President Satoru Iwata continued to address Nintendo investors’ fears in an investor question and answer session on Monday after reporting the company’s first-ever fiscal year loss at the end of April. In addition to announcing new digital download initiatives for both the Nintendo 3DS and the upcoming Wii U, Iwata said Nintendo is refocusing its development on gaming enthusiasts rather than casual and family players. It was a bad move to abandon the core according to Iwata.
“The Wii was able to reach a large number of new consumers who had never played games before by bringing hands-on experiences with its Wii Sports and Wii Fit. However, we could not adequately create the situation that such new consumers played games frequently or for long, consistent periods. As a result we could not sustain a good level of profit,” said Iwata.
“Moreover, regrettably, what we prioritized in order to reach out to the new audience was a bit too far from what we prioritized for those who play games as their hobby. Consequently, we presume some people felt that the Wii was not a game system for them or they were not willing to play with the Wii even though some compelling games had been released.”
Nintendo’s underwhelming announcement of the Wii U at E3 2011 was a less explicit admission of the same mistake. The naming of the new console according to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime was supposed to reconcile the casual and core audiences of Nintendo’s games, a console for “me and you.” Hence the hybrid of traditional control inputs and something simpler like a touch screen.
Iwata’s comments to investors though betray the fact that he and the rest of Nintendo’s corporate leaders in Japan misunderstand the chief failing of the Wii: The machine needed more games, more frequently. The casual audience lured by titles like Wii Fit in 2008 and earlier during the height of the Wii’s success are the same players that went on to pour money into free-to-play social games like FarmVille and mobile titles like Angry Birds in the years that followed. They are more than willing to play games for “long, consistent periods” as long as they’re given a reason to. Nintendo failed this audience by not giving them a wider selection of titles at lower costs.
Nintendo failed its core audience in a similar way. There simply weren’t enough games to maintain a healthy community of users. Releasing the Wii with limited technical capabilities wasn’t a mistake, but releasing it with no ability whatsoever to support high-definition television screens was nothing short of insane. It automatically alienated hobbyists and encouraged them to seek other solutions like the Dolphin Wii emulator. That’s not to mention the system’s asinine online gaming structure.
While the Wii U could be a hit for Nintendo, it’s concerning to see that its leadership still doesn’t understand the failures of past business decisions.
This company will closing down in next 3 years. Sorry guys
come on nintendo.
Nintendo is dead, sorry but it’s true all you Nintendo fans…
It was just about time
I still wont buy a Wii-U, because I don’t think Nintendo knows what it’s doing anymore.
They most likely don’t “understand the failures of past business decisions”, because of the Japanese culture. Failures are not reported, in an effort to save face, and please management. I would venture to guess that the leadership of Nintendo doesn’t even have all of the information needed to make a decision.
The Japenese focus on makeing games for themselfs, instead of the rest of the world, Nintendo knows what it is doing to an extent of a level, expecially with the 3DS, but the wii U is just irrational, I see where you are going with this.
It wasn’t a general lack of games, it is that Nintendo seemingly ran out of ideas. Wii Sports and Wii Fit were amazing as were a lot of titles in the early years of the Wii, but then Wii Music failed and the company seemed to retreat into releasing side scrolling re-makes of games like Donkey Kong Country, Kirby, and Super Mario Bros. They went retro. These are great games, but not games that get people to buy systems or get people excited like Wii Fit. I see this as the only real reason the Wii has been on a downward trend. Sadly, it’s not common to the Wii. Nintendo has always had a tough time supporting a console toward the end of its 5-year lifecycle and diverted a lot of resources toward the 3DS.
True, but the thing that Nintendo lived and died on twenty years ago was the licensing fees that came from third party games on the NES, Game Boy and SNES. The lack of third party support on N64, Gamecube, and Wii meant the disappearance of those lucrative fees and Nintendo swore prior to the Wii’s release that it recognized that the burden to provide a large swath of content for Wii rested with them. All those titles, from NSMBWii to DKCR sold very well for the company, and continue to by all accounts, but they simply aren’t enough to carry the profitability of the platform all on their own.
From a creative standpoint, I completely agree. The lack of innovation from Nintendo’s internal studios is startling. But it’s not just innovation. The company has continued to farm more and more first party development out to other studios. Luigi’s Mansion 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, even partial jobs like Mario Kart 7, all produced by teams outside of Nintendo’s offices. What the hell happened to the company that used to put out ten or twelve of their own titles for a home console each year?
You’re very right. Nintendo was not able to convince third parties to invest in and innovate on the Wii enough. It had a lot of third party games, but most were crapware or re-boxed casual games.
Nintendo has been working more with third parties, but it really has succeeded (and in GameCube’s case, stayed alive) in the last three console generations based on its own games. During the last few years of the Wii, these games have failed it as well and everyone all around has been losing interest. I feel like Nintendo woo-d a number of casual players with Wii Sports and Wii Fit and things of that nature, but then failed to follow up and hold them or rekindle their interest. The same thing happened as Nintendo tried to double back and support its core fans as well. It wasn’t able to expand enough and be consistent enough for either audience.
I like the idea of Nintendo teaching other studios how to make its games, but only if it follows up by concentrating on awesome new things. I haven’t seen this happening. But yeah, it seems that Nintendo’s core problems are still here and haven’t changed a whole lot. It continues to be the only publisher that matters on its hardware, for better and worse.