Jan 25
I know I’ve said this before, but it’s official now: the time has come for Nintendo, at long last, to kill the Wii U and move into other areas in … Continue reading
Jan 24
This week the man who created Mega Man has shown a few new screenshots of Mighty No. 9, the next-gen game Comcept developer studio are working on – and boy, … Continue reading
Jan 22
The Nintendo Wii U is definitely a console that is losing out on its position in the market, especially with the advent of the Xbox One as well as the Sony PS4. Developers play a very important role in making sure that any console has a steady stream of games that are worth playing, and while Nintendo’s first party titles have been more or less flawless most of the time, EA (Electronic Arts) intends to stop publishing more titles for the Nintendo Wii, after rolling out Mass Effect 3, Madden NFL 13, FIFA 13, and Need for Speed Most Wanted on it.
EA Has No Plans For Future Titles On The Wii U original content from Ubergizmo. 
     |
Jan 22
For those of you that’ve been playing every single Super Smash Bros. game since the first hit the N64, you may very well know about the type of player that … Continue reading
Jan 20
Following the announcement that Nintendo would be slashing its estimated Wii U sales by 70%, Nintendo’s President, Satoru Iwata, took to the stage and admitted that Nintendo might have misread the market and that the company is planning a new business strategy, one that might involve mobile devices. It definitely sounds exciting, after all who wouldn’t love to be able to play games like Mario, Mario Kart, and Zelda on their smartphones or tablets, right? Well before you get too excited, it seems that Nintendo’s President has stepped forward again to clarify what he meant the other day, assuring gamers and investors that Nintendo will not cease building consoles.
According to Iwata (via The Wall Street Journal), “The spread of smart devices does not spell the end of game consoles. It’s not that simple. It doesn’t mean that we should put Mario on smartphones.” Instead Iwata believes that the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets can help Nintendo promote its console releases. We reported on this before where Nintendo stated that these mobile apps aren’t designed to be the entire game itself, but at the same time will provide you with the experience that will make you want to go back or purchase a Nintendo console instead. It seems that Nintendo is still stubbornly refusing to release games onto mobile despite many thinking they should. What do you guys think? Should Nintendo start releasing for mobile or do you think that they should hold onto their exclusivity?
Nintendo Reassures They Are Not Done With Consoles original content from Ubergizmo. 
| |
Jan 20
This morning the creator of the Nintendo multiplayer franchise Super Smash Bros., Masahiro Sakurai, has posted a single screenshot of a next-generation game. This game will almost certainly exist inside … Continue reading
Jan 19
Nintendo is definitely not in a good place right now. Despite the company’s best intentions, they have recently been forced to slash their sales estimate of the Wii U by a whopping 70%. This is not only a bad sign for Nintendo, but their investors as well who might be alarmed by this drastic move. In light of this, Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata was expected to resign, but revealed that he would not be doing so. Instead he elaborated on the issue and admitted that when it came to the Wii U, Nintendo had misread the market and because of that, failed to issue appropriate instructions on how to handle the “new” market. Iwata has since proposed to to do something that will surprise Nintendo’s customers, although what exactly that entails remains to be seen.
Iwata did state that the company was looking at a new business structure and that the company will most likely be discussing their options and a new strategy at their strategy briefing on the 30th of January. Earlier we reported that Iwata said that Nintendo would be studying mobile devices, although we’re not sure if this will result in Nintendo actually releasing games for mobile devices, something which the company has refused to do for the longest time ever. What do you guys think? What do you think Nintendo needs to do to remain relevant in today’s gaming scene? No doubt Nintendo’s first-party titles are immensely fun, but will they be enough to make customers purchase an entire system for it?
Nintendo Admits They Misread The Market original content from Ubergizmo. 
| |
Jan 17
Nintendo has confirmed it is “studying” the potential for smartphones and gaming, with company president Satoru Iwata admitting that it is “thinking about a new business structure” in the face … Continue reading
Jan 17
It seems like Nintendo might not be overly optimistic about its Wii U sales. According to the company’s latest reassessment, it seems that they will be slashing estimated sales of the Wii U from 9 million units from April 2013 until March 2014 to a mere 2.8 million, which is less than a third of Nintendo’s initial predictions. If anything this seems to suggest the Nintendo had actually sold less than that figure to date which is admittedly pretty disappointing so far. To put it into perspective, Nintendo had managed to sell 3.45 million units of the Wii U during its launch year. (more…)
Nintendo Slashes Wii U Sales Estimate From 9 Million To 2.8 Million original content from Ubergizmo. 
| |
Jan 17
Nintendo has confirmed what we knew already: its unhappy controller/console combo, the Wii U, is a flop. The company said hardware sales of the Wii U had failed to reach its target during the year-end, pushing it into a third consecutive annual loss, Reuters reports.
“We failed to reach our target for hardware sales during the year-end, when revenues are the highest,” said Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, at a shareholder briefing on the sales figures.
With the Wii U failing to shift off shelves — and that despite a $50 price cut last September, to $299 — Nintendo has slashed its global sales forecast for the device for the year to March 31 by almost 70%. It said it’s expecting Wii U sales to number just 2.8 million units over that period. It also cut its sales forecast for its handheld 3DS console to 13.5 million units from 18 million.
Both Nintendo’s devices are facing fierce competition from non-specialist consumer hardware fuelled by thousands of often inexpensive games apps — aka the smartphones and tablets running on platforms such as Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS. Ownership of app-supporting mobile devices has exploded since the original Wii’s hey-day, of circa 2006, shifting the gaming goalposts from the living room to people’s pockets.
Meanwhile, the home console market has been increasingly dominated by Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation — leaving Nintendo to be squeezed out by those more powerful home consoles at the higher end, attracting pro gamers with huge franchise titles such as Grand Theft Auto, and driven out at the lower end by the consumerization of portable gaming via mainstream mobile devices. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
The other point to note is that the Wii U itself just isn’t very good. It’s neither fish nor fowl, so to speak. As TC columnist MG Siegler put it back in September, it’s ”a poor concept accentuated by poor hardware”. He also described Nintendo as being “in the beginning of a death spiral”. Today’s sales forecasts pour more fuel on those flames.
Nintendo said it is now expecting an operating loss of 35 billion yen ($335.76 million) this business year vs its initial forecast of a 100 billion yen profit. It also warned of a net loss of 25 billion yen for the year ending on March 31 — having previously projected a 55 billion yen profit. And expects revenues of 590 billion yen, down 36% from its prior forecast.
Update: Nintendo appears to be mulling a new smartphone-focused business strategy, according to comments reported by Bloomberg. “We are thinking about a new business structure,” Iwata is reported as saying at a press conference in Osaka, Japan.
“Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone.”
It’s unclear exactly what Nintendo is considering but it appears to be reluctant to allow its flagship gaming franchises to simply be unchained from its own hardware and offered as apps on other platforms.
“We cannot continue a business without winning,” Iwata added. “We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each.”
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.