Nintendo’s value jumped above $39 billion Tuesday in Tokyo, topping Sony, and extending a run that began after the app become a viral phenomenon.
Bloomberg
After reading the above quote from Bloomberg, I started to seriously reconsider the future of Nintendo as a company. By the way the number quoted above is obsolete. The last I checked, Nintendo's value has already exceeded 42 billion dollars.
How will people inside the company justify the production of console hardware and console games after success like this on the mobile side? After years of struggling with the Wii U, there's already been some speculation of Nintendo leaving the console manufacturing business or in other ways seriously changing their company strategy. Shareholders have been justifiably disappointed and looking for a new way. And then, this happens.
It'd be nice to believe that Nintendo will continue making "traditional games" no matter what, but in the end they are a company in the same way as a Sega, Supercell or Konami. The latter example perhaps being the most poignant one. If the large and risky investments in the console business have lead to losses or minor profits at most in recent years, and a relatively small investment in a mobile game may turn out to be the company's greatest success ever, I just don't see a future where a continued console business would make sense for the owners of the company. Especially if the upcoming Animal Crossing mobile game proves to be even a fraction as successful as Pokemon Go.
How do you duders see the success of Pokemon Go changing Nintendo? Am I too doom-and-gloom, or is someone else seeing a momentous shift coming?
Log in to comment