Iwata: Open Letter to 3DS Owners

[chris888222]

Nintendo is holding onto old ideas again and people are worried about it.

Well, that's why Nintendo decided to move on to a blu-ray like preperitory for the Wii U. Is it too late?

Come on, a quote from Stalin: we must catch up in 10 years or they will crush us. Best describes Nintendo's situation now.

 

[Depravo]

However, never before has Nintendo chosen to issue such a dramatic price drop less than 6 months after a system release.

I remember the price of the N64 dropping from £250 to £150 around six weeks after it was released (and two weeks after I bought the sodding thing).

 

[Foxi4]

The DS and Wii (especially Wii) were far more successful than their much differently named predecessors which is why some believe that taking another 180 degree turn in naming conventions is what Nintendo should be doing. Read "Blue Ocean" strategy.

Sure. That's why Nintendo 64 was such a huge commercial success.

Wait...

Super Nintendo
Nintendo 64

The two names aren't quite as different as they first seem. But the real reason Nintendo 64 was a failure is that the big N decided to stick with old ideas namely going with expensive ROM cartridges instead of CDs. Sticking with old ideas is the antithesis of "Blue Ocean" strategy and is why Nintendo got clobbered for the next 10 years.

Nintendo is holding onto old ideas again and people are worried about it.

Nobody says Super Nintendo, every single person on the globe says SNES (Es-en-eee-es) on a daily basis. As far as the ROM cartridge argument, yes, that sucked.

Also - expansion ports on a controller are fun, but only when the controller actually has something to offer other than buttons. "Transfer Pak for Pokemon" = Good. "Additional RAM, RumblePak" = BAD. Those are supposed to be stock.

 

[BinFairy]

Nobody says Super Nintendo, every single person on the globe says SNES (Es-en-eee-es) on a daily basis. As far as the ROM cartridge argument, yes, that sucked.

Also - expansion ports on a controller are fun, but only when the controller actually has something to offer other than buttons. "Transfer Pak for Pokemon" = Good. "Additional RAM, RumblePak" = BAD. Those are supposed to be stock.

I called it the SNES (Snes, S-Nes, S-nes), not the S.N.E.S

Back in the day rumble paks cost £15 / £20, I would rather them be additional costs to those who wanted them rather than lump the price up of EVERY controller sold

 

[sergster1]

The DS and Wii (especially Wii) were far more successful than their much differently named predecessors which is why some believe that taking another 180 degree turn in naming conventions is what Nintendo should be doing. Read "Blue Ocean" strategy.

Sure. That's why Nintendo 64 was such a huge commercial success.

Wait...

Super Nintendo
Nintendo 64

The two names aren't quite as different as they first seem. But the real reason Nintendo 64 was a failure is that the big N decided to stick with old ideas namely going with expensive ROM cartridges instead of CDs. Sticking with old ideas is the antithesis of "Blue Ocean" strategy and is why Nintendo got clobbered for the next 10 years.

Nintendo is holding onto old ideas again and people are worried about it.

IIRC The N64 was ORIGINALLY supposed to play disks. Then the part of the corporation that was making this happen broke off from nintendo and declared itself a new company... You may have heard of them. They are going by the name of Sony.

On another note... 300th POST!

 

[Foxi4]

The way I remember it, Sony was developing a CD add-on for the SNES, not the N64 "drive".

 

[sergster1]

The way I remember it, Sony was developing a CD add-on for the SNES, not the N64 "drive".

It was a joint project between nintendo and sony and sony backed out of the deal and created the Playstation. The playstation was actually going to be able to play some SNES games but sony withdrew wanting to make their own console and perfect the CD based media they were working on with nintendo

Im a freaking idiot... Nevermind.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm not arguing about the fact that they didn't back out of dealings with Nintendo, I'm arguing about the timeline. It was the SNES when the deals were cut short, and SONY was a company back then already - they needn't declare themselves one. In fact, some of the SNES perhaptials were manufactured by Sony "the company", that's way before N64.

The PSX was realeased earlier then the N64 - the N64 was supposed to be its competitor.

 

[sergster1]

I'm not arguing about the fact that they didn't back out of dealings with Nintendo, I'm arguing about the timeline. It was the SNES when the deals were cut short, and SONY was a company back then already - they needn't declare themselves one. In fact, some of the SNES perhaptials were manufactured by Sony "the company", that's way before N64.

The PSX was realeased earlier then the N64 - the N64 was supposed to be its competitor.

Sorry about that... I just realized what i said >_>

 

[Hanafuda]

Nobody says Super Nintendo, every single person on the globe says SNES (Es-en-eee-es) on a daily basis.

Actually, in Japan they say SuFami.

 

[Shoat]

the way it seems directed at children, the shitty graphics, mario, and the gimmicky software.
oh and the tiny screens.

That looks too much like hating for the sake of hating.

- It is directed towards everyone, nothing about the 3DS seems to target children specifically (Quite the oppsoite: the 3D's effects on the eyes would make me not want to give it to a child because a child doesn't know when to turn 3D off for the sake of their eyes)

- Complaining about graphics is never legitimate, ever. Graphics are never the most important thing for a game. Not even Top 5.
If the only thing a game (or console) can boast with is "it looks good" it is a complete and utter failure.

- If you do not like Mario, don't play it. There's no point complaining about something you can easily avoid with no effort.
The same goes for the "gimmicky software". Don't use it. Stick to actual games and just ignore the gimmicky software altogether.

- The alternative to "tiny" screens is either having the whole thing made of only a screen and nothing else (= lame smart phone that breaks as soon as you look at it wrong) or making the whole thing bigger (= not much of a handheld anymore).







QUOTE(Foxi4 @ Aug 3 2011, 01:20 AM) Nobody says Super Nintendo, every single person on the globe says SNES (Es-en-eee-es) on a daily basis.

Wrong.
The japanese people aside (it's named "super famicon" there and not "super nintendo"), there's probably a lot of places where that is not true.

Everyone I have ever known IRL for example calls it "Super Nintendo" or just "Nintendo". No one actually uses the abbreviation "SNES".


Also, you have no idea how many other countrys there were where it wasn't even named the same or where it isn't even possible for the natives of that country to pronounce "super nintendo" or "snes", thus resulting in them just inventing a word to use for the console.

 

[Nathan Drake]

lololol @ Iwata

First, he makes an unnecessary move really early on in the 3DS' life for one reason or another, rather then just waiting for the first year to pass by and see how things are doing. He then takes a 50% pay cut for some stupid reason. To me, that isn't him caring. I don't even know what it is. It wasn't necessary though, and I'm not going to congratulate him for doing it. The price cut time was not strategic in the least either. If they had waited until the holidays, it would have been long enough that they wouldn't have had to do anything extra.

Whoever is creating these marketing strategies should be shot before they run Nintendo into the ground.

 

[MaximusDecemus]

On the topic of blue ocean strategy, you would have to wonder what is truly unique about the upcoming wii u. The controller interaction is something that will be replicated by the other game companies using smart phones. In particular, Microsoft are pushing for close integration between their lines of windows phone 7 and xbox 360 etc, and this will quickly overshadow the wii u. One of the key reasons for this being that many xbox owners will already have a smart phone in the coming years. The previous generation wii had the advantage of having the motion control market to itself for much longer because it required Sony and Microsoft to create and sell new technology. Nintendo are going to repeat their n64 mistake with the wii u, I'm afraid. Shame, as I love nintendo.

 

[Shoat]

He then takes a 50% pay cut for some stupid reason.

Just because you don't know how the japanese companies work doesn't mean everything that happens there happens "for some stupid reason".

Some decisions with the 3DS caused a large financial loss for nintendo.

Any american or european company would have gone wild, blamed it on one single person and then fired that one single person regardless of whether or not he had anything to do with what went wrong. That person gets scapegoated, loses his job and is completely screwed.

The japanese company decides to put a reasonable pay cut (50% for iwata, 30% for the rest of the team) on all of the people responsible to make up for what went wrong. The people who had their pay cut will probably still have enough to pay their bills. They will have to live without some of their luxuries but at least their lives aren't completely destroyed.

 

[Nathan Drake]

He then takes a 50% pay cut for some stupid reason.

Just because you don't know how the japanese companies work doesn't mean everything that happens there happens "for some stupid reason".


Any american or european company would have gone wild, blamed it on one single person and then fired that one single person regardless of whether or not he had anything to do with what went wrong. That person gets scapegoated, loses his job and is completely screwed.

The japanese company decides to put a reasonable pay cut (50% for iwata, 30% for the rest of the team) on all of the people responsible to make up for what went wrong. The people who had their pay cut will probably still have enough to pay their bills. They will have to live without some of their luxuries but at least their lives aren't completely destroyed.

But what went wrong? They didn't even give the 3DS six months before having a massive freak out.

Nothing that happened was necessary at this point in time. They jumped the gun, and I refuse to congratulate anybody for doing so.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Nobody says Super Nintendo, every single person on the globe says SNES (Es-en-eee-es) on a daily basis.

I wasn't aware you knew every single human being in existence.
And I say Super Nintendo, while I type SNES.
Plus, as someone mentionned, very few people pronounce it Es en eee es.

 

[Shoat]

Nothing that happened was necessary at this point in time. They jumped the gun, and I refuse to congratulate anybody for doing so.

This may sound harsh, but: You don't have the slightest clue about what's necessary and what's not necessary for a huge-as-fuck company who's inner workings you have zero insight to.



Unless you happen to have all the financial data of Nintendo, and are also a busy businessman busy doing busy business, you cannot possibly claim to make a better decision for the situation than the people who are.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Nothing that happened was necessary at this point in time. They jumped the gun, and I refuse to congratulate anybody for doing so.

This may sound harsh, but: You don't have the slightest clue about what's necessary and what's not necessary for a huge-as-fuck company who's inner workings you have zero insight to.



Unless you happen to have all the financial data of Nintendo, and are also a busy businessman busy doing busy business, you cannot possibly claim to have a better judgmement of the situation than the people who are.

I may not be within Nintendo, but it doesn't take an expert to see that Nintendo is freaking out because of the incredible backlash from hasty consumers that bought early. Because of this, they dropped the price early, won't shut up about their first party titles coming at the end of the year, and now Iwata is taking a pay cut all because they are trying too hard to cater to the consumer in every aspect. Maybe they should have, in a more business way, told the consumer to stop bitching, accept that not every console blasts off with the most incredible selection of first party content you could want at launch, and have held out until the holidays where a price cut would be expected. Previous 3DS owners would be angry, but they wouldn't have the right to be as angry with a cut in say, November instead of August.

Unless Nintendo is falling to pieces, I'm sure they could have waited a few more months to make their move. Hell, the holidays would already, inevitably boost sales to a degree that even with the price cut, Iwata and everybody else likely wouldn't have had to sacrifice jack. Of course, they jumped the gun with the release of the 3DS with a Spring release of all things, so I'm not surprised to see them rushing again.

 

[Todderbert]

I took note of the fact Iwata cut his salary and other top execs did too, its a PR move in western eyes but Japanese culture may warrant this as a normal outcome based on their current state of affairs. In the USA, greed rules. The top brass love giving themselves bonuses and in turn issue huge layoffs all when their companies are being bailed out by the government because they are too big to fail, it shows just how effective lobbying congress can be.

 

[Slyakin]

Even if they did jump the boat, this move early on will get them quite a few more consumers to buy their products, and this also gives devs more time to accept the 3DS again and start developing. The move wasn't really a "OH GOD" move, more like a "Well, we can either begin recovery now or later" move.