Nintendo Can't Advance If They Won't Improve their Marketing

VMM · May 26, 2014

Foxi4 said:
Two things contributed to the 3DS's sales boom - the massive price drop which made it affordable in comparison to other mobile gaming solutions and an onslaught of new games. The system's been riding that wave of success ever since and even though you can easily get PSVita deals that are just as good as the 3DS deals, the 3DS reached the level of popularity where it doesn't have to try anymore - it just has the market by the balls.

It doesn't take a degree to think of ways how to improve the Wii U situation at this point. It's not going to beat the PS4 or the Xbox One, it's a no-contest. The Wii U has to build its own niche and it has to build it soon because it's been on the market for 2 years now, in another 2 the hardware will become irrelevant and too poor for developers to care and in 4-5 it's going to be completely irrelevant as at that point people will start expecting a Nintendo next gen to come out soon.

I agree with you in most of you said, but my main point was, the name is the least of WiiU problems.
Xbox One also has a terrible and confusing name and is selling just fine.
Poor marketing, lacking of third party support and been vastly underpowered are much more
important factors to WiiU bad sales.

About the niche public WiiU should aim, that's what I disagree with you.
WiiU tried to have a niche public, the same niche public Wii had and made it a success,
the casual public. The problem is WiiU doesn't have the same appeal to casual public,
and there are far cheaper and more appealing options to casual public now such as smartphones and tablets.
It doesn't appeal casual public, nor hardcore gamers, it doesn't have a good quantity of specific genre titles,
to make it a niche console for some genre niches, and it can't gather those niches to WiiU since
they would need third party support for that.

Foxi4 · May 26, 2014

VMM said:
I agree with you in most of you said, but my main point was, the name is the least of WiiU problems.
Xbox One also has a terrible and confusing name and is selling just fine.
Poor marketing, lacking of third party support and been vastly underpowered are much more
important factors to WiiU bad sales.

About the niche public WiiU should aim, that's what I disagree with you.
WiiU tried to have a niche public, the same niche public Wii had and made it a success,
the casual public. The problem is WiiU doesn't have the same appeal to casual public,
and there are far cheaper and more appealing options to casual public now such as smartphones and tablets.
It doesn't appeal casual public, nor hardcore gamers, it doesn't have a good quantity of specific genre titles,
to make it a niche console for some genre niches, and it can't gather those niches to WiiU since
they would need third party support for that.

I don't mean the casual target audience because that audience is gone - I mean the hardcore Nintendo fans audience. Success in a broader scope would require third party support which the Wii U doesn't have and Nintendo doesn't seem to be keen to court to third party to encourage development, so instead their only option is to appeal to the younger audiences and the Nintendo hardcores - that should rake in at least 30 million sold systems and the company should break even before they release a next gen.

VMM · May 26, 2014

Foxi4 said:
I don't mean the casual target audience because that audience is gone - I mean the hardcore Nintendo fans audience. Success in a broader scope would require third party support which the Wii U doesn't have and Nintendo doesn't seem to be keen to court to third party to encourage development, so instead their only option is to appeal to the younger audiences and the Nintendo hardcores - that should rake in at least 30 million sold systems and the company should break even before they release a next gen.

Nintendo first party titles usually are kids focused,
making their consoles also kids focused.
Gamecube wasn't underpowered and had great first party support, yet it didn't get even close to 30 mi sales.

For me, they should try to get more third party exclusives, like Bayonetta 2.
If they get exclusivity to a game that appeal to hardcore audiences, they might get quite a boost in sales.

Foxi4 · May 26, 2014

VMM said:
Nintendo first party titles usually are kids focused,
making their consoles also kids focused.
Gamecube wasn't underpowered and had great first party support, yet it didn't get even close to 30 mi sales.

For me, they should try to get more third party exclusives, like Bayonetta 2.
If they get exclusivity to a game that appeal to hardcore audiences, they might get quite a boost in sales.

The Gamecube failed because of poor timing and retarded design choices - if Nintendo released the system earlier in the game and offered DVD support like the Xbox and the PS2 did it would've done better in my opinion.

Right now Nintendo's suffering because their reputation is that of a "magical toy maker", not a serious hardware house. By extension people associate their consoles with younger audiences and this is a problem since the average gamer is not a child anymore - it's a guy in his mid-twenties or thirties. The perception of gaming has changed but Nintendo didn't change with it - I'd even argue that they regressed since Nintendo's earlier systems had a large offering of games for more mature audiences.

VMM · May 26, 2014

Foxi4 said:
The Gamecube failed because of poor timing and retarded design choices - if Nintendo released the system earlier in the game and offered DVD support like the Xbox and the PS2 did it would've done better in my opinion.

Right now Nintendo's suffering because their reputation is that of a "magical toy maker", not a serious hardware house. By extension people associate their consoles with younger audiences and this is a problem since the average gamer is not a child anymore - it's a guy in his mid-twenties or thirties. The perception of gaming has changed but Nintendo didn't change with it - I'd even argue that they regressed since Nintendo's earlier systems had a large offering of games for more mature audiences.

Foxi4 said:
Nintendo doesn't seem to be keen to court to third party to encourage development, so instead their only option is to appeal to the younger audiences and the Nintendo hardcores - that should rake in at least 30 million sold systems and the company should break even before they release a next gen.

You say that Nintendo is suffering because they have that reputation of "magical toy maker" and that the average gamer is a guy in mid-twenties or thirties,
but you also say Nintendo should focus on younger audiences, isn't that a contradiction? and how would it change anything appealing to younger audiences and Nintendo hardcores? Isn't that basically what they're already doing?

Foxi4 · May 26, 2014

VMM said:
You say that Nintendo is suffering because they have that reputation of "magical toy maker" and that the average gamer is a guy in mid-twenties or thirties,
but you also say Nintendo should focus on younger audiences, isn't that a contradiction? and how would it change anything appealing to younger audiences and Nintendo hardcores? Isn't that basically what they're already doing?

It's not a contradiction when the Wii U is the subject. You can't market the Wii U as a device for the mid-twenties, mid-thirties gamer because it doesn't do what that kind of a customer wants. It doesn't do multimedia very well since it doesn't support DVD's or BluRays and its specs hold it back so multiplatform releases will be the worst on that system. The Wii U isn't competing at this point - Nintendo's making and effort to salvage it, which is not the same. Their next system should be up-to-par, the Wii U is not and you can't retroactively change that, you can only work with what you've got.

VMM · May 26, 2014

Foxi4 said:
It's not a contradiction when the Wii U is the subject. You can't market the Wii U as a device for the mid-twenties, mid-thirties gamer because it doesn't do what that kind of a customer wants. It doesn't do multimedia very well since it doesn't support DVD's or BluRays and its specs hold it back so multiplatform releases will be the worst on that system. The Wii U isn't competing at this point - Nintendo's making and effort to salvage it, which is not the same. Their next system should be up-to-par, the Wii U is not and you can't retroactively change that, you can only work with what you've got.

You answered my first question just fine, but what about the other questions?
You say they should focus on kids and Nintendo fans, but isn't that what they're already doing?

Foxi4 · May 26, 2014

VMM said:
You answered my first question just fine, but what about the other questions? You say they should focus on kids and Nintendo fans, but isn't that what they're already doing?

They are, I'm just saying they should double the effort. As of today we've gotten Pikimin 3 and Super Mario World as far as AAA is concerned - I'm not counting New Super Mario Bros. 2 as a full-on title here. X, Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors are on their way, now they need to release an F-Zero, a Metroid and a Pokemon game and they're set as far as Nintendo fans are concerned. Sure, the system won't have global appeal and sure, first party alone doesn't cut it anymore in this day and age, but that's the least they can do to popularize the system among the audience that they do have - efforts to broaden that audience should come next.

CompassNorth · May 28, 2014

Foxi4 said:
The differences range from the style of the game to the actual methods of storytelling and that's just fact.

No it's not.
Games do not get classified by their story, art style, tropes, ect.
If we're honestly going to nickpick everything in the RPG genre and give them more unnecessary sub-genres on the things I mentioned above why does this only apply to RPG games?
What should a jAction-Adventure be? Should they be games like The of Zelda or should they be games like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe (Does this gets it's own genre due to it's art style?) These games surely do play differently from their Western counterparts such as Assassin's Creed, the Batman Arkham games, and even those games play different from The Last of Us, Uncharted, ect

Games A can be very different from game B within the same genre, but we don't need to give them useless "genres"/titles since games can and will be different from each other

Foxi4 said:
For the same reason we have "comics" and "manga" or "cartoons" and "anime".

I'm not knowledgeable in this subject but storytelling is not the reason at all.
Comic series like Marvel's runaways and Young Avengers would pass of as manga if they followed their art style and format.

osirisjem · May 28, 2014

WiiCube_2013 said:
They did a pretty piss-poor job of advertising Wii U

I don't agree.

The Wii U sucks and the Wii U itself is the worst advertisement.

Advertising will not help the Wii U. Full stop.

The Wii U was DOA, and more money on advertising will be a cost with no ROI.

tbgtbg · May 28, 2014

Foxi4 said:
"Family Gaming" is that magical sector of the industry that everybody wants to get into but which doesn't actually exist.

You're right, my bad, I totally forgot games are actually only bought by foul mouthed 12 year olds (and those that are foul mouthed 12 year olds in spirit) in the current century. Guess Nintendo needs a commercial with Mario walking around a dirty city waving a gun while Toadstool dresses like a hoochie and explosions are everywhere. And there's gotta be some GameStop only DLC pushed at the end. Power to the players.

FAST6191 · May 28, 2014

tbgtbg said:
You're right, my bad, I totally forgot games are actually only bought by foul mouthed 12 year olds (and those that are foul mouthed 12 year olds in spirit) in the current century. Guess Nintendo needs a commercial with Mario walking around a dirty city waving a gun while Toadstool dresses like a hoochie and explosions are everywhere. And there's gotta be some GameStop only DLC pushed at the end. Power to the players.

....
http://tubedubber.com/?videoq=http:...sAsjuA7Y#f9DsAsjuA7Y:GQDU-2qMre0:0:100:32:0:1

Foxi4 · May 28, 2014

tbgtbg said:
You're right, my bad, I totally forgot games are actually only bought by foul mouthed 12 year olds (and those that are foul mouthed 12 year olds in spirit) in the current century. Guess Nintendo needs a commercial with Mario walking around a dirty city waving a gun while Toadstool dresses like a hoochie and explosions are everywhere. And there's gotta be some GameStop only DLC pushed at the end. Power to the players.

You don't seem to be familiar with the term "core demographic".

Ace Overclocked · May 28, 2014

Speaking of golden sun and nintendo's rpgs? does anyone think they'll make another one? mayber for 3ds or wiiu. If it's as good as the originals (and not dark dawn) i think it'd be successful

sporkonomix · Jun 2, 2014

Guild McCommunist said:
Holy shit you do realize that this is never true? You're generalizing your own fucking market and you don't even know how it is.

The western market is diverse. It enjoys FPS games and WRPGs but it'll buy into a ton of different genres. There's also ton of niche genres that still find a footing here. Like Catherine, a thoroughly Japanese game, sold 500K copies. Which isn't the millions of CoD or GTA but is still quite enough sales to show that similar titles have a footing.

Just this whole "western gaming is just FPS" assumption is such bullshit, please stop using it and take your head out from under a fucking rock for once in a blue moon.

Look at the best-selling lists for any platform that *isn't* Nintendo-owned for the US market. MMOs, FPSes, RTSes, and Western RPGs all dominate. One game (however awesome as it seems) selling half a million is hardly a rebuttal, especially when a well-celebrated publisher known for Eastern-style gaming (Atlus) was behind it. Atlus has a devoted following in multiple countries. Had said game not been made (or published) by Atlus, it likely wouldn't have gotten even a quarter-million sales. Why? The vast majority of the Western audience doesn't give a shit if there isn't guns, blood, cursing, and maybe some overt sexism and a breast or two. Surely one can understand why they would not want to be associated with that demographic despite living in the same country.

The most hyped games are shooters or sandbox games (that also feature shooting). Whether you like it or not, the US is a very gun-happy gaming audience and it shows through sales numbers. Sure, there are outliers and exceptions; that's true of any statement. Outside of Nintendo and a few third parties (like Atlus, Namco, and to a lesser extent Capcom and Konami), most of what you'll find are in the genres I listed above or some non-game BS you find on a phone or Facebook.

I generalize the market because that's where it went and where it's mostly stayed ever since Halo, Half-Life, Crysis, Call of Duty, et al took off.

Your aggression reveals a sense of insecurity and/or a desire to prove one's self better than others. The tone's completely unnecessary.

Veho · Jun 2, 2014

CompassNorth said:
Saw this video a long time ago, disagree with it.
If I remember correctly the guy said that Wizardry came in too late or something to Japan for it to be influential or something along those lines which is completely false. Wizardry is one of the influential games in Japan when it comes to the RPG genre.

The most important point of the video is this: Western RPGs give you more freedom over your character and more freedom in the game world, while Japanese RPGs are more story-oriented and on rails. I'm sure examples can be cherry-picked to the contrary, but compare and contrast Final Fantasy 7 and Fallout and you'll see the main differences.

Guild McCommunist · Jun 2, 2014

sporkonomix said:
Look at the best-selling lists for any platform that *isn't* Nintendo-owned for the US market. MMOs, FPSes, RTSes, and Western RPGs all dominate. One game (however awesome as it seems) selling half a million is hardly a rebuttal, especially when a well-celebrated publisher known for Eastern-style gaming (Atlus) was behind it. Atlus has a devoted following in multiple countries. Had said game not been made (or published) by Atlus, it likely wouldn't have gotten even a quarter-million sales. Why? The vast majority of the Western audience doesn't give a shit if there isn't guns, blood, cursing, and maybe some overt sexism and a breast or two. Surely one can understand why they would not want to be associated with that demographic despite living in the same country.

The most hyped games are shooters or sandbox games (that also feature shooting). Whether you like it or not, the US is a very gun-happy gaming audience and it shows through sales numbers. Sure, there are outliers and exceptions; that's true of any statement. Outside of Nintendo and a few third parties (like Atlus, Namco, and to a lesser extent Capcom and Konami), most of what you'll find are in the genres I listed above or some non-game BS you find on a phone or Facebook.

I generalize the market because that's where it went and where it's mostly stayed ever since Halo, Half-Life, Crysis, Call of Duty, et al took off.

Your aggression reveals a sense of insecurity and/or a desire to prove one's self better than others. The tone's completely unnecessary.

My point is that shooters are popular, yes, as are sandboxes (MMOs though, really? Anything that isn't WoW and a few more niche ones just end up dying), but to make the Western market out as "ONLY SHOOTERS/SANDBOXES/MMOs (?)/RTS (?)/WRPGs) is highly inaccurate. Not everything needs a million sales to do well, and the market is diverse enough that we get games like Call of Duty all the way to Catherine.

Also your mandatory college Psych 101 course is showing bro.

CompassNorth · Jun 3, 2014

Veho said:
The most important point of the video is this: Western RPGs give you more freedom over your character and more freedom in the game world, while Japanese RPGs are more story-oriented and on rails. I'm sure examples can be cherry-picked to the contrary, but compare and contrast Final Fantasy 7 and Fallout and you'll see the main differences.

But there's still so many things wrong with that viewpoint.

First is again the "Why does this only apply to RPGs / Why don't we nickpick every little thing about other games and give them regional terms and pass them up as genres" thing.
But if you say something like "Well... I just gave you two examples"that's exactly the problem I'm talking about.

There's the "Is my definition of freedom the same as yours" debate.

Anywho I'm going to bring up Wizardry again and this time Etrian Odyssey. As it's known Etrian Odyssey is one of the many Japanese titles that have been influenced by Wizardry.
Of course Etrian Odyssey and Wizardry have very similar gameplay mechanics due to them being both first-person dungeon crawlers another thing they have similar is that even though they have stories they're not the focus of them so by that definition both games cannot be "jRPGs", but you see these games don't offer the freedom of doing whatever it is you want like stealing from NPCs or murdering friendly NPCs so they can't be "wRPGs" either. So what exactly does that make them?

It's things like these that make the classification of "jRPG" and "wRPG" as "genres" or anything other than regional terms. And again seems like people bring up "in wRPG you can do anything you want!" is just wrong especially in the earlier western RPGs.

And if the answer is "Well that's obvious Etrian Odyssey is a jRPG because it's artstyle" that's wrong because games are not supposed to be classified by their story or artstyle. There's something wrong in saying "Well Rachet and Clank, Jak & Dexter, Spyro, ect can't be classified in the same genre as Tomb Raider, Uncharted, The Last of Us, ect because it has a different art style and it presents it's story differently"

And as I said before why does this sort of horrendously flawed black and white classification only apply to RPGs? If you're going to use a flawed black and white classification use it for every genre, not just RPGs since it makes no sense just to limit yourself to that genre when games in other genres are diverse.

There's something more I was going to add but I forgot and and blah blah blah you get the point.

FAST6191 · Jun 3, 2014

CompassNorth said:
But there's still so many things wrong with that viewpoint.

First is again the "Why does this only apply to RPGs / Why don't we nickpick every little thing about other games and give them regional terms and pass them up as genres" thing.
But if you say something like "Well... I just gave you two examples"that's exactly the problem I'm talking about.

And as I said before why does this sort of horrendously flawed black and white classification only apply to RPGs? If you're going to use a flawed black and white classification use it for every genre, not just RPGs since it makes no sense just to limit yourself to that genre when games in other genres are diverse.

Give or take my issues with the term genre as a whole...

We do frequently classify such things along regional lines.

There is a clear delineation between Japanese and Western shmups. Granted this might be more about the move to bullet hell in Japanese shmups and almost death of the concept (possibly moving to twin sticks) in the west. However look at some of the Amiga stuff and the contemporary Japanese stuff.

People have long remarked Japanese first person shooting does not exist, typically in favour of third person (see things like vanquish). Some speculate that such things might be motion sickness related, it goes deeper though.

Platformers have a vastly different feel a lot of the time. I am going to have to consider how I approach examples here as the NES was actually a powerhouse compared to a lot of contemporary devices, even contemporary PCs. Several of such games have gone on to live in Japan though, Lode Runner being one of the more notable to have done this. Mind you go a few years forward and compare something like Earthworm Jim, Toejam and Earl and Zool to the stuff coming out of Japan.

Horror is an odd one and extends into films as well, however you might have to approach this in a different way as it is not like most of us grew up with Japanese folklore. (it may go deeper as well http://satwcomic.com/anything-but-that ).

Japanese tetris (though more likely TGM) vs Russian and tetris company tetris gets odd, mainly as the tetris company is odd, but suffice it to say there are some very Japanese flavours of tetris and such a thing is recognised among those that are really into their tetris.

However even if it was nominally just what gets called JPRG I am not seeing a) the objection in general and b) the claim there are not such clear cut differences. I will give you that characterless first person dungeoning seems to still be half alive in Japan where outside it is mostly just the occasional kid play acting as their grandparents. Not sure how or if it changes things though.

Enchilada · Jun 3, 2014

Nintendo is old-styled when it comes to marketing, and not just that. I like it but in the same time I don't.
I don't know how things are in other countries, but here most kids prefer Xbox or PS because of shooters and stuff like that. Most of the fans are teenagers or young adults, because of the nostalgia or because they know what a good game is.
So, Nintendo has to attract those 'swag' kids somehow and make them interested in buying their products, because the number of normal kids is going down. They can't really depend on the older audience, they eventually get a job and don't have enough time to play.
And there's the price, I think the Nintendo products are a little overpriced. I live in a quite poor country, where an usual Nintendo game can be a quarter of your monthly salary. I think Nintendo can beat Xbox and PS with cheaper games if they can't do what I said above.

Nintendo Can't Advance If They Won't Improve their Marketing

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