The Success/Failure of Nintendo?

[FamicomRetroGamer]

Despite that he wasn't a very good president of the company as a man, he seemed pretty cool and worth noting he loved working at Nintendo as well as his employees. So much so instead of firing them he decided to slash down his salary to keep them working.

It's really sad that he passed away and you know, at first, I thought it was some kind of a bad joke but no, Nintendo reported it themselves so no bs.

Anyhow, hopefully Nintendo can make better consoles from now on. Iwata was holding them back from being modern.

[MaxXimus]

I think you're on the wrong forum if modern is your thing haha...

In all seriousness though, this is quite sad.

[HVC-Man]

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Anyhow, hopefully Nintendo can make better consoles from now on. Iwata was holding them back from being modern.

Iwata protected Nintendo from homogenizing into another Sony or Microsoft, without becoming another Sega or Atari. I think he did a fantastic job running the company. The Wii and DS made Nintendo one hell of a mint.

[P]

Wii U didn't turn out selling so much but before that he did really good with the DS and Wii, especially considering that the Gamecube failed. The 3DS is also a success although it had a slow start.

I don't think he held Nintendo back.

[FamicomRetroGamer]

I think you're on the wrong forum if modern is your thing haha...

In all seriousness though, this is quite sad.

Let's look at the Wii U

- Region locking: Check!
- Gimmicky bs: Check!
- Crappy UI: Check!
- No third party support: Check!
- Primitive online service: Check!
- Sales lower than the Dreamcast: Check!

Isn't the Wii U great? 

Iwata protected Nintendo from homogenizing into another Sony or Microsoft, without becoming another Sega or Atari. I think he did a fantastic job running the company. The Wii and DS made Nintendo one hell of a mint.

DS was fine but the Wii was just a trend which ultimately ended up as a dust collector in the closets of people who didn't play games so a lot of those never really cared for the thing.

Wii U didn't turn out selling so much but before that he did really good with the DS and Wii, especially considering that the Gamecube failed. The 3DS is also a success although it had a slow start.

I don't think he held Nintendo back.

With handhelds Nintendo has always been good at it but home consoles? They've not done a decent job since the Super Nintendo.

N64 = More powerful than the PS1 but at the same time inferior and with less 3rd party support (carts were limited to 64MBs).
NGC = Mini-DVDs didn't allow developers to port their games to the console due to the size limitation.
Wii = Just another NGC but with gimmicky controls and a terrible library of games infested with shovelware.
Wii U = They tried the same luck again thinking people would fall for it as they did with Wii but nope. Wii U has failed terribly.

So, whether Nintendo fanboys like to admit it or not, Iwata did not do a good job in terms of making home consoles that good for gamers and Nintendo fans alike. Nintendo fanboys? That's a different story, they'll defend Nintendo regardless of any poor decisions they committed.

Anyway, may Iwata rest in peace but it's time for Nintendo to turn over a new leaf.

[UglyJoe]

Nintendo, under Iwata's leadership, got my parents to buy themselves a Wii. 

Nintendo, under Iwata's leadership, got my mom to ask if she could have my DS phat when she heard I bought a DSi.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft ever got my parents to be interested in video games. 

It's very possible that you and I define "success" differently, but I would call that a huge success.

[P]

Yeah we are back again to the discussion of the definition of success. FamicomRetroGamer defines success solely based on his own opinions of the consoles, while I meant commercial success.

I should rephrase it: Wii, DS and 3DS was all great commercial successes under Iwata's leadership.

[FamicomRetroGamer]

Yeah we are back again to the discussion of the definition of success. FamicomRetroGamer defines success solely based on his own opinions of the consoles, while I meant commercial success.

I should rephrase it: Wii, DS and 3DS was all great commercial successes under Iwata's leadership.

DS and Wii were a huge success but the matter of the fact that the Wii had a garbage library of games you can't change that.

[UglyJoe]

All consoles have a garbage library.  Shovelware was not exclusive to the Wii.

[FamicomRetroGamer]

All consoles have a garbage library.  Shovelware was not exclusive to the Wii.

Wii has more than most, so please, stop trying to damage control it.

[Protoman]

Honestly debating Nintendo's success the last 10 years should be in a topic separate to the one about Iwata's death.


My input though: "Does Wii U have many great games? Check!"

[zmaster18]

All consoles have a garbage library.  Shovelware was not exclusive to the Wii.

Wii has more than most, so please, stop trying to damage control it.

Although the Wii had a bunch of 'straight-to-the-bargain-bin' games, there were some really great and unique game experiences on it. When it comes to motion-based games, Wii did the best. Nobody gives a crap about Kinect or Playstation Move. I actually like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and just being able to point my Wiimote at the screen for pointing and shooting. The Wii remote is actually up there for my favourite controller. I like how versatile it is! You can use it as a TV remote for navigating menus, turn it on its side for retro style control, or plug in a nunchuk for 3D games. I love the nunchuk because I can actually scratch my head or balls or whatever while still holding the controller. This is perfect when playing Mario Kart Wii online where you don't have time to take your hand off the controller to scratch yourself.

Yes, it's a shame Wii and also Wii U didn't use its full potential for having a great unified online system or a little more hardcore first-party games, but now that I look back on Wii it was a pretty decent system. You know how N64 is becoming really popular again? I think in like 10 years Wii will get that surge of demand. People are going to want Wii Sports, Resort, Punch Out, Mario Kart, Smash, Kirby, Zelda, Excitetruck even.

Looking back on original DS, it has one of the most robust libraries out there. Actually, it has the most diverse library! There is something for everyone on that system. I especially like the training games. What a smart move Nintendo did, using the DS as a means of quality educational/training games that weren't only for kids. You can learn math, language, cooking, art, fitness, calligraphy, even Face Training is a game.

Let's hope Nintendo as a company takes the greatest elements of those systems and releases the NX with those ideas in mind in a modern fashion. I really wonder who the next president will be! It's hard to replace Iwata, he was a great business man and game developer. It's hard to be great at both. 

Edit: I think my RIP Iwata thread got hijacked into the succes/failure of Nintendo?

[P]

Yeah looks like the thread was split and the Iwata part was put in the memorial thread. So this thread is about the successes and failures of Nintendo.

I also really liked the Wii and all its controllers. The only problem with it is that developers was encouraged to use the motion feature in about every game even if they just wanted to make a traditional game. This often resulted in that the motion controls are just used in some gimmicky fashion and not very fun at all, much like the touch screen on DS is used in a gimmicky fashion of many DS games.

Regarding shovelware, of course popular systems have bigger libraries and as a result more of the crap but also more of the good. Just look at the PS2 and DS and the amount of crap for those systems.

If we disregard the commercial part of the success, the Gamecube was a big success of a machine IMHO since it has so many great games.

[Zycrow]

Yeah for any high-selling system you get tons of awful garbage. Just look at all the baseball, golf, mahjong, and half-assed Dragon Quest clone games on the Famicom, and all the brain-destroying movie, TV, and game show tie-ins we got on the NES.

The SNES era was maybe the last time Nintendo had a corner on the entire market, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the following consoles were total failures, even if I didn't like them very much. (Which I didn't.)