
Pokémon Go shows that Nintendo's franchises are way bigger than its hardware - Tomte
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/11/12149122/pokemon-go-niantic-nintendo-franchise-hardware
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giancarlostoro
I love Nintendo and the Wii U but the pricing of Nintendo Wii U games sucks.
Years after some of their games have been released they're still $59.99 to buy
brand new. Then there's a lack of gaming studios devoted to the Wii U. The
Playstation has it's own niche, the X-Box has it's own niche of gaming studios
as well. I think Nintendo should invest in a brand new subsidiary that is
allowed to "think outside of the Nintendo box" and make new crazy games, while
taking full advantage of the Wii U. There is much potential I think with the
Wii U and that is what made me buy it, sadly not many have taken advantage, or
the companies that do they make their Wii U version too late for it to matter
for most. It's like GTA and PC, too late but GTA is a big enough game to still
sell plenty. Another thing they should really do is create new franchises,
that is something Disney does all the time. Bring a new show, sell as much
product for it as they can, rinse and repeat.

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markcerqueira
"There's a lack of gaming studios devoted to the Wii U." There is at least one
notable exception to this: Monolith Soft whose Xenoblade series has been a
godsend for the JRPG genre.

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Volt
They're part of Nintendo.

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douche
Pokemon is, in my opinion, a uniquely valuable franchise, however, above and
beyond anything else Nintendo has in the magazine. You've got multiple
generations that have grown up with it, between the games, cards, TV show,
merchandising, etc, etc. It distilled the essence of fun, but grindy, rpgs
down into an almost perfect form, and wrapped it up in a kid-friendly package
(despite the fact that you're really playing what amounts to a Roman _lanista_
or Michael Vick simulator)

I don't think Mario or Zelda or Donkey Kong, or any of the other beaten-to-
death Nintendo IP is on the same level.

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Cookingboy
Knowing Nintendo's stubborn management, I wouldn't be super surprised if they
just announce that they will make their own Android phone and make Pokemon Go
exclusive to it.

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colechristensen
Niantic was a Google internal startup that was spunoff in late 2015 so it
could take $30m investment from Google, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company (and
later a $5m series A)

The takeaway is that Google has a whole lot of skin in the game and really
wouldn't allow such an exclusive deal like you might speculate.

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largote
Microsoft should buy out Nintendo, make its games and franchises available for
Xbox & PC, and sell the specialty Nintendo hardware like the WiiMote or that
TabletController as accessories. It could also roll Kinect under the Nintendo
add-on brand.

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pshc
I'm curious, has anything ever improved as a result of being bought by
Microsoft?

~~~
cwbrandsma
Depends on how you look at it. With games: Minecraft and Halo didn't get any
worse so far. On the business side, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SQL Server, and
Analysis Services all got better, often to the point you don't remember them
NOT being Microsoft products anymore. Microsoft also created a better Java,
they just called it C# (ok, a bit snarky in that last one)

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chongli
Halo might have done well but I mourn the death of all of Bungie's [0] other
[1] franchises [2].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_\(video_game\))

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_\(video_game\))

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fzzzy
Halo is basically an extension of the Marathon storyline. I do miss Myth and
Oni though.

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pjc50
Hardware has predictable margins, if not predictable sales. Software prices
tend rapidly to zero.

Am I right in thinking that Pokemon Go is the first Nintendo game to use the
"free-to-play" business model, where all sorts of progression is gated behind
ongoing coin purchases?

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jmcgough
It's about their sixth, and they have several more already in the pipeline
(including animal crossing and fire emblem titles).

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bahmboo
This has been true for at least 10 years but Nintendo could not react to it.
Shame that such a huge content company was to get lost in hardware and old biz
models when the way forward was very obvious. Netflix does not build netflix
boxes (I think).

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serge2k
A decade ago this december they shipped the Wii. 101 million units worldwide,
easily beating the competition (84 for MS, 80 for Sony).

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bdcravens
You're comparing Wii with PS3 and Xbox 360, both of which had successful next-
gen consoles released in 2013. Wii+WiiU in past 10 years: 113m, PS3+PS4: 124m,
Xbox360 + Xbox One: ~94m.

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douche
Wait, they've only shipped 12m WiiU's? That's... not good...

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gambiting
There's no games for that console, and very few new ones are still to come
out. I've got a wii u, but I still have the same games I bought in the year of
launch - Mario Kart 8, Mario 3D World, Mario Super Mario Bros U - can you see
a pattern here? Xenoblade is meant to be good but I don't have time for a
100h+ JRPG, and any other genres are avoiding the WiiU, if you want a first
person shooter, a sports game, a racing game, you will go with the
competition. Not to mention that non-mario Wii U games just look very poor
when compared to PS4/X1.

