Topic: Nintendo vs Apple: FIGHT!!!

[BlackNMild2k1]

Rivals are invading its patch, but Nintendo is ready to go to war

Nintendo is preparing to unleash the full force of its development and marketing artillery against Apple after profits tumbled at the Japanese giant for the first time in six years.
 
 The reversal of fortunes, though flagged in advance by the company, throws the spotlight on threats to what once seemed a bulletproof business.
 
 Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo president, is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the “enemy of the future” .
 
 That, say analysts, may be premature. Last Christmas, almost twice as many Wii consoles were sold in the US as the PlayStation3. But games developers increasingly see Sony’s machine as having a large enough base  of users to justify not making titles for the Nintendo machine.
 
 Sony and Microsoft are also making their own forays into family-oriented gaming and the iPhone has emerged as a formidable competitor for Nintendo in the handheld gaming arena once dominated by the DS console.
 
 Sources close to the Kyoto-based company describe a mood of concern  as the hardware and software divisions race to restore the capacity to  “surprise” — a traditional feature of Nintendo games that Mr Iwata holds dear.
 
 The company’s recent strategy has centred on creating devices aimed not just at children and dedicated — generally male — gamers, but at the  whole family. Two years ago, the company claimed to have permanently altered the demographics of video games by raising the average age and  the gender mix of gamers. Unfortunately, the very people it claimed to have converted — high-school girls and men aged between 30 and 40 — reported that they would rather have an iPhone than a DS in their pockets or handbags.
 
 Although the company ended the 2009 financial year squarely in the  black, analysts described Nintendo’s profit slide as a “triple punch”.
 
 Despite selling over 10 million copies of the latest Mario title for the Wii console, the pipeline of new games has stopped delivering the sort of blockbusters that drove console sales to record levels in the first two years after its launch. Nintendo has also suffered from the financial crisis. Households around the world spent most of last year in full belt-tightening mode, and remain cautious about buying games with a relatively short playing-life.
 
 But the most striking decline was in sales of the consoles. Although both the Wii and DS have outsold their Sony and Microsoft counterparts, the lower technology of the Nintendo machines is starting to show. With far less processing power than either the PlayStation3 or Xbox 360, the Wii is suffering. Its sales were 21 per cent down in the year to March 31. Net profits at Nintendo, meanwhile, fell to Y228.64 billion (£1.6  billion) from Y279.09 billion.

This only leads me to point back at the N ES OS topic in The Rumor Thread.
Maybe there is more to it than we think.

Apple is butting heads with Google and is in an outright flame war with Adobe over Flash.
Nintendo is partnered on the ES OS with Google, working on a game with Google (search game show thing) and Adobe is a middle ware partner of Nintendo.

Could things be about to get real serious? and by serious I mean really really interesting?

and why do the analyst hate Nintendo so much?

[MegaByte]

ES OS is nothing more than an experiment -- they failed to even get Google Summer of Code support this year.  Concepts from it might be going into ChromeOS, but as of now, there's zero indication that Nintendo is involved anymore.

[BlackNMild2k1]

maybe, but if Nintendo is serious about taking on Apple head-on, then what better ally than Google?

[Caterkiller]

I like how even the positive is negative for Nintendo. "Sure the Wii outsold everything else, but it didn't do it by as much as years past."

[BlackNMild2k1]

I wouldn't be surprised if this story and this story[Nintendo may charge for online?] are related too.

I;m sure Nintendo is gonna take a very aggressive approach in the next round of hardware when it comes to features and capability. One of the most lacking besides graphical "Oomph" being online connectivity.

If Nintendo had taken online serious at the release of the DSi, they could have already been ahead of the pack with using a forward facing camera for DSiChat using video and pictochat together. that alone could've been a major selling point.

The next Nintendo handheld could use Skype and GoogleVoice and Talk, Twitter, facebook, myspace apps & integrated Chrome Browser.

If Nintendo is really gonna stand toe to toe against Apple and the iBrand, then they have to go all out and sell at a small profit. We already know that iphone has a new version every year, so Nintendo needs to be forward thinking enough to have  hardware that can compete against it for at least 3-4 years before a revision that allows for more features.

[KDR_11k]

Honestly I kinda doubt it, by the looks of it the iStuff is eating into the PSP market, not the DS market. Apple serves the tech demands but their game support is very weak, the thousands of apps they have are almost all garbage and the rest is minigames. The pricing on the apps is unsustainable for the developers where 2$ is already considered expensive (supposedly most devs make a loss on the 1$ games or have to go for tricks like "freemium") meaning quality can't go up as investments are suicide. People who talk about the iPad fighting the DS make absolutely no sense, the DS is a portable, the iPad isn't really. That remains the domain of the iPhone/iPod.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Nintendo spent $496 million in R&D for the 09-10 fiscal year.  Nintendo projects $545 million for 10-11.

Aside from that, Nintendo PROFITED $2.497 billion in 09-10.

Big things are happening.

[Morari]

If what Nintendo wants is to compete with Apple, then they don't need to make a better product, they just need to market it better. The Wii is already shiny and white, already has a stupid name, and already has limited functionality in comparison to its rivals... See, it's just like an Apple product!

[Chozo Ghost]

and why do the analyst hate Nintendo so much?

Because Nintendo didn't bribe them.

[Shaymin]

Because they all picked the PS3 to win this generation and are butthurt that the Wii came out of nowhere.

[UltimatePartyBear]

But the most striking decline was in sales of the consoles. Although both the Wii and DS have outsold their Sony and Microsoft counterparts, the lower technology of the Nintendo machines is starting to show. With far less processing power than either the PlayStation3 or Xbox 360, the Wii is suffering. Its sales were 21 per cent down in the year to March 31. Net profits at Nintendo, meanwhile, fell to Y228.64 billion (£1.6  billion) from Y279.09 billion.

This is ridiculous.  Where is the link from lower technology to declining sales?  Correlation does not imply causation.  You have to make an effort to demonstrate your reasoning, or at least you would if you had actually done any reasoning, Mr. TrollsOnline.co.uk.

[ThePerm]

[Galford]

    The iPad/iPhone will never be a real threat to Nintendo until Apple puts a decent control pad and gaming related button layout on it.  Publishers are interested in the iWhatever because they can poop a game out real cheap and make some quick profit on it. 
 
     However, App Store has a lot of issues, namely piracy, Apple's submission process, and the recent changed made to the developer license are alienating some developers.

[BlackNMild2k1]

    The iPad/iPhone will never be a real threat to Nintendo until Apple puts a decent control pad and gaming related button layout on it.

Already taken care of

[Ian Sane]

This was brought up in the Penny Arcade forum and someone made a really good point that I feel needs to be made here.

If Nintendo competes too directly with Apple they may end up making a product too similar to the iPhone and consumers will end up picking one or the other.  Right now you have your iPhone as your phone and MP3 player.  The iPhone kind of sucks at videogames and the DS is a specialized videogame machine so while carrying both around with you is a bit of a burden it seems worthwhile.  You have your phone/MP3 player and you have your portable videogame system.  The two devices are different enough that you feel the need to own both.

If Nintendo was to truly compete with the iPhone, well, they would need to add all sorts of extra doodads like MP3 capability, internet browsing and maybe even make it a phone as well.  That's more functionality for the DS but now we have redundency.  It's really unnecessary to carry two phones or two MP3 players around.  If both Apple and Nintendo offer all-in-one devices, I'm only going to pick one.  I think Nintendo would lose the casual market to the iPhone as the fact that Apple is not quite as good at games as Nintendo won't matter as much and Apple is a trendier brand (and likely would do the other features better than Nintendo anyway).

Now Apple might make the iPhone a better videogame system and force Nintendo into adapting.  But right now the iPhone is really seen as a **** game system and the specialized DS is so hugely superior that having a seperate device for games is acceptable.  Nintendo should be ready with a plan but should let Apple make the first move.  Having them as seperate complimenting products is more beneficial to Nintendo than having two all-in-ones fighting it out.

[BlackNMild2k1]

The DS/i can already play music and surf the internet.

I'm not hoping that Nintendo adds phone and all the bells and whistles, I'm just hoping that they let developers use the tech that is in the system to do what it is capable of doing.

The DS/i/3DS has wifi, then let it surf the net.
it has speakers and a mic, bluetooth, let it use skype if someone wants to make an app for it
it has cameras (3D cameras!?) then let it do video and voice chat or take video and pics

don;t purposely cripple the machine so that it only has enough power to run the game they are currently envisioning. Leave a little breathing room for some extra things that can be added later.

It doesn't have to purposely attack the iPhone feature for feature, but also don't purposely cripple the machine so that there is no overlap. Just let the machines evolve into what they evolve into and if you already put the tech in the machine then let us use it. (and structure the system to let them be used efficiently together all at once)

[ThePerm]

if 3DS had skype...

[Stogi]

Why does it have to be a fight?

Nintendo and Apple, both huge companies from both sides of the globe, could end up partnering for all we know. They both have areas of expertise that complement each other. And if they we're to fight for each others share, it would be detrimental to both of them.

[Adrock]

Nintendo just needs to make the most competent gaming device they can make. This includes having enough RAM to handle voice chat when playing online multiplayer games on top of a useful online system, among other things.

Apple is a competitor to Nintendo only in that both devices play games, but they play such different games that to even compare the two is kind of unfair. This isn't like Nintendo saying they aren't competing with Sony or Microsoft. Most games on the App Store are more like demos or mini-games and not even mini-game collections, just like one mini-game. That works for Apple, especially since they aren't selling a gaming device. They're selling a smartphone that can play simple games. I'm not an iPhone/Apple hater or anything (I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro); I just don't see this as a fair comparison. Until Apple adds a physical keyboard to the iPhone, I'll stick to my Blackberry. Until Apple adds some physical buttons capable of playing serious games,  I'm not taking it seriously as a gaming device. It does a lot of things well; gaming just isn't one of them.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Why does it have to be a fight?

Nintendo and Apple, both huge companies from both sides of the globe, could end up partnering for all we know. They both have areas of expertise that complement each other. And if they we're to fight for each others share, it would be detrimental to both of them.

Because whenever we want Nintendo to do something, not only do they not do it, they don't even do the opposite of it, they instead do something we didn't expect at all.

We originally all thought "hey, Nintendo and Apple should team up!! that would be awesome!!", but they didn't do it. They didn't even do the opposite of that, Fight apple to the death, but instead they just stole a page out of Apple's design book and continued pretending that Apple didn't exist.

Now I'm saying Fight Apple!, but they likely won't. But I'm pretty sure they won't do the opposite and join forces either. I'm expecting them to do something slightly unexpected and carry on business as usual. (Join forces with Google instead? release a 3DS phone? who knows, but you won't see it coming whatever it is.)

[Galford]

I'm aware of the what's you posted in the that video BlackNMild. 
As Adock said, the iPhone will never be a serious game machine until gets the hardware for a real d-pad.
 

[Ian Sane]

Because whenever we want Nintendo to do something, not only do they not do it, they don't even do the opposite of it, they instead do something we didn't expect at all.

And then whatever they do is either an amazing success that works like a dream or a colossal failure that is so obvious in its stupidity that everyone questions if Nintendo execs can even dress themselves.  If Nintendo were a sports team, every year they would either win the championship or finish dead last.  Every draft pick would be an All-Star or a complete bust.
 
In an attempt to think like Nintendo I figure the 3DS will include a phone but it won't use any existing phone infostructure and will instead be some sort of proprietary Nintendo developed communications technology that more or less works the same as a phone but you can only call people with other 3DS's.  But then I just thought of this so obviously it can't be that.
 
I agree with the idea of making the 3DS hardware flexible and letting things just develop on their own.  Nintendo should do that with all hardware they make.  They are too rigid.

[Stogi]

just like apple...

[NWR_insanolord]

I've said this before; Nintendo and Apple are too much alike to ever partner on something.

Also, the people bashing the iPhone as a gaming device need to actually play what's there or shut up. There is a lot of really good stuff there; it can be really hard to find among all the crap, but it's there. Complaining about the lack of a d-pad and buttons is only a valid complaint for games that rely on that style of control. It's like the Wii: when you design the game around the controls that are there you can get great results.

[BlackNMild2k1]

^If it wasn't being seen as a viable threat in the gaming arena, Iwata wouldn't have labeled it Public Enemy #1