<![CDATA[Email: Nintendo’s backup plan]]>Greeting Master Malstrom.
I was recently thinking, given the current state of the game industry… could Nintendo have made a “backup plan” in case the 3DS and Wii U were not successes?
I think they could’ve. Nintendo’s strength has always been in portables, and since the 3DS isn’t meeting expectations (though better games are coming for it, including new Pokemon games), they probably aren’t very happy about that.
Could their backup plan be the Game Boy line? A simple, single-screen Game Boy console with good graphics, but 2D games that is cheap and easy to pick up and play… could they have that saved in case of an emergency? It would certainly create buzz on the name alone.
Anyway, just throwing it out there before E3… just in case.
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No new hardware is coming from Nintendo. You’ll have to wait until Generation 9 for that.I think Nintendo realized early on something was very wrong with the 3DS and Wii U the first month of sales. With the 3DS, we saw Nintendo become very aggressive with price drops and with games. Nintendo cannot afford to lose their handheld gaming market.The Wii U is another situation. I think Nintendo is willing to let it go ‘Gamecube’ and just ride out the generation by focusing on the 3DS. Nintendo can survive with the Gamecube, they can’t survive without a strong handheld. I expect Nintendo will just make the Wii U into a ‘fan service console’ while they work on the 9th Generation console strategy (which I suspect will follow the strategy of the NES/Wii instead of the N64/Gamecube/Wii U).I laugh when someone from the Game Industry says that ‘Wii U doesn’t have the install base to survive.’ EVERYONE is underestimating how bad the economic environment is. Let us say the Xbone comes out and doesn’t sell too well.
“See? See? That is because of Xbone’s stupid policies.”
I strongly think that the change in economic environment has altered people’s perceptions… including the hardcore gamer. No one can afford only paying $60 (or more!) for new games. Well, the typical hardcore gamer cannot afford that. Most people are poorer today than they were in 2008.
If the economic environment was the same pre-2008, the hardcore would love to Xbone. Within time of expected price cuts and build up of the ‘dude-bro’ games the hardcore loves, they still will likely jump on the Xbone.
If we had today’s economic environment, how would the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 be received? How would the Red Ring of Death be received?
The Game Industry thinks the same macro-economic conditions exist today as they always have. The current decline is just the ‘Next Gen cycle’ they think. “You can’t point to those Nintendo consoles, Malstrom, because they are Nintendo.” What about Vita? “No, it is because that is Vita.” Generation 8 will be fun to watch the Game Industry get smashed on their macro-economic assumptions alone.