Former Sony And Microsoft Exec: Nintendo Has Surprised Me With Switch

@Niinbendo I refer you to their home console market from 2012 to early 2017

Inb4 negative Sligeach comment

Former Sony and Xbox exec ? Mmmmmmmm

Good to hear that kids enjoy it.

They're the ultimate judges in many respects.

@Woosh193 Nice Avatar.

Just like any form of entertainment, things go in cycles. Nintendo's fun colourful approach was made to to look very old hat when the PS2's more mature games line up came out, then they took the spotlight back with the Wii with a novel control mechanism. The XB1/PS4 promise of super duper graphics drew a lot of people to buy their consoles, but now I think people aren't convinced they'll get much more from purchasing the X or Pro.

I don't think 'Better' necessarily drives the gaming market all the time, 'Different' can do just as good a job.

@FredBiletnikoff
Thanks

"Maybe I should give Nintendo more credit"

Is that click-bait or did he actually say that? Wasn't in the quotes in the article. Or are you quoting someone else?

Love my Switch play it more now than Xbox or PS4 the games just feel right

@Pod Agree - kids are too often overlooked - how many people have their childhood to thank for their love of Nintendo games!

Always makes me chuckle hearing people gripe when 'too easy' games like Kirby are announced or included on the SNES classic. Nintendo have to look after the kids too - the font from which their fans develop.

Got me a SNES classic on pre-order and can't wait to unleash it on my unsuspecting 5 year old. Had his older Xbox One owning cousins over a few weeks ago and Mario Bros on the original NES went down a storm! Have a secret SNES mini pre-order for them too - minds will be blown!

I am glad the Switch has come along. It has allowed me the freedom to game with decent graphics where ever and when ever I want. As the Sony guy said maybe the time was not right for the WiiU but it certainly is for the Switch and I hope it is around a lot longer than the WiiU.

Ooow... kay ?

Pre-ordering my Switch today. I held off because I could play Breath of The wild on my WiiU, but I just can't resist any longer. Sold my WiiU with 40 games to a very happy collector (instead of trading in to Gamestop) and will reserve my Splatoon bundle today. It such a huge leap technologically from the WiiU.

@MrGawain Different is important so that everybody gets something that is for them.

@datamonkey from the linked original:
"GamesBeat: From the sidelines, where do you see the big three here and how well they’re doing?

Harrison: Nintendo has surprised me in a good way. They’ve put some excitement back in, or at least added a dynamic to the console equation that wasn’t there previously. From my focus group of a household with younger children, Switch is definitely the console that gets used. Mainly because of the content types. Surprisingly, the TV-to-mobile use case works way more effectively than I expected. Maybe I should give Nintendo more credit. I really enjoy that."

@MadAdam81 It's funny that they leave out exactly that line in this quote. Maybe Ctrl+X for the headline ^^

The wii U was ahead of its time. The switch really is a wii u 2. The original idea better executed because of the tech availability. One of the biggest problems of the wii u, reiterated by early reviews, was that the tablet dropped out of range too soon and why couldnt it just be able to be fully portable and hybrid I recall reading once long ago. I had a feeling nintendo would implement it better once tablets got more powerful, the availability and cost effectiveness lined up for them to make it happen.

I agree, underestimate Nintendo at your peril.

And the Switch praise and hype continues! Hopefully soon it is praised for its game library as opposed to its concept. A concept is good and all but in a year or two, people aren't going to be amazed anymore. I can't wait to play all the games that have yet to come out!

To me the switch is just Genius it was something i always wanted. From the day i got my first gameboy lol.
Or when playing the ds i wanted a handheld console and nintendo acheaved that. Even the many nintendo haters i know where convinced by the Switch.

@Menchi187 like they hadn't had underwhelming home console sales before that. Nintendo survived even Virtual Boy, and the Wii U years still got them more sales than some countries have people - and a bunch of exclusive classics nonetheless.

@bolt05 and SNES was NES 2.0 improved by the availability of new tech and no longer having to wear a VCR disguise in America. XD

I'm not even sarcastic here - SNES/SFC really was NES on steroids in a most complimenting sense. Even its name consciously reflected as much.

Whether you love Nintendo or you hate them, its really irrelevant, because if you are a gamer on any platform, there is one thing you should know by now, regardless of your age and what generation you grew up in, and that is that you NEVER bet against Nintendo!!! They may sometimes be down, but you never count them out.

The switch was really a thing i didn't know i needed until i got one. It has kinda suprised me in how much this dynamic have added to the experience and how cumbersome and oldfashioned traditional consoles look to me now.

@nhSnork "and the Wii U years still got them more sales than some countries have people"

This is a common defense I saw a lot during the WiiU era actually. Yes, the WiiU sold about 3 times as many units as the population of my country (Ireland) but it was still a massive failure and caused huge losses overall for the company for years. I remember seeing back when Splatoon and other games released, Nintendrones would brag about "WiiU sales increased by 400% because of Splatoon this week compared to last week!" Yeah, but going from 1k units a week to 4k isn't anything to brag about. (ok admittedly I believe it was from 4k or 5k to 20k but that is still pretty terrible)

It's funny that you mention the Virtual Boy though, because Nintendo was saved by the SNES and Game Boy after that flopped. The SNES, you know that home console that Nintendo hasn't been able to replicate success with with top notch first and third party support, their last non-gimmicked flash in the pan console to succeed.

I specifically listed the WiiU because of how many people on this site act, their first Nintendo console was likely the Wii, since the majority seem to have no clue.

Never underestimate Nintendo. Never over-estimate them either, because just when you thought they have the best opportunity to succeed, they will come up with something crap to ruin it.

It sounds like the interviewer had the wrong idea about the Wii U gamepad. As if the off TV play was its main functionality. I think it was more about using both screens to give the gamer a more immersive experience. A reminder that the Wii U concept wasn't as clearly communicated as it could have been.

@Stuniverse It's guaranteed in any article lol.

@nhSnork Haha yep it sure was. The Aussie/EU SNES was much prettier as we all know. One day I will import a US snes though, for completeness as I have an AUS SNES and JP SFC to cover PAL and NTSC for now...

Unfortunately I was a NES kid followed by a Megadrive Kid and never had a SNES until recently. My granddad gave his SNES to my cousins because we already had a nintendo... And they didnt much like gaming and basically wrecked it. DOH!

@TJM anyone that says Kirby is too easy hasn't fought the final boss of Kirby's Adventure or played through Milky Way Wishes on Kirby Superstar.

@gb_nes_gamer off TV play is what most games used the Wii u pad successfully for though. I don't think a ton of communication would have changed that. Playing a game on two screens that are not immediately visible in front of you simply sucks. I think Nintendo realized this and decided to do off TV play properly, and that is how the switch was born. The only good use of the Wii u was in multiplayers having secret views.

@MadAdam81 Thanks!

That's the thing about Nintendo - as the immortal words of the Youtuber Arlo famously stated - "they do what you don't expect every time".
That includes expectations about their role in the industry. It's not just about games, it's about them, period. We expect the Wii U to be the HD console to end all HD consoles... and it bombed so hard that many expected them to go third-party. And what do they do? Come back like a phoenix, stronger than ever.

@Menchi187 The Wii U had its problems. But I disagree it was a failure. It has some of my favourite games. That is a success for me. It did fail bringing in third party support though. But honestly, I wouldn't have had time to play those anyway.

@Mortenb I enjoyed some WiiU games too. But you are speaking subjectively with your own emotional investment.

The WiiU failed to make a profit, barely sold, cost the company millions (billions and trillions depending on currency) of losses and share prices, as well as hurt the company's public appearance and reputation.

That makes it a failure.

@Menchi187 yes, you are right. But also there, looking beyond standard stock market metrics, I think Nintendo needed to experiment and find new ways to be interesting. I think the switch would not happen without the Wii u, and the switch could become a big success business wise. Very few manage to distill perfect ideas every time, and Nintendo needs to be different to even exist, so it did relatively well as a way to feed the core fans, and get a few new ones even among younger kids. Don't get me wrong, I see what you mean. And if switch is not a big success that can make up previous losses, I will regard Wii U itself a failure (with some great games). But I think this style of console/portable is the future, and Nintendo has a great chance of building something great with it.

I don't care... no Call of Duty for Switch.
Nintendo is doomed.

"A great idea is about timing as much as it is about technology."

Couldn't have said it any better myself. Nintendo is sometimes ahead of itself with its ideas, with varying degrees of success. The Virtual Boy is certainly a result of that, and to some extent, the Wii U is too, although I do see that more as a calculated risk: they needed to put their idea out there, but it wasn't really complete and the tech wasn't available and/or the necessary components simply weren't available either.

Or at least not for a reasonable price.

Sure I mean if you guys really want to see things like PlayStation Home on switch then ya hope for this. Don't get me wrong he was very important in the 90s, but because of him scee found themselves in a very weak position that resulted in not one, but two studios getting shutdown. All because he decided to double down on PlayStation home. His track record at Microsoft is also established in the pre Phil Spencer era. Don't need mattrick legacy in the fold.

I feel like Nintendo has enough trouble maintaining momentum I. Game releases as is. The fact that Nintendo fans are getting frothy over Wii u ports should be a strong indicator of how software starved they are.

@jancotianno Nintendo has existed before Call of Duty, it'll continue to exist long after that series eventually gets cancelled.

@Menchi187 WiiU didn't lose money, it was actually a very (very) modest profit. It did hold back real growth, however, but their operating losses during those years came from large expenditure in corporate restructuring, R&D on switch, buying out DeNA, and spending on entering the theme park industry, it wasn't a direct loss attributed to WiiU. That's not to say WiiU wasn't a failure, but financially it didn't cause direct losses.

Also, did you just say SNES and Gameboy saved them after Virtual Boy flopped? Virtual Boy released at the tail END of the SNES era, and Gameboy released at the tail end of the NES era. N64 is the console that came out after Virtual Boy (and is the reason VB was rushed to market so half baked), followed by GCN. Neither was a tremendous success which is why they were willing to flip the script and go nuts with the Wii. And SNES isn't the console "Nintendo hasn't been able to replicate success" with. It sold considerably less than the NES, and sold notably less software as well. Wii was the first (and last...so far) home console of theirs to outsell the NES. The handhelds however have always been their core strength since 1989 which bodes well for Switch overall.

@NEStalgia Yes, the SNES and Game Boy. The huge install bases of what were still both current systems that people could fall back onto after the VB flopped since the N64 wasn't out yet. People could go back to the SNES/GB.

@Menchi187 Oh, I see you just meant at a consumer satisfaction level for products already owned, not future sales. That makes sense. GB was a runaway success, but SNES, despite that most retro gamers would easily list it as the best console of all time and most fondly remembered, amazingly, didn't sell nearly as well as NES. It was limited more to "core gamers" that were already interested in games, than to extending into new households.

@Stuniverse If Sliggy treats you like he treated me, he'll post a negative comment, then read through the comments to see that you predicted a negative comment, and then report you for insulting him. And if you are like me, this ridiculous and hypocritical overreaction will encourage you not to let up on him, because you will find trolling him incredibly fun. I recommend against using the word "trolling" yourself, because the moderators technically have a no trolling policy, but they're not very good at moderating, so they generally only respond to the most obvious examples, which would include anything you yourself admit is such. I have been forced to ignore him (and he me, unless the moderators are even worse than they've demonstrated), so I can't see his comments or respond to him, but I can give you and others some suggestions for talking points:

1) When he complains about ports, ask him why he ports his comments from thread to thread.

2) When he quotes previous comments of yours to try to prove the point he's attempting to make, ask him how he was able to find it so quickly; does he keep records?

3) Take note that his comments will sometimes grow in complexity; ask him if he is attempting to make the first comment for the sake of having everyone see it, expanding on it once that has attended to.

4) When he asks you not to respond to him because he doesn't like having so many notifications, well, don't bother suggesting he'll get fewer responses if he makes both fewer and fewer repeated comments. There are limits to what we can expect of him.

If you have any other questions, I'm here; feel free to ask anything.

@NEStalgia The whole NES sales thing is always slightly skewed in its favour. I don't deny that it had the massive sales (especially in the US, where over half the total units sold went). In the US, the NES had to counteract the video game crash (which didn't happen in Japan or here in Europe), so it didn't really have any true competition. Granted there was the Master System but with the NES having the lead and Nintendo's (later ruled) illegal monopolistic policies, it's not exactly a 1:1 comparison between the climate of the 8 bit eras vs 16 bit era.

Nintendo can be very hit and miss, but when it gets something right it usually takes off. The Switch, like the original Wii and the NES is the right product at the right time.

@Menchi187 my first Nintendo console was NES - or, rather, a Famicom clone (not counting a very official used SNES my father was given with a bunch of licensed cartridges once, but its degree of "used" proved to translate to "beyond repair" despite his best efforts). By the time Wii U arrived, I was more or less familiar with every Nintendo console library barring GC and Wii. I wasn't involved in any defence during the Wii U years, but I live in a small country myself and in my eyes 13 millions remain low by industry standards only. Gamecube only sold roughly twice that, XBOne has sold estimatedly three times that at best. Virtual Boy, on the other hand, sold maybe 1.5 million units and was canned in a year or so. The actual lowest-selling Nintendo console, perhaps (second lowest of you count 64DD but that was a peripheral). Ironically, even it left a couple titles fondly remembered to this day, like Wario Land, and that's with the library which could fit on a human palm. But Wii U? Its offerings would dwarf VB's any day.

Not sure where SNES and GB factor in with this topic as Virtual Boy was released way after them both. Successful old hardware for consumers to go back to? But the same could be said for Wii and DS which outsold pretty much Nintendo's everything at that point, so I don't see a stark contrast in VB situation's favour if that's where you were going with it.

@bolt05 R.I.P. I moved to Mega Drive myself (late as usual - as said in another comment, I had had a Famicom clone from 1997 to 2002, then a consecutive couple of Mega Drive clones, one even shamelessly shaped like a PS1 XD); SNES was the first legit console in our household, but it was a used and already wrecked unit. My father was a tech specialist enough to fight for its life for a while and even launched Desert Strike on it a couple times, but ultimately... nope. Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, Star Fox, NBA... to think we had all that and never got to play it back then! It wasn't until the advent of emulation that I was truly introduced to SNES library, but it charmed me to the moon and back. Still one of my favourite platforms along with DS and Switch, and it contributed a lot to making me a JRPG fan.

@PanurgeJr I can't even imagine the level of pettiness it takes for someone to give advice on how to harass another user, one that you can't personally harass yourself due to moderators apparently.

Might be time to just let things go.

I mean, can you blame them? Who honestly felt doing almost literally the same thing that they did with Wii U, except making it portable, would garner night and day turnaround success?

But let's not kid ourselves, had BotW not been there for day one.... yikes.

@The-Chosen-one
I am right there with you man. As a kid who received a Game Boy before a NES I always have loved handheld gaming. From the early 90's my dream console would have been something I can play on the tv and then take it with me wherever I go. Almost 30 years later that console has finally arrived and I have barely put my Switch down since I got it March 3rd. I absolutely love my Switch.

@greengecko007 It's about the same level of pettiness required to comment to someone who said nothing either to you or about you on how petty you believe they're being.

@PanurgeJr That would make sense if the notion of sticking up for someone was ever considered petty. I'd encourage you to let old grudges go. If you've been forced to ignore a certain user, getting around that by having others fight your battles for you and harass users certainly isn't the route of moral high ground.

@PanurgeJr LOL, I mean the guy totally deserves it sometimes. It's gotta be less opinion-oriented, and more agenda-driven by him at this point....just because of the sheer frequency of posts.

@Menchi187 True, though I'm not sure it's possible to extract skewed results from any platform. XBox's entire existence has been heavily skewed to US+CA+UK for example. NES performed poorly in the UK mostly due to NUK's horrible mismanagement. NES in the US was certainly a unique case, but it does still remain that regardless of what territories it did what numbers in, it was their best selling home console until Wii (while their handhelds easily ran circles around everything else but PS2.) And, Switch, so far, seems to be a return to form of the NES era in the sense that US+JP seem to be the dominating markets for it once again, so the precedent isn't entirely irrelevant to the current gen. It's still hard to point to SNES as a beacon of crowning success when it was one stepping stone in a continuous down-trend for the product lines from the first one. As you say, in large part due to losing what amounted to a monopoly status.

@MrGawain I agree. I think Nintendo have learned a valuable lesson about how they market their brand - making it aspirational to young adults pulls in the younger and older crowd as well.

But they have a steel core running through their culture that will always prioritise fun and engaging experiences over visual high jinks.

And they trust that the public, inundated by the consumer culture to desire flashier and flashier tech, will respond when offered something with genuinely original and exciting ideas.

@greengecko007 Never claimed the moral high ground; just offered advice on how to belie the claims of a man who does.

@electrolite77 I'd have to do some digging, I'm not one of those people that hoards links to things, and it comes from the deep text in the full translations from the AGMs in the Iwata era (he was a joy to read, the way he knew how to manipulate investors....it was artwork.... ) That doesn't cover any new units produced in the last 2 years, but we do know from Kimishima they shipped all of them out just before Switch launched.

But the quick and dirty factoid that can identify how that can be true even sans the official net profits line items is the fact that they sold WiiU at a slight subsidy, which was then turned to profit with the purchase of a single game. Since the attach rate on the WiiU was actually pretty good, and since they sold (shipped) 100% of inventory (or so we are told) without any discounts sans the one time price cut of the deluxe kit to the price of the basic kit, they indeed made at least trace amounts of margin on each unit sold. Not the numbers you were looking for, but it's something to tide you over while I inevitably forget to actually do the digging

Which isn't the same situation of, say, the PS3 when it bombed originally before its turnaround. That thing was heavily subsidized even at its absurd launch price....they more they sold, they more they lost, until the games came. Or the OG Xbox which was a money burning disaster, where the better it sold the deeper in debt they went simply to pave a path for 360 (which then blew it's profits on the RROD and the bad faith of the XBOne launch.)

Financially, Nintendo's a lot better at hedging for failure rather than going "all in" on anything ever. It's why they're a great money sink for banks and funds. Sink a few hundred mil in there and it's almost as guaranteed as a CD. Even if it doesn't gain, it's unlikely to lose, with a big shot at a gain.

@NEStalgia
The Switch is selling more like a Nintendo handheld than an NES. America sales > Europe + ROTW sales > Japan sales.

@nhSnork faxanadu is the gamenthat hooked me on rpgs. Along with zelda. In those days nothing was known as jrpgs or action rpgs. Just rpgs. Take on a role in a story was what the guy at kmart told dad and i. We said oh yes! Sounds like you and your family had heaps of fun like us 😁even if your snes was DOA. 😯

Soccer is so boring

@Mortenb there are some great examples of dual screen gameplay. Zombie U, Arkham City, Affordable Space Adventures, Wonderful 101 and the divisive Star Fox Zero. Too few that that functionality fell below the radar. Not everyone will be familiar with that concept or associate the Wii U with that. Its a shame given it's potential, but looking forward, good to see the Switch is faring better.

I'm surprised Harrison isn't trying to take credit for the Switch idea. He certainly tried to claim he had the idea for the Wii before Nintendo did.

What a patronising man. XBOX haven't surprised anyone in years: a terribly boring set of consoles.

@electrolite77 i agree with this much. Which makes their marketing push for Switch so baffling. Continuously referring to it as the Wii U successor and their next home console.

Nah brah. Even 3rd parties aren't fooled by that (just look at EA's approach to Switch).

Switch is and will eventually be the 3DS successor. Home console market is on lock by Sony and MS.

@gb_nes_gamer IMO, out of those examples, only ZombiU was a "great example". And partly due to the genre and pace of that game.

In general, asking the player to look away from a big screen in front of them to refocus on a tiny screen way down in their hands repeatedly during game play was just jarring. It breaks immersion.

In hindsight, it's surprisingly baffling how a company like Nintendo didn't foresee this. The company of game play mastery. To me what spoke the loudest was how little Nintendo themselves did with the dual screen asymmetric aspect of Wii U.

@electrolite77 Check Nintendo's Financial records.

@electrolite77 It's also a regional decision. Westerners generally tend not to adhere to the concept of a handheld console. Many people even here feel "games are something played on a TV and nowhere else." By selling it as a "home console (and why shouldn't they, it IS their most powerful home console" it signals to those people that it IS a product aimed at them (which it is) as much as the handheld fans. It's not really right to say they were bullied "out of" the home console market, when this unit truly is their most powerful console. What you really mean is "they don't compete in the same market space that Sony created, Microsoft modified, and both occupy" But they never did compete in that space. N64 was "different", GCN was the only attempt they made at going right into that space, and it was a miserable failure. Wii went totally the other way (but with the wrong audience), and WiiU tried to have the best of both worlds and failed miserably because the two worlds are almost impossible to bridge.

As for business, yeah, they had a lot of stagnancy, minimal profits, and some operating losses. But no actual losses on the WiiU hardware. If they accrued any losses on software expenses not recovered, that wasn't a loss, ultimately, but a deferment, as they're re-releasing most of that software on the Switch. If MK8 took a loss, they already made it back 3 fold on Switch. XCX was big budget (for them) but the engine laid the groundwork for XC2, etc. So much of that era was forward investment. Temporary expenses as future investment. The only platform they ever posted a true loss on was the Virtual Boy.

Now if you want to see a company that's hiding a lot more, check Microsofts financials for the XBox division going back to 2001. Now THAT is a good time There's enough "profit sharing" in there to make Enron proud!