Should Nintendo Be Worried?

If you've been keeping up with news lately and you're in tune with gaming financial reports then you know that at the moment Nintendo isn't doing too well this year. Yes this is the same Nintendo that just a few short years ago we were all joking about saying that the Wii and DS were basically printing money for them. And to be fair Nintendo was riding quite high on the success of both machines. The Wii made motion control in gaming a hot commodity and opened up gaming to a lot of people who otherwise would not have been interested in it. Meanwhile the DS was still performing quite well, basically making up a majority of the handheld gaming market as Sony's PSP could just never find a foothold.

Gamers still love you, Link.

Nintendo has always faced certain challenges though. While their in house, first party developed titles are always big sellers(Mario, the Legend of Zelda, etc.); they never really have the support they need from third party developers. The Wii was no different. This is why the system has seen ports of major titles only rarely. When these ports do show up on the system they are vastly inferior to their 360/PS3 counterparts. With Sony and Microsoft now bridging the motion gaming gap with the Move and Kinect respectively, Nintendo no longer had the motion gaming gimmick as their stand out feature. When you take that away, you're left with a less than stellar gaming library mostly made up of shovel ware and ill received ports of popular games. 

Naturally Nintendo combats their competition through innovation. This year saw the release of their 3-D capable handheld, the 3DS, along with the announcement of their next console, the Wii-U. Normally Nintendo banks on the sales of their handhelds and for good reason. Usually new iterations of the DS fly right off the shelves but sales of the 3DS have been lagging. With the rise of gaming on smartphones, Nintendo is actually facing competition from an unlikely source. Quite frankly it's more conventional to have your little time wasters and mobile gaming in an all in one device rather than a dedicated handheld. And so iOS and Android devices are now cutting into Nintendo's mobile gaming market share.

Not only this but the Wii is no longer the hot product it was back in its early years. We're only five years removed from its release but right now the product is lukewarm. This is why Nintendo saw fit to announce the Wii-U this year. The problem is that this is not the console people were expecting. Rather than a full on console redesign, the Wii-U is almost just an upgraded Wii, hence the moniker, Though to be fair we don't have any concrete details on the console itself, but we do know it will be capable of high definition graphics and be on par if not a little better than the PS3 and X-Box 360 are right now. Nintendo's main highlight from E3 earlier this year was the new Wii-U controller which operates much like you would expect an iPad to. With it's touch controls and large screen, the unit acts as a controller for the Wii-U and when the TV is in use, it can also stream the games straight to the screen as well. The controller will also be able to play mini-games and the like as well. Sounds good, but there was some backlash when it people found out you can only use one of these new controllers per console. I like that they're focusing on the individual in a sense but this is an industry that is moving further and further into the realm of connectivity with fellow gamers and multiplayer experiences. In any case Nintendo seemed confident in the direction they plan on heading with their new technology though they have stated they're trying to work on allowing more than one Wii-U controller connect to the console at once.

This all seems well and good but still take into consideration that reception to this has not be what Nintendo expected. In fact most consumers seem to be confused over what the Wii-U actually will be. This is Nintendo's own fault because when they made the unveil at E3 this year they highlighted the new controller and nothing but the new controller. Most people were left wondering if there was actually a new console at all and not just another gimmick with the control scheme. Press releases and interviews would later reveal that there was indeed a new console. You put all these missteps together and you result in the bad financial report that Nintendo just posted for the recent quarter. Fan demand just isn't there right now. Considering how late into the current console cycle it is this could become a bigger problem. There is some talk of Microsoft and Sony beginning work on their next consoles but they're a few years off from now. There's still plenty of life left in the PS3 and X-Box 360 where as the Wii is seemingly tapped out. Nintendo is essentially being forced into kick-starting their next console cycle just to keep up.

Nintendo's answer to..the iPad?

But to be honest haven't we seen this song and dance before? The Gamecube touted exclusive titles from third party developers and slowly fell by the wayside. The Wii was supported initially for the new and unique gameplay styles it would introduce and then fell out of favor years later. At this point Nintendo is always left relying on their classic characters to pick up the slack. Now once again they're touting the support of various third party developers for the Wii-U. They've promised that hit games like the recently released Arkham City will arrive on the new console. However with a handheld division that is slowly being eaten away at by smartphones and early reception of the Wii-U, it might be time for Nintendo to rethink their strategy.

This might slant a certain direction but I actually love and respect Nintendo. I'd hate to see them fall by the wayside as Sega did all those years ago because they couldn't change their plan of attack. The market has grown and changed and Nintendo needs to do the same. Innovation for the sake of innovation isn't the way they're going to maintain their relevance. They've always walked to the beat of their own drum, and I'm not saying to stop completely but open your eyes a bit and look around at the industry; reassess and adjust. You can reclaim the spot that was yours just a few short years ago. Though to simply answer the question in the title of the blog; should they be worried? If they continue down this current path, then yes they should be worried. But they're not doomed just yet.