Some Nintendo What Ifs

[Readykilowatt]

Going by these figures, they'd get $20 per game sold on PS2 and XB. If they sold 60 million units with 20 million target consoles, one would extrapolate that they'd sell 5x as many games on 5x as many consoles. That'd be 300 million games sold at $20 a piece = 6 billion. Losing all the rest, losing 3rd party fees and hardware profits, they'd be 50% up on current earnings. Plus they'd lose the need for console RnD and marketting which isn't cheap.

^^

Nintendo is presently in the hardware business (DS, GBA, GBMicro, GCN and the soon to be released Revolution) and yet they are still making bigger profits than EA (software only), Sony (the market leader in home consoles) and Microsoft (who didn't make a dime on the Xbox). That should tell you something.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That should tell you something.

A lot of handheld games are sold
The Nintendo financials I've seen haven't differentiated between handheld and console spaces, so profitability of their console space is unclear.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's completely flawed logic though Shfity.. If 100 million people wanted to buy loads of Nintendo's games then GameCube would not have sold only 20 million consoles.

Not if GC doesn't have the other games people want. I wouldn't mind playing some GC games, but not enough to warrant buying a console and having it sit around unused most of the time. Whereas if Nintendo released on PS2 I would buy their products as I only own the hardware to play other games.

You can't fairly assume everyone who wants to play Nintendo games is happy to buy a console (unless you have statistics that prove this )

 

[Readykilowatt]

A lot of handheld games

....and a very profitable home console business.

 

[London Geezer]

(Woah today i'm in a Nintendo loving mood!)

Personally i think Nintendo is in every position to become (one day maybe not too far away) the "Apple" of today.
Apple only needed one single item - and we all know what it is - and BOOM they're totally on top of their game.
Nintendo has already enough followers (much like Apple had "followers") to one day come up with some fantastic and very simple idea and BOOM they're on top again.

Sony will always be hovering around doing their thing, MS too. But i have this feeling that Nintendo is the Apple of the console market.

Ok maybe it's time to go to sleep. Nintendo love posts from me are quite a bad sign.

Then Nintendo will make lots of money. What else do you expect to happen? Elvis return and head Nintendo and buy out Sony and conquor the world and force everyone to eat mushrooms?

Why would Elvis force everyone to eat mushrooms?! It's much more likely that he would force everyone to wear white trousers with white shoes and white shirt. topped with a white jacket with lots of shiny things attached to it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Abnd going by Teasy's figures, that made Nintendo $4 billion. And by my calculations (assuming an even interest in Nintendo titles amongst non-GC owners) they'd make more money developing for their rivals. But of course they'd keep the handheld business.

 

[Powderkeg]

Nintendo are nothing like Sega so its pointless to compare them, going third party would not mean more profits either. Straight away they would make 33% less profit per game, on current generation game sales that would mean $700 million less profit. They would lose all licensing money that comes from third party game sales (around $1.5 billion this generation). They would also lose all their peripheral sales (controllers, memory cards ect), which again goes into the billions of dollars. Not to mention they would lose the ability to share technology between there console and handheld businesses. What would they gain?.. the possibility of selling some extra games? They would have to sell more then three times the amount of games just to recoup the money they would lose from losing the revenue streams I mentioned above. There's no way they would achieve that sort of increase in game sales by going third party. The fact is the majority of people who really want to play Nintendo games buy Nintendo consoles...

Nintendo have no reason to drop out of the console business, when will people stop bringing up this obsurd argument?

That was a long reply for having completely ignored my first "What if"

What if the Revolution fails.

They won't be making a profit off their console if it fails, will they? they won't be selling enough games for that console if it fails, would they?

And they would have a reason to drop out of the console race if their console fails, won't they?


Your whole argument fell apart there, didn't it?

 

[Powderkeg]

(Woah today i'm in a Nintendo loving mood!)

Personally i think Nintendo is in every position to become (one day maybe not too far away) the "Apple" of today.
Apple only needed one single item - and we all know what it is - and BOOM they're totally on top of their game.
Nintendo has already enough followers (much like Apple had "followers") to one day come up with some fantastic and very simple idea and BOOM they're on top again.

Apple is not on top in the desktop workstation/home PC market, are they?

 

[London Geezer]

Apple is not on top in the desktop workstation/home PC market, are they?

You know what i mean.

 

[Powderkeg]

You know what i mean.

Yes, but do you know what I mean?

 

[London Geezer]

Yes, but do you know what I mean?

They know what she means.

 

[Readykilowatt]

Sony will always be hovering around doing their thing, MS too.

Not if they are making losses.

What if the Revolution fails.

Then Nintendo will release another home console prematurely and try never to repeat the mistakes they made with the Revolution.

 

[Urian]

The most important thing for a business corporation is making money with their products and/or services.

The idea of the new controller is simple, is a business strategy. Nothing more.

The key is that if you sell a console with the same games of PS3 and 360 and you are Nintendo you will die sooner or later, but if you can take a lot of exclusive games from the third parties the console could be a good complement of PS3 and/or 360.

The main reason is the software, but if you have a less powerful console and the same software you will die in the market, you need something exclusive that awakens the interest in the system from the people.

 

[Readykilowatt]

Abnd going by Teasy's figures, that made Nintendo $4 billion. And by my calculations (assuming an even interest in Nintendo titles amongst non-GC owners) they'd make more money developing for their rivals. But of course they'd keep the handheld business.

^^

Let's put it this way, Nintendo doesn't want to make more money, that's why they are releasing the Revolution.

 

[Teasy]

Not if GC doesn't have the other games people want. I wouldn't mind playing some GC games, but not enough to warrant buying a console and having it sit around unused most of the time. Whereas if Nintendo released on PS2 I would buy their products as I only own the hardware to play other games.

You can't fairly assume everyone who wants to play Nintendo games is happy to buy a console (unless you have statistics that prove this

No but what you can fairly assume is that most people who really want to play Nintendo games will buy a Nintendo console. The thing costs $99 for god sake, if you really want 3 or 4 Nintendo games then the console is worth buying. What you certainly can't assume is that people who didn't even buy a GC this generation would buy as many Nintendo games as the people who did buy a GC.

 

[Powderkeg]

No but what you can fairly assume is that most people who really want to play Nintendo games will buy a Nintendo console. The thing costs $99 for god sake, if you really want 3 or 4 Nintendo games then the console is worth buying. What you certainly can't assume is that people who didn't even buy a GC this generation would buy as many Nintendo games as the people who did buy a GC.

True, the ratio of non-Nintendo console owners who would by a Nintendo game is lower, but keep in mind just how many non-Nintendo console owners there are.

There are over 120 million non-Nintendo consoles sold this generation. If only 5% were to buy any single Nintendo game, it would still be the best selling Nintendo console game in the past 5 years. Even if only 1% bought a specific Nintendo game, it would still rank in their top 10 in sales.

And then of course, you can add in all of those Nintendo fans who currently own a Nintendo console. Certainly they would still buy Nintendo games as well.

 

[Teasy]

That was a long reply for having completely ignored my first "What if"

What if the Revolution fails.

They won't be making a profit off their console if it fails, will they? they won't be selling enough games for that console if it fails, would they?

And they would have a reason to drop out of the console race if their console fails, won't they?

Your whole argument fell apart there, didn't it?

You asked if Nintendo would make more money from going third party. That is unanswerable within the "If Revolution fails" hypothetical. Therefore I assumed you meant it as a separate question, otherwise it makes no sense to ask. After all how can anyone answer "Would Nintendo make more money from being third party compared to failing with Revolution" when we have no idea what you mean by "failing"? We have no statistics or sales to use to make a judgment. So no my argument didn't fall apart

BTW didn't GameCube fail in your opinion?

 

[Powderkeg]

You asked if Nintendo would make more money from going third party, that has to be seperate from the "if Revolution fails" hypothetical. After all how can anyone answer "Would Nintendo make more money from being third party compared to failing with Revolution" when we have no idea what you mean by "fails"? We have no statistics or sales to use to make a judgement.

What I mean by fails is Nintendo doesn't sell enough to make it profitable. They take a loss in the console market.

BTW didn't GameCube fail in your opinion?

No. The Dreamcast failed. The Gamecube just lost marketshare, but if the Revolution loses marketshare at the same rate as the Gamecube, it may very well fail.

 

[Readykilowatt]

You asked if Nintendo would make more money from going third party, that has to be seperate from the "if Revolution fails" hypothetical. After all how can anyone answer "Would Nintendo make more money from being third party compared to failing with Revolution" when we have no idea what you mean by "fails"? We have no statistics or sales to use to make a judgement. BTW didn't GameCube fail in your opinion?

Don't you understand, Nintendo is making a big mistake by NOT going third party even though the Gamecube made them money.

 

[Urian]

If they are going to the NES strategy they won´t fail.