Topic: Nintendo Will Make 'Bold' Online Move 'When the Time Is Ripe'

[Chozo Ghost]

Chozo that kind of attitude is why you are not running Nintendo.

Are you responding to something I said?

[motang]

Hey Nintendo, I hate to say this but the time was ripe back in 2007!

[smallsharkbigbite]

If Nintendo was looking at the big picture they would look less at the five people in America who won't buy the Wii U because they're not online and more at the potential millions of people who are online and would potentially be turned off by an archaic out-of-date online implementation.  They can't have BOTH customers.  They have to pick one and these days the majority are online.  Fussing over the small minority that is not is ridiculous.

They can have it both ways.  Make games with good single player and local multiplayer games with the ability to play online and purchase additional content online.  This is how the other players do it.  I guess I'm just on the other side because I do live in a rural area.  The fastest internet I can get is 750k.  When I have to update GT5 on my PS3 I literally have to leave my PS3 on all night and then play the next day.  I would count in the online features because I use my Wii/PS3 online extensively.  But if too much online or online only games were required, I probably wouldn't buy that system because I don't see it as a fun experience. 

As a note, I live about 15 min from a city of >250,000 so I'm sure there are much more than a small minority that have sucky internet. 

Reactionary has ended up in profits every single time, unlike other companies.

But truly, Nintendo will never be like how you want them. The SNES generation is gone for good. Accept that.

Except this last year, when they lost about $845 million. 

The PS2 was very close(probably exceeded) to the SNES in terms of market dominance and getting the best multi-plat games.  The Wii seems like it should have been the natural successor, but Nintendo didn't capitalize on the hardware market penetration. 

[Chocobo_Rider]

@Neal

I agree with nearly all you just said.

@broodwars

Then I think his sentence needed some restructuring.  It sounded like "due to their superior online, the PS3/60 were more successful than the Wii."  Where as your meaning is quite simply that the PS3/60 had superior online and thus its online endeavors were more successful.  Which, I would agree with.  Though, they probably couldn't prove it either, right? 

[NWR_Neal]

NinSage - We should rejoice. This literally might be the only time we ever talk and not argue.

[Ian Sane]

Looking at Nintendo objectively, Iwata's comments aren't surprising in the least. Actually, they are right in line with their thinking. Until a majority of their consumers use it, they will not support. Plain and simple.

I think we're there already.  This is the age of smartphones and iPads.  The majority already can use it.  It makes no sense to be conservative about this.  Nintendo's typical conservative attitude would also work a lot better if they were not in an industry where products are tied to five year lifecycles.  Apple for example can release a conservative iPod and then release a new one with new features two years later.  Nintendo can't do that.  A console has to be somewhat future proof.
 
Look at their "no HD" idea with the Wii.  Does that make ANY sense today?  I am literally the ONLY PERSON I KNOW who does not have an HDTV.  Having a videogame system that does not support HD resolutions just looks ridiculously archaic today.  It wasn't so much back in 2006 BUT it was clear that within less than five years HD was going to become very widespread.  If the Wii was only to last until 2008 or so not supporting HD would have been fine.  But it was supposed to last for at least five years and by then it was going to be archaic.  Nintendo has to plan within five year cycles.  I don't think the issues about internet access that they are concerned about now are going to be relevant at all even two years from now.  Any console maker has to make educated guesses on where technology is going within the next five years and that means sometimes having to bite the bullet on something is not quite ready yet.  Though at this point I strongly disagree with Nintendo's concern as I think the time was right years ago.

[ThePerm]

Rare most definitely jumped ship, The stamper bros sold their share of the company before Nintendo did making 100s of millions of dollars. Nintendo had the minority stake in the company, they didn't want to have any stake in a company that was not going to do what they wanted so they divested their part of the company for 200+million. Its just spin that Rare was doing terrible and had to be dropped. There were rumors for months on whether or not they were leaving Nintendo or not. Rare is a shell of itself now, but there is only like a handful original people if any still with the company. Not even the Stampers are there. They are rich and retired(from Rare at least).

Silicon Knights is always in need of a pimpdaddy publisher, the only reason for leaving Nintendo according to them was artistic difference, which because Wii was underpowered and weird seems to be the reason given they were aware of it before it was announced. Had Wii been powerful, what reason would there to put Too Human on any other system or for that matter to turn an exclusive gamecube game into an exclusive xbox 360 game?

[NWR_insanolord]

The Stampers did offer Nintendo the opportunity to buy their shares of the company, which Nintendo declined, most likely because Rare wasn't that good anymore. At that point, the Stampers sold to someone else. The Stampers jumped ship, and when they bailed Nintendo didn't care enough to keep the shell of the company around.

[Ian Sane]

Why was Rare considered no good when the Stampers offered Nintendo the opportunity to buy the shares?  When was this?  DK64 is iffy but in general I don't think they made an outright bad N64 game and Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day, two of their greatest titles, were released close to the end of their Nintendo relationship.  They then released one disappointing Cube game (which isn't even THAT bad; it's at least competent), which may very well have been Nintendo's fault for shoehorning Star Fox into it.

At what point prior to the Stampers selling did Rare "suck"?

[BlackNMild2k1]

Did you forget about the over extended development times, the fact that major talent had and was leaving the company and even the owners were trying to get out?

What was Nintendo supposed to hold onto exactly?

[TJ Spyke]

The owners were not trying to get out, they just wanted the company to be wholly owned. If the Stampers wanted to just get out, why did they not leave Rare until 4 years after Microsoft bought the company?

[BlackNMild2k1]

If my memory serves me correctly, they had already backed off of most duties they had at the company's peak and probably stuck around to collect paychecks out of MS' pocket while they tried to figure out their next move.

They had talented people leaving and I think one of the Stampers took a leave of absence for a while too (but I could be wrong about that). The company was past it's glory days and both the Stampers and Nintendo saw the writing on the wall. Thankfully (for Nintnendo, The Stampers & Rare), MS didn't.

[Chozo Ghost]

Nintendo's position with online "not being ready for the mainstream" seems to be at odds with other things they've done over the years. For example, was the mainstream ready for the introduction of the D-pad? Was the mainstream ready for the analog stick? Was the mainstream ready for motion gaming and so on? Nintendo didn't hold off on introducing any of those other things for fear the market wasn't ready for it, they just did it and it was successful. So this paranoia over online which has been successfully adopted by the competition for many years makes no sense.

Well, the only way it makes sense is if you figure Nintendo knows this but they are just trying to appease investors by lying to them with this bullshit excuse for why they haven't done something they should have done a long time ago. When you are supposed to do something, and you are lazy or whatever and don't end up doing it and then later on you get caught redhanded and are forced to explain yourself what do you do? You do what Nintendo is doing now and make up an excuse for why you didn't do it. That way you can shift the blame and you don't look as bad.

[Plugabugz]

Nintendo will make a "bold" online move, but in relation to who? To XBL/PSN or to themselves?

Given their history of "softly softly" with online the past 8 years i expect it to be bold for them which at the very most mean expect nothing thats at least accepted practice already.

[LittleIrves]

Everyone having this conversation in this forum is tech-savvy. But this group constitutes a small percentage of Nintendo's hoped-for customers. It's easy to think a company should care only about whatever group you belong to and have them make decisions accordingly. But they are fishing in a much bigger pond, and we are but tiny minnows. Embrace it. Accept it. Enjoy the magic they offer, and get your tech fix elsewhere.

[marty]

Everyone having this conversation in this forum is tech-savvy. But this group constitutes a small percentage of Nintendo's hoped-for customers. It's easy to think a company should care only about whatever group you belong to and have them make decisions accordingly. But they are fishing in a much bigger pond, and we are but tiny minnows. Embrace it. Accept it. Enjoy the magic they offer, and get your tech fix elsewhere.

Memory might not serve me correctly but I think Nintendo stated 3 or 4 years ago that the vast majority (+70%) of Wii's sold had gone online.  To say that Nintendo is keeping pace with the ability of their customers, or the potential consumer base, seems very, very wrong in 2012.

[Ian Sane]

Nintendo's position with online "not being ready for the mainstream" seems to be at odds with other things they've done over the years. For example, was the mainstream ready for the introduction of the D-pad? Was the mainstream ready for the analog stick? Was the mainstream ready for motion gaming and so on? Nintendo didn't hold off on introducing any of those other things for fear the market wasn't ready for it, they just did it and it was successful. So this paranoia over online which has been successfully adopted by the competition for many years makes no sense.

The key is that this has been successfully adopted by the competition.  With those other examples Nintendo led the way and it was their idea.  But with online they were dragged kicking and screaming into it.  They did NOT want to do it on the Gamecube back when everyone else was and have been playing catch-up ever since.  Nintendo almost always screws up stuff that they themselves didn't come up with.  I don't know if it some weird pride thing where to do someone else's idea well would suggest that someone else can have a good idea or what.

If the market is ready for "bold" online then it suggets that Nintendo were wrong about holding off online on the Gamecube and screwing around with friend codes and having too small of storage on the Wii.  No good.

[Plugabugz]

Nintendo's position with online "not being ready for the mainstream" seems to be at odds with other things they've done over the years. For example, was the mainstream ready for the introduction of the D-pad? Was the mainstream ready for the analog stick? Was the mainstream ready for motion gaming and so on? Nintendo didn't hold off on introducing any of those other things for fear the market wasn't ready for it, they just did it and it was successful. So this paranoia over online which has been successfully adopted by the competition for many years makes no sense.

The key is that this has been successfully adopted by the competition.  With those other examples Nintendo led the way and it was their idea.  But with online they were dragged kicking and screaming into it.  They did NOT want to do it on the Gamecube back when everyone else was and have been playing catch-up ever since.  Nintendo almost always screws up stuff that they themselves didn't come up with.  I don't know if it some weird pride thing where to do someone else's idea well would suggest that someone else can have a good idea or what.

If the market is ready for "bold" online then it suggets that Nintendo were wrong about holding off online on the Gamecube and screwing around with friend codes and having too small of storage on the Wii.  No good.

Having "too small" storage wasn't the problem really. If the Wi launched with SDHC card and USB hard drive support (and Wii's file system being able to recognise either of those are the primary location for all data) then all the "cleaning the fridge" related nonsense wouldn't have happened.

It was basically set setting limits and restrictions to things that they deem reasonable but weren't actually in reality because its an already established market.

[ThePerm]

didn't Nintendo launch a satellite into space a few years back?

[Stogi]

No that was me, Peter Perminski of 478 S. Minister drive, Tucson, Arizona.

[ThePerm]

found this extremely old news article

http://news.cnet.com/MS,-Nintendo-launch-Net-satellites/2100-1023_3-215825.html

conspiracy!

[nickmitch]

Conspiracy indeed.