With less than a month to go before Nintendo unleashes the Wii U on a public with a contentious relationship with video game consoles, Nintendo had less than spectacular news for its shareholders. Despite promising momentum for the Nintendo 3DS consoles at the end of the June quarter, Nintendo’s performance from July to September was poor enough that it had to lower its projected earnings for the full fiscal year. Where Nintendo was previously expecting to bring in 20 bill yen in profits (just below $251 million), it’s now only expecting profits of 6 billion yen (just above $75 million.)
It isn’t all bad news. That Nintendo is expecting a return to profitability at the end of the fiscal year after reporting its first ever annual loss back in April should help its weary shareholders and employees feel more secure in the future of the company. There is more bad than good in these numbers though, especially since they come at the end of a quarter when Nintendo released a brand new entry in core series like New Super Mario Bros. and Pokémon. The system those games are meant to sell, the Nintendo 3DS, just isn’t selling in the numbers Nintendo needs it to.
Overall, Nintendo 3DS sales were up over the same period last year. From July to September, Nintendo sold more than 5 million 3DS systems, up from just over 3 million during the same period in 2011, bringing the console’s lifetime sales after 18 months to just over 22 million consoles. That places it roughly on par with where the Nintendo DS was sales wise at the same point in its lifecycle. In a period when Nintendo released not just New Super Mario Bros. 2, a sequel to one of the Nintendo’s bestselling games ever, but a new model with the Nintendo 3DS XL, Nintendo should have seen more growth for its handheld device. September Nintendo 3DS sales were down 18 percent in the US. Bad news.
Losses are narrowing, though, meaning that expected profit, no matter how slight, should still happen. Nintendo lost 28 billion yen (nearly $351 million) over the quarter compared to above 70 billion yen (nearly $881 million) during the same period last year. That means that Wii U production and Nintendo 3DS costs aren’t hitting the company as hard as they could, freeing up more capital for game development.
This is a transition period for Nintendo, not just from one console to another, but to new business types. This quarter also saw Nintendo embrace digital distribution for what would have been retail exclusive software. The fruit of that labor won’t ripen until 2013, but all the software sales in the world won’t help Nintendo if people don’t buy its machines in greater numbers.
I’m afraid Nintendo is eventually going to have to change it’s business model; drastically. I really think the hardware aspect of the business is a huge burden upon the company, especially now where a Nintendo handheld is facing increasing mobile competition. I know it would be a tremendous shame, but if even if they just licensed old NES, SNES or even N64 games out to iOS, Android and even Windows platforms, they would make tons of cash. Maybe extra money that can help pay the bills while they spent more time in R&D.
What if Nintendo released a phone? A real gaming phone, putting gaming first, and phone second.
Part of the problem with porting over NES games and other system games to iOS and other formats is that those platforms were not built with games in mind. I’m not confident anyone could do justice to any classic game with the current breed of smart phones.
Touch screens just don’t cut it when playing a game designed for a gamepad. It’s bad enough trying to play a game with an analog stick when it was intended for a digital d-pad.
You do realize that iOS/Android compatible controllers exist that closely emulate standard console gaming controllers, right? To wit: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e762/ (though in fairness that’s one of the more complex iOS controllers).
The only stumbling block between classic Nintendo games coming to iOS/Android is Nintendo’s unwillingness to embrace what it considers “unproven” technology. Though there is obviously huge profit potential, Nintendo is unwilling to bring its games to phones properly (though emulation on either operating system is incredibly easy and generally better supported than official retro releases) but at the same time it seems unwilling to create and sustain a publicly-available digital back catalogue. Thus Nintendo’s huge cache of excellent older games mostly just sits in limbo, rotting.
Or they sit in the downloads on the Wii, DSi, 3DS, and Wii U, certainly not places I consider them rotting. On the other hand, there still are a few of great games I’m still waiting for Nintendo to rerelease. Besides if what you think is true, why do we see so few old NES era games from other developers being ported over to iOS/Android?
Nintendo only controls a small fraction of the classic games that could be ported over. I’ve played Mega Man 2 on iOS, it was AWFUL! Really is a pity to see such a great classic game ruined by porting to an inferior control type. I still love the Mega Man series, and it plays great when it on a gaming console, not so great when it’s on a device that looks at gaming as an after thought.
While the concept of external controllers could make games playable rather than an ungodly mess, they are not universal. Typically the games needs to be preprogramed for compatibility with each and every type of controller in mind. On top of that, of the millions of those devices sold, only a fraction of their users have said external controls. Oh, and lets not forget that not many of those controllers are capable of SNES or N64 control.
Finally, did I mention lag? If I didn’t let me now. Many of the complaints coming from these controllers is the lag between when you press a button and when the game registers it. Without integrated controls, the potential for lag is increased greatly.
I think I’ve pointed out more than a few other stumbling blocks as to why Nintendo ports on your cell phone is as likely as the next iPhone coming with a copy of Windows 8 installed on it.
Okay, so we aren’t just talking about Nintendo games then? By mentioning Mega Man 2 it seems that we are now talking about any series that appeared on the NES or SNES (and I guess N64).
Yes, in that case the lack of useful buttons on modern touchscreen-based cellphones is the key hurdle to these older games being re-released. Or, more accurately, it’s the hurdle preventing these (depressingly numerous) re-releases from being enjoyable.
I am only pointing out that Nintendo’s lack of iOS/Android support is natural given the medium and the stumbling blocks above.
Until other publishers prove these classic games can be transfered to phones successfully, it’s unlikely that Nintendo would bother wasting the time and effort to produce an inferior port which would do more harm to these games than not releasing them at all.
Perhaps some of the light gun games could work well though. Duck Hunt, Hogan’s Alley, and any other number of these light gun games could be transfered over without too much of a handicap. Granted, that would make these games easy compared to the originals. But seeing as how I remember playing these games with the gun held up to the screen, I would still enjoy them.
You’re certainly not wrong, but that ignores the real reason why Nintendo won’t ever release its games on iOS or Android: The company refuses to make games for any system over which it lacks complete and utter control.
Notice how Nintendo has been so reticent to embrace online functionality in its systems? And how when it does, it builds wildly unintuitive systems like the Friend Code scheme that attempt to sanitize the experience? That’s another result of Nintendo’s fetish for control.
While I agree that Nintendo won’t start releasing their games on platforms they didn’t create, I don’t think it’s as much a matter of control as it is knowing one of the primary reasons why their systems sell. Without Nintendo exclusive games, what incentive to most people have to buy their systems? 3rd party support has been lacking since the SNES days. A further point though, is that Nintendo tends to push the limits of the hardware they build on, and that type of development is only successfully achieved by being intimately knowledgable of the hardware.
I don’t see how Nintendo is hiding or failing to communicate online functionality in their systems. While they have been tight lipped on the subject as it relates to the specifics of the Wii U, that is still about a month away and those details will become much more clear as it’s actually released. While friend codes were a pain, they aren’t unintuitive. Put in the number, now you can connect. The lack of integration with online multiplayer games made it extra redundant though, at least a few games (Monster Hunter and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom) had some easy work arounds.
An unintuitive system would require validating each request by means of a random external code supplied by Nintendo which expired after a few hours and then had to be rekeyed.
Final point, yeah, Nintendo controls what can you do with their online system, so does Apple. While there are some who may have issue with being held to the bare minimum of human decency and decry any form of moderation as a personal attack on their liberties and free speech, I would rather have an outside body control it to a certain degree so I’m not bombarded by hate/vulgarity filled spam. If you want free expression, go write a book or paint a mural. I play games for fun, and being sworn at by internet trolls is not my idea of fun.
Yeah, I totally agree that it’s also a matter of Nintendo wanting to maintain exclusivity to its games for their systems. Especially since its systems are objectively technically inferior to the competition, and it relies on its brilliant game design (and large, built-in fanbase) to generate the majority of its profits.
Likewise, you’re totally correct on it being far easier for them to push hardware they develop themselves.
I think that the best word for what Nintendo does to its online services would be “sanitation. It’s determined to create a walled garden within the boundless expanse of the Internet where everyone is forced to play nice and nothing controversial ever happens. Its solution in this case was the friend code system — and based on everything I was shown at E3 the Wii U has a different system that has very similar effects — which is totally uninitive given that it’s on the Internet, which again is boundless and vast and free of rules.
I think that thing you mentioned about the trolls is the crux of our disagreement. Personally, I prefer the trolls over being subjected to Nintendo’s ineffectual attempts to keep me from being cussed at by some dumb kid.
Inferior only in terms of shear power. Nintendo has never tried to build their systems to take on high powered gaming PCs because it’s an impossible task with the 5 year life cycle of gaming systems.
Sony and Microsoft have only recently tried to make systems that temporarily could, and it’s apparent that those systems as well can not keep up with a high powered PC. This proved not be an expensive endever, thus why they are stretching out the lifespan of those systems. Never before has the leading system in a generation been the first to be replaced. The NES was inferior to the Master system, but the Master system was replaced by the Genesis in an attempt to regain market share.
I think we are lucky that Nintendo is finally getting the ball rolling on the 8th generation of consoles. If Nintendo were to drop out of consoles, I think Microsoft and Sony would be content to let the current generation linger on for another 4 or 5 years. They are just recently making a profit on consoles, and are finally making some headway into the lead that the Wii has built up.
Besides, neither of those two are purely gaming companies. They will continue to produce the same things that have been tested and true with more power behind them. If you want innovation in console design and interaction, you have to look to Nintendo.
Sorry, forgot to proofread.
2nd sentence of the 2nd paragraph is supposed to be “This proved to be an expensive endeavor, thus why they are stretching the lifespan of those systems.”