@MsgBoardGamer exactly. The games that will sell Switch to the next 20 million owners are pretty much the same ones that sold it to the first 10 million.
For many it’s just timing and finances.
From Nintendo’s perspective there are a number of routes to selling 20 million units in 2018 - big name games in 2018 is only one possible route. A big price cut would obviously be another but those aren’t the only two ways they could do it.
Yes. Another BoTW please. It’s probably the first game that’s ever really given me what I always wanted Zelda to give me: a futuristic horse-motorbike hybrid and a laser chainsaw.
I’m not actually disagreeing that the 3DS is the actual par that Nintendo should be aiming for - I’m just highlighting that direct comparisons aren’t necessarily as useful as they seem.
It’s how many copies of big first party games that Nintendo can sell that’s really important long term. In this regard the Wii U (whilst a dismal failure overall) wasn’t actually as bad as it’s install base figures suggest and the 3DS (like their previous handhelds) wasn’t as good as it’s overall install base would suggest.
Still - and agreeing 100% that the game has just begun and is far from won - Switch is outpacing 3DS and has more places to go. The sales momentum (now it’s clearly the future for Nintendo) will continue in ways that we sometimes overlook.
@rjejr it’s not as simple as that though. Wii might be the goalposts but the adoption rate for ambitious software (not just mini game compilations or Just Dance) was relatively poor.
Wii U had a smaller adoption rate but good Nintendo games sold really well on it.
Switch has a high enough install base already that Nintendo can release a few big first party games a year that are profitable to be worth their while making.
Plus to take your analogy about test results - if 14/100 was good enough to get over the threshold to go to university and 13/100 was just under then it’s a major improvement.
@-DG Definitely - It'll pass GameCube in year 2, then the N64 early in its 3rd year (if it doesn't quite manage it in year 2) and the SNES by the end of that 3rd year too.
It'll probably never catch the DS but Switch should live long enough to overtake just about every other Nintendo system. Although it might be tight with the Wii.
@rjejr I kind of agree but at the same time I think it is something of note and something worth celebrating.
Surpassing the Wii U lifetime sales so quickly confirms that Nintendo made the right decision to effectively abandon ship. Had Switch taken a lot longer to catch the wind in its sales then they'd have to be answering serious questions about why games like Mario Odyssey weren't also on Wii U with its much larger userbase.
Now - instead - we know that Switch has a very well established userbase and it's an install base that sufficiently large to sustain Nintendo as it stands if they manage it well.
@JimmySpades definitely true. Most consumers buy far (far, far) fewer games than the inhabitants of specialist gaming websites (that’s any gaming website) assume.
There are definitely people on this website who have bought more Switch games this year than I will over the next 5 years. And I buy more games than just about anyone I know in real life.
@subpopz I understand it’s so hard to get hold of 4:3 screens that it’s cheaper to use 16:9 screens even if very few of the games from that era supported that mode (a few N64 games did - including the little known game that me and my friends played a lot of called Goldeneye 007. Is it rare? I’ve still got my copy...).
Stretching the image though... philistines!
Personally I’ll be waiting for the inevitable mini. An Analogue NT 64 though. Now that’s something that might pique my interest even more.
@Tyranexx a bit yeah. It sometimes feels like Nintendo has had nothing but mixed or outright terrible sales figures since the SNES era. Even the successes have come with asterisks
not really aimed at you and all the games will be ‘party’ shovelware.
’just a handheld’ with games that might be great but are very limited by the power of the console and quality of the screen.
So a Nintendo console selling so well is kind of validating. It’s like the world waking up and saying ‘oh yeah - those games that you like, we like them all too now for the same reasons’. And of course the company making them seems switched on enough to understand why and how to maintain that success.
The long term future of the console is still unknown but it definitely looks like a very solid basis for Nintendo to do more than just survive for the next decade.
@rjejr Definitely. A reaction to Switch could be "drop PS4 prices aggressively while promote games like Horizon ZD and Crash Bandicoot Collection as a direct alternative to Nintendo's hit games."
Another reaction could be "launch PS5 a little earlier than planned and try to pull 3rd party support away onto a higher power system so that they can't easily port things to Switch".
@NewAdvent A portable version of the PS4 is the most realistic way to square the marketing circle for Sony if they want a handheld to seriously compete with Nintendo.
However such a console would have a few big compromises.
It couldn't realistically include a BluRay player - so most PS4 owners wouldn't get the real benefit of being able to take their library on the go.
It would also be relatively power hungry and/or very expensive.
It would also be risky - promoting developers to scale to working in a handheld mode (meaning their games would be much easier to port to Switch) - and detract from the positioning of Playstation as a brand (which could seriously hurt them in their fight against XBox One X). At the very least it would mean they'd have to carry on making PS4 games for far longer - leaving fewer first party exclusives in the first few years of a PS5.
It's not impossible but I think a side step into the handheld market would be difficult for Sony and I'm not sure they could successfully support a "PS4 Portable" and a PS5. One would find success and the other would fail. The PS5 is too important for Sony to allow it to fail.
If Nintendo can keep up those figures then Switch will have a bigger install base than the PS4 by the end of next year.
That's still (obviously) very, very unlikely but it's no longer completely impossible and it does seem like Switch will comfortably overtake the PS4 in Japan at some point in 2019.
@tsm7 Maybe it did... but only a handful of titles were responsible for the vast majority of the profits. If all anyone (except a tiny hardcore) buys on VC is Mario World, a Link to the Past and Super Metroid then why go to the effort necessary to release Plok or the Starfy games? Especially when doing so chokes some of the life out of the indie scene.
I don’t think it’s dead and gone but I think rethinking how to sell old games makes sense. A ‘NESflix’ service, bundling games with mini consoles (I still want them to go though Nintendo!) or curated collections that put key titles in a broader context like the MM legacy collections might make more sense.
A Nintendo legacy collection series with half a dozen games bundled every other month but all of the trimmings like box art and interviews etc. included might be preferable for instance. As part of such a service I’d definitely buy games I’d never otherwise touch.
The legacy collections are the most exciting thing here. That’s a lot of classic Mega man games on the go. Is it the first time 9 has been available on a handheld?
@Pod I think part of the logic is that 3d models can be more easily modified and customised going forwards. So - for instance - they can easily change Miriam's clothing without having to completely rework her model and redraw every frame of every animation (including animations that might rarely if ever be seen).
It also means that cinematics can use the existing assets in a dynamic way - which may have been a factor in the decision.
Personally I prefer high quality 2d sprite art but either way the game looks like it'll be great.
@aaronsullivan I don't say I disagree with you - it's obviously an attractive market for Sony. They must be able to see that but just being able to see that a market is attractive doesn't mean that you're necessarily equipped to exploit that market.
@NEStalgia is right that Sony has to ensure that the PS5 launches successfully. That is their Number 1 priority.
Now the PS5 itself can't be the hybrid console - it needs to be significantly more powerful than the XBox One X. Diverting teams to develop games for a separate hybrid (which would be necessary since it would almost certainly need an ARM processor) would also detract from their do-or-die competition with Microsoft but if they don't then they have a hybrid that will never have a library capable of competing with the Switch.
Even aside from this launching a separate hybrid can confuse the marketing message from Sony. Most consumers don't pay too much attention to what's happening in the industry. We know the difference between a Playstation 4 and a Playstation Vita 2 but for most people they're both just "a Playstation". That challenge can be overcome but it would make Playstation harder to understand than Microsoft's pitch for XBox going forwards: "the most powerful home console where 3rd party games look and play best".
And, of course, in the midst of all this there is a massive elephant in the room: Nintendo have established a very strong beach head in that marketplace with a console that's less than a year old and has 5+ years left in the tank.
Nothing is impossible but for Sony to enter the hybrid market and compete more directly with Nintendo there they'd face an incredibly difficult task. Their best option right now is to keep course, defend their Western markets against Microsoft and try to ensure that the bigger Japanese games (that will likely be Switch-led going forwards) appear on the PS4 and utilise the extra power of the PS4 Pro where possible.
Gritty ‘year one’ reboot incoming (to sell Megaman to the Western market). It’ll answer the questions that we’ve all had for so many years like which shop did Dr Light buy the metal from to make Megaman? Plus amazing revelations about Dr Wilys motivations that will change the way you think about the franchise forever.
It’s being worked on by the same team that made the cult XBox 360 Classic Bomberman Zero. Also - not to let anything out of the bag about who’s paying for it - but it’ll feature special guest appearances from thematically appropriate Sony characters like Parappa the Rapper and, er, Nathan Drake.
@NEStalgia I'd agree - in Japan it's hard to see what they can do to get back in competition. By the time we're assessing the aftermath of the coming Pokemon tsunami, Switch will be so far ahead there and positioned to dominate for years. Potentially a decade if Nintendo gets it right.
In many ways it's the inverse of what we see in the West. Nintendo will have a heavily entrenched console in the early stages of its life cycle. When one console has that built in network effect and becomes the undisputed lead console for development...
...well that's a very, very difficult nut for Sony to crack in the same way that the West is a very, very difficult nut for Nintendo to crack.
@WhistleFish You're just experiencing a different network effect. The visibility of Switch in Japan will be very different to the visibility that you will experience. They will be ubiquitous there.
And let’s not forget full Father Ted/Zelda crossover would be just the thing to shift the absolute mountain of unsellable Switch units that’s built up in Ireland.
Maybe not all of them but enough that you can no longer see the collosal pile from space! Maybe it’ll even sell there like it does in the rest of the world!
@HappyMaskedGuy also we can look forwards to a Digital Foundary video explaining how the game renders ‘big things far away’ differently to ‘small things nearby’.
Wow. I suppose Nintendo actually might see the Switch install base overtake the PS4 install base in Japan by the end of next year (I still doubt it for next but the past few weeks make it possible...).
Even if they don’t it looks like Switch has effectively ‘won’ the Japanese market for the next 5 years or more. There’s no realistic way back for Sony there - I just can’t see them managing a hybrid themselves without completely hamstringing themselves in their fight against Microsoft in the West.
Over the coming years this should mean that Switch becomes the main focal point for Japanese developers.
@NEStalgia Also it's too big to be a handheld, no-one wants an underpowered home console, the online infrastructure is 20 years out of date and who wants to play rehashed games like Mario Odyssey and Zelda when you can have a fresh new IP like Super Lucky's Tale*.
*I actually read that one recently. Some things are real head in hand moments...
@MsgBoardGamer Of course the analysts claim that they can predict the future of the video games market. Their insight and predictions are their product - if they were to admit they can't predict what's going to happen at all then why would anyone pay them?
They have a lot of information at hand (more so than the amateurs on internet message boards) but they are influenced by bias and often that bias is surprisingly personal. They like playing AAA games - it's why they're interested in the industry to begin with and probably why they chose to pursue a career tangential to the industry - so their focus is on the development of those games and their sources are more likely to be located in AAA publishers.
Did any analyst at the start of 2017 predict that PUBG would be the biggest and most influential game of the year? Did any analyst at the start of 2016 predict that Rocket League would become huge? Did any analyst ever predict (until after the event) that Minecraft would be a cultural phenomenon? Even within the Nintendo space did any analyst have Tomodatchi Life pegged as a possible million seller on the 3DS?
There's a reason and it's not just because such successes are harder to pluck from the haystack than wondering whether this years Assassins Creed will sell more than the previous one. It's because the analysts simply don't have their eyes focused on that space.
This - in turn - causes analysts to underestimate Nintendo. Even if they had hardware parity the company simply isn't as well set up to cater to AAA publishers so they hear (and subsequently report) nothing but negative things about Nintendo from their closest and friendliest (and most important) sources within those publishers.
But Nintendo has always better placed than the analysts assume to pick up games like the next Minecraft or the next Rocket League or even the next PUBG for their consoles.
I think the analysts (expert and otherwise) made a few big mistakes in writing off Nintendo so completely.
Firstly they completely wrote off Nintendo's traditional strengths in the handheld market. They did this because around 2011-2012; 3DS had a slightly rocky launch, the Vita crashed and burned and smartphones were clearly going to become much more powerful and look much better than handhelds pretty quickly and be more convenient into the package. The prognosis was "well maybe Nintendo has turned the 3DS into a lukewarm success but that's the last time it'll work - there'll never be another massively successful dedicated handheld".
However in the years since the situation has subtly changed. Hidden behind the unbelievable free-to-play numbers of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans Apple has failed to properly curate the App Store to cultivate premium experiences. The App store and (even more so) Google Play are waste lands. The dream of mobile gaming becoming something genuinely worthwhile has died on the vine.
At the same time the 3DS has been more than just a little successful. It's never really been set up to be a true premium system but Nintendo has consistently found ways of exploiting new niches in the marketplace with the 3DS family and it's actually grown into one of the biggest gaming platforms ever released.
Those two things have happened largely unseen by analysts who prefer to talk about things happening the AAA space because it's of more interest to them personally and their followers. So they have a skewed view on the market to begin with - a good premium handheld with the right support was always likely to do better than they were predicting.
Secondly analysts underestimated Nintendo's development teams. Put simply Nintendo employs some exceptional game designers who have enjoyed incredible critical success throughout the Wii U era. Those games weren't all huge financial successes but they fuelled confidence in design and gave Nintendo the skills and manpower to work with HD assets.
Thirdly analysts mis-read the market after seeing demand for the PS4. Their big answer to 'why' was that Sony had the most powerful console. Despite knowing that Microsoft completely mismanaged the XBox One launch and despite knowing that there are many examples of less powerful consoles out-selling more powerful ones in the past they decided that the new paradigm is 'the most powerful and best selling console early on will win'.
Perhaps they fell into that trap because it's what dominates conversation within the online bubble or perhaps they fell into that trap because they were listening too much to the likes of EA. The vision of the future EA set out actually turns out less to be a prediction of what is likely to happen and more of what EA is desperately hoping will happen.
@datamonkey I wouldn't count on that. Pokemon has a strange byzantine ownership structure. Nintendo has effective control of the Pokemon Company but it's not something they own outright.
@electrolite77 Yep. Aside from the obvious sexism (which could be charitably written off as very immature childish humour) Zelda just wasn't a trash talking skill based type of game. Advertising Street Fighter like that? O.K. But not a game like Zelda. They just didn't understand what they had.
The Mario 64 advert was actually even worse. A once in a lifetime never to be repeated leap forward into a genuinely new space and they added a tag line "not bad for an old timer". They might as well have said "there you go Sony - there's your narrative: Nintendo rehashes old IP that's simultaneously aimed at kids and stodgily old fashioned".
There are some words that should never be used in advertising and "old" is very near the top.
In my mind I can imagine the 90's Sony UK marketing team sitting in their office around the TV whenever Nintendo released a new advert before laughing and high five-ing each other and pulling out a £50 note while lining up some "powder" on the table... "hey guys lining up this 'snow' on the table has given me a great idea for advertising Cool Boarders".
All my life Nintendo's marketing decisions in the UK have left me banging my head in frustration.
Sony by comparison have always had an A* sales & marketing operation in the UK (more generally too but in the UK especially). They have the retail partnerships that matter and they have a very clear idea of who they're marketing to and how to reach them. If it were a boxing match it would have been stopped many times over.
I'd have sacked Nintendo's whole marketing operation in the UK after "Willst thou save the girl... or play like one" (yep - you don't want people to see that advert) and various times over since then for similar things.
I'd also have sacked their sales team for letting supermarkets put in unrealistic orders for Wii U and then making a hash of handling the aftermath. It's harmed their business long term but I suppose the sales reps responsible at least hit their bonus targets back in 2012 and have probably moved on since...
@ThumperUK I don't think it's just about advertising.
Nintendo has consistently and completely got the marketing wrong for the UK. They don't understand exactly who's buying their products or the type of adverts they should make, the tone of those adverts or where they should place them. A bigger advertising budget might help to hide that lack of quality marketing work but it would just be treating the symptoms rather than the cause.
That's not a Wii U thing (which was mis-marketed on a global level from the very beginning) - it's something that goes back to the NES days and that got worse after they disbanded Nintendo UK in the 90's. Because Nintendo of Europe - being a very German company - know better how the UK market works...
Crucially in the UK they've also failed to establish/maintain/foster their retail partnerships. Behind the scenes (mostly) they stupidly burned a lot of bridges with Asda, Tesco etc. in the Wii U era and they have to re-build that trust. Having a strong point of sales presence in those supermarkets (and in GAME) is essential and drives sales to the mass market in a way that has nothing to do with advertising.
In all reality we have no idea what the costs of porting games like LA Noire, Doom or Skyrim are or the sales expectations for those games.
When you look at a game like Doom the number of articles written about how great it is as a game, how much of a technical achievement it was for ID etc. - it put a 12 month old game in the news churn day after day. That's the type of advertising that you can't pay for directly. Even if it only turns out that Switch version only broke even it's probably been a very worthwhile investment from Bethesda (and it may turn out that the high price, high margin Switch copies have turned them a healthy profit besides).
I think you can see the real roots of this in the admission from the developers of another game, Hollow Knight.
When the original developers are sloppy or just coding "as they should" (and this is definitely the case here as RiME is known for technical issues on all consoles) then porting is much more difficult.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE I don't think anyone thinks it's an advantage to not have streaming apps and a browser for Switch owners. Choice is rarely a bad thing.
A pure focus on gaming is great for marketing though. It makes it clear to consumers and the market at large that Nintendo's priorities lie with the 'core consumers'.
Microsoft did the opposite with XBox One - focusing on why it would be a good media consumption device - and it was a disaster for them. It allowed Sony to seal the narrative that PS4 would be the best place for 3rd party games.
In Nintendo's case not having media apps allows them to avoid direct comparisons with the iPad etc. Because let's face it Switch apps will always be lagging behind the quality of iOS apps (they'll never be the focus of devs).
So there'd be lots of negative articles with the subtext 'Switch isn't the best at streaming or browsing'. A line that would be shortened by many readers to 'Switch isn't the best'.
I'm late to this thread but still there are a few points to make.
1. Who says it'll be a successful generation? From a normal consumers perspective the leap from PS4 to PS5 will be the least impressive generational leap ever. Especially for people who have a pro or an Xbox One X.
It could easily be a DVD>BluRay analogue and at the very least we might see take up occur much more slowly than in the past.
There is nothing in business logic that says a successor console from any manufacturer has to be successful.
2. A new generation launching doesn't mean 100% adoption immediately and the third parties will always have one foot in the past until the install base justifies leaving the past generation behind (subject to a few other quirks like manufacturer incentives to the publishers).
A new generation launching next year and on the expectation of very high sales very quickly might scare Nintendo but 2 years from now I don't think they'll be worried at all. By that point Switch will have a very big install base and be much cheaper to produce.
They might offer an incremental upgrade but regardless of that they'll be able to position Switch as a budget option for a broader audience much like the 3DS today.
I can see it. I've said many times it's a logical move for Microsoft - especially since there's not too much overlap with Nintendo in the market (Japan is the starkest example).
Even more logical is the idea the Microsoft licenses out 'XBox' manufacture as they do with Windows. Why not a Samsung XBox and an Asus XBox? If they all play the same games and Microsoft can collect royalties on the games it's then just a marginal business like PC manufacture.
It's a business Microsoft would immediately understand as a company.
It's a great game that does loads of incredible things. I love the script, think the game probably has more imagination and fun with settings than any other Mario game and I think there's clearly a lot of game there. It's also the most skillfully accessible/scaleable 3D Mario game (which is very important).
However I don't agree with the idea that it's the best Mario game. It's just not as focused on what it wants to achieve as the Galaxy games or 3D World and the platforming (as others have noted here) doesn't build to quite the same satisfying climax.
I can see why people would propose it to be the best in the series and I think it's the best example of OCD collectathon 3D platformer I've ever played by far but that's not what I personally want in a platform game.
Comments 652
Re: Nintendo President Aims for 20 Million Switch Units To Be Shipped Next Year
@MsgBoardGamer exactly. The games that will sell Switch to the next 20 million owners are pretty much the same ones that sold it to the first 10 million.
For many it’s just timing and finances.
From Nintendo’s perspective there are a number of routes to selling 20 million units in 2018 - big name games in 2018 is only one possible route. A big price cut would obviously be another but those aren’t the only two ways they could do it.
Re: Aonuma Wants to Keep Zelda: Breath of the Wild's Freedom in Future Games
Yes. Another BoTW please. It’s probably the first game that’s ever really given me what I always wanted Zelda to give me: a futuristic horse-motorbike hybrid and a laser chainsaw.
Re: Super Mario Land 2 Gets a Fan-Made Colour Treatment
It’s cool that someone has done this. There are some great one and done ideas in Mario Land 2. It’s such a short and really easy game though.
What I’d really like for Mario Land 2 is the power ups, enemies and themes being made up to Mario World standard and being added to Mario Maker 2.
Re: Random: These N64 Box Art Covers Have Not Aged Well
@1UP_MARIO one mans inferior resolution is another mans widescreen.
Specifically a man who lives in a PAL region.
Re: You Can Now Spice Up Your iMessages With Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Stickers
@TossedLlama 👍🗣🤡👶
Re: You Can Now Spice Up Your iMessages With Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Stickers
@Dazza You missed the obvious click bait headline "Zelda BoTW on iOS NOW". It was an open net and you've skyed the ball into the crowd.
For shame NL, for shame...
Re: Switch Set To Overtake Wii U In Japan After Less Than A Year On Sale
@rjejr depends on the university!
I’m not actually disagreeing that the 3DS is the actual par that Nintendo should be aiming for - I’m just highlighting that direct comparisons aren’t necessarily as useful as they seem.
It’s how many copies of big first party games that Nintendo can sell that’s really important long term. In this regard the Wii U (whilst a dismal failure overall) wasn’t actually as bad as it’s install base figures suggest and the 3DS (like their previous handhelds) wasn’t as good as it’s overall install base would suggest.
Still - and agreeing 100% that the game has just begun and is far from won - Switch is outpacing 3DS and has more places to go. The sales momentum (now it’s clearly the future for Nintendo) will continue in ways that we sometimes overlook.
Re: Switch Set To Overtake Wii U In Japan After Less Than A Year On Sale
@rjejr it’s not as simple as that though. Wii might be the goalposts but the adoption rate for ambitious software (not just mini game compilations or Just Dance) was relatively poor.
Wii U had a smaller adoption rate but good Nintendo games sold really well on it.
Switch has a high enough install base already that Nintendo can release a few big first party games a year that are profitable to be worth their while making.
Plus to take your analogy about test results - if 14/100 was good enough to get over the threshold to go to university and 13/100 was just under then it’s a major improvement.
Re: Switch Set To Overtake Wii U In Japan After Less Than A Year On Sale
@-DG Definitely - It'll pass GameCube in year 2, then the N64 early in its 3rd year (if it doesn't quite manage it in year 2) and the SNES by the end of that 3rd year too.
It'll probably never catch the DS but Switch should live long enough to overtake just about every other Nintendo system. Although it might be tight with the Wii.
Re: Switch Set To Overtake Wii U In Japan After Less Than A Year On Sale
@rjejr I kind of agree but at the same time I think it is something of note and something worth celebrating.
Surpassing the Wii U lifetime sales so quickly confirms that Nintendo made the right decision to effectively abandon ship. Had Switch taken a lot longer to catch the wind in its sales then they'd have to be answering serious questions about why games like Mario Odyssey weren't also on Wii U with its much larger userbase.
Now - instead - we know that Switch has a very well established userbase and it's an install base that sufficiently large to sustain Nintendo as it stands if they manage it well.
Re: Site News: Say Hello To The New Nintendo Life Editor, Dom Reseigh-Lincoln
Ah - I see that Tom has already handed over the glasses and ginger beard of editorship.
Like Dr Who has his Tardis those are clearly the the symbols that we all associated with NL.
Best of luck - hopefully you enjoy your new role!
Re: Site News: A Fond Farewell from Nintendo Life Editor, Thomas Whitehead
All the best, you're a quality writer with a good understanding of the industry. Your voice will be missed.
Re: Switch Continues To Soar As It Sells Over 55K In South Korea In Just Three Days
@JimmySpades definitely true. Most consumers buy far (far, far) fewer games than the inhabitants of specialist gaming websites (that’s any gaming website) assume.
There are definitely people on this website who have bought more Switch games this year than I will over the next 5 years. And I buy more games than just about anyone I know in real life.
Re: Hyperkin Has Created A Prototype Portable Nintendo 64 Mini
@subpopz I understand it’s so hard to get hold of 4:3 screens that it’s cheaper to use 16:9 screens even if very few of the games from that era supported that mode (a few N64 games did - including the little known game that me and my friends played a lot of called Goldeneye 007. Is it rare? I’ve still got my copy...).
Stretching the image though... philistines!
Personally I’ll be waiting for the inevitable mini. An Analogue NT 64 though. Now that’s something that might pique my interest even more.
Re: Switch Continues To Soar As It Sells Over 55K In South Korea In Just Three Days
@Tyranexx a bit yeah. It sometimes feels like Nintendo has had nothing but mixed or outright terrible sales figures since the SNES era. Even the successes have come with asterisks
not really aimed at you and all the games will be ‘party’ shovelware.
’just a handheld’ with games that might be great but are very limited by the power of the console and quality of the screen.
So a Nintendo console selling so well is kind of validating. It’s like the world waking up and saying ‘oh yeah - those games that you like, we like them all too now for the same reasons’. And of course the company making them seems switched on enough to understand why and how to maintain that success.
Very, very strange.
Re: Nintendo Switch Reaches 10 Million Global Sales In Its First Nine Months
An impressive number.
The long term future of the console is still unknown but it definitely looks like a very solid basis for Nintendo to do more than just survive for the next decade.
Re: Zelda: Breath of the Wild Champions' Ballad DLC Goes Live
@Savino also he’ll start salvaging powers from the ancient shrines of a technologically advanced civilisation that disappeared centuries earlier.
Oh and Link will turn out to be a girl when you finish the game.
Then the next game will be a 4 player co-op...
Re: We Can't Ignore The Switch, Says Sony's Head Of Corporate Planning
@rjejr Definitely. A reaction to Switch could be "drop PS4 prices aggressively while promote games like Horizon ZD and Crash Bandicoot Collection as a direct alternative to Nintendo's hit games."
Another reaction could be "launch PS5 a little earlier than planned and try to pull 3rd party support away onto a higher power system so that they can't easily port things to Switch".
Re: We Can't Ignore The Switch, Says Sony's Head Of Corporate Planning
@NewAdvent A portable version of the PS4 is the most realistic way to square the marketing circle for Sony if they want a handheld to seriously compete with Nintendo.
However such a console would have a few big compromises.
It would also be risky - promoting developers to scale to working in a handheld mode (meaning their games would be much easier to port to Switch) - and detract from the positioning of Playstation as a brand (which could seriously hurt them in their fight against XBox One X). At the very least it would mean they'd have to carry on making PS4 games for far longer - leaving fewer first party exclusives in the first few years of a PS5.
It's not impossible but I think a side step into the handheld market would be difficult for Sony and I'm not sure they could successfully support a "PS4 Portable" and a PS5. One would find success and the other would fail. The PS5 is too important for Sony to allow it to fail.
Re: Pokémon, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Nintendo Switch Lead the Way in Japanese Charts
If Nintendo can keep up those figures then Switch will have a bigger install base than the PS4 by the end of next year.
That's still (obviously) very, very unlikely but it's no longer completely impossible and it does seem like Switch will comfortably overtake the PS4 in Japan at some point in 2019.
Re: The Switch is Getting its First Game Boy Advance Port Soon
@tsm7 Maybe it did... but only a handful of titles were responsible for the vast majority of the profits. If all anyone (except a tiny hardcore) buys on VC is Mario World, a Link to the Past and Super Metroid then why go to the effort necessary to release Plok or the Starfy games? Especially when doing so chokes some of the life out of the indie scene.
I don’t think it’s dead and gone but I think rethinking how to sell old games makes sense. A ‘NESflix’ service, bundling games with mini consoles (I still want them to go though Nintendo!) or curated collections that put key titles in a broader context like the MM legacy collections might make more sense.
A Nintendo legacy collection series with half a dozen games bundled every other month but all of the trimmings like box art and interviews etc. included might be preferable for instance. As part of such a service I’d definitely buy games I’d never otherwise touch.
Re: Mega Man 11 Confirmed For Switch In 2018
@Giygas_95 I thought so. 9 is such a great game (& 10 is no slouch either even if it’s a slight level below).
We just need to see prices & whether we’re getting a nice physical version.
Re: Mega Man 11 Confirmed For Switch In 2018
The legacy collections are the most exciting thing here. That’s a lot of classic Mega man games on the go. Is it the first time 9 has been available on a handheld?
Now Capcom - we need to talk about Okami...
Re: You'll Be Able To Dress Miriam Up In Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night
@Pod I think part of the logic is that 3d models can be more easily modified and customised going forwards. So - for instance - they can easily change Miriam's clothing without having to completely rework her model and redraw every frame of every animation (including animations that might rarely if ever be seen).
It also means that cinematics can use the existing assets in a dynamic way - which may have been a factor in the decision.
Personally I prefer high quality 2d sprite art but either way the game looks like it'll be great.
Re: Nintendo Switch Hardware Sales Reach Another Level in Japan
@aaronsullivan I don't say I disagree with you - it's obviously an attractive market for Sony. They must be able to see that but just being able to see that a market is attractive doesn't mean that you're necessarily equipped to exploit that market.
@NEStalgia is right that Sony has to ensure that the PS5 launches successfully. That is their Number 1 priority.
Now the PS5 itself can't be the hybrid console - it needs to be significantly more powerful than the XBox One X. Diverting teams to develop games for a separate hybrid (which would be necessary since it would almost certainly need an ARM processor) would also detract from their do-or-die competition with Microsoft but if they don't then they have a hybrid that will never have a library capable of competing with the Switch.
Even aside from this launching a separate hybrid can confuse the marketing message from Sony. Most consumers don't pay too much attention to what's happening in the industry. We know the difference between a Playstation 4 and a Playstation Vita 2 but for most people they're both just "a Playstation". That challenge can be overcome but it would make Playstation harder to understand than Microsoft's pitch for XBox going forwards: "the most powerful home console where 3rd party games look and play best".
And, of course, in the midst of all this there is a massive elephant in the room: Nintendo have established a very strong beach head in that marketplace with a console that's less than a year old and has 5+ years left in the tank.
Nothing is impossible but for Sony to enter the hybrid market and compete more directly with Nintendo there they'd face an incredibly difficult task. Their best option right now is to keep course, defend their Western markets against Microsoft and try to ensure that the bigger Japanese games (that will likely be Switch-led going forwards) appear on the PS4 and utilise the extra power of the PS4 Pro where possible.
Re: Capcom Hosting Mega Man 30th Anniversary Livestream That "You Won't Want To Miss"
Gritty ‘year one’ reboot incoming (to sell Megaman to the Western market). It’ll answer the questions that we’ve all had for so many years like which shop did Dr Light buy the metal from to make Megaman? Plus amazing revelations about Dr Wilys motivations that will change the way you think about the franchise forever.
It’s being worked on by the same team that made the cult XBox 360 Classic Bomberman Zero. Also - not to let anything out of the bag about who’s paying for it - but it’ll feature special guest appearances from thematically appropriate Sony characters like Parappa the Rapper and, er, Nathan Drake.
Re: Nintendo Switch Hardware Sales Reach Another Level in Japan
@NEStalgia I'd agree - in Japan it's hard to see what they can do to get back in competition. By the time we're assessing the aftermath of the coming Pokemon tsunami, Switch will be so far ahead there and positioned to dominate for years. Potentially a decade if Nintendo gets it right.
In many ways it's the inverse of what we see in the West. Nintendo will have a heavily entrenched console in the early stages of its life cycle. When one console has that built in network effect and becomes the undisputed lead console for development...
...well that's a very, very difficult nut for Sony to crack in the same way that the West is a very, very difficult nut for Nintendo to crack.
Re: Nintendo Switch Hardware Sales Reach Another Level in Japan
@WhistleFish You're just experiencing a different network effect. The visibility of Switch in Japan will be very different to the visibility that you will experience. They will be ubiquitous there.
Re: The Latest Zelda: Breath of the Wild Gift is For Your Lovely Horse
And let’s not forget full Father Ted/Zelda crossover would be just the thing to shift the absolute mountain of unsellable Switch units that’s built up in Ireland.
Maybe not all of them but enough that you can no longer see the collosal pile from space! Maybe it’ll even sell there like it does in the rest of the world!
Re: The Latest Zelda: Breath of the Wild Gift is For Your Lovely Horse
@HappyMaskedGuy also we can look forwards to a Digital Foundary video explaining how the game renders ‘big things far away’ differently to ‘small things nearby’.
Re: The Latest Zelda: Breath of the Wild Gift is For Your Lovely Horse
KICK BISHOP GANNON UP THE ARSE?!
Re: It's Going To Be Hard To Resist These Super Mario 3 Pin Badges
Loot boxes!
The packaging though 😍
Re: Nintendo Switch Hardware Sales Reach Another Level in Japan
Wow. I suppose Nintendo actually might see the Switch install base overtake the PS4 install base in Japan by the end of next year (I still doubt it for next but the past few weeks make it possible...).
Even if they don’t it looks like Switch has effectively ‘won’ the Japanese market for the next 5 years or more. There’s no realistic way back for Sony there - I just can’t see them managing a hybrid themselves without completely hamstringing themselves in their fight against Microsoft in the West.
Over the coming years this should mean that Switch becomes the main focal point for Japanese developers.
Re: Nintendo Switch and Super Mario Odyssey Among the Big Sales Winners Over Holiday Weekend
@NEStalgia Also it's too big to be a handheld, no-one wants an underpowered home console, the online infrastructure is 20 years out of date and who wants to play rehashed games like Mario Odyssey and Zelda when you can have a fresh new IP like Super Lucky's Tale*.
*I actually read that one recently. Some things are real head in hand moments...
Re: Nintendo Switch and Super Mario Odyssey Among the Big Sales Winners Over Holiday Weekend
@Melkac Super Mario Odyssey the flamethrower, Super Mario Odyssey the breakfast cereal...
...oh wait - they're actually doing that one...
Re: Rumour: Super Mario Cereal is On the Way With an 'amiibo' Box
@Bunkerneath Also if it's an Amiibo how many boxes are they going to make?
Re: Rumour: Super Mario Cereal is On the Way With an 'amiibo' Box
@KingdomHeartsFan The ingrates - don't they realise you're only trying your best to get them addicted to an expensive life long addiction?
Re: Switch On Track To Exceed 10 Month Wii Sales By 20 Percent, Says NPD Analyst
@MsgBoardGamer Of course the analysts claim that they can predict the future of the video games market. Their insight and predictions are their product - if they were to admit they can't predict what's going to happen at all then why would anyone pay them?
They have a lot of information at hand (more so than the amateurs on internet message boards) but they are influenced by bias and often that bias is surprisingly personal. They like playing AAA games - it's why they're interested in the industry to begin with and probably why they chose to pursue a career tangential to the industry - so their focus is on the development of those games and their sources are more likely to be located in AAA publishers.
Did any analyst at the start of 2017 predict that PUBG would be the biggest and most influential game of the year? Did any analyst at the start of 2016 predict that Rocket League would become huge? Did any analyst ever predict (until after the event) that Minecraft would be a cultural phenomenon? Even within the Nintendo space did any analyst have Tomodatchi Life pegged as a possible million seller on the 3DS?
There's a reason and it's not just because such successes are harder to pluck from the haystack than wondering whether this years Assassins Creed will sell more than the previous one. It's because the analysts simply don't have their eyes focused on that space.
This - in turn - causes analysts to underestimate Nintendo. Even if they had hardware parity the company simply isn't as well set up to cater to AAA publishers so they hear (and subsequently report) nothing but negative things about Nintendo from their closest and friendliest (and most important) sources within those publishers.
But Nintendo has always better placed than the analysts assume to pick up games like the next Minecraft or the next Rocket League or even the next PUBG for their consoles.
Re: Switch On Track To Exceed 10 Month Wii Sales By 20 Percent, Says NPD Analyst
I think the analysts (expert and otherwise) made a few big mistakes in writing off Nintendo so completely.
Firstly they completely wrote off Nintendo's traditional strengths in the handheld market. They did this because around 2011-2012; 3DS had a slightly rocky launch, the Vita crashed and burned and smartphones were clearly going to become much more powerful and look much better than handhelds pretty quickly and be more convenient into the package. The prognosis was "well maybe Nintendo has turned the 3DS into a lukewarm success but that's the last time it'll work - there'll never be another massively successful dedicated handheld".
However in the years since the situation has subtly changed. Hidden behind the unbelievable free-to-play numbers of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans Apple has failed to properly curate the App Store to cultivate premium experiences. The App store and (even more so) Google Play are waste lands. The dream of mobile gaming becoming something genuinely worthwhile has died on the vine.
At the same time the 3DS has been more than just a little successful. It's never really been set up to be a true premium system but Nintendo has consistently found ways of exploiting new niches in the marketplace with the 3DS family and it's actually grown into one of the biggest gaming platforms ever released.
Those two things have happened largely unseen by analysts who prefer to talk about things happening the AAA space because it's of more interest to them personally and their followers. So they have a skewed view on the market to begin with - a good premium handheld with the right support was always likely to do better than they were predicting.
Secondly analysts underestimated Nintendo's development teams. Put simply Nintendo employs some exceptional game designers who have enjoyed incredible critical success throughout the Wii U era. Those games weren't all huge financial successes but they fuelled confidence in design and gave Nintendo the skills and manpower to work with HD assets.
Thirdly analysts mis-read the market after seeing demand for the PS4. Their big answer to 'why' was that Sony had the most powerful console. Despite knowing that Microsoft completely mismanaged the XBox One launch and despite knowing that there are many examples of less powerful consoles out-selling more powerful ones in the past they decided that the new paradigm is 'the most powerful and best selling console early on will win'.
Perhaps they fell into that trap because it's what dominates conversation within the online bubble or perhaps they fell into that trap because they were listening too much to the likes of EA. The vision of the future EA set out actually turns out less to be a prediction of what is likely to happen and more of what EA is desperately hoping will happen.
Re: Super Nintendo World at Universal Orlando Will Reportedly Be Bigger Than Expected
@datamonkey I wouldn't count on that. Pokemon has a strange byzantine ownership structure. Nintendo has effective control of the Pokemon Company but it's not something they own outright.
Re: New Stages, Hair Styles, Battle Mode and More Confirmed for Huge Splatoon 2 Updates
That's a huge update that really bulks up the game substantially over the original.
Personally I'm really looking forwards to the new Salmon Run map.
Re: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Both Make Debut in UK Charts Top 5
@electrolite77 Yep. Aside from the obvious sexism (which could be charitably written off as very immature childish humour) Zelda just wasn't a trash talking skill based type of game. Advertising Street Fighter like that? O.K. But not a game like Zelda. They just didn't understand what they had.
The Mario 64 advert was actually even worse. A once in a lifetime never to be repeated leap forward into a genuinely new space and they added a tag line "not bad for an old timer". They might as well have said "there you go Sony - there's your narrative: Nintendo rehashes old IP that's simultaneously aimed at kids and stodgily old fashioned".
There are some words that should never be used in advertising and "old" is very near the top.
In my mind I can imagine the 90's Sony UK marketing team sitting in their office around the TV whenever Nintendo released a new advert before laughing and high five-ing each other and pulling out a £50 note while lining up some "powder" on the table... "hey guys lining up this 'snow' on the table has given me a great idea for advertising Cool Boarders".
Re: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Both Make Debut in UK Charts Top 5
@electrolite77 I know.
All my life Nintendo's marketing decisions in the UK have left me banging my head in frustration.
Sony by comparison have always had an A* sales & marketing operation in the UK (more generally too but in the UK especially). They have the retail partnerships that matter and they have a very clear idea of who they're marketing to and how to reach them. If it were a boxing match it would have been stopped many times over.
I'd have sacked Nintendo's whole marketing operation in the UK after "Willst thou save the girl... or play like one" (yep - you don't want people to see that advert) and various times over since then for similar things.
I'd also have sacked their sales team for letting supermarkets put in unrealistic orders for Wii U and then making a hash of handling the aftermath. It's harmed their business long term but I suppose the sales reps responsible at least hit their bonus targets back in 2012 and have probably moved on since...
Re: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Both Make Debut in UK Charts Top 5
@ThumperUK I don't think it's just about advertising.
Nintendo has consistently and completely got the marketing wrong for the UK. They don't understand exactly who's buying their products or the type of adverts they should make, the tone of those adverts or where they should place them. A bigger advertising budget might help to hide that lack of quality marketing work but it would just be treating the symptoms rather than the cause.
That's not a Wii U thing (which was mis-marketed on a global level from the very beginning) - it's something that goes back to the NES days and that got worse after they disbanded Nintendo UK in the 90's. Because Nintendo of Europe - being a very German company - know better how the UK market works...
Crucially in the UK they've also failed to establish/maintain/foster their retail partnerships. Behind the scenes (mostly) they stupidly burned a lot of bridges with Asda, Tesco etc. in the Wii U era and they have to re-build that trust. Having a strong point of sales presence in those supermarkets (and in GAME) is essential and drives sales to the mass market in a way that has nothing to do with advertising.
Re: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Both Make Debut in UK Charts Top 5
In all reality we have no idea what the costs of porting games like LA Noire, Doom or Skyrim are or the sales expectations for those games.
When you look at a game like Doom the number of articles written about how great it is as a game, how much of a technical achievement it was for ID etc. - it put a 12 month old game in the news churn day after day. That's the type of advertising that you can't pay for directly. Even if it only turns out that Switch version only broke even it's probably been a very worthwhile investment from Bethesda (and it may turn out that the high price, high margin Switch copies have turned them a healthy profit besides).
Re: RiME Devs Explain The Difficulty Of Porting The Game To Switch
I think you can see the real roots of this in the admission from the developers of another game, Hollow Knight.
When the original developers are sloppy or just coding "as they should" (and this is definitely the case here as RiME is known for technical issues on all consoles) then porting is much more difficult.
Re: Hands On: Watching Hulu on the Nintendo Switch
@SLIGEACH_EIRE I don't think anyone thinks it's an advantage to not have streaming apps and a browser for Switch owners. Choice is rarely a bad thing.
A pure focus on gaming is great for marketing though. It makes it clear to consumers and the market at large that Nintendo's priorities lie with the 'core consumers'.
Microsoft did the opposite with XBox One - focusing on why it would be a good media consumption device - and it was a disaster for them. It allowed Sony to seal the narrative that PS4 would be the best place for 3rd party games.
In Nintendo's case not having media apps allows them to avoid direct comparisons with the iPad etc. Because let's face it Switch apps will always be lagging behind the quality of iOS apps (they'll never be the focus of devs).
So there'd be lots of negative articles with the subtext 'Switch isn't the best at streaming or browsing'. A line that would be shortened by many readers to 'Switch isn't the best'.
Re: Ubisoft Thinks The Next Console Cycle Isn't Far Away, So Where Does That Leave Switch?
I'm late to this thread but still there are a few points to make.
1. Who says it'll be a successful generation? From a normal consumers perspective the leap from PS4 to PS5 will be the least impressive generational leap ever. Especially for people who have a pro or an Xbox One X.
It could easily be a DVD>BluRay analogue and at the very least we might see take up occur much more slowly than in the past.
There is nothing in business logic that says a successor console from any manufacturer has to be successful.
2. A new generation launching doesn't mean 100% adoption immediately and the third parties will always have one foot in the past until the install base justifies leaving the past generation behind (subject to a few other quirks like manufacturer incentives to the publishers).
A new generation launching next year and on the expectation of very high sales very quickly might scare Nintendo but 2 years from now I don't think they'll be worried at all. By that point Switch will have a very big install base and be much cheaper to produce.
They might offer an incremental upgrade but regardless of that they'll be able to position Switch as a budget option for a broader audience much like the 3DS today.
Re: Microsoft Wants To Reach Gamers On Rival Systems, Says Xbox Chief Phil Spencer
I can see it. I've said many times it's a logical move for Microsoft - especially since there's not too much overlap with Nintendo in the market (Japan is the starkest example).
Even more logical is the idea the Microsoft licenses out 'XBox' manufacture as they do with Windows. Why not a Samsung XBox and an Asus XBox? If they all play the same games and Microsoft can collect royalties on the games it's then just a marginal business like PC manufacture.
It's a business Microsoft would immediately understand as a company.
Re: Talking Point: The Case for Super Mario Odyssey as the Greatest Mario Game
It's a great game that does loads of incredible things. I love the script, think the game probably has more imagination and fun with settings than any other Mario game and I think there's clearly a lot of game there. It's also the most skillfully accessible/scaleable 3D Mario game (which is very important).
However I don't agree with the idea that it's the best Mario game. It's just not as focused on what it wants to achieve as the Galaxy games or 3D World and the platforming (as others have noted here) doesn't build to quite the same satisfying climax.
I can see why people would propose it to be the best in the series and I think it's the best example of OCD collectathon 3D platformer I've ever played by far but that's not what I personally want in a platform game.