What a headline!
All of this is predictable. The decline began in 2008. So why didn’t Nintendo do something about it?
It is because Nintendo is in denial. Like a patient who has been given news of a terminal illness, ever since 2008 they have refused to acknowledge it. So when the illness arrives, the patient of Nintendo is not only shocked, but just as dead as if it never recognized its peril.
At E3 2006, there was insane hunger coming from the Nintendo fans. The ‘Revolution’ was already shown off at E3 2005 and the controller was shown off at TGS 2005. After that, Nintendo went black, and we heard nothing except for Nintendo business strategy.
E3 2006 was exciting because we got to see Wii games for the first time. There was MUCH anticipation for Nintendo at E3 2006.
E3 2011 makes no sense in comparison. There has been no hype to Project Cafe and no one really cares that the games will be playable. People are still scratching their heads about Project Cafe. And other people are still looking at the 3DS and asking Nintendo, “Why did you make that? That is not what I wanted.”
Due to years of commenting on Nintendo before and after the Wii launched, people are curious about my take on it. It appears, to me, that Nintendo fully expected the 3DS to instantly take off. The fact that it didn’t has stunned Nintendo.
Consider this, reader. Nintendo has always had a contingency plan. With the DS, the contingency plan was to declare it a ‘third pillar’ and resume the Gameboy line. With the Wii, the contingency plan was the Classic Controller. But there was no contingency plan with the 3DS. Nintendo, themselves being personally and unhealthily obsessed with 3d, never thought to ask themselves of what happened if consumers didn’t want 3d. Nintendo has to be completely shell-shocked at how the 3DS was received. Ever since 2008, whenever there was bad news, Nintendo would take the ‘easy way out’ by announcing new hardware on top of the bad news. Declining sales? Well, we at Nintendo are happy to announce a new DS.
There is a kind of panic that is now beginning to grip Nintendo. That is what I think of Project Cafe.
Will it save Nintendo? No. Nintendo refused to deal with the decline beginning in 2008. That earlier denial started the pebbles that have been creating an avalanche of consumer erosion beginning with the trickle in 2008. The Wii consumers are very unhappy with Nintendo. Throwing more hardware at them and assuming they will buy it (with those insanely expensive Cafe controllers, those will not be cheap) is not what the Wii consumers wants.
After how Nintendo screwed the Wii consumer, why would they buy a Nintendo console again?
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