There have been a lot of similarities between Apple and Nintendo over the years they have been in business. Apple’s defining product line, the Mac, first launched in 1984, and the Nintendo Entertainment System kicked off a string of successful game consoles in 1985 in North America. Both have championed the vertical integration of their company models and feel that it provides them a great advantage compared to others on the market. Both have some of the most loyal users in their industries. Both are incredibly profitable, and both oddly receive a constant slew of articles pronouncing their imminent demise.
Apple had a rough time in the 90s, and it was assumed that they were going to be bankrupt (they almost were), so naturally everyone felt the need to count them out. As they started getting bigger again, there was still a sense that they were going to mess up sooner rather than later, or whatever their new thing was would crash and burn. The initial response to the iPad was pretty derisive, yet it turned out to be an extremely successful device in its own right. Apple is doing pretty well now, no matter how wildly their stock price flails around.
From what you’d read about Nintendo, it sounds like they’re on the verge of shutting off their entire business model and taking the Sega route, which is to shut down their hardware business and become another third-party developer. This obviously worked quite well for Sega, which went from being kept in the gaming conversation for their hardware efforts to now only really being known for making a series of hit or miss Sonic games. In recent weeks, after the Wii U didn’t do quite as well as Nintendo was hoping, there have been endless calls for them to “test the waters” on smartphones, or put their games on Microsoft and Sony’s consoles. The people suggesting this struggle to understand what makes Nintendo so successful, as it’s the combination of their consoles, the controllers and the games that gives Nintendo an advantage over a simple publisher like EA or Activision, which simply makes the games and occasionally the controllers. The rumours got to a point where Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata had to come out and explicitly state that Nintendo was going to keep making games for their consoles, and that whatever comes out for smartphones and tablets will be supplementary to their main business goals. Interestingly, some websites like Complex Gaming chose to report this as Nintendo “confirming a move to smartphones,” even though Iwata explicitly mentioned this example as a misinterpretation of his comments.
The Nintendo 3DS, while not selling exactly as much as the Nintendo DS it succeeded, was at the top of the charts throughout the holiday season, soundly beating even the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as they launched. The release of Pokémon X/Y was certainly a factor in the increased growth, but the 3DS is doing pretty well. However, the Wii U is having some difficulties, but Iwata laid out plans for improving the console’s appeal.
Some have called for removing the GamePad from the system to make the console cheaper, since many games apart from the launch titles don’t make much use of it, but Iwata noted that Nintendo is going to put a greater emphasis on using the GamePad for Wii U games from now on. It seems clear that they have realized that the Wii U can not compete with just offering remote play when the TV is being used, and the best way to make the console more unique is by emphasizing the controller that makes it unique. This will likely mean a greater emphasis on single-player games and integrating the GamePad in multiplayer games, much like in Nintendoland.
Nintendo is also working to increase connectivity between devices, by making the console and handheld likes more similar. This could imply some form of increased Nintendo Network integration, or even that they might run off a similar operating system to improve compatibility. The apps they want to release for smartphones and tablets might be more of a complementary measure, such as for downloading eShop games remotely to devices or checking up game manuals.
An interesting analogy floating around on the Internet is that Nintendo would relate mobile devices to their handhelds much in the same way that they have related desktop computers to their consoles. That is, making an effort to develop enough of a foothold in the market as mobile devices begin to saturate that they can have games port over to the 3DS and its successors. This would certainly help fend off the growing mobile games market, which will always be large by nature, but it is not an effective way to develop the rich, deep experiences that are offered by traditional gaming handhelds. For the Wii U, it appears that for now developing unique experiences is the best way to improve the accessibility of the console, while still trying to attract the third-party games that are on Windows and other gaming consoles.
A final notable change Iwata mentioned was that they were going to enter a quality-of-life segment, initially focusing on non-wearable health technology, that would develop a mutually beneficial relationship with their video game business. Quality-of-life in their case refers to any platform that enhances aspects of a person’s life through entertainment methods. They noted that health, education, and lifestyle were going to be their first three developments in the quality-of-life unit, based on their work developing games like Wii Fit and Brain Age. They also noted that this other unit could develop new quality-of-life segments that would then be able to be pulled back into the game platforms as a potential concept for a video game.
Whether these strategies work for Nintendo or not is yet to be determined, but it’s evident that they have many tricks left up their sleeve and are willing to try to find a way to stay relevant in the ever-changing marketplace. Luckily, they have one of the largest troves of gaming series to fuel them in any future decisions. The relative success of the 3DS, as well as how quickly their fortunes changed between the GameCube and the Wii, suggest that they are adept at making quick changes to improve their fortunes, and will be able to do so in the future.
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