Debate - Nintendo Losing Its Touch?

[shadowhunter]

Given the past few months have been really sluggish for the video game scene, how do you guys feel about Nintendo as of late?

With me, I feel as if Nintendo has really lost its magic touch that makes all of its products great. The last DECENT product that Nintendo designed, in my opinion, was the Nintendo DS Lite. I loved the system, and had no problems with it at all, and I owned it for about three years. The DSi comes in, and that was the biggest waste of money and space. I got nothing out of it. The DSi shop was lackluster and expensive. It still is. The DSi XL is barely even worth commenting on either. When the 3DS came in, I saw a lot of promise for the system. Now, it's been about six months since the launch, and they already had to have a price cut, a new and pathetic gimmick with a second analog, which looks ugly, this stupid Ambassador Program with games that I don't really touch at all, and crummy support. This TGS conference really blew and I didn't see anything that made my eyes widen.

And, what happened with their support? They seem to have made decent updates at first and now, for EVERY console with them, there's nothing at all, except for "stability fixes," which also translates to "anti-piracy patch" that is cracked a few days or hours later. It feels like they don't care anymore. I spent hundreds of dollars on the console, and the games, and I'm about to honestly ditch the console, except I can't since I can't set my brother on fire in Zelda Four Swords. -_- I'm starting to pay much more attention to my iPod Touch and other systems.

What say you guys? How do you guys feel with Nintendo?

[Overlord Nadrian]

You must not have watched any of the 3DS conference trailers. I stayed up till 5AM to watch it, and it was worth it. The amount of new trailers and new games in general shown was astonishing, not to mention all of those games will be great, and several of them are coming out soon. Check out this thread for all 3DS conference trailers.

To answer the topic title: no. I will not make any further comments because what I just said is the truth.

I am sorry if this sounded arrogant, it is not intended to be so.

[shadowhunter]

While you have a point that yes, it is astonishing, I don't exactly know how to describe it myself, but I just was not... blown away. Don't get me wrong, no, I don't think that the games mentioned are trash, but I just felt like it could have been better. It's not like the games are cheap either. If these were all from RIGHT AFTER the conference, I saw a good chunk of it, and then I stopped. I saw a good amount though... maybe I stopped too soon!

[PharaohsVizier]

I don't think it is Nintendo losing its touch, in fact I think they are playing their A game and have been for a while. It is that the competition has gotten a LOT tougher and the market has changed. I think the fact that Nintendo is significantly smaller than either Microsoft or Sony, they simply can't ignore the mass market, which in turn is alienating their regular crowd. That said, I think Nintendo is definitely returning to some of their core gamers. They walked a fine line and while they were successful for some time, the Wii took a little tumble and I think they are definitely readjusting after seeing that last impressive showing.

[RoMee]

I'm gonna post something I read a week ago

The Wii’s initial release was a total success. Newcomers made their purchases alongside many hardcore gamers, and while lobbing a tennis ball back and forth or boxing with the nunchuck were exciting experiences at first, it wasn’t long before the dust began to settle for the more dedicated players. Realizing there was no wizard after all, just an awkward bumbling man behind a curtain, the hardcore gamers very quickly lost interest. The Nintendo Wii became “the system your grandmother has,” instead of “the system your older brother won’t let you play,” not necessarily a bad thing given Nintendo’s original goal for the product. They most certainly snatched up tons of new customers, non-gamers everywhere became casual gamers in the blink of an eye.

There's all kind of noise coming out of nintendo from the drops in their stocks......

The company’s financial future looks gloomy as it is now falling further and further behind Sony and Microsoft. The 3DS is predicted to sell 21 million units less than the original DS by 2015. Its stock, which in 2007 was at a high of 80,000 yen, has now plummeted to 11,850 yen.

.....to being among the top companies that employees are losing hope.

Nintendo ranked 6 out of 8 companies that 24/7 Wall St. put out for companies where employees are losing hope and they blame it on the meteoric rise of the smartphones industry specifically pointing out at Google’s Android operating system.

Nintendo has always been the company that told gamers what they wanted instead of listening to what gamers wanted.
I don't think they're losing their touch, I think the problem is they don't know or don't care what real gamers want because they are making a shit load of money from the casuals, and they are too scared of new IP so they keep doing the same thing......remakes, sequels, and spinoffs.

[benjaminlibl]

OMG Animal Crossing, now I've got to get a 3DS.

[DeltaBurnt]

I think lately Nintendo has been proving more than ever that it's the only company firmly rooted into the market. Sony doesn't even acknowledge Move, and Vita is getting mixed reactions; Microsoft's past two E3 conferences were huge flops and Kinect doesn't seem to be killing the Wii. Nintendo, however, is doing fine with the 3DS and we've yet to see the full potential from third party developers as well. The whole "the 3DS is selling horribly" is practically propaganda, the 3DS is selling fine (and if you recall everyone was shouting how big a failure the DS was/would be at this point in it's lifespan). Nintendo's price cut and ambassador program was pure genius in my opinion, Microsoft and Sony would have just told you to deal with it if they price dropped like that.

Nintendo has been around for over 100 years and has been in the games market much longer than Sony and Microsoft; they know what they're doing.