So, I've been on a retro game kick, particularly with Nintendo consoles. I'm buying a lot of old SNES and gamecube games and I think they're really great. In fact, I think it's safe to say a lot of the great games on game nags history have come from Nintendo. But over the past couple generations, I just don't think they're the same anymore. I had avsolutely no interest in the wii and the Wii U I only bought to play a handful of exclusives. They're have completely stepped away from keeping up with being competitive on the power front and honestly I really don't know what's going to happen to them in the next few years. I wouldn't be surprised if they honestly stopped making hardware, which is shocking considering how influential they were in shaping how games are today. This switch thing is the latest in a long string of Nintendo decisions that make me question if there right for me anymore.

I know this is t new concerns, but I wonder if anyone else is deeply concerned for the health of a gaming titan? I really dont want them to just become another SEGA.

I think it's important to keep in mind that their design choices not being right for you doesn't mean they're in danger of failing as a company and leaving the hardware business. Granted, the Wii U was a misstep. The wii however was a massive success for them. The switch looks like a cool idea, and for the first time in years I can comfortably say that it looks like they're making a console that makes sense for my gaming habits. Assuming it's execution goes well of course.

I think they were smart to get out of the power race honestly. The PC wins that hands down, and the rest of the console-only crowd who refuse to get their hands dirty with a PC get split up 2 ways. Why try to scrape for power just to get a 3 way split with the competition? Nintendo's choice is to provide something that the competition doesn't provide. An experience that only Nintendo can provide. I can get the Sony experience or the Xbox experience on either platform or more importantly, my PC, but when Nintendo succeeds with their unique ideas I have to go to Nintendo to get that idea. That's what they are trying to hone in on. It'll work sometimes, and sometimes it won't. They'll be fine as long as they have some successes in with those missteps.

They're fine. Consolidating both their handheld and console games under one platform is something they've needed for years, and it's especially "that thing you have when you also have a PC." There's the occasional PS4 exclusive you'd miss out on, but largely the reasons to have a PS4 or an Xbone are dying out at this point. The Switch will cover all the Nintendo games, handheld games, and other weird non-PC stuff.

Has how powerful the Switch is going to be, been revealed yet? Or is it all just SPECulation? (sorry)
If it is powerful enough to match the latest gen AND is portable? That sounds like a pretty successful combination to me.

Also Nintendo has always just been there. They don't go away, things that exist don't leave.

Unless the Switch costs at least $500 with the very latest in mobile hardware (which DOES beat the base PS4 and Xbox Ones) it's going to be less powerful. Which is fine really. Nintendo's art holds up well.

I don't imagine Nintendo have any interest in selling at a loss or for very little profit, so I don't expect state of the art.

It's not feasible to imagine Nintendo packing in high end laptop hardware or the unreleased top dog Tegra chips which aren't out yet. I'm feeling confident they're going to use one of Nvidia's middle of the road Tegras which are very powerful for what they are, it'll fall a little below the Xbox One.

One thing that a lot of "is Nintendo doomed" discussions seem to forget is that Nintendo is a lot closer to Disney than Sony or Microsoft. Sure, Nintendo makes hardware like its competitors, but the company's real value rests in its intellectual property. Mario has been more popular than Mickey Mouse for decades, and that's only one of their storied franchises. Not to mention that they have over $4 billion in cash, so financially they'll be fine. Worst case, the Switch flops and they become a third party developer, and if that were to happen, they actually might become more profitable than ever.

I sure am. They haven't called in weeks.

It is kinda disappointing that after the moderate failure of the Gamecube (which honestly feels like it had way more 3rd party support than the N64 which just couldn't include any of the cutscenes that were all the rage on the PS1 and Saturn and Dreamcast), instead of going "OK, we kinda boned up our first disc-based system, let's try it again and still stay competitive with the others", they went "nah fuck it, let's do our own wacky fun time different category of console", which is honestly kinda waaay riskier, because sometimes it hits like the Wii did for 2-3 years, and other times the Wii U happens where it just doesn't hit at all. Still kinda disappointing they didn't just make a better Gamecube, because the gimmicky nature of the Wii and Wii U has been to the detriment of some of the game design here and there (look at how much touch pad bullshit is in Paper Mario: Color Splash just to get through a simple random battle).

The Gamecube -> Wii transition seemingly drove a LOT of people to the Sony and Microsoft platforms because starting with the Wii you just couldn't do Nintendo as your only, primary console if you wanted to play anything 3rd party. It became the console you buy for a family or kids (except kids increasingly only gave a shit about the DS/3DS, and more recently only care about phone/tablet games/Minecraft), and other than that it's only for the more affluent gamer who can afford to have a PS4/Xbox One/PC as their primary console that actually has a variety of games, and in addition the Nintendo console is their secondary machine mostly just for Nintendo first party. Almost all of the student gamers I know who are on a tighter budget just own a PS4 or Xbox One, and never really bought into the Wii or Wii U because they just can't justify the money.

So they've been in this precarious position for a while, where they're constantly trying to be the weird outlier each time, but it's a complete gamble whether the weird thing they do each time is actually going to be something people give a shit about.

My main thing is that I dont want to see them go away. Maybe I just have a out of date mindset. I dont know.

I just see what happened to SEGA and think, shit, what if that happens to Nintendo.

I'm not worried about them at all. While I'm certainly not what I'd call a fanboy, I trust Nintendo is gonna do whatever they want and it usually works out pretty well for them (and for us). It seems every generation there's a TON of people lining up to tell them what they are doing wrong, but Nintendo does what Nintendo wants to do. And you know something, they are doing just fine.

People bitch that they don't adjust to current trends in gaming. I'm personally glad they don't. If they simply followed every trend and feature that all the other companies do, we'd be neck deep in micro-transactions for rupees. We would have "always on" Mario Maker network connectivity. We'd have Metroid as a cover based shooter. We'd have Luigi's Mansion being stealth based. Nintendo sticks to what it knows and while people tend to complain about that at the time, it's comforting to know they will still be making video games how we like them. We will come back in five years and say, "Remember how people gave Nintendo shit for just making normal ass games? I'm sure glad they didn't listen to us." :-)

I'm not worried about them. They know their shit, and they are gonna keep doing it. While I've doubted them in the past, I don't anymore. A short while ago I was so fed up with all the crap surrounding video games that I needed a break. I was sick of all the controversy surrounding DLC value, micro-transactions, ETC. Then I booted up my 3DS and found comfort. Nintendo...they are still making solid ass video games, like I remember loving them. Sure, there's not as many great games on the platform but it brought me comfort knowing that Nintendo still has my back for when I'm looking to get past all the BS of the industry, and just play a fun video game.

I've been worried about them for a while after the Wii. Just seemed like misstep after misstep. But like someone said, they struck it big with the Wii. And the 3DS seemed to have done well for them.

With the kind of sales they are achieving with the Nintendo classic game edition, they are not in danger financially anytime soon.

To be fair, I dont want any of these console manufactures to leave the game and I'd be posting the same thing about SONY and Microsoft if I felt they were in this same position, and I admit I'm still bitter about SEGA, but sometimes I just get worried we're headed down this road where people are only going to be playing games on their phones and tablets. There's something speacil about game consoles, and I dont want to see them go away. But maybe I'm just behind on the times.

"Worried" about Nintendo? No. They're doing fine financially, the Wii U flopped but the 3DS was a solid hit, and they're finally making the move we all hoped they would and consolidating their handheld and home console business, which means, among other things, Pokemon will finally be on a home console, and the Switch seems poised to do very well.

Like others I don't think competing on "power" makes sense for Nintendo. Nintendo Wii U games look awesome, since Nintendo's art style doesn't tend to push a lot of Polygons, and third party games don't sell on Nintendo systems, so packing a bunch of extra processing power to get ports of Fallout 4 or whatever would just be a waste. Nintendo knows what it's doing and what it's doing is going after the family market, which are sort of ignored by Sony and Microsoft these days (the Switch's real competition is tablet computers, which explains the form factor.)

What I am more than worried about Nintendo is irritated at them. I want to be a Nintendo fan. I love Nintendo. But their digital rights management practices are so arcane and stupid...I just can't bring myself to buy a lot of Nintendo stuff. I have a 3DS and I have played some stuff on it, but I was eyeing one of those $100 New 3DSes for Black Friday when I realized that it would render my current XL functionally useless since I have a bunch of digital games...and the New 3DS has a smaller screen. Forcing me to either carry a bunch of cartridges around or only use one system at a time is garbage. The same goes for their bizarre practice of re-starting the virtual console with each new system (instead of tying it to an account and having games carry across) and their weird refusal to discount their old games, which makes picking up a Wii U at the end of life an expensive proposition (not to mention that the Wii U costs as much as a PS4 Slim or Xbox One S, and unlike those two consoles is basically never discounted.)

Nintendo is so hidebound that it has become extremely customer unfriendly. I really hope the Switch represents a new era for them and they change their practices, but I don't think they will. So I'm not worried about Nintendo, because I think the Switch will do well, but I'm irritated by them and I'm not sure I'll get one, even though I really miss playing Nintendo games on the big screen. I hope they figure out how to leverage their library (Gamecube VC!) and come out with a good digital games management system so I can jump in enthusiastically.

@bigsocrates: maybe I just have the wrong mindset. Like I said, I'm currently playing SNES games where I would argue nintendo was at its hight. They had the support, the power, the exclusives. But maybe it's just not like that anymore and maybe some of that stuff dosent matter anymore. Maybe my perception is skewed or I'm just blinded by nostalgia

I'm going to admit, I love the WiiU. Do I play it all the time? No. Have I enjoyed the games on it so much I don't regret the purchase? Yes. The Wii is their worst console. WiiU fixed that but branded it wrong. I will buy a Switch, not at launch, but at some point. Nintendo games are unique to their system. My PC can handle the generic rest.

No, because even if they were in so much trouble they had to stop making consoles, they'd just go 3rd party which would let me play their games easier, and most likely without having to pay out the ass for them.

I would honestly prefer they stopped making consoles (besides handhelds) and start making games for PS4/Xbox One/PC.

This does not mean I want them to fail in any way shape or form, however.

no, why?

Yeah, I am.

They're good at making money but in increasingly boring and unoriginal ways. In so many instances, I feel they make bad decisions; they release more lacklustre games, like Star Fox; they miss obvious opportunities to do the right thing for the consumer.

Nintendo was a company I loved - and for good reason. Now it's just another huge, financially successful company I fail to understand or care for. They feel like the Japanese Activision or EA.

It's sad in some small way, sure, but the bottom line was all that mattered. It was stupid to believe otherwise I guess

Sony has a debt of like 16 billion dollars and theyre apparently fine. Meanwhile, nintendo is one of the richest companies in the world and still doesnt have any dept (at least officially.....I thought....feel free to correct) since starting out in 1889 and they would be the ones in trouble?

Nintendo has also always been a gimicky toy company. Their whole 'thing' since theyve started doing more than making playingcards and licensing western boardgames has been about making fun new innovative toys with affordable existing technology (the toys themselves were pretty pricey though). One of those things was trying out that crazy videogame thing. That has worked for almost 130 years for them. Them trying to compete on a raw computational/technological level seems to have only really been successfull once in these past 130 years with the snes.

Even though it was a big success I can immagine the tradition driven japanese suits at nintendo falling back on stuff like that when making important decisions.

Difference being that Sony is a diversified, massive company spanning many divisions ranging from software to hardware. They make cameras, TV's, home appliances, are format pioneers with the blu-ray (Among others). If one department is doing poorly (Like their mobile division), other divisions pick up the slack and keep Sony in the game. Nintendo only makes videogames and their consoles and has no other back up.

I have been worried sbout nintendo since the wii, and they seem to do fine regardless. Nestalgia for their stuff is crazy and then the kids coming up end up getting nastalgia when they grow and the cycle continues.

Personally i haven't really been on board since snes, last console i personally owned was GameCube.

Nintendo really no longer cares about video games but instead they became what parents always just assumed they were: a toy company.

What makes you say that? The Switch seems like an incredibly smart machine to me, we definitely have the technology to have highly capable battery powered devices that don't feel gimped when we take them off the mains. The Nvidia Tegra chips and Intel's newest Core M processors are really something.

My only fear for the Switch is that Nintendo are going to have a terrible account system again where you lose your all your digital games if your machine breaks or gets robbed...

@wynnduffy: We'll see. I thought the same thing about the WiiU and that it would be a course correction for them after the Wii and I was 100% wrong. Even the 3DS is a huge letdown after the original DS.

@sirio: Sure I understand all that. But nintendo also doesnt spent 16 billion dollars they dont have in the hope It'll make more throughout the years, thats more the point I was trying to make. You arguably have a healthier company if you can make money without working yourself in dept right?

Nintendo seems way more concerned with not getting themselves in a potentially fucked up financial situation in the long run if failure arises. They did try once now that I think about it to sell a console at a loss and that was the wiiU...... dont think they'll try that again.

Obviously no one knows how big nintendos reserves are, thats eventually the biggest deciding factor to if they can survive another console failure.

Honestly though if nintendo would stop making hardware and would go games only I wouldnt really care, as long as they keep making good games.

I recomend anyone interested in this to study nintendos pre-game history, its presidents etc. Its fascinating to see how much they still stick by the company moto, principals and overall strategies theyve had for 130 years. I used to think nintendo kept making strange nonsensical decisions all the time but now I can see they are just still very deeply rooted in the way theyve done things for more than a hundred years now.

They've been exactly that for longer than theyve been considered a videogame company :')

@sammo21: you dont play or know of many nintendo games do you?

Nintendo are absolutely fine I'm sure. One underwhelming console isn't going to make them dissappear, they have deep pockets. The Wii and Wii U had a great library of exclusive games.

They'll be fine, kind of laying low these past few years but it feels like they're close to starting their next successful chapter. Between the Switch and their acceptance of mobile, I feel like they'll have an exciting wave of games coming out soon.

If Nintendo goes software only after the Switch they'll be in a very different circumstance then when Sega made that decision. Sega was basically bankrupt after the Dreamcast and was desperate to sell/merge with anyone; eventually they merged with Sammy. Nintendo is not in that situation even if the Switch completely busts, they still have a ton of cash reserves that means Nintendo is incapable of going bankrupt in the foreseeable future.

@ripelivejam: I do and I remember when they had quality gaming hardware that had a wide variety of even 1st party games. The WiiU is basically done and it went without having an actually new Mario game or a new Zelda game. Attempt at a joke noted though.

I worry about Nintendo, but perhaps I just don't understand their business model.

Nintendo doesn't sell their consoles at a loss, but the downside of that is that their consoles have to be technologically behind-the-times in order to be sold at a competitive price while still generating a profit and this effectively leaves them unable to support almost all the new crop of third party AAA games. Since Nintendo can't produce enough first party software to avoid months of content drought, their systems thus have very lame lulls in the action. Lulls in which they aren't earning the licensing fees that Microsoft and Sony are generating from selling games like Dishonored 2 or Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.

Further compounding the problem above is that most third party AAA games now include DLC and season passes. Microsoft and Sony both get a cut of this revenue from their fully fleshed out, robust online marketplaces. Meanwhile, Nintendo gets... nothing. Their systems can't run these games (hence the afore-mentioned content lulls) and, even if they could, have miniscule hard drive space for storing DLC (32 GB on the deluxe WiiU? Wow, how generous).

That's a lot of money that Nintendo is passing up on, and I don't know why. I suppose one could argue that their present approach worked well on the Wii, except that the Wii was effectively on life support after its first two or three years. After the initial fad blowout, Nintendo by and large didn't convert the Wii Bowling / Wii Fit casual crowd into Zelda / Metroid hardcore Nintendo fans. Instead, the console just faded into the background as a home for shovelware and dust as the 360 / PS3 / PC trifecta marched on. Heck, things got so bad that gamers had to petition Nintendo to release games for it in 2012 (looking at you Last Story). It was... sad.

The WiiU didn't even have that two to three year grace period, collapsing right out the gate and never picking itself back up. Inferior graphics and processing power, no third party support, almost no hard drive space (unless you bought an external harddrive with its own power supply), no Ethernet port (unless you bought that separately too), a gimmicky tablet controller with almost no practical use for its screen, and almost no games in the final couple years of its barely four year long life. Every now and then you'd see some glimmer of promise, like Mario Maker or Bayonetta 2 (the only reason I bought a bloody WiiU), but for each decent game there was a Star Fox or Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival.

Maybe the Switch will turn things around, but who knows? Microsoft and Sony didn't exactly set the world afire with the specs on the Xbox One and PS4. If the Switch is close to those specs or slightly above them AND actually accommodates DLC, it might get more third party support and find its niche. If Nintendo went cheap though in an attempt to maximize profit while keeping the price low (not even a single Ethernet port on the WiiU? Gah!), then they'll be in the same darn boat they're already in... and you can only sell so many plastic Mario figurines. We'll see how it goes. That they're only shipping 2 million units at launch and won't have Zelda available as a launch game are not encouraging signs (nor is the NES Classic selling out an encouraging sign, since it is only selling out because Nintendo made way too few of them to create a narrative of "gasp, they're FLYING off the shelves. Ooo!").

*shrug* Color me a cynic. I wish Nintendo the best, though. I'd rather have them in the game than out of it.

i almost feel like Sony is the most 'in danger ' out of the 3 console manufacturers. And that danger might be 5-10 years away. Or they'll be fine,who knows, I'm not Nostradamus :).

PC will continue to have the most power and the most games, while slowly trying to enter the livingroom space. Steamboxes and links might not offer that yet, but they're trying to get there. Even if that avenue stays firmly in control of the traditional consoles, being the most powerful platform will always attract a fair share of players.

Xbox and PS4 will continue the fight to be the nr 1 console with the widest array of games as they've been doing the last years. But where Xbox can do all kinds of nifty things with Windows, like combining PC and Xbox games to the same code, or accessing all your media seamlessly, Sony is pretty much stuck within their platform. Now if i were a PC gamer, i would eventually gather enough games that also work on an Xbox , while i would have to start out fresh if i went with a Sony console. An Xbox user might purchase a PC , swayed by having all his Xbox games working on there as well. Eventually, I would imagine, people will feel entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem because all their media is there. Similar to people facing a bigger barrier to switch from iOS to Android if they've been using it for a while.

Nintendo might not have the third party support, but they do have excellent first party games and always put some perks into their systems that other systems simply do not have. Being able to play games in bed or having an entire retirement home invested in a bowling tournament for instance. The library being so far removed from what the other parties offer, and relatively cheap, makes their systems always a solid 2nd gaming platform regardless of what your first platform is. Even if their console turns out to be a dud, the franchises they own will continue to find their audience and keep the lights on.

I just feel that the moment Xbox realized they could leverage their PC presence instead of having this 1v1 competition in the console space, Sony is kinda boned in the long run. Both consoles offer pretty much the same libraries, get frequent spec updates to keep them in line with eachother and fight for the livingroom experience. They're not that different apart from UI. I would be more enticed to buy a Xbox or PC if i already knew my favourite games would be there. Sony doesn't seem to have much they can leverage, unless they start creating more exclusive games again.

Honestly I think Nintendo should have gone third party after the Gamecube. I have not bought a console since then. I havent enjoyed a Mario game since Nintendo 64. I would like to play Zelda, but thats not worth a console. And they dont even put out Metroid games anymore. The Switch might be the best idea they ever had. But still, not sure if its my thing. Bought a DS, used it for a month or two and havnt used it in about 3+ years. They should get back to making games, and come up with at least two new IPs. I mean christ! Its been 30+ years. They need a great new IP. IMO they have been on the way out since SNES.

Only in the sense that I wonder what happens to my digital purchases if they get out of the hardware business

@sammo21: it does have a new Zelda game though? Also saying Nintendo doesn't care about games is insane IMHO. You don't craft games like Nintendo does without a deep love for the medium.

Nah, every time nintendo seems to be sucking, they always know how to bounce back

They've always got the handheld market, although the Japanese leg of that is being gnawed at by phones. They sell at cost and don't over-ship. There's a reason they remain.

I don't like them anymore. I want them to stop milking the same old IPs and art styles and make a console that's competitively powered again. I've never liked the idea of handhelds, so this combination is a detriment in my eyes. What can devs possibly achieve with such a little thing?

Nintendo has Mario and Legend of Zelda (and Pokemon, kind of). Don't underestimate the draw of those IPs. To a lot of people, those three things alone basically are video games.

I wonder if they're going to have some kind of partnership for the 2020 Olympics. People went crazy for the Mario thing at the closing ceremony.

Ehh...Nintendo makes more profit off it's games and by consolidating it's library under one console players pay to play more of their games, making Nintendo more profit per game. Hell, consolidating their R&D for one piece of hardware saves them a bunch of money that probably isn't made up by increased hardware sales at a tiny profit vs. the higher profit made by increased game sales per player.

Nintendo combining their handheld and console efforts into one product seems like a great idea, if the hardware and price point can back it up and make it get a good install base. I'm actually the most excited about, and for, Nintendo that I've been in years.

...There's only really been ONE misstep after the Wii...

Nintendo's fine. It's easy to forget, but they're the ones that actually make MONEY on console sales (they're the only one of the "big 3" that had a war chest after the last console gen), and they're still the only pure games maker on the market at that level. The Switch seems like a good move, and at those predicted prices, assuming they hold AND Nintendo is still making money off each sale, it's a DAMN good move.

@bisonhero said:

Agreed 100%. That and them STILL dragging their heels in the modern world of digital rights management, simple easy to use standards for friends, party systems, chat, online multiplayer, etc.

Here's what I want from them:

1. I want Nintendo to make more games have online multiplayer - not just your typical shooter games either. I want to be able to play almost any Nintendo game either online or offline (Super Mario 3D World, for example, would have been awesome. So would an online multiplayer version of Super Mario Maker - imagine collaborative worlds built similar to how users could do with Halo's Forge, jumping in and out together from building and playing).
2. I want to have an all-purpose "Nintendo account" like Steam - where I can buy a license at a FAIR price (not $10 for some game where I can emulate all of them with more features for free) for some classic Nintendo game and then have access to it regardless of platform play on PC, 3DS, Wii U, Switch, or whatever else - along with cloud save-states, some sort of leaderboards, etc.
3. I want an option for a reasonably priced "Netflix-like" experience - maybe like $5/month where I have access to ALL Nintendo games ever made for any system, complete with easy-to-navigate UI and PERFECT emulation of each platform for, again, any platform that has the power to run it - PC, 3DS, Switch - whatever.

If they don't do that and this Switch turns out to be a dud, they are essentially over as a major game developer. They'll be a slightly better SEGA, in which they live out the rest of the company licensing their IP to other platforms and re-hash their old games forever and ever, living off the nostalgia they've built from their earlier greater days. You'll see more NES classic style systems - maybe an SNES classic or N64 classic... relatively cheap and easy to manufacture and the public will eat them up around the holidays as long as the price isn't insane.

Nintendo has pokemon

Nintendo are in the nostalgia and Pokemon business nowadays. I don't think that the argument "Nintendo is for kids" applies to them whatsoever anymore. Children are playing games on mobile devices, and I doubt if figures like Mario or Link hold much sway with them anymore.

No. Nintendo has the capital to do what they want and survive through it regardless of success for years. You aren't going to see them go anywhere. Microsoft makes a lot more money as a licensor for Windows and software than it does in hardware in gaming, so they can leave at any time just out of choice from executives. Sony has big financial troubles, especially from their Movie business (which they are much more fond of because when it succeeds, it succeeds big) so Sony may one day decide to siphon off Playstation simply to keep their other ventures afloat. Nintendo has a massive well of capital (like Microsoft) but with the much more singular focused business on entertainment (like Sony), so Nintendo is the most likely company to stay in video games the longest.

If Nintendo decided to just become a Pokémon games developer and nothing more (which they could do and still be exceptionally profitable because Pokémon is the 29th most profitable License in the world) then I would be disappointed for a bit, and move on to something else. You shouldn't feel bad for not wanting to buy the things a company makes, just because they made things you wanted in the past. If they don't make things you want now, then don't buy from them.

Am I worried about the multi-million dollar corporation that proved time and time again they are smarter than people give them credit for, that they can make the best of their segment of the market, that their games are still among the best experiences to be had on a video game, close to the time they release a new interesting and exciting piece of hardware?

Hell no.