Nintendo in trouble?

[Doobie]

Sony's sexy new PSP has sold over 500,000 units in the first two days.

Nintendo was king in the portable market until now. Bad news for the company that just recently released the DS.

Nintendo's console game system is a distant third in its catagory. Monstrously large Sony and Microsoft are promising awesome next generation console systems. Does anyone else share my feeling that Revolution will be Nintendo's Saturn, Nintendo's last hardware act?

Sorry about posting this here, I'm not part of any video game forums.

[Neo Neko]

I think you meant Nintendo's "Dreamcast". Granted the Saturn was a huge flop as well.

Nintendo does have a problem. It is just quite different from Sega's. Sega's problem was not lack of content. They are still visible in the content creation biz etc. And it was not for lack of innovation etc in their hardware. They were always ahead of everyone else. No one could keep up with Sega for the most part. Sega's problem pure and simple was that they were to ambitious and never gave many of their consoles a chance to really mature.

Nintendo today is the anti-sega. Most of their content and franchises have either dried up or gotten so pathetic they may as well have. They are always the last to adopt new technology and when they finally do they still screw it up.

Nintendo's downward spiral began when they found they could just port old games with little or no modification and sell them off to unsuspecting dupes. Sometimes this is not to bad. It is nice to find an old gem in with all the new inoovative content every so often. But when you spend more time porting and less time innovating it doesn't matter how good many of those old games are. People start seeing you as the lazy bastard you are. The gameboy color saw rehashes of many of the most mediocere NES game titles ever made. The advent of the gameboy advance meant they could now sell you many mediocre SNES rehashes alongside the mediocre NES ones. And Nintendo if anything is consistant. The DS now means you can get mediocre N64 rehashes along with the mediocre SNES and NES rehashes. Nintendo got away with it as long as they did because they had no competition outside Asia in the hand held market.

And it doesn't help that they lost Rare or that Mario and Luigi have had some sort of falling out. I mean they won't be seen in the same game together for any length of time. I think it has something to do with that slut "Princess Peach". I mean when there is only the one eligible human looking girl in the whole kingdom it does not matter how close brothers are. There is bound to be some "tension". :D

I F'n swear give me a good ole' Mario & Luigi adventure that can put the new system to good use. Mario Sunshine was ok but there was just not enough Luigi or classic koopas etc. And Luigi's Haunted House was ok but there was not enough Mario or koopas. Nintendo needs to get in touch with their roots and get the tag team back together. That and some new franchise titles. Pokemon yech.

[Shinigami-Sama]

yeah sega always had intersting games and systems and I;ve recently heard some rumors that they;er plaing an new ssytem to
that doesn't look good for nintendo in its already weakend possion from a lack of real content; like neko said all they do is a moer or less half assed update on the games ad colour and presto new game on the shelves...
and also as neko said nintendo is so slow adot new technoligies it;s not funny I mean thye jsut took a disk aproch and even then it;s more or less a modifed gd-rom disk which is what the dreamcast used and hte hardware that they have is delapitaded that it can;t even handle rendering even 2/3 of what a ps2 or xbox can
it also doesn't help nintendo that they offer rather crapy cust/tech support I mean I hada game stop working so I called them up and I couldn't even get a live person on the phone after 20min in ext. system alone
so that sums up why nintendo now has shafted itself :)

[Neo Neko]

I have not heard of any renewed sega console plans. But depending on how they licensed their franchises while they were on hiatus they may not have the right to use them for a new console till existing contracts expire.

And I agree whole heartedly on the disk issue as well. But then again sony is basically as bad in some respects. UMD or memory stick anyone? Someday they will learn. ;)

But as for the GC being inferior specs wise to the PS2 and Xbox. Well it really isn't. It is a nice system. And would be a heck of alot nicer if they got some better exclusive content. What good would unlimited horsepower be if you can't do anything with it? Mario Kart Double Dash kicks arse and is one of the few games that has the good old Nintendo feel to it. It may be a bit of a rehash but it still has some major differences. If nothing else that game made the GC worth it. ;)

[GIR]

I wouldn’t count out Nintendo just yet, if they play their cards right and time things well they could easily come 2nd place next gen, of course everyone is expecting them to come last again, but this industry is very unpredictable who knows what could happen, until then I’ll have Zelda 2005 to keep me happy :) the trailer looks awesome!

Nintendo's console game system is a distant third in its catagory. Monstrously large Sony and Microsoft are promising awesome next generation console systems. Does anyone else share my feeling that Revolution will be Nintendo's Saturn, Nintendo's last hardware act?Possible, but you know what, I think PS3 will be Sony’s N64, Sony is making a lot of bad moves and if Nintendo and MS launch before Sony it could very well be the case.

[Sirber]

I own a DS, and it's big problem, it's lack of GOOD games. 90% of the releases are pure crap, like Rayman DS. I own Mario 64 DS and Yoshi Touch & Go, the less worst 2 games. They made improvements on mario 64 DS compared to the nintendo 64 version. The console itself is great, has a lot of features, and GBA support, just lack great DS games :(

[jggimi]

Hoover's public/free reports and links on this industry:

Sony (http://www.hoovers.com/sony/--ID__41885--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml)
Nintendo (http://www.hoovers.com/nintendo/--ID__41877--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml)
SEGA (http://www.hoovers.com/sega/--ID__42010--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml)

Microsoft's Xbox business is not broken out separately by Hoovers, or at least, not for the general public, and I am no longer a subscriber, anyway.

So I looked at Microsoft's latest quarterly report to the SEC, and, while the executive summary says, "The November launch of the Halo 2 Xbox game for the holiday season also contributed to the overall revenue growth for the company in the second quarter of fiscal 2005..." specific Xbox revenue values are not broken out in the report. Instead, XboX related business is reported within the Home and Entertainment line of business, which, "...includes the Microsoft Xbox video game console system, PC games, the Home Products Division (HPD), and TV platform products for the interactive television industry."

For the 6 months ending 31 December, 2004, that division did US$2,039 Million in revenues, an improvement of 10% over the same period in 2003 (revenues were US$1,848 Million), and had an operating loss of US$57 Million, a loss but a dramatic improvement of 91% over the same period in 2003 (losses were US$669 Million).

Disclaimer: I own no direct stock in any of these companies, nor do I own any video game console. My son seems to own every console in current production, and has recently been accepted at Collins College in Tempe, Arizona, for their BA program program in Video Game Design, where he will start the program in the fall. Therefore, I care about this industry only so much as there is growth and stability in content development, so that he has both opportunities to intern now, and then opportunities to enter the industry upon receiving his degree, and opportunities to build a career.

[shahmat]

Funny you should mention that, I just started last year with Westwood College of Technology for the same degree. The field is exploding, and there's a lot of growth potential in video games. Any subject that you can make a movie about, you can probably make a video game about that's even better, and with all the constant advancement in hardware technology, it's all going to get better.

[Neo Neko]

The field may have a huge potential for expansion. But the only reason it is like that is because expansion/innovation/creativity is not a high priority. Many games etc go unsigned since you can take the same underlying game tweak it a bit and release game version x+1. It's cheaper. Easier. And as of now still profitable. When people stop buying the same crap over and over maybe then they will look into this creativity thing. Untill then Nintendo has a whole lineup of N64 games they are porting and can't be bothered with "new" content. :p

[shevegen]

Bah.
Making Sony and MS richer. Stocks? Stuff em in your socks, and burn.
Where is my happy face... a nevertheless lets make one
:)

[Shinigami-Sama]

Originally posted by shahmat
Any subject that you can make a movie about, you can probably make a video game about that's even better, and with all the constant advancement in hardware technology, it's all going to get better.
fun you should say that becuase pretty much the only games I play now were made back in mid nineties not many mew ones. I happened to notice a downward trend in overall game re-playablity- compared to lets say old snes games that I still love a waste a few hours a week one. Either way though graphics have improved a lot if thats what you wer talking about ;)
though there are a few new games I want to get
motsly nintendo remake thouhg super smash bros melle comes ot mind
but yeha

[jggimi]

Originally posted by shevegen
Making...MS richer.Either you misread my post, or I wasn't clear enough. MS loses money in their Home and Entertainment line of business. That LOB has lost more than US$1 Billion every year for the last three.

[Doobie]

I figure that GameBoy sales helped keep Nintendo in the console market. The GameBoy kept the word "Nintendo" in people's minds and probably paid for most of the overhead shared by the console. With the Sony PSP putting the DS to bed, Nintendo will fade from people's minds along with console sales (which would have been a distant 3rd, even with the DS on top).


(Neo, yes I meant Dreamcast)

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Doobie
I figure that GameBoy sales helped keep Nintendo in the console market. The GameBoy kept the word "Nintendo" in people's minds and probably paid for most of the overhead shared by the console. With the Sony PSP putting the DS to bed, Nintendo will fade from people's minds along with console sales (which would have been a distant 3rd, even with the DS on top).


(Neo, yes I meant Dreamcast)

Nah Nintendo will pull something off in order to drag out their departure for at least another itteration for sure. Hell they are probably about ready to release Super Mario "Pimp My" Kart 64 DS ® any day now. It would be just like Mario Kart 64 cept the carts would top out at 5Mph and instead of getting shells, bannanas, etc from the boxes you would get items to let you use your karts optins. Hydraulics, spinners, sterio, lights, etc. Gats? That would be hillarious. 5Mph spinning, bucking, thumping, driveby racing madness. :D