Topic: Would Nintendo survive as third party?

I reckon if Nintendo went third party it wouldn't be much of a benefit to Nintendo. They'd sell more games I'd assume but it would be balanced out by the loss of profits on hardware and platform fees ect. Ultimately I think the only thing that would happen if Nintendo went third parties is that it'd squeeze out a lot of developers on other platforms.

Think about it, how many 2D indie platformers would still do well if Nintendo had Donkey Kong Country Returns on every platform? Or New SMB, Kirby, Yoshi ect. Would there be as many sales of games like StreetFighter and Sunset Overdrive if Smash Bros and Splatoon were multi-platform? Hell, maybe Stardew Valley wouldn't have sold nearly as well if PC gamers could download Animal Crossing.

As a 3rd party company they would survive; their legacy and plethora of IPs would allow them to do well on various consoles and the Mobile market.

What we would see is a serious step back in innovation and "out of the box" thinking. One of Nintendo's "strengths" is making games based around their hardware's "unique" features. Of course history has shown this to be a double-edged sword as third parties have a tendency to not use these features to their potential.

I could see a niche still being filled by indie platformers even if Ninty are about, alot of them rely on retro throwback charm with pixel graphics to appeal to NES players and Nintendo doesn't even use pixel art anymore.

@arronishere: oh so Paper Jam, FE Fates, Awakening, Uprising, Kirby and even Super Mario Maker don't count as pixel art games eh?

First of all, there are about 10,000 articles showing Sony is not doing good at all and that the entire brand is held up by the Playstation brand, because nobody cares about anything but the PS4 that they sell. Cameras, TVs and headphones are not selling as well as they want. Haven't you noticed at all that half the comments about the PS4K are lols that they're doing it just to sell their underperforming 4K TVs? It's the truth about poor sales numbers, unless you're only looking at Rumor Life aka Nintendolife discussions, view sales numbers elsewhere. Samsung & LG are their major competitors in all of those areas and they whoop Sony's butt. They did the same thing to Panasonic who hangs on by a thread in terms of relevance. If it wasn't for the PS brand they'd be dust.
Literally not saying Sony is a dead brand walking, just that they're not doing spectacular. Losses never seen before, revenue lower than past 30 years.
Also Sony Pictures isnt tied to this side of the brand at all. They blatantly said this in their defense after The Interview fiasco when everyone asked why Sony isn't coming forth saying anything, they said they're a different entity within the major mother company and it's not much of their concern. If Sony Pictures tanks, that doesn't mean Sony dies. There's about a million examples you can use to defend that. Not trying to fight or sound accusatory, but it's discoverable.

Second, for the Vita, you aren't allowed to bad mouth it. All the anime nerds lose their tempers, and a majority of others will retaliate with "Lol but look at you WiiU", okay I see that, but your Vita is still worse. Or the third option even, where it's own fans brush it off as well.

So no....I can't picture them going to this path. Maybe when I'm dead, they probably might end up there but as long as I'm around, I don't see them going anywhere.

I expect you to live longer than five years.

Lol I accidentally reported someone on here for no reason.

You don't know.

@arronishere: Its still used nonetheless.

You really are deluded if you think the likes of Kid Icarus Uprising can be confused with a Nes game.

Wow, I can't believe I'm not on IGN or Gamespot because these discussions are getting out of hand. Tis a shame that this formerly friendly community has turned into a stressful and toxic place for Nintendo fans. Hopefully things will get better when Nintendo rebounds.

On the loss of profit on hardware bit: As long as Ninty have Pokemon, they aren't going to go third party. Pokemon shifts handhelds, there is no denying it.

@Dankykong:
As I said, if you look at their recent financials Playstation is their third most successful division. Music and cameras are above it. Sony Music is an obvious one to explain, just look at the label of any artist that's big and check whether or not that label is owned by Sony. Odds are its owned by Sony.

With cameras? It's harder to see because the dedicated camera market has shrunk. They still own a fair chunk of that space especially in the professional categories. But these days most people just use the camera that's in their phone right? .... well odds are Sony made that sensor

Like I said, Sony has a few divisions that are doing well while others are losing them money. All they have to do to start returning a profit again would be to dump some of those less successful product categories. Of which Playstation is not one.

Not sure if they would survive but they would need to change a lot if they became a third party. They make a lot of games compared to any third party and the fact they have their own machines give them the freedom to make any game they want without the need to follow a trend set by other publishers. The WiiU and the 3DS have a lot of games that don't have any equivalent on other machines. Mostly because those genres don't appeal to the audience who plays on those machines. If you release a game on the PS4 or Xbox One that doesn't appeal to the GTA/COD/Fifa audience you have very small chance to reach Nintendo games sales.
And there isn't any risk that they would go third party now. Nintendo is a conservative company business wise. They won't make a project that would kill them if it failed. Both the 3DS and WiiU made losses for them but ultimately they recovered those losses and those machines made profits. I expect the NX to follow the same strategy. Nintendo isn't a kamikaze company like Sega was.

Basically, Nintendo's policy can be summarized in two points:
-Do not put all your eggs into one basket
-Stay as independant as possible

Lot of people think Nintendo took a bad decision when they refused to be a third party for Sony with the Playstation project. But in the long run it was a good decision. If you compare the sales of the most successful Sony third party from that era (Square-Enix) you realize Nintendo sold much more games than them. And now Nintendo is in much better shape than Square-Enix. They even sell more JRPG than them on consoles now when Square-Enix is supposed to be the king of that genre.

So in short
Would Nintendo survive as third party? Maybe but that wouldn't be the same Nintendo.
Will Nintendo go third party soon? Unlikely. That wouldn't be a good decision business wise seeing the actual state of the market.

Wow, by your standards that is an insane amount of optimism from you contrasting with your typical viewpoints that you go onto repeating later on. It's like downing a mouthful of a nice hot cuppa Joe in the morning only to have someone swap it out for an ice cold bitter lemonade when you weren't looking.

I prefer your usual consistency. Try when next time, you'll be proven right as always after all.

We'll see when consoles eventually all die in like 10 or 20 or 500 years or whatever...

I think they will. Worst case scenario, they'd be bought out, hopefully by someone that will understand to not ruin everything good about the company. Mario and Pokemon and Zelda are far too valuable franchises to disappear.

Otherwise, I think they'd be in a Square Enix position, but with the publishing side less focused on the west. Basically less 5+ year delays and constant new graphic engine tests, more awkward limited online, replace Eidos with Level 5 or someone.

They would probably be like Sega. Release Mario Maker forever, make a new Zelda, Sports Club, release game collections like Atari and Namco do(that are NES/SNES/etc. games), Smash Bros. would probably die. Everything else would go to Xbox. Either that, or they get bought out and start creating more Starfox and games like Odama or Baiten Kaitos.
There would be a Super Mario 64 remake, then Pokemon would be on Xbox.

Etc. Etc.

So no, I do not think they would survive.

Probably.

Why would those be the only 2 options? Nintendo is a toy manufacturer that also makes software to support their toys. Their finances are solid. The company has made lots of different things during the past 50 years, although they mainly focused on hanafuda cards before that. They have a huge range of directions they can take in the future. Amiibo was such a direction.

Nintendo would do insanely well as third party. I think if the NX is ultimately a console/handheld hybrid (i.e it joins their 2 main branches) AND it still fails, then they'll consider going third party. I don't think the NX will fail though, so we probably won't find out.
But yes, they'd do incredibly well. Nearly every gamer alive loves Mario Kart.
Games like Fire Emblem and Xenoblade would also do a lot better. Xenoblade could easily have done as well as The Witcher at 5+ million if the install base and hardcore RPG audience was there. It's been massively wasted on Nintendo, it pains me to say.

@Dezzy: Sorry but this speculation is seriously flawed and absurd.

Xenoblade/Xenoblade X wouldn't have hit 5 million if it was on PS4, Xbox One, Steam, SEGA Genisis and sold for $30 with a free all expenses paid trip to the Caribbean for 3 weeks. OK maybe it would with the latter but I'm sure you get the point. Nothing to do with its quality but that's just how it would go down. Even Square-Enix are sweating on Final Fantasy reaching 10 million (I know there's quite a big difference between 5 and 10 million) and that's the biggest Japanese game around that has received a massive amount of exposure over nearly 30 years. Xenobalde? It wouldn't have got 2 million, never mind 5 if it was a multiplat.

Chances are higher with the state of this industry the way I see things that most Nintendo series would die a pitiful death if they were multplats like any other game and had to compete with any other game. You honestly believe that in a month where (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this was the case) Mortal Kombat X and The Witcher 3 were released in May last year, the same month as Splatoon, Xbox players in particular would've plunged $60 on Splatoon over those two 'mature' games? Heck even PS4's biggest sellers month after month are just CoD, The Division (or whatever 'revolutionary 3rd party game is out), CoD again, a bit of FIFA in September, the one massive Sony release of the year and then back to the newest CoD in November. Where would Fire Emblem get a look in?

You'd have Pokemon (though that in itself is an altogether separate issue) Mario & Mario Kart that could thrive, possibly Animal Crossing and Zelda would do well (though again look what the last main Zelda game Skyward Sword would've been competing against were it a multiplat- Skyrim, who with a PS3/Xbox 360 with $60 to spare would've got Skyward Sword over Skyrim?) and I'd say that's it. Maybe Donkey Kong or one of Kirby or Yoshi could make some money due to the lack of good 2D platformers ATM. Some, not a lot obviously.

And don't even think about Kid Icarus, F-Zero, Mother, Star Fox (have you even seen what PS/Xbox owners are saying about Zero?) and any new IP Nintendo might make like Splatoon. You aren't making 'AAA' multiplat games and innovating, not in this day and age. The two are almost as mutually exclusive as night and day.

So yeah TL; DR Nintendo would be fine and Xenoblade would make The Witcher 3 look like a failure.

That there was sarcasm folks. Bad sarcasm but whatever.

@DarthNocturnal: that's a good point and of course not the only thing that should change if this scenario happens, but my points still remain even if Nintendo advertise like they've never advertised before. 90% of their games don't have mass market appeal and so the prime time TV adds for Xenoblade and Pikmin 4 or 5 would be wasted on the whole. Again Mario Kart and Animal Crossing could do great as multiplats if advertised right but the list is few for the games I'd be confident in. Most 3rd parties have bemoaned how their 'casual and kiddie' games have performed so far this gen, most notably and recently with Activision and the mass lay-offs they had for the Skylanders and Guitar Hero teams. Sure Nintendo would survive, the Mario brand is a heck of a lot more marketable and durable than Skylanders, but would most of their IPs? I don't think they would.