
Nintendo’s Sad Struggle for Survival - mimbs
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/12/super-marios-sorrow/511187/?single_page=true
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omg_ketchup
I don't understand everyone's response to literally everything Nintendo does
ever.

The stock drops like 15% in a weekend, because Super Mario Run came out and
made a ton of money...? It's got numbers comparable to Pokemon Go, which
tripled Nintendo's stock price and Nintendo only owns 1/3 of Pokemon, but Run
brings it down? And it's not even on Android, which makes up what, 80% of all
mobile devices? (I know, not in the US, but still...)

It's like someone writes an article about how gamers don't like a specific
design decision, and all of a sudden Nintendo is about to go out of business?

Nobody talks about Nintendo's successes, like Pokemon Sun/Moon kicking ass,
Amiibo still selling like hotcakes, the Switch coming out with tons of first
and third party support, game sellers and game makers endorsing the Switch as
something awesome. Who was the king of the last console wars? Pretty sure it
was the Wii.

Can you even name a famous video game character, other than Sonic, who isn't a
Nintendo brand? Can your kids?

Enough of this bullshit. Nintendo isn't going anywhere.

~~~
metaphorm
> Can you even name a famous video game character, other than Sonic, who isn't
> a Nintendo brand?

Master Chief (Halo). Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). Duke Nukem. Cloud Strife (Final
Fantasy VII). Solid Snake (Metal Gear).

there are a few. I could go on. a lot of extremely famous/popular game
franchises don't stick with a single iconic character though. Assassin's Creed
is a good example. The archetype is consistent but it's a different character
in each game. A lot of games are like this. Nintendo has pursued a branding
strategy based around a handful of "mascot" characters (Mario, Link, Samus,
Donkey Kong) but it's not like those are the only famous video game characters
around.

Maybe that's what you're pointing out though? Besides Sonic (which was Sega's
attempt to make a Nintendo style mascot character) most other game developers
don't use mascots. That's true. They generally don't. The games themselves are
still incredibly well known and popular though.

~~~
cholantesh
Master Chief and Cloud Strife? Honest question, perhaps I'm missing the
intended meaning of iconic.

~~~
metaphorm
maybe its generational. I'm a 90s kid. Cloud Strife was an icon in my
childhood.

~~~
cholantesh
I am too, but in fairness my circle of friends was not especially 'into' JRPGs
until the release of Final Fantasy 9. Maybe we're outliers, but Cloud did not
resonate a whole lot with us.

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dharmon
Nintendo is extremely conservative fiscally and will have no trouble surviving
purely from a corporation point of view.

In my opinion, their largest threat is a new generation that does not know who
their characters are. Mario has a ridiculous level of nostalgia for me as
someone in his early 30's, but who knows if my son will have anything close to
that.

Disney solved this problem through a literally awe-some multi-channel strategy
combining movies, both new and re-releases on latest platforms, theme parks,
video games, TV shows, toys, etc. My nieces are very familiar with Cinderella
and Snow White, who is as old as my grandma, but their brother probably
doesn't know who Yoshi is.

I think the trick is to ride the generational wave. Again, something Disney
excels at. A young mother takes her daughter to see the live-action Cinderella
movie because of the nostalgia she has for the character, which she in turn
got when _her_ mother bought the VHS for her because of the nostalgia she had
from seeing it in the theater as a little girl...

There is a limited window of opportunity that Nintendo has. Personally I would
love to share Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Link, etc. experiences with my son
vs. random new IPs that mean nothing to me.

Speaking of Disney, the Nintendo catalogue is one of the few remaining
significant cast of characters not owned by Disney. If Nintendo does hit dire
straits and I were Disney, I would aggressively try to bring them into the
fold, although it is extremely unlikely Nintendo would capitulate.

~~~
vlunkr
Doesn't Nintendo do the same thing? Sure, they don't have the same "multi-
channel" platform as Disney, (does anyone?). But they've been releasing Mario
games steadily for 30 years. If someone doesn't know mario, it's only because
they arent involved in video games at all.

~~~
Luc
> they don't have the same "multi-channel" platform as Disney, (does anyone?)

On a smaller scale: Studio 100
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_100)

------
vineetch
This author woke up on the wrong side of the bed before writing this article.
If Nintendo can achieve $4M in mobile sales in 1 day as it did with Super
Mario Run -- does it really matter if the company is conservative or
revolutionary?

See: Hollywood in recent years and its constant need to do sequels because
they guarantee a successful and profitable venture.

~~~
jes5199
I bought Mario Run, but, subjectively, it doesn't feel like a success. This
article captures the nebulous subjective experience fairly well. We don't need
a thinkpiece to cover the sales numbers - those are obvious.

------
Taylor_OD
Talking about the Classic NES system that was recently released: "It’s
possible Nintendo limited stock to create a bottleneck, and thereby a holiday
phenomenon. But more likely, the company just didn’t anticipate demand for an
official re-release of its three-decade old flagship."

Isn't it kinda Nintendo's thing to bottleneck their consoles? Does anyone else
remember having to wait in huge lines to get a Wii? The Switch will likely
have the same "issue"

~~~
bobajeff
This is actually an old accusation of Nintendo going back to the original NES
and it's cartridges.

The truth then (and likey today) was that demand is hard to calculate and
supply costs money. Nintendo I'm sure greatly underestimated the demand for
NES Mini convincing themselves that 'nobody wants to play classic games today
but what people actually want is new games with our characters and bits of
nostalgia put in'.

They were wrong of course as evident by NES Mini sales versus that of Wii U
sales.

------
scrabble
Nintendo actually has a very sizable war chest. I don't think they are
struggling for survival at all.

Although Nintendo doom and gloom has been a popular theme for many years I'm a
little surprised to see it here.

~~~
rajangdavis
I had the same thought as you and I did a quick search, the results of which
are behind my company's firewall.

I think Nintendo can lose up to $250 million a year until the year 2052... so
not too sure if they are struggling for survival like the title claims.

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hkmurakami
Honestly I read this as the Atlantic's sad struggle for survival.

I once considered a print subscription since their writing quality was high
and they weren't as high brow add the New Yorker, but a lot of their output
over the past few years had been embarrassingly desperate.

~~~
mcphage
> I once considered a print subscription since their writing quality was high
> and they weren't as high brow add the New Yorker, but a lot of their output
> over the past few years had been embarrassingly desperate.

This _was_ written by Ian Bogost. He's not an industry outsider, he knows his
stuff.

------
erickhill
>Facing an uncertain future, the company keeps trying to mine its storied
past.

You mean like virtually every software company on the planet? Or storylines or
characters from franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel/DC et al.

Give me a break. It's called working a series of franchises that people like.

------
danso
After being a long-time fan of the original Wii, I was a late adopter of the
Wii U about a year ago. By then, most of the system exclusives had rolled out
but if you weren't into Mario, there wasn't a whole lot to do except buy
emulated games and the few indie games that made it over. The main hope was
that the new Zelda would be released on the Wii U -- and it is (as far as we
know) -- but only after Nintendo releases its new system, the Switch. I guess
I didn't invest much in the Wii U so I don't have as much room to complain as
the early adopters, but it really felt like Nintendo bungled as much as they
could. Not just in the overall system design, but in not providing enough
first-party games to make up for the lack of AAA titles from third-party
developers.

What's been shown about the Switch so far looks pretty tepid. Its clumsy
publishing of Mario Run doesn't give much faith that Nintendo has improved
since the days of the Wii U rollout [0]. I recently got a PS4 to try out its
VR and think I'll be sitting out the Switch as I don't need a console for
portable gaming in my life. Hoping Nintendo regroups in the VR age though,
which will seem ripe in 5-6 years for a Wii-like system to dominate.

[0]
[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-
developers-wii-u-the-inside-story)

~~~
jamesgeck0
Nintendo's first party output has been split between the 3DS and the Wii U,
and it's been a been a bit sparse on each. Individually, the platforms has a
few really great games. Combined, they have one of the best libraries this
console generation. With most of Nintendo's effort focused on a single
platform, the hope is that their output on the Switch will be significantly
more frequent.

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vlunkr
Mario run made 5 million in the first day, but it's a failure. And somehow the
success of the NES classic means Nintendo is failing as well, because people
are only buying it for aesthetics, not to play the games (source on that
anyone?). WTF am I reading, this article is so delusional. If you don't like
Nintendo or their strategies, that's fine, but they've kind of been knocking
it out of the park lately compared to the last few years, it's a strange time
to be saying they're doomed.

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Kurtz79
In an article about "Nintendo’s Sad Struggle for Survival", no mention of the
Switch (and four paragraphs dedicated to CliffyB because...)?

~~~
apozem
The lack of Switch mentions raised my eyebrow as well. This article is right
in the micro sense but omits two crucial facts:

* The Switch is a giant question mark that could be good * Nintendo is sitting on a lot of money. That money and fan goodwill means it has the time to figure out its future.

~~~
cholantesh
It's also worth noting that they've been active since the 19th century and
have successfully pivoted twice, so I feel pretty confident about their
chances.

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metaphorm
wtf even is this? the author literally refuses to accept that Nintendo has
their own vision for their product line and isn't simply trying to do exactly
the same thing Microsoft and Sony are doing.

it's such a bizarre and distorted premise to write the article from that I
can't help but wonder if it's a plant.

------
Tycho
Journalism's sad struggle for relevance.

------
debacle
Nintendo is leveraging their IPs in a relatively monolithic fashion, and I'm
not sure why. They need to allow their different IPs to express individuality,
and certain franchises certainly need more games, good and bad.

They also need to stop hand-holding gamers. Nintendo Hard doesn't exist
anymore.

~~~
phn
I think they kind of respect their own franchises, trying hard not to destroy
their fame for quality, improving on them only _if_ they have something novel
to introduce in the series or a new way to do a particular game, like non-
linear dungeon order on Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, or a 3D Metroid when
they did Prime, etc.

They don't make the same game in different clothing just because they can. And
their games generally age well.

A different approach when compared to most game makers nowadays, surely. But
one I can definitely respect.

