Post by: NWR_Neal on January 17, 2014, 06:58:54 PM
Slashing projections and talking up changing business structures add up rough days ahead.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/36376
The idea of 9 million Wii Us being sold in the current fiscal year, which began back in April 2013 and ends March 31, 2014, was a joke back when Nintendo stuck by it after the Wii U didn't touch 500,000 units worldwide in the first half of the year. Well, it's no laughing matter for damn sure right now.
Early this morning, Satoru Iwata announced that the projected amount of Wii Us sold worldwide is being trimmed to just 31% of the original projection. That's a disparity of 6.2 million systems. Nintendo expects to sell 2.8 million Wii Us in the current fiscal year ending this March.
Hoo boy, that's rather poor. To compare, the PlayStation 4 sold 4.2 million units in 6 weeks and the Xbox One sold 3 million units in 5 weeks. The Wii U, according to estimates, sold somewhere between 800,000 and 900,000 units from October to December in North America, and likely somewhere in the ball park of 1.25 and 2 million units worldwide over that three-month period. If all of this continues at the same pace, PS4 and Xbox One will outsell the Wii U by the end of the March at the latest.
Nintendo isn't doomed. They're not going to close up shop. The Wii U, though, is flopping hard. December 2013 was its best sales month to date, but it's still small potatoes to basically every game system except the Vita. Who knows what the future will hold. At the press conference today, Iwata said "We are thinking about a new business structure. Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."
The cape feather in Nintendo's cap, the 3DS, was the best-selling console in North America in 2013. High five, right? Not quite. While the 3DS is doing well, take note of something else in Nintendo's recent adjusted projections. The 3DS' sales expectations were taken down from 18 million to 13.5 million, which is sizable reduction. Who knows why the forecast was cut, but I think there's a few reasons.
The 2DS didn't do as well as they hoped. If you notice, we haven't heard anything about how XX% of 3DS sales were 2DS systems like we did when the 3DS XL was a smashing success. Obviously 3DS systems are still selling well, but the 2DS looks like it didn't give the platform the shot in the arm it was expected to do.
Or maybe it's a little bit darker than that. Maybe Nintendo's expectations for the console and handheld space are unrealistic. Maybe there is some truth to the console industry as we know it declining.
Yes, the PS4 and Xbox One had fantastic launches, proving that the doom and gloom surrounding disappointing new console sales was only limited to the Wii U. However, Sony and Microsoft's actions show a different side of the story. Sony just announced PlayStation Now, a way to play PS1, PS2, and PS3 games on, eventually, nearly any TV, tablet, or mobile device. PlayStation Mobile, a platform for integrating mobile development with the PlayStation Network. Microsoft is, to a little less success than Sony, cultivating the Xbox One to have a similar interface as the one in Windows 8, Surfaces, and Windows Phones.
Nintendo doesn't have a platform like this. If Nintendo's consoles were to fail, which the Wii U is in the act of doing, then they don't have a publicly known fail-safe plan. They haven't cultivated any future-proofing concept that allows their work to easily carry on in another form.
I'm not saying Nintendo should port everything to mobile or tablets. I do think they need to have some back-up plan, which for all we know, they already do. If the Wii U were to go, what are their options? Make another system? Focus solely on handhelds? Go third party? Sony and Microsoft have other options. Sony could have their games exist through PlayStation Now. Microsoft could turn to focus on their grander media aspirations. Nintendo doesn't have that possibility, no matter what novel updates they added to Nintendo TVii since launch.
Whatever the company has up its sleeve, we'll likely see it this year. As he stated, Iwata isn't resigning and if he's true to his word, big changes could be on the horizon. Nintendo and its president will have to be agile this year and do things most Nintendo fans thought weren't possible five years ago. All we can do is watch their execution and hope it works out.
Post by: NWR_Lindy on January 17, 2014, 08:33:19 PM
Are you referring to the Nintendo executive team?
Post by: Stealth on January 17, 2014, 09:00:43 PM
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on January 17, 2014, 09:18:48 PM
I think Nintendo will be fine. This article is a tad dramatic lol
I agree, besides, Nintendo always has the playing cards.
Post by: Shaymin on January 17, 2014, 09:35:59 PM
I think Nintendo will be fine. This article is a tad dramatic lol
When you're cutting expectations for your main product by a quarter and your other one by 70%, a little drama is called for.
Post by: Evan_B on January 17, 2014, 10:37:21 PM
This is it, folks. This is the last Console generation. What Nintendo needs to do is stand firm and most certainly NOT go the way of tablets and phones, because they're the only ones still devoting their efforts to making dedicated gaming consoles.
I'm a bit surprised by the 3DS markdown, but let's be honest- they gambled on the 2DS and it didn't work. Serves them right. However, they still did fantastically in the handheld market and I think that's proof enough that handhelds still have life to them. However, I believe the 8th Generation of consoles will be the last. The new Sony and Microsoft consoles are built like PCs so they can handle multiplats, and the Wii U has no third party support because it's nothing like a PC. Even though that's how consoles should be.
Post by: jg233 on January 17, 2014, 10:38:46 PM
Post by: NWR_Neal on January 17, 2014, 11:18:15 PM
You can totally go and ignore sales talk (Honestly? I would if I wasn't writing for this site), but denying the issue's severity is delusional.
Post by: Adrock on January 17, 2014, 11:38:39 PM
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 12:39:29 AM
In all seriousness, all Nintendo needs to do is ramp up game developement and court more 3rd-party publishers. They're doing a good job with the indie teams, but something needs to be done to gain support from the big companies like EA, Bethesda, Rockstar, etc.
I'm loving my Wii U. Switching from the TV to the GamePad is the coolest thing I've ever seen; it's like that console / handheld hybrid that we've all been dreaming of. I guarantee Nintendo's next console will be an actual portable handheld that syncs to the TV.
Post by: Adrock on January 18, 2014, 01:00:19 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/8EnFOA5.jpg)
Post by: Neifirst on January 18, 2014, 06:48:20 AM
Post by: Adrock on January 18, 2014, 08:45:13 AM
People are acting like this is news when the appropriate reaction is, "Oh, right, right. Nintendo had no business launching a console in 2012 with what they had." I'm not justifying that or the poor overall sales; I simply don't understand the confusion. When Nintendo announced their sales projections, I don't think a single person thought they would come close to it. I suppose dropping projections so drastically is what people are gasping at. Even then, are we really surprised? When you have extremely lofty projections to begin with, of course the drop would be larger.
Again, I still think Wii U will move past this. 2014 will fare better. Nintendo already has a big title coming out next month. Who knows when the next one comes? Maybe Mario Kart 8 in May? They have a more evenly distributed release schedule and more major titles. Personally, I'm pretty happy with Wii U. Despite its general lack of titles, it still had more games that interested me than both Xbox One and Playstation 4 have combined. I realize I'm not in the majority here.
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 01:07:08 PM
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 01:11:14 PM
Post by: broodwars on January 18, 2014, 01:15:19 PM
I forgot to add, this whole situation is exactly like what Sony went through with the PS3. Sony managed to turn things around for the PS3, so why does no one think that Nintendo can do the same with the Wii U?
Because Sony had more going for them with the PS3 than Nintendo does the Wii U. The situations are only superficially similar.
Post by: nickmitch on January 18, 2014, 01:24:50 PM
They'll either need to abandon ship and develop a new console that people actually want to buy and developers actually want to make games for AND release it at the perfect time, or figure out a way to make people want the Wii U.
I'm sure the 2DS is the main reason for the 3DS projections dropping. Nintendo didn't count on people not wanting that. That's an honest mistake. I think we still need to see if Xbox One and PS4 sales fall off before we can say if it's the market or the Wii U, but Nintendo needs to act like it's the Wii U because that's looking more likely.
Lindy made a good point on twitter about Nintendo missing out on the West's impact on gaming culture. Nintendo, who increasingly can't rely on 3rd parties, needs to buy up some studios who can put those types of games (e.g., open world, FPS, etc) that the western market loves on the Wii U. It's a costly, long term plan, but nobody's buying the Wii U for games not made by Nintendo anyway. You buy those afterwards.
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 01:34:19 PM
Post by: nickmitch on January 18, 2014, 02:03:55 PM
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 02:08:30 PM
Post by: Adrock on January 18, 2014, 02:11:44 PM
Also, releasing Nintendo franchises on anything but Nintendo hardware is a disaster. That's sending the message that their first party games are available on other hardware. That's the last thing they should do.
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 02:23:59 PM
Look at all the minigames that were in Super Mario 64 DS and the various Kirby games. Those would be perfect for mobile devices because they are simple and easy to play. Even the Game & Watch games would be perfect on mobile devices.
Nintendo could release these minigame collections as a side project while they still focus on their 3DS and Wii U consoles.
Post by: Mop it up on January 18, 2014, 03:14:12 PM
Post by: Oblivion on January 18, 2014, 03:17:01 PM
Show me a company with Nintendo's revenues that only produces mobile games.
Rovio.
Post by: nickmitch on January 18, 2014, 03:32:13 PM
Show me a company with Nintendo's revenues that only produces mobile games.
Rovio.
Rovio FY2012 revenue 152.2M Euros, roughly 206 million USD.
Nintendo FY2013 Revenue 635.6B Yen, roughly 6 billion USD.
Post by: UncleBob on January 18, 2014, 03:41:57 PM
Show me a company with Nintendo's revenues that only produces mobile games.
Rovio.
Rovio FY2012 revenue 152.2M Euros, roughly 206 million USD.
Nintendo FY2013 Revenue 635.6B Yen, roughly 6 billion USD.
But now that the Wii U is failing, they only make about seven dollars!!!
Post by: smallsharkbigbite on January 18, 2014, 07:57:37 PM
Post by: nickmitch on January 18, 2014, 09:36:50 PM
Revenue is better "stat" than you think. We could look at Net Income, but Rovio didn't make a profit in 2012 for different reasons than Nintendo in 2013.
Post by: smallsharkbigbite on January 18, 2014, 10:09:06 PM
The problem I have with Revenue for Nintendo is most of the revenue comes from hardware is not profitable so that is not necessarily "good" revenue. Yes, if they could sell their hardware (at a profit) it would be good, but they haven't proven they can.
Also, in 2008 they had almost $17B in revenue. They are on a pretty sharp downward trend so it would seem they have to do something because they are in danger of becoming irrelevant and being unable to support their corporate structure which has grown as their revenue grew.
Post by: smallsharkbigbite on January 18, 2014, 10:26:41 PM
I looked into the Rovio situation a little bit. Seems they don't get the freemium model. Their games are high on the download chart, but low on revenue as few consumers feel the need to buy. The article I read implied downloads are not equal to revenue in the mobile market. So highest revenue games are not necessarily the highest downloaded games.
There is certainly alot of room for growth in the mobile/tablet market which is why many companies are bullish on it. What I could find is mobile ap revenue was $26B in 2013 projected to grow to $100B by 2017.
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on January 18, 2014, 10:31:49 PM
From the rest of what I just read, it sounds more like NOA & NOE may be able to run a little more independent in the near future. Big meeting happens Jan 30th.
Link to news story in this post:
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=37892.msg821831#msg821831 (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=37892.msg821831#msg821831)
Quote from: snippets
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata admitted he had misread the markets
"The way people use their time, their lifestyles, who they are—have changed," Mr. Iwata said. "If we stay in one place, we will become outdated."
Still, Mr. Iwata noted that Nintendo's sales in Japan were better than they were in the U.S. and Europe, and said the company needed a better way of keeping in touch with trends abroad.
"In Japan, I can be my own antenna, but abroad, that doesn't work," he said.
Sounds like Iwata is gonna step down as acting director of foreign affairs (Top man at NOA & NOJ) while also trying to run Japanese HQ at home. He's trying to do too much and not placing any faith in his top men to communicate what is needed in their regions.
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 18, 2014, 10:53:03 PM
Ubisoft is a big supporter of Nintendo (which is ironic because they were one of the first publishers to drop support during the GameCube era). I guess they really are platform agnostic these days. Watch_Dogs is looking amazing, it will be a great replacement for the GTA game Nintendo fans will likely never get.
WB Games deserves a shout out as well. I'm a huge fan of the recent Batman Arkham series, so it's good to see those games on the Wii U. And of course those adorable LEGO games will be on everything under the sun.
We also can't forget about Activision. Call of Duty and Skylanders are never going away, and Activision knows those games have fans on Nintendo consoles (Skylanders especially).
As long as these companies (WB, Activision, Ubisoft) keep supporting Nintendo systems I will be fine with the lack of other third-party support. I don't care about Bethesda after paying the boring and tedious Skyrim. And frankly Rockstar is the only one I'll miss.
Post by: ThePerm on January 20, 2014, 05:22:05 AM
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 20, 2014, 10:04:00 AM
Ubisoft, WB Games, and Activision have all supported the Wii U to a variable extent. I'm positive it will always get Ass Creed and Call of Duty simply because those games are released on everything to bring in the most profit.
Post by: Ceric on January 20, 2014, 01:43:27 PM
Post by: nickmitch on January 21, 2014, 05:58:06 PM
Post by: lolmonade on January 21, 2014, 08:24:45 PM
Miserable misreading of the market by the way they forecasted their projected sales through the fiscal year.
Horrible mistakes in conveying why you as a consumer need a Wii U.
Provide services through their consoles that are antiquated compared to their competition.
They're clearly living in a Wii-Success mindset, and I don't expect any significant improvements until I see more than admissions by Iwata that there's a problem.
Post by: Halbred on January 22, 2014, 01:33:41 AM
Post by: tendoboy1984 on January 22, 2014, 10:16:16 AM
Forking over more control to NOA and NOE is a good thing, probably a great thing. I'm hoping both are given the budget to, like Ceric said, run studios based in those regions to develop the games that appeal to those players. Everybody talks about how Nintendo needs to follow certain trends and "get with the times", well here's one that's a bit forgotten: western gamers LOVE FPSes. Nintendo has no FPS franchise in the umbrella currently; Sony and MS both do. Miyamoto once said he could make Halo. Well, maybe he should or someone at Nintendo.
Miyamoto talks out of his ass a lot of the time because he has a huge ego and thinks he can do better than almost every other developer.
"You guys like Halo? Well I could make that too! I'll show you!"
Post by: Oblivion on January 22, 2014, 10:45:19 AM
Post by: smallsharkbigbite on January 22, 2014, 02:57:50 PM
Miyamoto talks out of his ass a lot of the time because he has a huge ego and thinks he can do better than almost every other developer.
"You guys like Halo? Well I could make that too! I'll show you!"
Actually Miyamoto comes off as one of the most personable people in interviews. He is probably the most influential people in video games so I would say that his games do better in the market than most almost every other developer. You are taking the Halo comment out of context. The comment was in question to other games push realistic visuals and the FPS revolution. He said he could design a game like Halo (since that was the question) but he didn't want to. He continued that he doesn't try to copy other games on the market but he pushes to find new game-play elements or controls that people will find fun in the future. Like it or not, his games are some of the highest selling games (such as Wii Sports) and we wouldn't have many of them if he spent his time copying others ideas. I would like it if Nintendo did come to market with a FPS, but I wouldn't put Miyamoto on it. I'd let him do his own projects and supplement these types of games with other developers.
Post by: Khushrenada on January 22, 2014, 05:15:24 PM
Forking over more control to NOA and NOE is a good thing, probably a great thing. I'm hoping both are given the budget to, like Ceric said, run studios based in those regions to develop the games that appeal to those players. Everybody talks about how Nintendo needs to follow certain trends and "get with the times", well here's one that's a bit forgotten: western gamers LOVE FPSes. Nintendo has no FPS franchise in the umbrella currently; Sony and MS both do. Miyamoto once said he could make Halo. Well, maybe he should or someone at Nintendo.
Miyamoto talks out of his ass a lot of the time because he has a huge ego and thinks he can do better than almost every other developer.
"You guys like Halo? Well I could make that too! I'll show you!"
Hokey doodle! I don't get you tendoboy1984. You are bemoaning the fact so many people are negative about Nintendo and the Wii U but the one thing most people are still jazzed about, games from Miyamoto, you suddenly crap all over him. The guy has been behind at least 6 of all-time greatest, influential games ever made and is actually quite humble in pretty much all interviews he has given. But because he thinks he can make a first-person shooter even though he hasn't done it before, you want to trash him and think he is not very talented.
Everyone complains about the amount of FPS games flooding the market. There are plenty of game designers making FPS games and most do not have the skill or creativity of a Miyamoto. Yet, many of those FPS games still have moderate to great success. Thus, when Miyamoto says it is something that he could make also, I think he's right considering how many other people are able to do it. And thank goodness he doesn't because, even though people may moan about the Wii U not having many, the whole market itself is glutted with them that I'd rather see him create a different kind of game. Even if it is a Wii Music at least it is an attempt at something new.
Post by: Mop it up on January 22, 2014, 06:17:11 PM
Post by: Ian Sane on January 22, 2014, 06:19:20 PM
But that doesn't mean that OTHER Nintendo teams can't fill in the genres that Nintendo fails to provide their userbase with. Not just FPS games but Western RPGs and sandbox games are absent. Surely Nintendo could create some more variety by having their other teams work in such genres. Instead they've got them largely working on the same types of games Miyamoto and the EAD team already make. That's why it drive me nuts when they have like four teams working on 2D platformers at the same time. Dammit, that genre is already well represented while entire other genres are completely absent. Put those teams on those absent genres and provide some variety! Fill in the genre gaps and effectively stop handing the competition killer apps.
The term "Halo killer" gets thrown around. You know why Nintendo has needed such a thing for over ten years? Because if you want to play a game like that you DON'T buy a Nintendo console because that type of gameplay experience is effectively exclusive to the other consoles. By refusing to fill the genre gap Nintendo allows the competition to gain an advantage on them.
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on January 22, 2014, 06:58:20 PM
I don't need EAD to shift focus from Mario and start work on Halo/Gears fusion clone.
But they could get their new US Studio A and Yurop Studio B to get to work on that right away
Post by: Ian Sane on January 22, 2014, 07:21:30 PM
Post by: nickmitch on January 22, 2014, 11:14:52 PM
The first half of that post looks like it'll get me in the Fanboy Euthanization Station (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=39357.0) over in the Funhouse section of our community forums. Check it out, if you're visiting the site for the first time. ;)
Post by: Khushrenada on January 23, 2014, 12:26:28 AM
The first half of that post looks like it'll get me in the Fanboy Euthanization Station (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=39357.0) over in the Funhouse section of our community forums. Check it out, if you're visiting the site for the first time. ;)
Ha ha ha ha. Oh man, you realize that many new users to this site who comment on these articles are often people who will say positive things about Nintendo and try and fight back against doom and gloom posts. Showing them a thread where other forum users post such positive thinking as a thing to be mocked is just about the worst example you could give to make them interested in the funhouse. You gots ta know your target audience.
Still, I like your recruitment drive attitude and it gives me an idea for something that might be more appealing. I wonder if I can follow through on it.
Post by: ShyGuy on January 23, 2014, 12:31:09 AM
