Dringo

Digital events don’t require big long build-ups. Nobody is flying in. Nobody needs to book hotels. Nobody needs to change their schedules. Nintendo can announce the day before.

As a digital events organiser, we try to announce 7 - 10 days in advance, but I suspect Nintendo could go much closer

There are actually two variations of the Pokemon Pikachu Gameboy Color. I have the other one and I love it

I doubt Switch will be the primary console by the time this game comes out

@TheFullAndy We ask them all the time mate. They don’t respond

@Nin10dood Sea of Thieves is amazing

@Judal27 Although I understand the criticism. This is basically an arcade shooter, only instead of shooting bullets you’re shooting pictures. Even the scores at the end... it’s the same concept

@Nintendo4Sonic So above it you randomly decided to jump into an article about a game you don’t like and start slagging it off. Then surprised when people got annoyed with the behaviour

@Dang69 Sorry, I missed a 0. It increased by 9,232 units (unweighted figure) in its final week. Now that’s not nothing, but it’s not huge, either. Of course that is just retail figures, because GfK don’t have the digital numbers and Nintendo doesn’t share them anyway, even with the GSD charts.

I don’t deny that it would have caused more sales over a shorter period. But we are not talking the sort-of significant sales increases that would materially impact Nintendo’s financial results.

(By the way, my name is Chris Dring. I run GamesIndustry.biz)

@Dang69 But that 270% sales increase was about 900 units. It’s not as big as the percentage looks (I’m the one that reveals those figures, by the way)

It did drive sales up. But not to the extent that it materially impacts their financial results.

@Dang69 When I was a kid my mum went out to buy my a Mario game. She went to the shop and saw Super Mario World and she saw Super Mario All-Stars. She bought me All-Stars because it had more games in it so she viewed it as better value for money.

It’s not a case of being an apologist. It’s a business decision either way, rather than a fan decision.

But the idea Nintendo did something as short sighted as stopped selling a game early because they wanted to have a better quarter is even more ridiculous. They would have made more money off that game if they kept it on sale. It may have taken longer, but overall install base would have been higher. All for what? A slightly better financial result over one quarter... that’s daft.

Either way, it’s daft. Honestly, I think they’ve done it genuinely because it was Mario’s birthday. But if there is a business decision behind it, my theory is that it is to ensure the value of the other Mario games, because game value is important to Nintendo (it’s why they rare discount much). This was just a temporary deal for core fans, and not an alternative to Odyssey or 3D World.

I don’t agree with it. I think it’s a shame. Could easily have done 15m, I’d say. But Nintendo be Nintendo

@Dang69 I don’t buy either of that. I’m a business journalist by trade, and my take is that a collection of Mario games at the same price of other standalone Mario games creates competition for themselves. And with the plan to push 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, they’ve sunsetted the other.

It’s worth noting that classic consoles fad has faded quite a bit

@PALversusNTSC I know what you’re saying. But those games just haven’t sold very well on Nintendo platforms. That’s the problem.

But it’ll be easier when cloud is more of a thing

@PALversusNTSC EA has just done Apex, Plants vs Zombies and about to do Knockout City

@Dang69 It wasn’t a fail safe. Animal Crossing had already smashed and exceeded its sales target by May. There was no need to do it for the reasons you’re stating

@Dang69 Financials had nothing to do with it. They didn’t even need to do a failsafe.

@RupeeClock I got an email about it a week or two ago. To check I was ok with it being connected.

Yeah, you’re probably right. Although I expect it’ll be the same as what’s on Amazon.

Looks like it’s still The Hut Group, although I haven’t checked

I find it odd it's still 'register your interest' for Pokemon Snap. Even though the Amazon Nintendo UK store has it for sale.

I genuinely know Paul Rudd's brother-in-law

@Patendo Battle Mode!

@Iggy-Koopa I said the cloud service they have, which is Ubitus, uses Azure. Just like the chipsets they have is Nvidia. Don’t play semantics with me because I’ll knock you around the park.

Ubitus is the service Nintendo has commissioned to work with them and third parties on Switch streaming. I know this from my recent interview with Hakan Abrak on how Hitman 3 happened. Nintendo even did the approaching.

It’s quite possible that Nintendo might develop their own cloud streaming system and abandon their partner (although if they wanted to have more control, I think it’s more likely they’ll acquire them or invest in them, like they did with DeNA in mobile). And it’s possible they’ll sign Azure to power it, just like PlayStation has.

However, Azure already powers game streaming on Switch. So it’s not much of a story. Which was the motivation behind my initial comment.

@Iggy-Koopa That semantics might be true. But my statement, which was 'the service they have already uses Azure' is still accurate and your response to it was not

Regardless, Spencer isn't in charge of Azure. It may be a Game Stack thing, if it's anything at all, but you'd have to hope for an xCloud thing.

@Menardi It's not that bad. Mario and Pokemon are in the Top 5 franchises in the country

@Iggy-Koopa Yes it does. Nintendo Cloud Streaming is operated by Ubitius, which runs on Microsoft Azure

@Menardi It's a bit of a different audience. It's worth noting that Animal Crossing sold almost as many copies in the UK (physical sales) than FIFA 21

@Menardi It’s just football. Lots of people like football. It doesn’t tell us anything

@Slinkoy1 Oh I wouldn’t expect any exclusives on it. Maybe one or two niche titles, but we are talking about a souped up version of the existing machine ... aren’t we?

@Iggy-Koopa The cloud service they have is already Azure

@Chibi_Manny it’s not the ‘modern’ Nintendo. They’ve always done this since the beginning

@shgamer Switch sales in the UK this year are up 13.6% compared with the same period in 2020

@Slinkoy1 Why would it split the player base?

@Menardi FIFA is the top seller in all European countries bar Finland

@Madder128 Hardware upgrades are never about selling to new customers, but re-engaging existing ones. It’s about giving people who have been playing with the same device for four years something new to get excited about

@Dezzy70 Oh I’m with you. I’m getting impatient. BOTW went gold almost 4 and a half years ago. But 5 years for a Zelda seems normal, and that’s assuming there were no major issues (hello, COVID).

I’d love a new Odyssey. Bowser’s Fury was great. But I wonder if Nintendo might hold that back to make sure they’ve got something big for the next machines.

Nintendo announce and release things quickly. So I am hoping for at least one tasty release this Christmas

@Dezzy70 Nintendo games are such high quality... they do take that long. Do you think they’re just putting their feet up?

@Savino It’s Nintendo’s way of justifying supporting online games like Splatoon 2 and Animal Crossing beyond the initial launch. Justifies the cost of the event organisation and the updates

@Dezzy70 Look at all other AAA studios, Naughty Dog etc... they all take 5 years-plus to make games these days. They take much longer

@Magician You do know the ESA is run by the games publishers? They’re a trade body, operated and funded by EA, Xbox, PlayStation, Take-Two, Nintendo etc...

@Dang69 They knew by September they were going to smash their targets, they raised their estimates only in the next update a few weeks later.

This has nothing to do with adding a few million onto quarterly sales. This isn’t a desperate company in need of satisfying shareholders. It’s in very strong health.

Nintendo did this to celebrate Mario’s birthday. And the only ‘business’ reason I can see is due to the quantity of competition. A Mario collection on sale for the same price as a single Mario game is potentially harmful in the eyes of your average consumer. If you look at the UK charts last week, there were 5 Mario games in the Top 20. They’re all competing with each other.

The biggest threat to Mario 3D World was Mario 3D All-Stars. It’s not a surprise the latter is discontinued only a few weeks after the first

@Lionyone Physical games always stop being available after a while. That bit isn’t new. Any resold copy of a game is second hand, if you want Mario 3D All-Stars at Christmas you can buy it for about the same it was a few weeks ago.

I’m not convinced people will pay an extra £30 premium because it is shrink wrapped

@wanderwonder I bought my brother Heart Gold for £17 this Christmas. The one with the pokewalker is a lot more money because they are in shorter supply and not so readily available.

That’s the point. Most old games aren’t available to buy new anymore. Their price to buy second hand is due to availability of product. And there’s a tonne of All-Stars out there

@Sky1Eagle1 Not a huge amount. To be honest, it doesn’t make a big difference if Rise did slightly better or slightly worse. The thing at the moment is that it’s close, and that’s why it’s a challenge (although a good challenge). Huge audiences on both platforms, with one likely a bit more dominant in the West for Monster Hunter (PS5).

So Capcom will want to find a way to support both.

@Chowdaire Well yes. They could continue down the route of two different lines of games, and they probably will. But it would make more sense to have a game available across platforms if they can, thus avoiding the need to double invest IP-wise

@Dang69 But they smashed their financials... so that doesn’t make sense. They sold more games and consoles than their estimates so had to raise their estimates twice. There was no need to do it for short term gain, because if anything it will hurt them for the next FY.

So I don’t buy they either

@Lionyone But you couldn’t. Because nobody is buying them at these prices

@Minecraft_Master Nobody is actually selling them at that prices... because they’re not selling. I can put an ad on eBay and put a stupid price on it

There’s 9 - 10 million copies of this in the world. It’s not a collectors item. The sheer quantity of these games means that nobody is paying anywhere near these prices. This isn’t the Metroid Prime Trilogy of the GameCube Twilight Princess.

Scalpers are fools

Mario games would sell more over time... the short release, if anything, is to protect the value of the other Mario games. Parents will always pick a set of three £50 Mario games over one Mario Odyssey. This is a common value-protect solution, it’s why they stopped manufacturing the SNES Mini after they launched Nintendo Online

@Chowdaire It did very well post-launch. But with it not significantly exceeding Japan, and an expected lower performance in the West... I suspect the PS to be the platform of choice going forward.

But you don’t turn your back on such a huge Nintendo audience. So tricky balance

@Krull I dunno. Switch digital usage is quite low due to the available space on the platform and Nintendo’s preference for digital. Obviously 4 years ago on PS4... things have changed. But even so, I don’t think we are looking at sales that are much better