Nintendo's Share Value Plunges Amid Reports That 'Quality Of Life' Project Is Dead

I always just figured it was some form of on-going joke from the Wii days back when they were making Wii Fit and stuff like that. I would never have expected their value to decline because it got cancelled though. Things like that happen all the time, lol

I’d be more concerned with Nintendo if this wasn’t dead. This is not where they need to be dedicating their resources right now, in my opinion anyway.

You might find that this is carefully controlled manipulation... Large investors have learned to do this with Ninty stock in Japan.
Just before E3?
Lol...

Quality of Life? It's just a sleep analyser. Panasonic probably withdrew because they know it's nuts.

@cfgk24 Manipulate the market to buy Nintendo stock cheaply so they can sell it at high profit after E3? Sounds plausible.

I can't say I'm surprised that the project Iwata started couldn't be finished without him, but I can say I'm disappointed his vision and legacy will never see the light of day, assuming all of this is true.

I'm tired of these clickbait headlines about the stock price.

5% is a completely normal fluctuation for Nintendo.

@Pod Real talk, I was more interested in the part where Nintendo's QoL project is dead than the stock market.

@Findonovan95 @NewAdvent
Quality of Life was never meant to be a "gaming" product. It was supposed to be a secondary revenue stream for Nintendo focussing on products which increase the quality of life. The sleep analyser being the only announced product. I think Iwata wanted to use his knowledge around the succes of Wii Fit to produce more products which have ties with gamification to increase somebodies QOL. Could and still can be a really popular product category. Gamification is booming right now in all sectors.

Nintendo's been on the rise for several months not pretty consistently. It really isn't too surprising that it would take a sudden drop even to relatively minor news like some side project being potentially cancelled. Besides, what really matters is not stock prices, but sales, and Nintendo products are still selling well. So the value of the company will remain strong.

Surely this is just a market correction, calming down once people realise Let's Go may not change the world.

Well im pretty much not buying either 'lets go' game, and I never owned a wii during its hay-day (I do now) so i never cared for wii fit etc. Im not sure the Nintendo QoL programme was really worth much, well not to me but I suppose they must have profited from it somewhat during the wii era?

As far as 'lets go' they're probably 18 months too late to capture the fad, Pokemon Go is dead now. Maybe kids with a switch already will buy it, but its a massive entry fee to buy a switch for just lets go evee/pikachu, I cant see this being very big in Australia - I don't see switches flying off the shelf. In Japan... definitely.

So QoL programme, dead or alive... meh/ whatever. Maybe they can spend those resources localising mother 3 and secret of mana trilogy? Make it an anthology and throw sword of mana and the 2 DS games in there as well, Now that's Quality of Life... or Mana?

It’s a shame... I would have bought it if it helped me improve my sleep. I mean, it’s 4:30am here and I’m writing a comment at Nintendolife

The QOL concept had me yawning from the get-go. Make games, Nintendo. Games.

@cfgk24 should I buy some shares now? 🤔

It isn’t too surprising to be honest. Nintendo much like many other companies are overvalued (EA).

Remember when the Labo announcement added $1.4billion to Nintendo?
I think even the most enthusiastic Labo supporter would admit that it hasn’t taken off yet.
Add other factors such as the ‘Quality of Life’ project, a lack of suprise reveals (Nintendo have all but laid out their 2018) & a decline was to be expected.
It’ll skyrocket again with the Let’s Go games & then slowly start coming down again.

Generally, investors are happy when a company is "diversifying their market".

But the fact that investors thought the "Quality of Life" project was going anywhere shows they have little knowledge of what they are invested in.

Nintendo Life, publish good articles, please.

@Cosats What’s wrong with this article?

News is news.

@King_Johobo Absolutely Yes.

@SmaggTheSmug it only takes one small Bribe to the right person to release a rumour and millions of dollars can be made..

@Nunya Fair enough, and I agree with you. I guess I just didn’t have high hopes for this particular project and was hoping they could put their resources into something more interesting.

I don't think there are more jittery people on this planet than stockbrokers, those guys are as twitchy as hummingbirds on a "Red bull"-diet, the slightest thing will send them in a frenzy...

It's probably for the best that the "Quality of life"-project (Whatever it was) is dead, Nintendo should stick with what they're good at: Making games and consoles.

I rather have them focus on games, but I'm very interest on what they could bring with their Quality of Life project.

@fafonio Stop using electronic devices (especially smartphones) this late. It jolts your brain up too much and messes with your sleep cycle. Nintendo Life can wait until morning.

@KayFiOS
I was really interested in the QoL project as well. As I understood it, it was Iwata's grand project. Might be it doesn't have as much vision behind it without him. Hopefully it still earned them some valuable insight and ideas.

Eh, last year they already released a device that I think has "quality of life" written all over its concept.

I think Nintendo will be alright stockwise. E3 is just over a week away for them.

@Nincompoop Oh, wow. See, I thought it was the pulse monitor you clip on your finger that they revealed during the Wii generation. I didn't realize they had more of that crap coming. No one will miss it, so there's no way the stock price dropped because of that.

Quality of Life died with Iwata, there's been nothing newsworthy about it since. Did anyone seriously think they were still working on that?
Sounds to me like it's just the ebb and flow of stock markets.

I would never usually care but have become so invested in Nintendo since the Switch that this gives me the fear. I've never been this into a console since I was a kid playing N64! Hope this has nothing to do with a garbage E3 and sub-par 2019 line up...

The market has some weird notion that Nintendo might become a player in the trillion dollar med tech world. They're a toys and games company. It was never in their core competence.

I think this should be their next mobile venture because let's face it, I don't think anyone is gonna care about Quality Of Life while playing Switch or 3DS for that matter.

it dosent matter if dont like Nintendos e3, they come back, they'll all come back

I thought this was dead even before Iwata passed away. Stocks are weird.

Glad the QoL idea seems dead. I’ll take a new version of Wii Sports and Wii Fit for the Switch now, Nintendo.

I’m surprised that the stock market cared this much about the Quality of Life project. I’m even more surprised that they even remembered it this long.

Stock market share values are meaningless.

There never was any QoL project. Chopping Broccoli . . .

@NewAdvent "If it means we get fewer throw-away gimmicks then that's probably good news from a gaming perspective."

I don't think the two would have been related.

I assumed it was dead a long time ago, wasn't this announced in the Wii Era? If so what did people expect?

Probably finally killed it after the LABO fiasco. Just make actual good new games.

@Muddy_4_Ever The stock market is built exclusively on weird notions. Everyone chases unicorns, and when every once in a while someone finds a convincingly realistic cardboard cutout, people double up on looking for one.

@Findonovan95 I think it was more an Asia product than a worldwide product. Like the heartrate sensors on Samsung phones. Has anyone you know ever used it even once? Probably not. But in the Asia market it's actually a selling point. This dragged on too long and lost the fad timing though. I'm not convinced Nintendo ever really was serious about it.

What are you talking about? The Nintendo Switch IS quality of life.

actually should be a positive they dropped this dead horse of an idea. make games. There are enough wii fitt boards that are in landfill already

I find it very hard to believe that investors suddenly care about QOL to make Nintendo's stock go down like this. In fact, many are confused as to why Nintendo's share price dropped this much.

Possible reasons include a "potential lack of E3 surprises after Pokemon Let's Go's reveal", "Nintendo possibly screwing up their online service", or even "an algorithmic error or the shareholders behalf."

Most of the time investors don’t really have a heartbeat on things they invest in, just general knowledge. They know Pokémon is “good” so the mention of anything Pokémon has the potential to cause a surge.

Likewise, they probably don’t even know what QOL is and that gamers don’t care about it, they just heard something was cancelled and got jumpy assuming it was bad. In reality it’s probably a good thing since that R&D can be reinvested in something the user base cares about.

I think this E3 is going to be tough for Nintendo because MS and Sony may slash some prices or reveal some great bundles that Nintendo is not ready to compete with. Also, I think it's pretty clear the online service is going to barebones and not be a major revenue driver consider it is so cheap. So not a a whole lot to be excited about as an investor, but as long as sales numbers keep booming they should be good for the long haul.

No cries here! Focus on proper games, Nintendo. Games on your own devices.

https://i.imgur.com/pI5YOHI.jpg

@Agramonte, neither LABO or any other of their games marketed for the casual market were in any way related to their QOL platform.

The QOL project, based on what few projects we knew were being worked on, was a non gaming venture focusing on medical/health tech, and would have largely been Japan centric (they have a rapidly ageing population, so it's become a very attractive market for Japanese companies to invest in).

While the early success of the Wii's casual output certainly influenced their decision to try and tackle this market, that's about as far as their casual game performance went in terms of influencing QOL. Far more likely that the project went into limbo after Iwata's passing, and it wasn't a priority after the fact.

I'm not concerned. The stock market is a never-ending rollercoaster. They'll be back up/down eventually.

What a lot of complainers and people gleefully rubbing their hands together at the demise of the QoL project seem to sorely miss, is that first off: QoL had NOTHING to do with gaming whatsoever, and as such would never have had an impact on that in any negative way, so all the "better focus on games, Nintendo" comments are rather short-sighted and completely off.

Second: it was intended as a secondary (or tertiary, if you also count their smart phone games efforts) revenue stream, completely separate from their core gaming business and the thing that people apparently fail to understand, is that it could actually have been to the benefit of their main games development department, because making games costs money, after all, so more money in the bank makes that a hell of a lot easier...

So, in short, we should actually mourn the loss of QoL, if this news actually turns out to be true.

And with all that in mind, it's really no wonder that the investors got a bit nervous and share value dropped subsequently, because they at least actually understood this.

But if Nintendo can build upon the success of the Switch and come out strong at this year's E3, I'm pretty confident that the share value will level off again, or even rise again. Especially if certain games will be shown off...

If the Quality of Life is why Nintendo's stock took such a hit, I imagine it must have been because there was a big disconnect between Nintendo's investors and Nintendo themselves:

> Investors: Hmmm...It seems like Nintendo hasn't talked about their Quality of Life initiative for a while. That must be because Nintendo has delayed it to launch alongside the successful Switch instead of the failing Wii U.
> Nintendo: Hey! The Switch is a huge success! Now that our financial outlook is extremely healthy, we no longer need an ancillary revenue stream like the Quality of Life initiative to prop up out business, so let's quietly discontinue it and hope nobody notices.

@Henmii
Nintendo isn't going to stop making mobile games, not unless Nintendo's upper management wants a shareholder revolt for ignoring the biggest segment of the gaming market.

@ThanosReXXX
But muh hardcore gamez...

@westman98 No big disconnect needed at all. If this report is true, then it's pretty easy to understand that a big partner in that project stepping out is all but certain to doom the entire project, or at the very least halt it until another, equally suitable partner is found.

And you also shouldn't see it as being launched alongside anything they do on the gaming front/core business front, because they have nothing to do with each other, and as such, they can be launched/introduced and sold separately from one another.

"Nintendo isn't going to stop making mobile games"

I know, I know...sad isn't it? On a sidenote: Sony/Microsoft shareholders never revolt when Sony/Microsoft TOTALLY ignore mobile. Maybe those shareholders have more dignity? And no, Sony/Microsoft having a different audience doesn't count!

@Henmii Sony isn't ignoring mobile though

@RR529 @ThanosReXXX Nail on head. Separate venture, nothing to do with games. Health is wealth.

Typical gaming cretin: "Why are you wasting money trying to improve people's health Nintendo? We need a new Metroid!!!!!".

@cfgk24 I own a good chunk of Nintendo stock and that is correct. It often hits a high before E3 so people sell. However it also tends to shoot up after III. If you look at their stock trends for the last few years that usually takes a dip this time of year. However other software companies do as well because sales are down this time of year because it's before summer once kids get out of school saleable increase.

@Henmii umm what?! Sony has plenty of games on mobile. Maybe u haven't heard cuz it's no big deal, just another player in the biggest gaming market, but here comes Nintendo into the mobile market and people expect big things.

@Henmii
Both Sony and Microsoft have mobile games.

None of those games are anywhere near as successful as the mobiles titles from Nintendo, but they exist and do generate revenue.

I don't see why Nintendo making mobile games is bad. It exposes their IP to billions of potential consumers, which will only benefit Switch hardware and software sales. That's not to mention the amount of ancillary revenue that Nintendo's mobile software can generate.

No investor will be happy if Nintendo shuts off that revenue stream just to satiate some elitist hardcore fans who want to feel more special than they already think they are by preventing billions of mobile gamers from being exposed to Nintendo's IPs.

@WiltonRoots
You will get a Metroid Prime sleep sensor and you will like it.
😉😉

Welp, time to pull out all the guns at E3 then. Everyone's coming to Smash, give Metroid Prime Trilogy away for free with Prime 4 preorders, the Lets Go Pokemon games let you travel to every region, including the 8th gen region before its even out, the Fire Emblem game is a Lucina waifu simulator, GTA 5 with Mario Hats, Red Dead 2 is now Switch exclusive, Bayonetta 3 this year, the Subscription service will give you Gamecube games instead, F Zero, and to top it off, Reggie doing a CanCan dance with Princess Peach cosplayers (Which also confirms Super Princess Peach 2: The HaRDER vERSION.).

@WiltonRoots Thanks.
Unfortunately, logic goes out of the window when people have already made their own minds up, because they think they know what it all means.

Might as well be shouting in the desert...

@westman98 Well, if that Metroid Prime sleep sensor makes me curl up into a cozy ball and I wake up the next morning completely energized, then I'm all for it...

@ThanosReXXX
Who needs to fight Ripley when you can fight the real enemy, sleep apnea?

Panasonic and Nintendo... a doomed partnership it seems.

In a gaming perspective, it's probably best that these "Quality of Life" devices are stopped. It's nothing more than little gimmicks that'll eventually fade out over time. But I never would've thought the market would react that negative to news of the project potentially failing...

I have no idea what this quality of life thing is all about. Never even knew it existed.

Wait... investors cared about that?

Definitely not it. This was a pet product of the late CEO, would never had made any money, and is so obscure that most people had forgotten about it. It is better for investors if this project is dead and buried.

Who needs a sleep sensor, anyway? I just have my Hypno use Hypnosis on me, and then I sleep great.

I don't get it, why would Nintendo have needed Panasonic in on the project? I can't think of anything they would have brought to the table that Nintendo coudn't do on their own anyway.

Think this is rather explained by the market being worried before E3.
My guess is the stock will jump up a lot after E3.

@ThanosReXXX @westman98 Again so many people in here completely miss the point. It wouldn't even be seen by the gaming market. It wouldn't be getting sold in that environment. It wouldn't be getting reviewed by Nintendolife. It would be sold in places like Boots or CVS amongst other devices in the same category in health and wellbeing departments.

But hey, it's a gimmick even though it could improve your health and save your life.

@RR529 I didnt say they were related - just that they were smart enough to understand that 1 failed side circus a generation is enough.

That it is not game related is the entire point. Medical?!! My Girl's grandfather has an entire heart/day tracking monitoring app on his iPhone from his hospital in Boston. It alerts the doctor if it detects anything wrong. It even connects with his scale and blood pressure machine. Nintendo can't even get Chat to work on the Switch.

This was all a pipe-dream... they need to just make games.

@WiltonRoots Yeah, indeed. Like I said: we're shouting in the desert. All these armchair specialist already "know" exactly what happened and how QoL would have or could have impacted Nintendo, so luckily, they can now hand out their professional verdict...

It's at times like these, when the question pops into my mind why exactly it is that all these insanely professional specialists haven't yet secured their executive positions at Nintendo HQ. They could surely benefit from a healthy dose of some fresh new talent...

@Kirby-in-Kirkby Because Panasonic is already a name in medical equipment/devices, and they are a long time partner of Nintendo, ever since the GameCube. Perhaps you have heard of the Panasonic Q, the DVD playing deluxe version of the GameCube, made in collaboration with Panasonic?

If not, here it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panasonic_Q
You can click on the small pictures on the right side of that page to get a bigger view of the device.

Worth quite a bit of money today...

@ThanosReXXX Wow. Very interesting! I had no idea.

@Kirby-in-Kirkby You're welcome.
It was one of those typically "only in Japan" devices, much like what the iQue was for the N64, except that was for the Chinese market, so perhaps I should say "only in Asia"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQue_Player

@WiltonRoots I think a game of bingo can be played in here. You? Also can't wait for next week. I need to find some updated cards...

Besides I thought the Armchair CEOs told you that Nintendo is a gaming only company. So if they aren't developing video games or hardware they don't do anything else.

@Ryu_Niiyama Next week is going to be bingotastic, I can't wait...

@westman98 (and some others),

I didn't know that Sony and Microsoft had mobile-games. Anyway you say they have not as much succes as Nintendo? But Kimishima said himself it is not satisfactory yet. It didn't earn them as much money as they hoped. But its probably enough to keep going at it, and investors demand it.

I know its publicity for Nintendo's "real" games, but at the same time I find it painful to see their games on mobile devices. And very weak ones at that, with microtransactions and stuff. On the plus side: I am not missing much (only have a very old smartphone. One without any app-stores).

@Henmii
Super Mario Run has underperformed (due to the premium price tag), while Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes have performed to expectations. And of course, Pokemon Go is still big. Obviously, Go is not a Nintendo-developed title, but it still uses Nintendo's IP.

Nintendo has already announced Mario Kart Tour for mobile, and assuming it's free-to-play, I think it will perform very, very well, far better than Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes. They are not going to abandon mobile anytime soon. In fact, Nintendo wants their mobile gaming division to start generating 100 billion Yen in revenue annually (which would account for ~9% of their overall business if they can achieve their projected sales targets this fiscal year).

"Nintendo has already announced Mario Kart Tour for mobile, and assuming it's free-to-play, I think it will perform very, very well"

Hmm, I am not so sure. But we'll see. As for Pokemon Go: The gigantic hype has died down long ago. Sure there are still dedicated players (especially since we have a top-summer at the moment), but here in Holland for example nobody talks about Pokemon Go anymore.