Despite a number of high profile new game announcements and public unveiling of the controversial Slide Pad expansion which adds a second analogue stick, Nintendo's shares have dropped five per cent following its pre-TGS conference.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata claimed that the event had introduce an unprecedented range of games: "From the end of this year to the beginning of next, we are planning the kind of extensive line-up that has probably never been seen before in the history of video games," he said. "We will make an all-out effort to see that the 3DS sells enough to become the successor to the DS."
But analysts and investors were left unmoved, pointing to cheaply priced and widely available iOS and Android games.
"I don't think the new games will make any difference," said Ichiyoshi Investment chief fund manager Mitsushige Akino. "Nintendo succeeded by pulling in people who weren't gamers and their needs now are no longer being filled by Nintendo, they are happy playing games on their mobile phones."
The share value slide means Nintendo's stock price has now nearly halved over the course of the year in as disappointing 3DS sales, early price cuts and doubts over the Wii U's potential to replicate the company's astonishing success with Wii all take their toll.
"The only possible way for Nintendo to revive would be to stop concentrating on [portable] games and switch to Wii-type games for the whole family," said Myojo Asset Management CEO Makoto Kikuchi. "However, at the moment, I can't see this change coming."
It's difficult to believe that Nintendo, the clear market leader of the past generation, could see its fortunes so sharply reversed, especially in the face of such a strong 3DS line-up. But with its consistent refusal to embrace new business models such as free-to-play and mobile game pricing, combined with Sony apparently positioning the upcoming Vita as a bridge between the console and mobile worlds, the sad truth is that the Nintendo seal of approval simply doesn't seem to be enough anymore.
Source: Reuters
Comments
27Look at the lead image, and ask yourself, "is this a company that knows what it's doing?"
And then sell the stock.
Yeah all those GB, GBA and DS add-ons really held Nintendo back.
What add ons? How many games required you to buy the light boy? Look at the Wii-U, seriously? You'd invest in that?
Who said that add-on was required and if it does take off they'll probably release a revision that has it built in. Get it then. Nintendo is the most successful gaming company and has always done well despite numerous times people said they're making bad decisions. So yeah I'd invest in that. You could sure as hell do worse with other gaming companies.
So some guy thinks the real money is in not innovating and just pumping out more Wii and that portable gaming's future is in the likes of Android where games look more like GBA games, have no real controls, piracy is rife and there are tons of issues regarding varying versions of Android?
This guy's a fucking idiot like Pachter, imo.
Mobile gaming has been predicted to kick portable consoles since the introduction of the iphone and yet the DS still managed to sell 147 million units which is far more than the iphone.
Why would any sane developer target a device with awful controls, the expectation that games cost pennies and the market is small *if* you assume everyone buys games which they do not.
What did Pachter do to deserve being labelled an idiot. Say his professional opinion about Nintendo? The fact that he gets paid for making comments about video games certainly makes him the lesser one, imo.
Well let's see he said the Wii 2 was coming nearly every year of the Wii's existence while predicting the Wii has run out of steam nearly as often, said that Kinect (Natal at the time) would cost $50 among other silly claims.
Yes he's giving an opinion but he gets paid for for his opinion because it's supposed to mean something more than some kid's opinion off the internet.
If his opinion was worth anything he wouldn't be crying about Neogaf hate on his twitter feed like some school child upset that he was caught out.
Got to admit, i feel like I'm going against the flow on this thread.
However Patcher is quite often way off the mark or stating the obvious in his articles.
The advice he gives on a private level, to clients, i will reserve my judgement un til I am said client (never, fuck hiring Patcher)
toadwarrior: I agree completely.
You guys seem to be blind to the importance of profit to investors.
This article is a comment on the views of investor's rather than an opinion piece.
You can argue until blue in the face the values of full games over the bitesized model, or hard controls over touchscreen etc etc.
The fact remains the perception of investors is that this model addopted currently by Nintendo is a flawed one, the evidence being that investors are selling stock.
To me the real problem at the moment is that Nintendo insist on confusing their market with endless additions tacked on to the D.S name, with D.S, D.S Lite, D.Si and D.S XL, all being near enough the same thing is it suprising that 3D.S up take is slow.
Then they release a new console with the same name as the old one, then release a version of the old one that looks like the new one. I'm confused just typing it.
No the problem is people put too much important into what investor's think. Keeping in mind it was investors that tanked the economy and we had to bail out in the US, UK and most of the west. Investors are the people that caused the dot come boom and bust. Just because they like to screw people out of money doesn't make them right.
Nintendo is perhaps the strongest gaming business around. No one has done better, they've had people complaining about decisions for decades and yet they've always made a profit. I can't see how anyone would say they don't know what they're doing.
But more so why tell them to go into mobile gaming? The adroid market is embarrassing for any developer.
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/android-market-weather-apps-the-most-profitable-1025093
The average application makes $2500, the average game makes $5000. You don't even have to have a million seller on the DS to beat that.
The Android also has rampant piracy, a refund policy which was abused. Admittedly Google fixed it a bit by giving you only 15 minutes to return it and Google doesn't do anything to about copytight infringement so developers have to compete against emulators for their own previous works and you have to deal with hundreds of different hardware variations and numerous android OS versions and non-existent controls.
Just look how many big names publish for Android and what sort of games they put out. It's cheap rubbish that is no where near as good as what you get on the DS or even GBA.
The iphone is better but if it were so profitable why are big companies only putting out rehashes and other low investment products?
Most applications are not going to end up like Angry birds so it's not a good platform to focus solely on.
Investors are no better than anyone else and they buy into hype and why not? It drives stocks up which they can dump before everyone realises what farce it is and they make millions if not billions off of failures. They have no reason to see Nintendo succeed in the long term. Their only goal for any company is to drive stock prices up so they can sell them off for a profit.
"Nintendo is perhaps the strongest gaming business around. No one has done better, they've had people complaining about decisions for decades and yet they've always made a profit. I can't see how anyone would say they don't know what they're doing."
The fact that Nintendo launched the 3DS at such a high price that they were forced to cut the price within a few months seems to indicate that they don't know what they're doing.
The fact that Nintendo have produced this 3DS add-on which really should have been built into the 3DS from the start seems to indicate that they don't know what they're doing.
There are more iOS devices in the wild than there are DS's. iOS devices are limited by what Apple can manufacture, they don't drop in price significantly one month after launch. Here's the sales for just the iphone - http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/09/iphone-4-demand-remains-strong-while-anticipation-for-iphone-5-grows.ars
Sane developers like Epic, Square Enix, and id have all targeted mobile devices. They continue to do so. ngmoco were acquired for $400M, Gameloft are publicly traded with a market capitalization of €275M, their clones are getting better than the originals.
The 3DS is about as innovative as Saw 3D.
Their offers on Android are poor at best. For Square there are two games none of which are games people want from Square. https://market.android.com/developer?pub=SQUARE+ENIX+Co.,Ltd.
Capcom is publishing things like who wants to be a millionaire and where's waldo. http://www.androlib.com/android.developer.capcom-mobile-wpx.aspx
Sure they are targeting mobile devices but with cheap rubbish. They are limited in what they can do because the devices have poor controls and in the case of Android there are thousands of hardware configurations to account for and people can turn around and get a refund.
The iphone is better but even then there is only one Square RPG and rehash of GTA chinatown and handicapped versions of SF4 and resident evil.
There is just no real money for most developers on mobile devices. For every Angry Birds there are hundreds if no thousands of failures. It's no better than XBLA as in teh entry point is really low but if you want to make money it's hard as hell even for big companies.
The average android game makes $5000
The average weather app makes $22,000
Multimedia apps average at $300
Overall the average app makes $2500
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/android-market-weather-apps-the-most-profitable-1025093
You simply do not get the same experience of the 3DS or DS or even GBA on mobile systems and that won't change. There is no money to make there.
Any investor saying that is there Nintendo should be is an idiot.
You make investors out to be the big bad guy stopping us all having fun. The facts are that without investment there would be no Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony or most other companies, that is just how capitalism works!
O.K they are there to make money but to tar them all with the "recession, bankers, evil, hit with stick" brush is just plain naive.
You do realise Nintendo existed long before they were on the stock market which they entered in 1991. Not only did they do fine but they had one of their biggest successess before they were on the stock market.
I'm not saying they don't want people to have fun but what they want and what is actually good for consumers or business don't always match up and they don't have to. Tons of money was made from the dot com boom yet a lot of companies were not profitable and simply don't exist now.
I'm just pointing out investors aren't experts in everything. That's impossible. Their expertise is making people invest money and of course if you jump on the latest fad it can make loads of money in the short term but it can often lead to failure in the long term.
Many people have been saying mobile gaming is going to take off even before the iphone and it's just not happening. It's a niche where people can get rich if you go to the safe locked down platform and even then it's a tough market. It's simply not viable at all on anything other than the iphone now why tell a company with zero experience in mobile phones and the strongest record in console gaming that they need to be on mobiles?
Thanks for your response, can't agree 100% but was a coherent and balanced.
I would add that i have agreed, all be it on another thread, that i don't think Nintendo should move into the mobile market be it hard or software, it is not their market and frankly they would fail at it, that isn't a dig at Nintendo.
I can accept that Nintendo had success before floating but they did take the oppurtunity to go public and at that point they put themselves at the mercy of that position. A floating company will always be at the mercy of investors and lets face it they paid in to earn money, it doesn't mean they are against innovation but often are against perceivable gambles.
Also bad or even weak decisions are punished far more harshly. To sum up my opinion, Nintendo made their bed long ago and now they have to lie in accepting the highs as well as the lows.
Tbh if i was an investor i too would be out, the 3ds hasn't taken off as well as hoped and the general critical opinion of WiiU seems to be hopeful but unsure, not exactly investor teritory.
The thing about mobile gaming is that it's a bit shit really. Give me Super Mario 3D over basically anything ever released on a mobile phone. And I'll pay £30 for it.
I think that this is the core point, mobile phone games are not 'proper' games imo, I have yet to play any iOS game for more than an half an hour. Compare any 99p iOS title to a £30 Mario game. You WILL get more than 30x the enjoyment from the mario title, a lot more. I love my iPhone but it is not a games console and never will be.
Nintendo have lost their way. The 3DS and Wii U show this.
The 3DS released hald finished and the Wii-U is so underpowered it will lose dev support a year after launch as publishers begin working on next gen games for the PS4 and 720.
The thing that struck me about how truly shite this peripheral is is that the 3DS needs to to be in a sweet spot to see things in 3D. That heap shit is going to offset how you hold the thing and it could end up being quite painful to keep it in the sweet spot.
I feel sorry for Nintendo. They did something amazing when they introduced touchscreen, motion and family gaming to the masses. They even ignited the fitness game craze. But their creative spark seems to have fizzled out.
The 3DS and WiiU are the second album to their first, best selling one. Matching that success is difficult, whether it's the film, music or games industry. But you know what? Nintendo always have that wild run moment (NES, SNES, GB's, DS's, Wii), then they disappear for a while (N64, GC, 3DS?, WiiU) then they wow us again (insert future console/handheld name here).
I like this Second Album idea, i really do hope Nintendo get back on it soon.
I long for a Nintendo that make the most powerful console, with the best tech, at the highest price, no compromises just THE BEST (AKA the SNES and N64, their best home consoles).
If you believe that Nintendo is doing the right thing, now would be a good time to buy their stock!
Well, at least Skyward Sword looks awesome.
If by awesome you mean Twilight Princess with fiddly controls (why cant i just use a controller, i dont want to extend my arms for 30 hours!)
With added features from popular games over the past few years.
Man I'm hating on Nintendo at the mo but it really isn't out of pure hatred. It is this kind of trailer that pisses me off, the Edge write up above already covered a few games, i would like to add Banjo Kazooie for the clear drill peck rip off move ( with out PPPPPPPPBBBBBBBREEEEEEEE) it won't be the same.
GOD why cant Nintendo and Rare just be original again!
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