a third-party system seller from the perspective of the "hardcore" gamer, IE Uncharted or Halo. Soon there were no new decent exclusives, so now Nintendo is having to resort the Wii approach.

At least that's what I think. It's probably way off but meh.

New gamers don't *Can'tSayThisOnTV*in' know Megaman.

Was that an egoraptor reference? I'd like to chime in with this picture:

They don't know Obama

 

[Kickback]

I don't know Nintendo can't make mature IPs themselves, just because they don't get the gritty 360/PS3 games doesn't mean they need to just cel-shade everything.

If Nintendo want a 3rd person cover shooter that's rated M... why don't they make one themselves? They have developers don't they?