You say few people will use it because few people from the USA live in urban areas. However, could the purpose of the feature be for the rest of the world, where many people aren’t living quite far apart, and where most areas tend to be in walking distance? I’d say it has a good chance of working well in much of Europe for example, such as in the UK. And it’s obvious Nintendo partly designed it because of how densely populated Japan is as a country, and where more people use public transport.
It might have some benefit in other regions, as the US isn’t the entirety of Nintendo’s market.
Actually, it is. The N64 only sold in the US. The Gamecube only sold in the US. The Wii sold the strongest in the US. Of course, those are home consoles and not handhelds. But I think it is relevant because the reason why Nintendo did best in the US was because the US responded the best to 3d Mario and the general 3d direction Nintendo took. There could be a repeat of this with the 3DS.
Streetpass is a passive feature (meaning the consumer is not really involved). When has any passive feature of a game console been noticed or beneficial? I can’t think of any.
The reason why DS and Wii spread was because the games were fun and they were fun to play in multiplayer. That is all. You do not need to hire a consultant to realize that. The reason why DS and Wii rippled through society while other game consoles didn’t was because the games were fun and other game consoles’ games were not that fun. Anything more is to over-think the situation.
As crazy as it sounds, Nintendo is not behaving as if games are the driving power behind the consoles. All this… stuff… from the face raiders to AR card games to Streetpass to ‘push’ store all seem like the collective effort to jam pack as much ‘viral elements’ into the 3DS as possible. The investment was not made in the games. The investment was made in ‘viral features’ which is all that Streetpass is.
What is the solution to disinterest? Awesome games. But this is not how Nintendo is acting.
Take the problem of Wiiware and Virtual console software not selling. There are two easy reasons why this is so:
1) The games are not that good.
2) It is a waste of money buying such software because if your hardware dies (which it inevitably will), so does your software library.
I’m sure like many other Wii owners, you started off buying many Wiiware or VC games. But then you suddenly stopped and will rarely, if ever, buy anything at all. Why? The reason is number 2. It just is not a secure investment. Imagine if all PC software you bought was bounded to your PC hardware. No one would buy any PC software instinctively.
Instead of dealing with this problem, Nintendo’s “solution” is to create a ‘push’ orientated store. The store will ‘push’ titles on you. Now, do you want software pushed on you? To me, a console is a sanctuary. The last thing I want are overpaid marketers pushing stuff on my own game console.
The recent ‘port DSi software to 3DS’ isn’t a solution to this problem. What Nintendo found was that enthusiastic customers were unwilling to buy the new hardware iteration due to being anchored with the software they purchased for their handheld. This solution might solve the problem of users being reluctant to buy the next iteration of hardware, but it does not solve the bigger problem: if your hardware goes kaput, so does your software library.
Recently, I had a power surge and my Wii would no longer turn on. I began to worry. But after disconnecting the power supply and letting it reset, my Wii began working again. The scare put into place that if my Wii died, my extensive collection of VC and WiiWare software would die with it. And that’s just not right. These consoles are not the Atari 2600s or NES systems. They will not survive 20 years due to all their spinning parts.
The way to sell a console is to make killer apps. The console is just a box people buy in order to get to a particular game. However, Iwata has stated, directly, this is not the Nintendo model anymore. He seemed to even make fun of Yamauchi for using it. So what is the model Nintendo using now? Well, Iwata didn’t specify it directly, but he doesn’t need to as the behavior of the 3DS is indicative of Nintendo’s vision.
Instead of focusing on creating killer apps for the 3DS, Nintendo’s approach is to load as many ‘viral’ elements onto the hardware. If Sony or Microsoft made the 3DS, I would be laughing at them. With Nintendo, I’m just stunned. It’s like they do not understand why the DS or Wii were successful. But this isn’t the first time. Not understanding why the NES was successful, Nintendo went into decline for decades.
My gut instinct tells me that Nintendo does know what would really sell the console. However, they do not wish to do it because it does not follow their manifest 3d dreams for gaming.
Have you ever been in a situation where you know A is the right thing but you want to do B, so you end up rethinking the universe so B is the right answer? Nintendo does this all the time. 3d Mario doesn’t sell like 2d Mario. The right thing to do would be to continue making 2d Mario as the flagship Mario game. But since Nintendo doesn’t want to do that, they keep turning into pretzels trying to re-think of why people are not buying 3d Mario. And this went on for almost twenty years. In fact, it is still going on today. As time goes on, Miyamoto reminds me more and more of Don Quixote. He is making gameplay solutions to tilt windmills. I am seeing this type of thinking from everything from the 3DS shop to the ‘viral elements’ stamped on the 3DS (because Nintendo really doesn’t want to give away a game for free).
The mission statement of the 3DS is not to bring gaming to the mass market. It is, instead, to make mass market the games Nintendo prefers to make… which are 3d games.
Over its lifespan, I expect the 3DS to sell ‘fine’, but it will be a decline from DS numbers. Instead of realizing this was the wrong direction (because Nintendo is so obsessed with 3d they will never acknowledge that), they will instead ‘overthink’ and invent some ’cause’ as to why the 3DS didn’t sell as much as the DS. And then, Nintendo will continue on the same exact direction with the next generation.
Don’t laugh. Nintendo did this with the N64. In fact, Iwata and Miyamoto publicly stated in the Iwata Asks interview that they think Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time were ‘great successes’. Since the success of first party software is determined by how much hardware it sells, the lack of N64 hardware those games sold says the opposite. It says that the games were failures because it caused the Nintendo console market to decline. Instead of confronting this, the 3d obsessed Nintendo will just play make-believe and say ‘the 3d isn’t accessible enough. We must try again’ and keep doing this for the next twenty years’.
To those of us who bought a DS and Wii (and not the preceding Nintendo consoles like the Gamecube), we bought the DS and Wii for the games that were put on it. We bought the consoles for games like 2d Mario and Wii Sports. This is plain as day in the sales data.
More importantly, we did NOT buy the DS for ‘epic 3d games’. Mario 64 was the DS launch game. The result was the DS not selling and the PSP outselling it. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 did nothing to sell the hardware. Twilight Princess did not move the hardware in any meaningful way. The software that was moving the hardware was NOT the ‘3d experience’ games. This is why when a Super Gamecube game comes on out on the Wii, no one buys it despite the vaster installer base the Wii has compared to the Gamecube.
A great question for an investor to ask is: “Pursuing a greater 3d experience has caused Nintendo only decline. Even on the DS, games espousing 3d experiences such as Mario 64 DS failed to sell the hardware. Only by abandoning that path did Nintendo find success with the DS and Wii. So why is Nintendo returning to the failed strategy of the past?”
Emailer, your question has the assumption that Streetpass and the ‘3d output’ are different features. I do not see that. I see that they are symptoms of the same problem. The problem is that Nintendo has a manifest 3d dream for video games and is intentionally ignoring or analyzing what worked with the DS and Wii only in a way that suits this manifest 3d dream direction.
From my perspective, the 3d output of the 3DS is a symptom of Nintendo’s manifest 3d obsession. The streetpass of the 3DS is also a symptom of Nintendo’s manifest 3d obsession. Instead of correctly analyzing that games like Wii Sports succeeded due to the fun multiplayer aspects of the game (which would clash with the manifest 3d obsession), Nintendo instead wishes to believe it was ‘viral elements’ that caused people to buy the Wii, not Wii Sports.
Listen to what Iwata says…
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But this is the same business model that propelled the Wii and DS to success. People did buy the hardware just to get at Mario (2d Mario that was) and for games like Wii Sports. The business model of game consoles does not change. Hardware sells due to killer apps. Instead, Iwata and Miyamoto are laughing at Yamauchi and consider this an ‘old paradigm’.
What is this ‘new business model’ Iwata is speaking of? He never specifies. So let us listen some more.
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Folks, no one bought the DS for pictochat. No one bought the DSi for its cameras. These executives are completely divorced from reality.
Now, the reason why they are saying this is because the current Nintendo mantra is ‘our stuff sells because we are an integrated hardware and software company’. Instead of accurately assigning that the DS and Wii sold due to certain software, they have created an imaginary universe where the DS sold because of pictochat and cameras. Anyone can tear this veil of delusion away by pointing out that the DS wasn’t selling that well at first. People buying the DS because of pictochat? What’s next? People bought the Wii for the photo channel!?
In Miyamoto’s words, instead of designing games for customer appeal, the games were ‘science fair projects’. And the reason why they are included on the 3DS is because Nintendo could never sell them because they have little to no value.
And they couldn’t. This is why it is included on the system. Instead of including GOOD software with the system like Tetris or Wii Sports or Super Mario Brothers, we get ‘science fair projects’ from Nintendo.
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What are trends? They are the mass market. Have you ever heard the saying of ‘the trend is your friend’? It is a very popular phrase in investment.
The problem with putting someone like Iwata as president of the company is that he is a developer at heart. Instead of focusing on the development to make things for the mass market (which developers do not do instinctively which is why 99% of all game developers are told what to develop), Iwata gives them free reign. Now, we have ‘science projects’ coming out. Also note how all the 3DS Nintendo software is very easy on the developers. It is EASY to reuse Wuhu Island and have that be the only environment. It is EASY to recycle a DS game. It is EASY to just add some cats to Nintendogs. It is EASY to slap a 3d screen on a DS and declare it to be the next generation of handhelds. Nothing that is being done could be remotely considered taxing on the developers.
However, the 3DS is taxing on the consumer. The 3DS is more expensive. The 3DS tires one’s eyes. The developer got the easy ride while the customer got the hard ride. It should be the other way around.
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