Nintendo to compete by producing games

[Tagrineth]

Namco Ltd. said Wednesday its net profit doubled to 4.1 billion yen, on brisk sales of software for a game in which the player beats drums to music (which game is this btw??).

First off, what was the point of quoting that entire article?

Second, have you never heard of BeatMania?! Shame on you!

 

[PiNkY]

I am really astonished about what nowadays seems to be common opinion on this forum. First off, everyone seems to be solely focused on throwing up numbers about their favourite consoles successor. Why don' t we all try to stick to what we know. Hitherto Sony has arguably never dominated its competitors in technical specs (neither with PS1 now with PS2) within the same generation. They "won those rounds" by having significant headstart and mostly caring for 2nd and 3rd party developer support. Nowadays you're hearing things like

what would be the point of Nintendo making a next gen console if it can't at least come close to whatever MS or Sony have to offer... they might as well just focus of Handhelds, and even then they still have Sony's technology to match (IF this PSP is really as powerful as everyone seems to think)...

I mean currently I'd put GC in a solid second place for overall hw capabilities, postioned lots closer to XBox than to PS2, while I'd never dispute PS2 as *the* market leader. Despite having all three of them at home, I always funded my next game purchase on what game interested me the most instead of looking at available games' amount of pushed polygons or the like and I think that doesn't make me to different from most of the other forum participants. I think technical capabilities of consoles are vastly overestimated as a requierment for market penetration and I`d much rather see any of three companys listening closely to their developers and designing hw that is catering to their wills in an easy and efficient way, without engaging in Apple like marketing hype wars to bring "supercomputers into households" (Anyone ever seen that much hyped PS2 powered ICBM?). I definitly do not want to imply that I am not interested in technical disputes on this forum but stuff like the above has nothing to do with disputing, imho. Also, while quoting London-Boys, I did neither mean to attack him personally or specifically, nor did I want to imply that he is the reason for my rant. I could have propably found a lot of similiarly fitting quotes from lots of other people.

 

[Teasy]

Oh dear, so Nintendo only made $572,000,000 profit this year..

RE the second hand quotes on Nintendo not making a more sophisticated console and focusing on games.

I think its pretty clear that Nintendo are saying they will not make a console/TIVO/DVD player/Dish Washer ect console.. as in more sophisticated then a normal game playing console. They will stick to a console that does what they want it too do, play games. It will not be way behind the other consoles in graphical power, it doesn't need to be to still be cheaper then them and so be able to be sold at profit. It just needs to leave out all the extra none game related bits and peices that PS3 and XBox2 will have.

Zurich

Well, I read the article as saying that they'll release a substandard console next gen which will let them sell the system @ profit, @ launch, and be able to throw up polygonal representations of their cast of cute cudley mascots (and make more profit).

Nintendo have shown they now care very much about third parties, they do not just focus on what's best for there own first party games. Not to mention that Nintendo have plenty of there own games that are hardly cudley. Basically your whole post is nothing but fan-boy flaimbait from a self professed Nintendo hater. Why post at all?

 

[zurich]

Nintendo have shown they now care very much about third parties, they do not just focus on what's best for there own first party games. Not to mention that Nintendo have plenty of there own games that are hardly cudley. Basically your whole post is nothing but fan-boy flaimbait from a self professed Nintendo hater. Why post at all?

Because I don't agree with you

 

[Teasy]

Zurich

Wow what a very in depth argument that was. I don't need you to agree with me, its clear your post wasn't based on actual facts or logic anyway.

 

[zurich]

Zurich

Wow what a very in depth argument that was. I don't need you to agree with me, its clear your post wasn't based on actual facts or logic anyway.

It doesn't need to be, we posted opinion pieces. I have my opinion on what Nintendo is doing, and so do you. You think what they're doing is a Good Thing (tm), I don't think its enough. Pretty simple really. I could go into how I think the GBA-GC connectivity is a sham to leverage both markets [and boost profits], etc., but really (like I said), thats my opinion, so I won't waste the bandwidth arguing it.

You, Mr. NeverAdmitDefeat, should know by now that its impossible to change someones views over the net.

And really, after reading that 'Nintendo Opinion Roundup' by pro-online journalists, its not like we dissenters are alone.

 

[Qroach]

I have to admit that things aren't looking as good for nintendo as they sound. Yes nintendo recently lowered their development fees and said they known the importance of third party software. But what are they really doing to change that? The higher royaltee fee wasn't what kept developers from developing on that system in the first place, it was a number of factors.

a) Lower than expected sales in North America.

b) almost non exsistent developer support ( You wouldn't believe the extent Sony goes to to provide support. Same goes for MS.)

c) Retailers getting luke warm on the gamecube. The buyers for the retail chains out there are bcurrently taking half as much gamecube orders as Xbox on third party titles. Which is not a good sign at all.

Currently most north american publishers are looking at gamecube as the third platform, and that's why many titles are released on it last.

Anyway, unless nitnendo can do something to change the above perceptions//happenings. things just won't improve for the gamecube overall.

 

[V3]

Second, have you never heard of BeatMania?! Shame on you!

That Drum game is from Namco, Beatmani is DJ Simulation from Konami, Konami also has a Drum game series call Drumania. There is also Keyboard and Guitar. The Keyboard and Guitar games are alright, but Beatmania and the Drumania series are exceptionally good. I haven't try Namco one though, but from the sales, it seems to be good as well.

 

[Magnum PI]

[...]
Anyway, unless nitnendo can do something to change the above perceptions//happenings. things just won't improve for the gamecube overall.

they could at least interet the retail sectors in gamecube sales.

i recently heard that here in some major supermarket chain in france, margins for gamecube are 0.1 % while PS2 margins are more than 2%, and xbox more than 1%...

so the supermarket will tend to use less selling space for gamecube console, and not market it at all in the papers they put into the mailboxes of people.. it doesn't help gamecube sales at all !

nintendo should make them more interested.

 

[Tagrineth]

That Drum game is from Namco, Beatmani is DJ Simulation from Konami, Konami also has a Drum game series call Drumania. There is also Keyboard and Guitar. The Keyboard and Guitar games are alright, but Beatmania and the Drumania series are exceptionally good. I haven't try Namco one though, but from the sales, it seems to be good as well.

I know 8) I was just countering his mocking the premise 8)

 

[Squidlor]

I disagree with that. Besides the actual Purple Cube fiasco the GCN's main problem has been piss poor marketing (everywerhe in the world except Japan). That's why the PS2 has kicked it's ass imo.

I agree that a majority of Nintendo's big ad campaigns since the launch of the GC have left me scratching my head wondering what the hell is wrong with the NOA marketing department. On the other hand, my GC isn't collecting dust bunnies because of laughably bad advertisements. My GC is collecting dust bunnies because the games just don't hold my interest. The GC isn't selling like hotcakes because the game-buying public isn't interested in the games. I'm not sure how much you can blame this on marketing.

I bought a (purple!)GC at launch, and bought (pre-ordered) Pikmin, SMS, MP, and Zelda before I ever saw their print and television ads. With the exception of MP, I haven't bothered to play any of my dozen first-party Nintendo games more than fifteen hours (definitely not worth the $55 investment). If the GC2 is a continuation of what we have right now, then I probably won't bother to buy one until a Metroid is released...

And to just complain about one more thing.... What the hell is taking Nintendo so long to release a new 2D Mario game for the GBA? I mean, come on.

And Geist? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it being shown to publishers before Nintendo became involved? I was under the impression that Nintendo really hasn't been involved in its development. The E3 movies looked alright, but it doesn't have me interested.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

N64 were much more 'special' then GameCube games... You could just play them for like... a zillion hours?