Should Nintendo just throw in the towel?

[SpaceTiger]

Nintendo started losing 3rd party support in the 5th generation with the Nintendo 64 when they wouldn't agree to put some games on their system that Sony agreed to. Also Nintendo had very strict developer's office requirements (something about the team had to be a certain size) and other high fees that turned developers off. They managed to keep developers like EA, THQ, Acclaim, Activision, and so on while Capcom, Namco, SNK, etc. moved more towards PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast and of course PS3 and 360 when it came to home consoles.

Do you think they were genuinely trying to give the third parties a piece of the pie by letting them get their money first?

They definitely were. Nintendo's first party titles have always taken the largest slice of the pie and was typically the best selling title on the console. It was like a bid to show they're friendly towards 3rd party developers in the same way they're friendly towards western indie developers for the Wii U (Japanese indie developers are another thing, apparently Nintendo haven't been aggressively pushing to get them on board).

Do you think there may have been complaints from them about their titles being overshadowed by the 1st party titles?

Ubisoft kept its relationship with Nintendo going, but when it came to EA we all know things got...hairy when it came to Origin and Nintendo said no. My belief is that Nintendo was picturing something like Steam or the PS and Xbox marketplaces--who have said that they'd like to work with Nintendo--but saw something different. When that deal went through EA's support of Nintendo waned.

I don't think there were complaints at all. It's just the fanbase is made of families first and Nintendo diehards second similar to Xbox and PlayStation being diehards first and families second. Those titles could definitely draw in the "hardcore" crowd, but by this time it would be too late until Nintendo goes back to entertaining a powerful console.

Oh! That's another thing: powerful consoles. People say "Nintendo needs to get with the times" "Nintendo needs to make a more powerful console" etc. That's something that needs to be hung up posthaste and with the quickness. In the 5th generation (led by PSX, N64, and Saturn) and the 6th generation (PS2, DC, DC, Xbox) we know who took those generations on sales: PlayStation.

In both of those generations, PS was outclassed power-wise by the N64 in the 5th and Gamecube and Xbox in the 6th. As a matter of fact it outsold those consoles while the generation was still going--not including when production had ended and the generation was pretty much done. The last time a powerful console in the big 2 or 3 took a generation was the SNES beating the Genesis. When PSX took out the N64 it was mainly down to having more support (a larger library, something for everyone) and adapting discs which while slower to load were easier to work with and allowed developers to put more content in their games. PS2 won by that same large library, Xbox being late to the party, a number of Sega fans having abandoned DC, and better hype than the GC.

 

[swagger]

They're milking money out of old games, they're been doing it for years. Throw in the towel? No. New game selection? Yes.

 

[nealbo]

I don't think they should throw in the towel but they really need to buck their ideas up. Marketing from Nintendo is horrendous - I mean when the Wii U was released I spoke to many people who thought it was just a new controller for the Wii! They generally don't listen to what consumers want, the main being Pokemon, their ace in the hole! If they released a Pokemon game on the Wii U, sales of the console would skyrocket.

 

[Titan]

They're milking money out of old games, they're been doing it for years. Throw in the towel? No. New game selection? Yes.

I agree. But the problem with Nintendo this time around is they were trying to appeal to core gamers with their new technology. I played the WiiU (in GameStop but still gave it a go) and I liked it. A bit awkward at first but wasn't too hard to figure it out. With more games, I would have considered buying it. The problem is though by wanting to also appeal to core gamers, they didn't use next gen hardware. Call it shallow but a lot of people couldn't merit getting WiiU when PS4 and XBOne have 10x better graphics. Nintendo decided to use specs more akin to PS3 and 360 and that was not a smart choice if they were going after the core gaming population. As a result, a lot of people said no thank you and they lost a lot of third party support and its a shame. Hopefully they learned their lesson and come up with a new game plan for their next console. But as far as them being in trouble. Hell no. They have enough cash to ride it out.

 

[DrRipley]

The president of Sony has stated his views on this and he said that the industry, and Sony itself, needs Nintendo to exist because they are the ones who are indoctrinating new gamers into the medium. I'm not sure if he also said this, but I'd also add that they are the best at it even. Also, what I like about Nintendo is that they are the last remaining company that has games unique to their own console. Other platforms just basically share the same libraries with a few exceptions of exclusives here and there.

I'm personally not a fan of Nintendo, and I don't think I've ever really been one other than liking a few of their games during the NES era enough to play through the first few stages, and I admittedly haven't even ever touched any of their flagship games like Zelda or Metroid, but I do know that their presence is or at least should be treasured for as long as possible for without them everything would be a lot more homogenized and boring, IMO at least.

 

[Titan]

The president of Sony has stated his views on this and he said that the industry, and Sony itself, needs Nintendo to exist because they are the ones who are indoctrinating new gamers into the medium. I'm not sure if he also said this, but I'd also add that they are the best at it even. Also, what I like about Nintendo is that they are the last remaining company that has games unique to their own console. Other platforms just basically share the same libraries with a few exceptions of exclusives here and there.

I'm personally not a fan of Nintendo, and I don't think I've ever really been one other than liking a few of their games during the NES era enough to play through the first few stages, and I admittedly haven't even ever touched any of their flagship games like Zelda or Metroid, but I do know that their presence is or at least should be treasured for as long as possible for without them everything would be a lot more homogenized and boring, IMO at least.

Also without them, video games today would not really exist. After the video game crash in the 80s (thanks Atari), Nintendo was the one that brought the industry out of the ashes and rebuilt the whole industry with the NES. Without them, video games probably would have faded away and been considered a fad.