
Nintendo finds itself under fire from furious shareholders - Impossible
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/220256/Nintendo_finds_itself_under_fire_from_furious_shareholders.php
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magoghm
After reading all 17 questions and answers from the 74th Annual General
Meeting of Shareholders, I only see one question which might be interpreted as
"Under fire from furious share holders", and the shareholder starts by saying:
I do not understand video games and I even feel angry because, at Nintendo’s
shareholders’ meetings, the shareholders always discuss things relating to
video games or such childish topics as “what the future of video games should
be.”

[http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/140627qa/index...](http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/140627qa/index.html)

~~~
chaostheory
That's not true if you know about Japanese culture, where politeness is taken
to a higher level than many other cultures (where a maybe means no).

imo this is a hard question that gets harder and harder to fight off

> As a fan of this company, I was reminded once again that Nintendo is, after
> all, a great company and still alive after seeing “Splatoon,” a new game
> announced at E3 that has been well-received by video game fans. The current
> stock price of Nintendo is, however, far from satisfactory, so I hope you
> will work hard to make an improvement. I would like Nintendo to maintain its
> solid business policy and not to turn to businesses such as the business of
> today’s social games, but I am concerned about the fact that young children
> today often use smartphones handed down from their family members to enjoy
> free games without additional payments. I do not think even Nintendo will be
> able to ignore iOS, Android or games playable on web browsers in the future.
> How much have you studied these factors, and how will you make use of them?

In places like the US and Germany, the question would probably be shortened to
"I am concerned about the fact that young children today often use smartphones
handed down from their family members to enjoy free games without additional
payments. I do not think even Nintendo will be able to ignore iOS, Android or
games playable on web browsers in the future. How much have you studied these
factors, and how will you make use of them?"

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Abraln
Considering the three way fight between Xbox, playstation and PC, it seems
Nintendo is trying to claim a less saturated portion of the market. While Xbox
and playstation fight over who has the best graphics (which will always be
worse than PC games), Nintendo focuses on creating unique experiences that
cannot be found anywhere else. It seems to me to be a great long-term strategy
as more xbox and playstation users switch to PCs as they become more common.
As far as their slow start, look at the 3DS!

~~~
EpicEng

         "as more xbox and playstation users switch to PCs"
    

Is that actually the case? Sure, you can get more horsepower from your PC, and
they continue to advance as a console becomes obsolete, but that HP also comes
at a much higher price tag (even if you build your own rig, as many of us do).
A PC also add complexity.

I'm not convinced that more people are switching to PC. The PS4 has so far
outsold all of its predecessors. Perhaps more people are playing games on a PC
(and I'm not counting mobile stuff here, different audience), but I don't
think that it's coming at the expense of consoles.

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Zergy
Nintendo develops hardware to support their IPs just as much as they alter
their games to take advantage of each generation of hardware.

Each generation of console adds a new method of adding input to the game. Each
generation they evolve both evolve their existing IPs to best take advantage
of the new hardware and develop their hardware to best support the development
of their IPs. For example the C buttons for the N64 controller were added to
solve the cameras issues encountered during the development of Mario 64.

This is lost on a lot people. The pairing of Nintendo hardware and software
developed as a package to compliment each other is a huge part of Nintendo's
success. Just look at the Mario service and see how many times its been
reinvented using the same basic controls, running and jumping. All of those
reinventions were developed in tangent with new hardware.

I suppose my point is, putting Nintendo's IPs on mobile or another console
destroys what has allowed the IPs to remain so successful for so long. It
would make both Nintendo's hardware and software less valuable.

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hayksaakian
The success and failure of Nintendo was always based on trying things that the
market didn't believe in.

Sometimes they succeed (Wii) sometimes they flop (Wii u)

The main reason I like Nintendo is their willingness to go All-in on something
controversial or new.

~~~
Someone1234
Wii U was definitely an initial failure but they've been clawing it back in
the last few months. Since the release of Mario Kart 8 and the free game
thing, Wii Us have quite literally been out of stock at quite a few places
(since the demand spike was quite unexpected from the retailers).

It remains to be seen if the Wii U will be a long term success or failure, but
we might yet see it do well. The Wii didn't really hit the big time until its
price came down and it had software like Wii Fit. Maybe the Wii U will have a
Wii Fit equivalent and will hit the right price point?

~~~
deciplex
I still maintain that they'd see at +20% sales if they had named it almost
literally anything else. Wii U is _such_ a stupid name that it really makes me
question wtf is going with the management there. Even with the Wii, that
console succeeded in spite of the terrible branding, not because of it.

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fit2rule
It is pretty clear to me that there is one way that Nintendo (or someone) can
innovate and really capture their market again, and it revolves 360degrees
around one thing, and one thing only: development tools.

Imagine if they released a console that had development tools bundled - i.e.
onboard. Wouldn't that be a wonder! Especially if it were designed in such a
way that it were Nintendo-easy to publish to a world-readable games store ..

Seriously, I believe this is one area that can blow open the whole game
industry. Ship Unity developer edition on the next console, Nintendo, and make
it available to everyone. You'll get a new game market created in no time...

~~~
seivan
I agree with this as well. Nintendo seems like a developer hostile company.

And iOS developers complain about provisioning profiles and Apple Review. At
least we have awesome documentation and Xcode keeps getting better.

~~~
Relys
Getting a Wii U development unit costs around $[2000,4000]+import tax. It's
free for the first n months (1 or 3 I can't remember) and then you have to pay
to keep the unit.

If you plan on releasing it on the eshop you will have to pay an exorbitant
sum to each countries ESRB equivalent which is a complete racket.

So yes, it is a developer hostile company. Then again, Nintendo has always
been behind with keeping up with the latest tech trends and features. For
example just look at their online services: * No party chat. * Very little
3DS/Wii U cross compatibility for NNIDs (and don't forget the horribly long
FCs). * No cross licensing between 3DS/Wii U. If I want to buy Super Mario
Bros 3 I should NOT have to pay for it twice. * No remote play support * No
3DS controller support (besides Monster Hunter) * Digital Games on the eshop
aren't priced competitively as you can almost always find a physical copy
cheaper. This part baffles me.

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yellowapple
> And partway through the meeting, a shareholder puts simply: "I do not
> understand video games and I even feel angry because, at Nintendo’s
> shareholders’ meetings, the shareholders always discuss things relating to
> video games or such childish topics as 'what the future of video games
> should be,'..."

You're a shareholder of a video game company, and you're wondering why they're
talking about video games? _Seriously_?

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bnolsen
Nintendo seems like it's firmly attached to a narrow business plan and wants
to ride that into the ground. At the very least they could be toying with the
phone market by releasing mini-games or something under a "nintendo mobile"
name.

Tons of people would download that stuff. It would at least get their feet
wet, get some developers up to speed and get them some idea of what they can
or can't do with the mobile market with probably very little risk.

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thelonelygod
Long term that's a terrible move for Nintendo. Sure short term it would raise
money but it would lead to Nintendo leaving the console business and becoming
more like what Sega is now.

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zacharycohn
Better than being dead.

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ywfuplyful
Looking at what Sega has become... They're probably better off not doing that.
If Nintendo were to do something outside of their closed ecosystem, it'd be
better & much more safer to do it on PC or Linux.

~~~
deciplex
Nintendo needs to hop into the sack with Valve.

