Why Nintendo is always ‘doomed’

Hey guys, did you know that Nintendo is doomed?

I have come to the conclusion that there is only one consistency in the game industry, and it is this: Nintendo is doomed. No matter what Nintendo’s profits are, no matter what the currency exchange rate is, no matter whether Nintendo is winning in the market or not, only one conclusion is permissible: Nintendo is doomed. If the sky is blue, if water is wet, if birds sing, then, by all means, Nintendo is doomed.

If you say, “Nintendo is not doomed,” you are a fanboy, a viral marketer, one who wishes to upset the applecart ridden by glorious analysts. I, myself, wish for at least some variety. One can only hear “Nintendo is doomed” over and over and become bored. Perhaps they ought to switch it around. Maybe twist it to “Doomed is Nintendo…” just for kicks. But alas, I ask too much.

Nintendo was doomed in 2005 (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_1/6-The-Contrarian) so it ought to be doomed today. Doom! Doom! Doom!

There is a problem with drinking all the ‘Doom’-Aid. It gets people’s attention off what is really going on. When reality occurs, they cannot believe it and think it a bizarre anomaly. When ‘Revolution’ was on its way to release, everyone and their dog thought Nintendo could only succeed by selling a ‘secondary console’ to both Xbox 360 and PS3 owners. They thought DS would die to the PSP. Wii was supposed to be a ‘fad’. On and on, it never stops. It would be funny if it wasn’t so monotonous. It would be nice if they said something different once in a while.

I’m all for interesting journalism, but the never ending parade of ‘Nintendo is doomed’, especially in how it flies in the face of obvious facts, doesn’t appear to be coming from ‘tabloid’ style or ‘shock’ journalism. One element, naturally, comes from Nintendo’s competitors with their marketing “Motion controls are a gimmick,” “Wii is party machine,” and “Only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo systems.” But there is something else going on, something beyond ignorance that turns it into a proud ignorance.

The mistake is that many writers, once they believe they have grasped the trends concerning the game industry, then turn around and apply those trends to Nintendo. Nintendo, we can all agree, does what is best for Nintendo. The game industry, to these writers, is not customers but some mystical abstraction of infinite developers, publishers, ad infinitum that float, like angels, on a cloud that separates them from the earthly bonds of the market. In their minds, it makes perfect sense that a developer’s opinion is seen as an oracle expressing the future of ‘The Industry’. What the customers say and do, well, what do they matter? According to these writers, customers are not members of the industry. And when reality occurs, that customers do control what publishers and developers make, seething anger erupts among the keyboard jockeys. “Nintendo is destroying gaming!” where, by every indication, it is the opposite.

It is not that Nintendo has its own strategy and roadmap. No, the game industry has a strategy and roadmap. Since Nintendo never subscribes to ‘accepted truths’ the (western) writers agree to of this imaginary collective ‘game industry’, Nintendo can only be written as ‘wrong’ and ‘doomed’. Every story about Nintendo can be summed up as: “Nintendo is against the future.” The future of what? Why, everything. Take any ‘accepted truth’ of the ‘future’ of the games industry, and the writing is very predictable. High definition gaming was considered ‘the seventh generation’. Since Wii was not high definition, Nintendo was written as if they were ‘against the future’. Now, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 did not have the single hand motion controls as the Wii. Were they ‘against the future’? No, they were heroically against ‘gimmicks’ that Nintendo and its ‘marketing’ were employing to ‘poison the games industry’ with new gamers.

I have been amazed that game industry writers have zero interest in Nintendo’s strategies or their direction. There is ‘shock’ at the market, and even with Nintendo’s ascendancy, there is still zero interest.

From what I can, this appears to be the pattern.

1) The writer assumes a thing exists called ‘games industry’. This ‘games industry’ includes developers, publishers, retailers, and most important, the writer himself. Who is omitted? Customers. So the vision of ‘games industry’ is everyone but the customers. This is, indeed, the stupidest convolution that has ever entered the Human brain!

2) The writer, in order to find out what the future of the ‘games industry’ is, will ask interviews with high profile developers and/or publishers. Since customers (and non-customers) are not part of the ‘games industry’, it is expressed that the developer or publisher, single handedly, like Moses, reveals the direction ‘the games industry’ is going. Hilariously, the writer will consult himself to find out where ‘the games industry’ is going. Since the writer sees himself as part of the ‘games industry’, consulting himself in an editorial is literally believed (by himself) to be visiting the oracle about the future of ‘the games industry’.

3) In almost every case, the developer/publisher/writer is fascinated by what does not fascinate the customers. “The future of the games industry,” a developer sniffs, “is Artificial Intelligence.” There is no discussion, or even wonderment, if customers give a care about ‘AI’. Why should they? Customers are not placed as part of the ‘constellation’ of the ‘games industry’. “The future of the games industry is high definition graphics,” says a publisher. “Consoles with many non-gaming features, like the PSP, will make gaming mainstream,” proclaims a writer.

4) In order for this ‘games industry’ to not appear nothing more than opinions and fantasies of developers, publishers, and writers, analysts are trotted out to perform an opinion dump, which are quite ordinary and just like everyone else. But unlike others, analysts dress these opinions up with financial vocabulary. These opinions are not analysis; you have to pay a considerable sum of money to actually see the analysis. If you nail an analyst with his own quotes and say, “Why should we listen to you? What you said was consistently wrong,” they will say, “Giving these opinions is not my job,” which is true. But by giving these opinions, almost on a clock like schedule as if they must remain part of the overall game news cycle, they are considered part of the ‘games industry’ which helps them sell their over-expensive ‘analysis’.

5) When all is said and done, there is consensus on where the ‘games industry’ is headed. “High definition generation, here we come!” “Digital downloads destroying retail, oh yeah!” “Good riddance, used games stores!” They then proceed to high-five one another while set to the theme of “Danger Zone”.

Then appears Nintendo who says something contrary to what was said before. They say something like, “The time where hardware made an important difference is over,” to “Those who talk about Next Generation are those who do not know games,” to even “Gamers do not want online.” Oh, horror and shrieks! How could Nintendo dare say such a thing?

Nintendo is saying what they say is because they do not remove customers (and non-customers) from the context. But since ‘games industry’ is defined as everyone but the customers (i.e. those mouth breathing gamers who ‘contaminate’ E3 with their very presence!), what Nintendo says constantly sounds like madness to ‘games industry’ writers.

This is why Nintendo is always doomed. Even though Nintendo is the most consistently financially and creatively healthy, let alone the only surviving, console company, the starting view is that Nintendo is always bucking the sublime evolution and transcendence of ‘the games industry’. In other words, Nintendo starts off, in these writers’ minds, as being against the ‘future of gaming’.

Nintendo, of course, is relentlessly pursuing (whether it achieves it or not) the future of customers, not the future of ‘games industry’ (whatever the hell that is). So everything that fit the consensus of ‘games industry’ is considered normal and ‘the future’ and everything that doesn’t is considered ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’, and ‘doomed’.

PS3 and Xbox 360 ‘high definition consoles’ are seen as normal and ‘the future’ despite their stagnant sales and drowning in red ink. Nintendo’s profitable and sales success DS and Wii are considered ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’, and eventually ‘doomed’.

Sony and Microsoft lose money on hardware in hopes to make it up on software. This is considered ‘normal’ even though it is not the historical norm for game consoles. Nintendo selling hardware for a profit is considered ‘abnormal’, ‘concerning’, and ‘doomed’ even though Nintendo has sold all hardware it has made for profit.

Sony and Microsoft rely on third parties to create an install base with their consoles because both companies lack the first party studio strength to perform it themselves. In other words, relying on third party software to drive install base is considered ‘normal’ and ‘the future’. Nintendo, like Sega and Atari and Hudson, rely on first party software to drive the install base. Therefore, it is ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’ and eventually ‘doomed’.

Sony and Microsoft, as well as other companies on the PC, desire to create downloadable games to bypass retail. This is considered ‘normal’ and ‘the future’. Nintendo, however, has no desire to bypass retailers. Nintendo sees downloadable games as a way to sell retro games and experimental games. This is considered ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’, and eventually ‘doomed’.

When Nintendo started going the motion controller route, it was said that this direction was ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’ and eventually be ‘doomed’.

As new customers buy the DS and Wii to make it top sales charts, this, too, meant Nintendo was doomed. Unlike hardcore gamers who demand very expensive to make games, these new gamers were ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’ and eventually ‘doomed’. Why? Because.

Ever since the Dreamcast, there has been an absurd amount of attention to sales charts as the ‘oracle’ of the industry. Like natives awaiting for the volcano to erupt to see what the Mountain God is saying, people are waiting each week or month for new sales numbers and then read way too much into them. Unlike anything else in the twisted abstraction known as ‘games industry’, sales numbers are created by customers. Yet, they are not referred to as customers. These sales numbers are magical like mysterious writings from the heaven. Sales numbers aren’t too useful in determining success of titles since the data of the cost of the game is unknown to all except the publisher. How much marketing was done? How much was invested in that game? The published numbers do not say so it is difficult for an onlooker to say “This game was successful” for its costs might have exceeded whatever amount it sold.

If Nintendo titles top the sales charts, it is ‘concerning’, ‘problematic’, and Nintendo is ‘doomed’ because ‘only Nintendo titles sell on Nintendo.” If a third party game, on Nintendo’s platform, tops the charts, why that third party company is so amazing, so talented, so wonderful! If that third party game does not sell, it isn’t because it is a bad game, that the company has no talent, or anything like that. Why, it is Nintendo’s fault. Somehow.

Curiously, when a third party game on a Microsoft or Sony platform, like a Grand Theft Auto, tops the sales lists, it is because of the genius and incredible talent of Microsoft and Sony, not the third party itself. When a third party game does poorly on Microsoft or Sony platform, it is because of that third party.

So let’s raise a glass to the ‘doomed’ Nintendo which has survived every other console company in history. But if these writers have it wrong and Nintendo is not ‘doomed’, then perhaps they should begin entertaining the opposite idea: that the games industry, as they define it, is doomed and Nintendo, and the expanded market, is the future.

There are now currently two game industries: the Core Industry and the Expanded Industry. One has a future. The other does not. Keep this in mind as analysts stumble over how to explain thousands upon thousands of job losses as the ‘games industry’ somehow being ‘recession proof’.

Did any of them ask whether the games industry was disruption proof? They probably just thought disruption meant ‘market change’ or ‘expanding the market’. They have no idea what is coming.