Topic: Which is a better strategy for Nintendo. Do everything differently, or try to do what everyone else is doing?

We see in a lot of interviews with Nintendo execs that Nintendo doesn't like to do something if they can't do it uniquely. What do you think of this approach.

If you ask me, I think it's for the best. Trying to copy the competition doesn't usually end well in several industries. Consider Blockbuster. Instead of trying with a new original means of renting movies, they tried to just emulate Netflix and Redbox. And look where that got them.

Instead, it's best to take a unique approach, and offer something the competition can't provide or isn't already recognized for.

From a business standpoint, it has to be a combination. Nintendo is great at innovating, but is terrible at thinking about what the public wants. I guess it's in an effort to maintain a certain status as a family friendly company, but sometimes the decisions Nintendo makes are foolish.

Nintendo didn't think about HD with the Wii.
They didn't think about a unified online system with the Wii
They didn't think to add a DVD player with the Wii

There aren't TERRIBLE decisions, but they are decisions they made without thinking of the consumer. They thought they knew best, and in the end, it cost them. With the Wii U, they've made similar poor decisions, and the Wii U has struggled to get off the ground. It's still a fantastic console, and I love mine, but Nintendo did make mistakes with the system. Sometimes, you have to go with what is trendy, even if it goes against your image.

only the sith deal in absolutes

I agree it has to be a combination, but I doubt they haven't thought of these things.

Actually, I'd be willing to argue that not making the Wii HD was a rather wise strategy for the time. It kept costs down, something that made the barrier to entry for the Wii even smaller. If the Wii was HD and $350 at the time, I don't think it would have sold nearly as well. And Nintendo doesn't add DVD players to their systems because it increases the licensing costs, and in today's day and age, we are really moving past Blu-rays and DVDs for movies, so adding them doesn't seem worth it. Now back in the PS2 era, DVD players were certainly a big deal, and it certainly was a mistake for Nintendo not to include it in the GCN.

But yes. Some things like Achievements, Voice Chat, and more streaming services are things Nintendo just needs to copy.

well, accoding to a lecture(is it the right word?) I had in college yesterday a company that doesn't innovate is doomed to fall at some point, so I think doing whatever the others do might be a bad idea...
basically if you don't risk people will eventually get tired of you and find something else and if you risk you have a really small chance of getting a hit
it's like asking if to someone if they'd rather have a 100% chance of failure in a distant future or having a microscopic chance of long term success, in one chjoice you're doomed and in the other chances are you might be doomed. that's how things work, pretty exciting, huh? I'd hate if things had a definite formula because everyone would die of boredom! XD

Maybe the next system Nintendo should just ditch innovation altogether and make some unnecessary $800 console with a normal controller and no backwards compatibility and so on. Everyone would start wishing they'd go back to being their normal selves.

Well, like I said, those weren't terrible, game-ending decisions. But some people wanted DVDs to be playable on Wii. And I get the reasons why they didn't, and I don't disagree with them (I personally have enough DVD players that I don't need my console to be able to play them), but what I, a reasonable person, think isn't necessarily what the average customer thinks. They look and see that the X360 played DVDs and that the Wii did not, and that COULD have swayed a potential buyer.

And again, I agree to a point about the HD. Costs, instal base, etc.. But the fact is the competition had it, and, in the end, it cost them customers.

Goes back to my point ... Nintendo like to tell us what we want and need. They're not good at listening to the masses. And I don't think they should ONLY listen to the masses, I think they need to listen to the masses MORE.

For example, they've been hesitant about getting into the online game. Please tell me why I can't join a friend in a game of Mario Kart right from my home screen? This is something they should copy from the competition:

I boot up my Wii U, see my friend is playing Mario Kart 8 online, and I click on her name from my Friends menu, and the software starts up, and I'm taken into her race. I shouldn't have to see if she's on, start Mario Kart 8, go to online, then go to friends, and then be able to join the game.

It's a small thing, really, it isn't a deal breaker, but the competition does it, it makes for a more streamlined, easy experience, and is something that should come standard.

You can't please everybody. You're gonna sacrifice something no matter what choice you make. Nintendo just needs to please the people worth pleasing within their means. Who that is is...up to Nintendo.

But these decisions made them I'll prepared for their next system and caused the wii to peter out 2-3 years before everyone else.

Well there is a difference of perceived innovation and true innovation. Take Apple for example. If they are starting to lose some sales, but they are still making crazy amounts of money. When was the last time they truly innovated? While it is true that if they never added anything new they would fail, but they slowly add features and create enough hype (marketing) around these added features that people believe it is "innovation" when really it is what other companies have been doing for a few years. So was your lecture about true innovation or perceived innovation?

The problem with Nintendo's "do it in unique ways" approach is that it's more about gameplay-related innovation than about mass-appealing features. While they often prove how much better it works, watching that kind of stuff doesn't really help pointing it out. People don't know that Nintendo games are fun because they can't see the fun - they always see the visual presentation, which is where Nintendo tends to fall short at times, aside of not wanting to create hollow blockbuster trailers. But the average consumer of today lacks the attention span to even consider that, instead branding Nintendo games as "identical" because of recurring design choices.

But here's the thing: if Nintendo were to do the same stuff the competition does, they'd fail miserably. Nintendo is great at coming up with unique ideas, for better or worse at times, but they absolutely can't compete with what is already there by going the same way, and they know that. It doesn't fit them or their general development approach, just like nobody can really compete with Nintendo in terms of creative gameplay because many developers have gotten used to delivering the "safe success", and getting creative would be too stressful for them.

The Wii died out 2 years before the competition mainly because Nintendo stopped supporting the system 2-3 years before the competition. Look at the list of Nintendo published games for 2011 and 2012. It's rather pathetic. When you really look at that, it's not surprising Wii sales started to die down. I agree that the power difference really started to become more pronounced as well, but I don't think it's the major cause

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_published_by_Ni...

Well yes, but I'd argue that DVD support was no longer a selling point to the average consumer in 2006. The iPod gained video support in 2005, and most people had a DVD player. Hell, there were 150M people who had PS2s that played DVDs. The market had been mostly saturated.

Not having HD cost them customers, but having HD also could have cost them customers. It's really hard to say whether an HD Wii would have done better or worse because of this. You'd have more gamers owning the system, but Nintendo's brand name had been severely weakened at that point, so less potential to expose the system to a wide market could have hurt them.

To be honest, i only buy Nintendo consoles for the innovation. If i want games like on a PS4 or an XBone i'll use my PC. The innovation is what keeps me coming back, although it would save me money if Nintendo were just a 3rd party publisher, but then they wouldn't be as polished and sophisticated.

Gameplay related innovations are actually pretty easy to show provided that it's something that can be demonstrated in game. If it's a new gameplay mechanic, they can simply demonstrate it by showing a situation in the game where that new mechanic comes into play. Now if it's just something like more precision in controls or something that you have to actually play to understand the benefits, then you can't really demonstrate that. But Nintendo generally doesn't work like that anyway.

Yes, that was a major factor, but shingi_70 isn't wrong when with what he said. The truth of the matter is that the Wii sold a lot of units, and looking back, there is nothing wrong with the system in terms of software, but the failings of the Wii's hardware, and the image that those failings created, is hurting the Wii U right now.

Not having HD hurt Nintendo not necessarily in sales, but in image. Nintendo made a butt-load of money on the Wii. The Wii was in millions of households, but in reality, how many people bought one, played it for a bit, and then stopped? Nintendo wasn't the only company that stopped supporting the console. Third-party support had died long before that because Nintendo made a machine that was inferior to the competition.

Look, no one is arguing about the software. The Wii had/has fantastic games, many of which I am still going back to get even now. There are still at least 10 games that I missed out on, that I definitely want to pick up. Heck, I can say that about the GameCube as well. But you and I, we are clearly Nintendo fans. I'll put myself out there as a Nintendo fan first, and a gamer second. I will always support Nintendo, because I grew up with these games. I prefer polished, quality gameplay over flashy visuals and rehashed yearly titles.

But I don't represent the majority of gamers today. I love the innovation Nintendo displays. If it weren't for Nintendo we wouldn't have shoulder buttons, wireless controllers, touch-screen gaming, etc.. Those are fantastic things to have added to the gaming mainstream. But Nintendo HAS to mix that innovation with mainstream ideas to remain a competitive, viable company in the gaming market.

This is business. Sentiments and nostalgia and "common sense" have no place here. The very fact that Nintendo made a console in the Wii U that is so underpowered compared to the PS4 and XBO automatically puts it at a disadvantage. Nintendo can continue to be innovative with powerful — or at least comparable — hardware.

yeah but a pseudo-innovation is still better than a shameless copy.

Just for the record, I'm cutting out most of your posts because I agree with most of it.

I think the image of people buying the Wii then just giving up on it is a gross misconception. There may have been a slightly larger minority of people who did that, but the Wii's tie ratio today is 9 (meaning on average 9 games were sold for every system). That's only slightly less than the competition, and for the most of the Wii's life, it had a tie ratio GREATER than that of the PS3.

The Wii's largest audiences were male children and female young adults. Not elderly seniors or middle aged soccer moms like people like to depict. The former groups bought games for the Wii, and they played them of a substantial period of time. Heck, the other day, I was having a conversation with someone in college who still loved playing Just Dance on her Wii.

Differently. If Nintendo just did the same as the competition, I would suggest everyone to stop buying home consoles tbh.