Poll: Should Nintendo go third party?

[Doom972]

They should either go third party, or learn from Sony and Microsoft how to involve 3rd party developers in the development of their consoles so developers would actually want to develop for them.

Going third-party makes a bit more sense because they already know how to develop games well, and there's no need to waste resources on learning how to develop hardware if they go third-party.

 

[xaszatm]

Side note: Nintendo is losing money on every Wii U sold (http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/03/18/t-ts-nintendo-wii-u-teardown.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=HP_River), so "profits from hardware," at least in the console space, isn't a thing. They'll likely get that cost down soon (or may already have done so), but even if they break even, they aren't making anything there.

...technically they aren't receiving a loss on the Wii U anymore. They wrote off the loss from each console sold for the remaining initial shipment during one of the quarters (I think it was the same one as the emergency investor's meeting). So because of that, since all that loss is already reported, the Wii U is technically profitable due to how sunk costs work.

Incidentally, this is the biggest reason why I don't think the Wii U will ever get a price drop until that initial shipment is finally sold enough for it to justify new consoles being manufactured. They already took one sunk cost, I don't see them wanting to add more.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Considering the Wii U is their worst-selling console ever, it's as good a time as ever to bring the question up.

And yet it's still profitable thus making any attempt to talk about this moot. It's silly, it's repetitive, and it's pointless. The company is fine and at this point it is clear that people can't STAND that and are making up wishful scenarios of how Nintendo could go third party. It's like reading REALLY bad fanfiction. Moving on

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

...so why do the PS and Xbox brands still exist?

[img=http://abload.de/img/nintendo_sony_151yo3b.gif]http://abload.de/img/nintendo_sony_151yo3b.gif[/img]

Xbox is even worse than the Playstation, yet we never get any PS needs to go 3rd party or Xbox needs to go 3rd party. Both companies for the longest time floundered in the profit margins yet when Nintendo has a loss, it's suddenly HAS to be the end of the company? Please.

I didn't say Nintendo's going bankrupt, I said that they would do better if they published 3rd party games.

I dunno man, looks like they're doing fucking awesomely to me based on those charts.

The point is they're doing worse than they used to, which means they should do something differently.

 

[Zontar]

Considering the Wii U is their worst-selling console ever, it's as good a time as ever to bring the question up.

And yet it's still profitable thus making any attempt to talk about this moot. It's silly, it's repetitive, and it's pointless. The company is fine and at this point it is clear that people can't STAND that and are making up wishful scenarios of how Nintendo could go third party. It's like reading REALLY bad fanfiction. Moving on

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

...so why do the PS and Xbox brands still exist?

[img=http://abload.de/img/nintendo_sony_151yo3b.gif]http://abload.de/img/nintendo_sony_151yo3b.gif[/img]

Xbox is even worse than the Playstation, yet we never get any PS needs to go 3rd party or Xbox needs to go 3rd party. Both companies for the longest time floundered in the profit margins yet when Nintendo has a loss, it's suddenly HAS to be the end of the company? Please.

I didn't say Nintendo's going bankrupt, I said that they would do better if they published 3rd party games.

I dunno man, looks like they're doing fucking awesomely to me based on those charts.

The point is they're doing worse than they used to, which means they should do something differently.

Given how that peak was formed from the Wii, it seems it's going to be next to impossible to return to that level of revenue any time soon just due to the fact that the lightning in a bottle that was the Wii will probably never be catpured given the state of the global market.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Considering the Wii U is their worst-selling console ever, it's as good a time as ever to bring the question up.

And yet it's still profitable thus making any attempt to talk about this moot. It's silly, it's repetitive, and it's pointless. The company is fine and at this point it is clear that people can't STAND that and are making up wishful scenarios of how Nintendo could go third party. It's like reading REALLY bad fanfiction. Moving on

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

...so why do the PS and Xbox brands still exist?

[img=http://abload.de/img/nintendo_sony_151yo3b.gif]http://abload.de/img/nintendo_sony_151yo3b.gif[/img]

Xbox is even worse than the Playstation, yet we never get any PS needs to go 3rd party or Xbox needs to go 3rd party. Both companies for the longest time floundered in the profit margins yet when Nintendo has a loss, it's suddenly HAS to be the end of the company? Please.

I didn't say Nintendo's going bankrupt, I said that they would do better if they published 3rd party games.

I dunno man, looks like they're doing fucking awesomely to me based on those charts.

The point is they're doing worse than they used to, which means they should do something differently.

Given how that peak was formed from the Wii, it seems it's going to be next to impossible to return to that level of revenue any time soon just due to the fact that the lightning in a bottle that was the Wii will probably never be catpured given the state of the global market.

That's probably true and I agree, though they've had way too many losses for them to not try and do something differently at this point.

 

[klaynexas3]

SNIP

I was about to come in here and explain why them going third party would be a bit of a bad thing, but then I saw this post, and just had to say how horrible both those arguments are for why they shouldn't go third party.

1. A majority of profits is from software sales. At least for the first bit with the WiiU, Nintendo sold them at a loss. Now, that might have changed, but that would only be a small amount of profit for each WiiU, versus much more profit from each software sale. And so, the logical thing to do would be to go third party due to the fact that that would increase your user base.

2. Nintendo could still publish under itself, so I don't know why you would think they would get rid of any IP when they would still be calling all the shots for what games get made or not, and whether it's on a Nintendo console or not wouldn't make sense as to why they wouldn't make a game or not.

The only reason why people ask for Nintendo to go third party is because people want to play Nintendo games but aren't big on having to get a console specifically for Nintendo games. It's also the reason why no one asks for Sony or Microsoft's first party developers to go third party, because few outside those that do own those consoles really cares about playing their games, versus Nintendo, where few can say they would not actually want to play one of their games.

If you want an actual reason why Nintendo needs to stay first party with its own hardware, think of this: without a singular system that has the kind of hardware that Nintendo likes to implement, such as the game pad or the two screens for the DS, then few people would buy the optional peripherals to play those games that actually use them, and Nintendo would be less likely to use those peripherals to make their games because that would be too much of a risk. So, by simply having a system that has all the peripherals already apart of it, it means they can make their games that use the peripherals and the install base is just as big as for their other games as well.

 

[Zontar]

That's probably true and I agree, though they've had way too many losses for them to not try and do something differently at this point.

Well, they DID make their first new IP in over a decade

 

[tstorm823]

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

That just isn't true. Nobody applies that standard to anything but stupid video game console arguments. People say "the Wii U is selling way less than the Wii, so Nintendo needs to do something different!" but nobody says "Guardians of the Galaxy isn't as profitable as Avengers, so Marvel should just not make movies like that!" People say "Nintendo isn't selling as many consoles as Sony, they should just drop out of consoles" but nobody is saying "Burger King is selling less than McDonalds, they should really just get out of the hamburger business."

Profit is profit. The notion that making slightly less money is failure is hypercompetitive nonsense.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

That just isn't true. Nobody applies that standard to anything but stupid video game console arguments. People say "the Wii U is selling way less than the Wii, so Nintendo needs to do something different!" but nobody says "Guardians of the Galaxy isn't as profitable as Avengers, so Marvel should just not make movies like that!" People say "Nintendo isn't selling as many consoles as Sony, they should just drop out of consoles" but nobody is saying "Burger King is selling less than McDonalds, they should really just get out of the hamburger business."

Profit is profit. The notion that making slightly less money is failure is hypercompetitive nonsense.

I don't know man, tell that to the business execs who see less as loss.

That's probably true and I agree, though they've had way too many losses for them to not try and do something differently at this point.

Well, they DID make their first new IP in over a decade

True dat.

 

[MysticSlayer]

There's no problem with Nintendo releasing their own consoles and making that the exclusive location for their games. In fact, there may even be some benefits to it that only people in the company really understand.

The problem with the WiiU is in how they handled it. It was poorly advertised, even down to the name. It was outdated within a year. It failed to have a strong library for months after release, and backwards compatibility isn't going to solve that. And those are just the problems anyone can figure out even before picking it up to use.

So should Nintendo start releasing their games third party? No, not necessarily, but if they aren't, then they really need to get their act together on the hardware front.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

...technically they aren't receiving a loss on the Wii U anymore. They wrote off the loss from each console sold for the remaining initial shipment during one of the quarters (I think it was the same one as the emergency investor's meeting). So because of that, since all that loss is already reported, the Wii U is technically profitable due to how sunk costs work.

Incidentally, this is the biggest reason why I don't think the Wii U will ever get a price drop until that initial shipment is finally sold enough for it to justify new consoles being manufactured. They already took one sunk cost, I don't see them wanting to add more.

Not even technically anymore; it is completely profitable. Furthermore, that article was from two years ago, making it irrelevant now. It's funny how the best financial arguments people can try to make against Nintendo are either A) non-existent B) obsolete or C) just plain nonsensical. Speaking of nonsensical, it's always funny hearing the argument people make about Nintendo going 3rd party.

The problem is this: first off, it would require a MASSIVE loss of profit. A lot of people keep bringing up the two losses years, but they always leave out the big fact: it was barely a DENT in Nintendo's finances. Nintendo could literally take losses like that for decades and not be in any remote trouble due to nearly having no debt. The amount of money they would have to lose would have to be a massive amount in an unrealistically short amount of time. And that just isn't possible with how Nintendo is managed.

Secondly, and this is the even less plausible part, they would have to somehow then be able to bounce back from that near-instantly. What. The. Hell? Really? They have to be in financial straits to the point of getting out of hardware but yet then also miraculously keep all their employees, can keep churning out games uninterrupted, and also do so on multiple systems with no delay? I'm sorry, what Lala Land are these people from who honestly believe this could happen? This is the stuff of terrible fanfiction, not something to be associated with reality.

 

[sXeth]

I think they'd have to lose at least two generations and/or finally take a hit on the handhelds before they'd ever consider it (whether mobile gaming is or isn't a handheld competitor is a matter of some debate, but hasn't horribly impacted the DS line TTBOMK)

The Wii-U's kind of lagged on killer-apps, with the movement to HD probably being a major factor in that. At the same time, they've banged out Smash and Kart now, with Zelda and Starfox looming on the horizon. Splatoon and Pikmin are relatively popular, if not in Nintendo's A-tier. And the virtual console library is going to pull a decent amount of dollars in as well.

Right now they're sort of stuck where the PS3 was initially, with weird hardware to develop on, and a lot of catch-up, but PS3 did eventually overtake the Xbox last gen, so I wouldn't count them out yet.

 

[Bellvedere]

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

That just isn't true. Nobody applies that standard to anything but stupid video game console arguments. People say "the Wii U is selling way less than the Wii, so Nintendo needs to do something different!" but nobody says "Guardians of the Galaxy isn't as profitable as Avengers, so Marvel should just not make movies like that!" People say "Nintendo isn't selling as many consoles as Sony, they should just drop out of consoles" but nobody is saying "Burger King is selling less than McDonalds, they should really just get out of the hamburger business."

Profit is profit. The notion that making slightly less money is failure is hypercompetitive nonsense.

I don't know man, tell that to the business execs who see less as loss.

Unless your comments are irrelevant to the topic at hand (Nintendo going 3rd party), the part I'm having difficulty comprehending is why doing something differently equals not making consoles. The fact that they have seen a return to profit, suggests that it's possible to "do things differently" without giving up their core business model at the first sign of decline in profits. If a couple of years of loss or simply less profit in particular years equates to the need to completely give up in an area of business, then we should have no consoles at all... or games... or much of anything really...

 

[FPLOON]

In the immortal words of <link=http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/207/8/d/the_dazzlings__resources__by_imperfectxiii-d7sefhi.png>The Dazzlings: "Oh, what's so wrong with a little competition?"

Basically, my reasoning as to why I don't believe Nintendo should go third party is because it's just another way to thin out the competition... and the last thing we, as consumers, want is a pending monopoly (or worse oligopoly, which I would place both Sony and Microsoft at in comparison to PC gaming at this point) where we feel like we won by buying any system because it can play any game on the fucking map, but are actually paying the FIFA equivalent of a monopoly... or oligopoly, since a monopoly's "worse" than an oligopoly "somehow"... Plus, even if they did, they would not be getting the same amount of payoff like they do now because a cut of the sales would have to go towards the system they wanted to now put their game(s) on, thus making sure the first party stays in the game while Nintendo is at the bigger risk of bailing out/shutting down because they did not "make bank" because they're now contractually obligated to give a "percentage" of their earning to said first party... and that's not even including the fact that the first party becomes the equivalent to being the producer/executive producer that will choose to have the final word on anything Nintendo would want to do just so that a Nintendo game could even make it to the stage of being available on the first party system in general...

In other words, no... and I'm sure the reasoning behind why they should [probably] has the "monopoly/oligopoly" word underline within your philosophy of gaming as a whole without realizing it... the same why my reasoning behind why they shouldn't [probably] has the word "competition" underline within my philosophy of gaming as a whole while realizing that...

 

[Ishigami]

I?m not running their business so it is not my task to make them money therefore my vote simply reflect my very selfish desires as a gamer.

Yes,

because then I might actually play games of them. I certainly won't buy any of their systems any time soon that's for sure.

 

[joest01]

Nintendo is arguably the only console that actually offers an end to end unique experience. Putting Mario on the xbox would be as good a fit as watching it's always sunny in philadelphia on the cooking channel.

I still doubt that Microsoft is in the consolde busines for the long haul. They have other problems. It's basically a hobby for them. A way to have a foot (or eyes rather) in the living room. And Sony could go bankrupt or taken over any day.

 

[CrystalShadow]

There's no good reason for them to, and I personally, wouldn't care, or benefit from them doing so.

I have never had any non-nintendo console, and I see very little appeal in having one, because they basically end up being like gimped PC's...

The kind of games the other consoles focus on work out pretty well as PC games, so aside from intentional exclusives, there's just... Not much incentive.

Besides, part of what makes Nintendo games as good as they tend to be is an intimate understanding of the hardware they run on.

This might still work if they go platform exclusive on some other console, but it would fall apart if they went multi-platform.

So then... All you've done is shift the annoyance factor from needing a Nintendo-exclusive console, to needing one of the other consoles...

If they were to go truly multi-platform, I don't think it would do them any favours whatsoever.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

"Still profitable" doesn't cut it. It's about making more money. Making less is the same as losing in Businessworld.

That just isn't true. Nobody applies that standard to anything but stupid video game console arguments. People say "the Wii U is selling way less than the Wii, so Nintendo needs to do something different!" but nobody says "Guardians of the Galaxy isn't as profitable as Avengers, so Marvel should just not make movies like that!" People say "Nintendo isn't selling as many consoles as Sony, they should just drop out of consoles" but nobody is saying "Burger King is selling less than McDonalds, they should really just get out of the hamburger business."

Profit is profit. The notion that making slightly less money is failure is hypercompetitive nonsense.

I don't know man, tell that to the business execs who see less as loss.

Unless your comments are irrelevant to the topic at hand (Nintendo going 3rd party), the part I'm having difficulty comprehending is why doing something differently equals not making consoles. The fact that they have seen a return to profit, suggests that it's possible to "do things differently" without giving up their core business model at the first sign of decline in profits. If a couple of years of loss or simply less profit in particular years equates to the need to completely give up in an area of business, then we should have no consoles at all... or games... or much of anything really...

I think they'd benefit from publishing games dev'd by 3rd party studios, NOT by publishing 1st party games on other consoles.

 

[Guffe]

That's probably true and I agree, though they've had way too many losses for them to not try and do something differently at this point.

Well, they DID make their first new IP in over a decade

What? New IPs have been on both the Wii and WiiU!?!
Splat00n has just cuaght the eye of the internet making everyone see a new IP, but there have been several on the last two consoles.

I don't know about going third party. Many people seem to be wanting Nintendo games on PS4/Xbox or are saying they would at least try them or one in the/a series, so that would be it, they'd make money, sure.
Then there's a question, if Nintendo stopped hardware, and moved on to only games. Would they have to rush out games before they're done and be pushed by other companies. Or would they still have the freedom of working as they are, making sure games are actually done when releases and not focusing so much on DLC and patching and stuff (althou DLC is also part of their game now since... about 6 months back). Just a thought, I don't know.

I have enjoyed Nintendo for quite some time, all my life to be honest, and would be a bit sad to see them make games and not consoles.

Then again that would get rid of the all-the-time Nintendo are doomed and shit and stupid arguments xD

We'll see how things work out, who knows, maybe they turn it around and the new console actually wil attract third party devs, the other way around so to say

 

[Ishigami]

Then there's a question, if Nintendo stopped hardware, and moved on to only games. Would they have to rush out games before they're done and be pushed by other companies. Or would they still have the freedom of working as they are, making sure games are actually done when releases and not focusing so much on DLC and patching and stuff (althou DLC is also part of their game now since... about 6 months back). Just a thought, I don't know.

You do know that Nintendo is a publisher right? There is your answer.