Backing away from a previous position, are we Nintendo? Just a month after Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime
claimed that the iPhone OS (you know, that operating system used on the iPod touch, iPhone family and the iPad) wasn't a "viable profit platform for game development," along comes the company's president to say that, in fact, Apple is the primary "
enemy of the future." That's according to
Times Online, who says that the Big N's CEO (Satoru Iwata) feels that the battle with Sony is a "victory already won," and who clearly believes that the next wave of gaming won't be of the traditional sit-on-your-coach-and-slam-buttons variety. 'Course, the PSP never has been
able to hang with the DS family, but even
the Wii has a ways to go before it catches the mighty
PlayStation 2 in terms of global sales. Going forward, the company is purportedly looking to revive the element of "surprise" in Nintendo products, but it might be best served by simply catching up to the competition and supporting this wild concept known as "
HD gaming" over "
HDMI."
posted May 7th 2010 2:01PM
@Clark Kent
Yes but... no.
Nintendo is mostly a IP company, and they can use their IP in different kind of products, from toys, magazine, comics, vintage products and many other different kind of stuffs.
Only for Pokémon:
Handheld 7+ games (plus variants)
Console :5+ games.
tv serie :+14
movies :+15
Manga (Japanese Comic) :+7
Plus :Trading card,Figures, Burger King products,Pokemon Trainer, cds.. just named it.
@magallanes : Only no. Nintendo makes more profit margin in PURE GAMING revenue than any of the other companies.
@Clark Kent .. Who cares if Apple does other things besides gaming ?
Right now Apple has greater market share than the PSP and offer something that Nintendo doesn't which is seamless digital distribution of games.
Nintendo needs to be very, very careful because it doesn't want Apple doing another iPod on them.
@taligent Untrue, Apple doesn't have a bigger markshare than the PSP, and it isn't even close to the DS.
I always hated sony's gaming consoles. I had a ps2. I hated it and played the gamecube. I thought it was good but it was just a piece of crap. I was always a Nintendo fanboy. I now have an Xbox360 and a wii. I say 360>wii>anything else>ps3
Apple igame the 4th competitor in the gaming market. I just made that up.
I was turned off of Nintendo because of the Wii. I loved the Super NES (still do), had some good multiplayer fun with the N64, played a lot of fun games on the GCN. But then I started playing online games on consoles, instead of PC, and Nintendo just fell flat on their face. XBox Live was awesome and still is, regardless of price, the Wii's online functionality was just pure crap. Friend codes? WTF? Currently I've been playing nothing but PS3, haven't touched my 360 since MAG came out. PS3 just has the games I currently wanted to play (MAG, White Knight Chronicles, MGS4, eventually GT5, and FFXIV). There is literally one Wii game coming out I would love, the new Metroid. Not going to buy a system for one game. You know what would be awesome? An HD 2D Metroid game a la Super Metroid. Shadow Complex was a close, but it's just not Samus.
Nintendo-haters and Apple-haters are pretty much the same people, aren't they? On both fronts they claim that people are just being fooled by marketing into the buying the respective products. Meanwhile the products keep selling and selling because the people that own them love them and tell others how much they like them.
"nintendo is just falling further behind in hardware"
Wait until we see the full specs on the Tegra 2 based 3DS. Assuming the base specs for a vanilla Teg2 it should be more powerful than the ipad/phone4 by a good margin.
@Kungpowking But they wont have a phone built in, and I don't know if I'd call the Tegra2 over the iPhone, we have to see how the speed/battery life stack up.
I mean, Nintendo has always gone into battle with inferior hardware and it's never really mattered, so as a Nintendo fan, you must know that even if the new Nintendo device is more powerful, it can get trumped by slightly less powerful hardware, hardware that can make phone calls or run more software, and hardware that has the easiest to use, most complete app store out there.
Nintendo is right to sit up and take notice. The roadmap has been laid by Apple already, and it's much wider than only gaming.
Why is APPLE your ENEMY? That doesn't make any sense to me at all.
i would consider nintendo to have "won" this generation of consoles if it could actually be the best selling console *and* the most successful in terms of its game library. right now the wii sits at the bottom of the consoles in terms of time spent playing every day and the amount titles bought per console, according to research. it's a disaster in terms of third party titles and core games, mainly relying on its first party games which are really just updated sequels to its long-existing franchises.
mainly, nintendo has just gotten lazy. i'd love to see them take some of their crazy record profits and pour it back into the system in terms of hiring third parties for new IPs and advertising, or increasing its own facilities for putting out first party games more than once 9 months.
Okay, I don't normally post, but this is getting crazy. I've been playing video games since my dad stuck a Nintendo controller in my hands when I was 3 and had me playing Mario Bros. with him. I've been there for the good, and bad, and as I've aged, I've come to appreciate many different types of games. I'd like to say I'm a "hardcore" gamer. But the point of my story is... I enjoy good games. It doesn't matter who puts them out, or what genre it is. If it has heart put into it, and it plays well, then why not love it? More often than not, it's Nintendo that pulls this off.
With Miyamoto notorious for "upending the tea table" if something isn't progressing the way he sees fit, this is the kind of developing that has made them as successful as they are, because their noteworthy projects are pure gold. Having worked for a developer before, I know first hand that this mindset is the exception, not the rule.
I own all three current-gen systems, a DS Lite, and an iPhone 3GS as well as an iPad. I'm not trying to brag, but I'm expressing the point that I've played games on all systems. Games should be about ... gameplay. Great graphics add to the experience, and perfect controls make it really fluid and thereby the experience is further enriched.
Having played all of the Gears of War and God of War and all of the other of War games out there... I'm tired of them. Sure, they look good... (GoW3 is only 1080i? Really? The all powerful playstation couldn't even pull off progressive scan for their golden child? I was really disappointed.) God of War has been me holding various directions on the analog stick and mashing the square button. That's not game play. Gears of War is ducking behind something, and shooting someone, and then rolling into another cover, and repeating. That's not gameplay.
I played Oblivion for 216 hours before I even started the main quest. That's game play. Left 4 Dead was great for a long time. That's innovative team-based gameplay. Borderlands (oh yes.. Ohh yes.) The post-apocalyptic setting and the sheer amount of polish made that a winner, and then playing online with pals? It's nirvana. Shooters aside, the last game to consume a huge amount of my time? Heavy Rain. Sony's own little "Interactive drama." Not so much a game as it was an addiction beginning to end. Tons of polish, great story telling, and multiple endings.
The focus of this rant is "gameplay is what matters." And when all of the fanboys rage from their respective soap boxes and say that "your system is crap because mine has all of this..." Who cares? Who cares how many polygons your system can churn out, or how great it looks doing it? The game still blows. And all the people saying that Nintendo can't produce a good game to save their lives... Please. Sit down with Mario Galaxy for an hour and tell me that's not fun.
Keeping the user engaged and interested by providing great concepts, content, and innovation. Competition often brings out the best and worst in companies like this, and that competitive edge means that they push the envelope to impress the user base. I say let 'em.
Now stop yelling at each other.
@Comandr
There are some brilliant points in there, hell, I even play Streets of Rage for the Megadrive sometimes. People discount the Wii purely because they think it has no good games, just pure ignorance as there is a treasure trove of brilliant games in there.
Why do people harbor hatred towards success or something they do not have?
@Comandr
You are one of the few. *applauds*
@Comandr
3 years old? "Here kid, I'm goin' to the bar. Stay put. B is shoot, A is jump"
BREAKING NEWS!
CASIO's CEO has just stated that war against the PS3 for the hand calculators market is over and Casio has clearly won!!! Now the battle's over and the goddess of victory has smiled upon them, they're out to compete against Ford in the HDTV market.
@Luke2010
Perfect summary, really. I know sony has a great argument from a business investor perspective, but they didn't really compete against the PS3. They decided not to try, and that worked really well.
But PS3 owners have nothing to be ashamed of in their systems. And they really have the best party games, I think. Just less universal adoption (by far).
Lima sky vs SCEI. :D
I'm not much for mobile gaming personally, BUT the iPhone has one huge, obvious advantage over the DS: It's your phone, so you'll always have it with you.
As far as brands, I have a PS3 and a Wii, I play them both and love games on both of them. What Nintendo needs to do is make a console with HDMI and at least 720p capability. I love my Zelda and Mario games, I would love them even more in HD.
@Jack I totally agree. Any one past a 'tween age has a phone on them at all times.
And it was such a letdown when I was playing Tiger Woods on the Wii - awesome Motion+ gameplay, degenerative-to-the-eyes graphics.
Nintendo's absolutely right. They're competing with Apple and casual gaming. Nintendo doesn't care that Mario isn't in HD, yet... they've been making way more money than XBOX and Playstation since they launched. Besides hardcore gamers, no one gives a crap about the two HD consoles. While Sony keeps street cred and blows money on the PS3, Nintendo and Apple are making money from everyone else. Street cred is not a smart business decision. It's micro transactions and casual games where Apple, Nintendo, and Facebook are taking it to the next level.
Don't kid yourself. Nintendo will probably have a hit with whatever 3D thing they release this year and Apple's iTouch market isn't going away. There's a lot of stuff that gets the nerds off that just doesn't make sense financially. Apple made the right decision to not allow Flash onto the iTouch devices because when Farmville comes out, they're going to make a 30% of every sale of every fake tractor instead of their Flash wielding cousins who will make nothing.
@MisterK
Over 10 million people who bought Halo 3 and MW2 says your wrong. The 16-24 demographic cares most about 360 and PS3 so somehow I doubt its only hardcore gamers that just care about 360 and PS3. Not to mention MW2 is pretty casual to boot.
Also fail for mentioning Facebook and Farmville in a article about Video games. Only non-gamers would even relate those two to video games.
Nintendo's business model is brilliant. Really. They build for their target customer - loyalists and kids. Then they make their system accessible to casual users and families. There are far, far more of these people than there are hardcore gamers.
That won't always be true, it is still is...at least for a while longer.
Now you've got Apple with very much the same business model, though we can replace "kids" with "tweens" and Gens-X, -Y and -Z. And now they have a number of hardware devices that are eating up the market (sometimes their own), in an environment they control, some of which is shared by Nintendo. Apple is encroaching relatively slowly, but firmly, into Nintendo's territory, and before you know it, the i-Devices will do everything Nintendo's do (if they don't already, Jailbreakers), leaving Nintendo to finally, finally come up with something new again.
I love Nintendo, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, all these companies when they come up with something even marginally innovative, that forces the next move up the techno-entertainment ladder. With Microsoft (Natal) and Sony (Move) positioning to catch up (and surpass, really) Nintendo's gesture-based input, it's time for Nintendo to take another step forward. And it'd better be more than just HD.
Looking forward to it. =)
I think Nintendo and Sony will ultimately lose out to smartphones like iphone, android, winpho7, etc. People are going to get tired of toting around handheld gaming consoles when they have a smartphone with a large game library. Smartphones will be the biggest device of this decade once everyone realizes how many things smartphones replace and how much they simplify our lives. Nintendo and Sony have fantastic game developers under their wings, but unfortunately are too stubborn and drunk on $$$ to realize that making a new generation of handheld consoles wouldn't be as profitable as publishing games on smartphones. After Nintendo and Sony go through the 3DS and PSP2 motions, they will do one of these things. 1) Publish games on smartphones, or 2) Nintendo and Sony start making gaming-centric smartphones, most likely powered by Android [Sony is already in bed with android, Nintendo probably wouldn't want to put games on iphone or their gaming competitor Microsoft]
@Luffy So true...
@Luffy indeed, this is the reason Sony has stuck to the PSP instead of moving on.
they know if they do it, they will need an Android PSP2 phone. I'm not sure if that can be done, but that's what they'd need to do. Even then, can they beat iPhones and Droid games? I seriously doubt it. Perhaps a Droid phone with PS style controls and special Droid aps marketed as PSP2 games. A very un-Sony move, though.
Oh...Nintendo..I love you....I cannot wait for your revolutionary Nintendo 3DS, Apple can't compete with real games!!
If Kidtendo really wants to compete crApple then make the new 3DS with phone function.
Nintendo needs to appeal to some of us "older" gamers who grew up playing and supporting them from the very beginning. I'm getting tired of "kiddie" games, though I will always love Zelda, and Mario all day long.
On top of that ... the length between "A" quality games needs to improve. And I mean dramatically improve.
For as much profit as those guys pull in, they have the resources to buy developers to produce games on a regular basis.
I guess only time will tell.
This "Apple vs. Nintendo" rivalry will be very interesting.
Has Nintendo really been affected by Apple though? Nintendo is in the handheld gaming department, not subpar touchscreen gaming. It seems like an entirely different market to me. Don't get me wrong, I love playing games on my iPhone (Tetris mainly) but it is no where near being a replacement for my DS.
Does anyone have anything that shows that Nintendo is actually losing money because of Apple? I'm not trying to start a fanboy war or anything because I don't really care for either party...
I'm just curious.
@Niazac Nintendo just said it themselves... They're seeing Apple as the "enemy of the future."
So now it's Nintendo DSi vs. iPad
The problem with Nintendo's business model right now is that their shit quality console is inferior to many TVs with OSs in video game capability. And inferior to my cell phone. And my car. And my tablet.
They can't compete with Apple's line which sells games at Wii quality already. But that's only the beginning. Sony and MS offer something that can be replicated with a PC and TV setup, but is something the traditional consumer need a PS3 or 360 for. Nintendo is going to see their clever market completely disappear..
@Dustin F Very well said ... I couldn't agree more.
HD NINTENDO, priceless
I watch all my T.V. online. Not having a T.V. excludes me from buying a Wii, Xbox360, and PS3. My netbook runs Ubuntu 10.04, so PC gaming is non-existent for me. I own a Blackberry 8900, because RIM makes arguably the most reliable phones ever made. Besides, T-mobile beats A&TT on so many levels it ain't even funny. So to buy an iPhone, I think not! iTouch? My Blackberry plays my music. iPad? Why would I spend $500 on a oversized iTouch when I spent $200 on an actual computer? I don't like the idea of having to pay to save a freaking game!!!!!! So guess what I use for my gaming needs? If you guessed my Nintendo DS that I have had since launch, (Yeah it's 6 years old so what?) Then you would be correct. =)
@gigarath
Not really as interesting as you thought all that might be
LOL this is the biggest war ever on casual games.
We are not going to make good games! We are just going to make small addicting ones for 5.99 in the app store.
What will the soccer mom take Nintendo or Apple?
Whatever ima go play Halo: Reach Beta.
I would love for both Sony and Nintendo stop this console bullshit. I refuse to buy any hardware where software is exclusive. I'm tired of consumers being idiots. Stop supporting these greedy console makers. Games need to be playable on all machines, mobile or otherwise.
What the hell are you on about now? You sure like to take simple statements and make them mean something else don't you.
What does company X saying they notice company Y as a new big competitor in market Z have anything to do with anything you've just said? It's just saying they recognise they have new competition. Apple in recent years have expanded well beyond their old time Mac market, that is why a lot of companies now see them as competition (or in your terms everyone in the tech world vs Apple). That is all I was saying, you turned a simple acknoledgment statement into the tech world is against Apple warble.
Google entering the phone market isn't quite the same as Apple entering. Apple sell phones taking handset market share, Google doesn't take handset marketshare as it only provides an OS (the Nexus 1 hardly counts). Phone manufacturers can work with Google and get a better phone ecosystem without having to invest anywhere near as much in it as making their own as Google have done all that so they're not a threat to them in terms of selling phones. On the other hand for the companies that don't work with them (e.g Nokia and RIM) they suddendly saw Google as a new big threat as Google are helping their competition make better phones.
Half of you are missing the friggin point of the article, it's not discussing the Wii challenging the PS3 it's discussing the Iphone competing against the DSi. The motion sensing controls of any console are garbage, non of the games are nearly as good as they could be because the controls aren't as 1:1 as they should be, it's almost a lie to call them motion controls they should more accurately be called gesture controls.
Okay great, Nintendo competes with Apple (go Nintendo!) and Sony competes with MS (Don't really care who wins since I own a PS3, but love my Zune and Windows XP)
I think Apple wants in on the handheld gaming device space. What I think Iwata-san is really trying to suggest is he thinks Apple, if they are successful with the iPad, might look at getting more into gaming, which might just make them a serious competitor. After all, Apple has the cash in the bank to buy their way into the gaming market just like Microsoft did with the original Xbox.
We'll just have to see what happens.
It is as simple as this. If you are a core gamer you are not spending your time on a Wii. The Wii is a dust collector plain and simple. What is the amount of games owned by Wii owners compared to those of PS3 or 360 owners? Nintendo could no longer compete with Sony or Microsoft with real gamers so they figured they needed to find a new demographic aka people who don't game to buy their shovelware.
Nintendo should finally release a powerfull living room machine, something like the xbox 1 in the past. Extraordinary game designs and clever resource usage can lead to very good games, unfortunately what leads sales is no longer game quality but "games for bad boys", first impresions and art-driven games where you can interact with 1/100000 elements in the game and you spend 20% of the time in ridiculous cutscenes.
Nintendo looks for me like a single guy trying to change the whole world, they are probably right but noone will listen to them. I think they should move on, I would love to play some nintendo franchises in a conteporary machine.
I think they will miss the train if they don't release something, because it is very likely that we won't see more consoles after the next ps,xbox and wii and we will probably move into some kind of software platform that will just sell us some optional upgradeable hardware and controllers in the future.