We have a lot of friends with kids of a similar age, all had Nintendo DS, and many also had Wii. But something changed in the last two years. My son didn't want the new Nintendo DSi or 3DS. He wanted an iPhone. I had an iPhone, my wife had an iPhone. Well he wasn't getting an iPhone, but I did say he could get an iPod touch.
He was only 5 at the time, and he was torn, he really wanted the new DS, but he also wanted the iPod touch. Ultimately he choose the iPod touch. He wanted more than just games, he wanted movies, YouTube, the camera and other things his DS didn't have at the time.
Now while Nintendo make some great games, there is so much rubbish released, you quickly get annoyed. I have purchased many $50 DS games that he played for 5 mins and never touched again. I looked at these games and they were rubbish, simple boring platform games but with a brand character like Sponge Bob that made him want it.
But the iPod was different, I gave him my password, disabled In-App purchases and said you can buy one game a week as long as its only $1. He loves this, he has an unlimited amount of free games / apps available that he can download and play instantly and then he can buy one a week. That one a week $52 yearly is about the cost of a single DS game, and I was buying around one a month.
What came next was unexpected. He completely ditched the Wii and the DS, never touched them again, never had any interest, I bring home an iPad from work, he plays it all weekend. But the DS and the Wii have been discarded. We have an Xbox also, and it wasn't ditched though it was played less, the advent of the Kinect and the nice online store helped there.
Now Nintendo are set to release a new console. It has a fancy touch screen controller and can play the entire game on the controller if someone wants to watch TV. Sounds good for families, until I saw the big cable out of the back of the controller. Now i'm not sure about everyone else, but wireless controllers are now required. Going back to a wired controller doesn't seem like a viable option to me. Also these controllers look big and expensive, when you have kids they want 4 to play with their friends, I'm not paying $100+ 4 times just for controllers.
What could Nintendo do? Well they could release their games on iPod / iPhone / iPad / Android, the SNES Zelda would sell millions of copies overnight alone. But this is unlikely, they are like apple and like to control everything.
What must Nintendo do? Well they must have a good online store with inexpensive and free games. And not just crappy ports from SNES, good quality independent games for free and $1. This is the only way I would consider going back. I will never pay $50 for another Nintendo game and I am seeing the same pattern from our group of friends with kids.
What might Nintendo do? They might come up with another must have device that everyone buys and is a major success. But the 3DS is NOT it and the Wii U is NOT it.
What will Nintendo do? I think they will scramble, try desperately to fix it, wait way too long before the realise the extent of the trouble they are in and then ultimately sell or collapse and suffer the fate of Atari, Sega and many others.
As a closing note, my 3 year old daughter plays our iPhones every single day, she has never played a Nintendo device and never shown any interest.
6 comments:
http://www.slate.com/id/2300290/
This article runs the same line.
looks likely to occur
It's wired ?!? I just checked http://e3.nintendo.com/hw/#/video/HW_demo (around 35s in) and don't see one...
I understand if you wish to play the games on the controller you need to be wired, to just use the controller as a map etc, then you dont.
If you Google pics of the controller there are lots showing a very thick video style cable.
I completely agree with what you are saying. I have been a huge, huge Nintendo fan as of late... With the Wii-U about a year away, and they drastically cutting the price of 3ds, it's already showing that Nintendo is beginning to freak out.
Wii sales were beginning to drop, so they figured releasing a new console was the only thing they could do... But this was honestly the wrong time to do it, but doing it now they will once again be behind the next generation of consoles when they come out. They need to stop focusing on "innovating" with stupid gimmicks and focus on improving 3rd party support and catch up with the times!
They are being resistant to just about everything, while all the other companies being smart are going with the flow. Nintendo is ignoring social, mobile, hd, online... They need to stop trying to be so different and try and catch up with everyone else.
If it takes more re-hashing of existing ports but spreading out to all the new platforms then so be it, but they need... no, MUST do this or they will go the way of Sega as you said.
They need to understand that people are getting used to super cheap games, no one is going to pay for 30-50 dollar games, micro-transactions are king... They need to get with it!
If they refuse to help 3rd party at least start making new ip's... If they still refuse to do that they have so many existing ip's that would amazing on all these new platforms, animal crossing on facebook, a pokemon mmo? That stuff would just print money.
Sorry to rant on, but I have been a Nintendo fan boy since the beginning, purchased every console as they came out... But now, now I am just sad.
Controllers always use a cable before their release. That happened with the XBOX 360's and Wii's controllers, get your facts right losers!
Oh, and by the way...Almost ALL games cost in the 30-50 range, not just Nintendo.And the reason Sega stopped making consoles is because it was facing PRESSURE from SUCCESSFUL consoles. Get your facts right AGAIN!!!!!!
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