Why are there so many Nintendo apologists?

[gf78]

You know, I love Nintendo and their games in general.  It's been this way since I first played Super Mario Bros. on the NES and my love of gaming skyrocketed.  But why do people & fans keep making excuses for them and their bone-headed business practices?

One of the big ones I always hear is about "Nintendo's warchest" or the magical amounts of money they have.  As if that means that they will continue with business as usual and that nothing is wrong.  To me, that's burying your head in the sand and not seeing the reality of the situation.  Nintendo is a publicly traded company.  They have shareholders.  While the company has a ton of money in the bank, the fact is their profits and market share have been sharply declining with each successive generation of consoles, the Wii being the only exception. 

NES:  62 million systems sold worldwide
SNES:  49 million systems sold worldwide
N64:  33 million systems sold worldwide
Gamecube:  <22 million systems sold worldwide
Wii:  101 + million systems sold worldwide
Wii U:  10 million systems sold worldwide and the slowest & lowest selling Nintendo system to date

Their handheld business is taking a hit as well due to increased competition from cheap tablet and smartphone titles.

GameBoy (including Pocket & Color variations):  119 million systems sold worldwide
GameBoy Advance (including SP):  81.5 million systems sold worldwide
Nintendo DS (including DS Lite, DSi and XL variations):  154 million systems sold worldwide
Nintendo 3DS (including variations):  53.1 million systems sold worldwide (note:  this is when cell & tablet games became more prolific)

Aside from the bumps in the Wii and DS lines, Nintendo's business has been on a downhill slide.  Shareholders are not happy.  Many developers are not happy.  And many gamers are not happy as well.  Unlike Sony or Microsoft, Nintendo is not invested in other markets.  For them, video games are about it.  And they continue to screw it up, even when they found a way to print money.

Amiibos!  The biggest thing in the video game market right now, and Nintendo has their head stuck up their collective asses with them.  They themselves are basically screwing gamers and themselves over with the boneheaded ways they shortchange these figures, make store exclusives and just about everything about how they are marketed.  If people want your product, make the damn things!  Gamers are happy, sales go up, revenues go up and shareholders are happy.  But no....that's not the Nintendo way.  I can understand gauging demand wrong with the first series.  Ok, so they didn't know everyone would want the Wii Fit Trainer, Marth or the Villager.  Guess what?  MAKE ANOTHER F'N RUN OF THEM!!!!  There is no excuse for the way they have been handled.

On top of that, bone-headed naming conventions for their systems and everything else, Nintendo would rather hide game like Fatal Frame and Devil's Third instead of showing them off to get some attention.  In today's market, the Wii U is relegated to a little space on the retailers shelves.  Gamestop has these huge walls of PlayStation and Xbox stuff...and one wee rack of Wii U games.  You would think they would want as many games as possible out there to entice people to buy their stuff.  But no...again, it's not the "Nintendo way."

I'm not going to apologize for them.  I'm not going to sit here and act like everything is fine & dandy.  And I sure as hell ain't going to say that their daddy Warbuck's pot 'o gold in the bank will keep them going for years to come.  Nintendo needs to change.  I don't know how, but they need to do something.  And free-to-play or whatever the hell they want to call it mobile games isn't going to do it.  The completely bizarre handling of the Amiibo releases isn't helping either.  And pretending that a bunch of money in the bank is going to keep shareholders, developers and fans happy when every generation your market share shrinks is just delusional thinking.

[fighterpilot562]

I agree on the Amiibos, biggest thing that pisses me off with them, and is why i am glad i never got into them... though i do want to be.

If people want them, get someone to run them.

When I was younger, I was a nintendo fan boy. But when GC came out, I "switched teams" and became a sony fan.... Only recently have i became interested in Nintendo again, and making up for lost time.

[burningdoom]

I like my Wii U and my 3DS. I'm not apologizing for anything Nintendo does, I'm simply enjoying them. Everyone else is missing out by not playing Wii U. Their loss, not mine.

And the 3DS estimate looks to me like they're doing pretty well. The other Game Boy systems had been on the market for 10 years with those numbers. 3DS has only been on the market a few years. Project those numbers out 10 years, and 3DS is doing just fine.

Amiibos are pretty damn stupid, though.

[soera]

I think the handling of Amiibos is the biggest complaint about NoA lately. With many different retail exclusives and the limited numbers released, its irritating for anyone in the game.

I dont know why the Wii U has been a failboat as of late. Its a pretty decent system with many options that should have been better received. I think the motion controls of the Wii have soured a lot of people from even wanting to try the U. I have one and while its not my PS4 I can not say anything about the system I find bad about it.

Handheld wise, the "NEW 3ds" has got to be one of the most worthless system upgrades ever. Amiibo compatibility and a tiny extra button is what it has? If they thought the Wii U was having problems cause appearance/name was like the previous gen, then they must be smoking some of that oblivous-crack to think that this one is going to do better. I already see the fail in this one. As far as I know, Chronicles is still the only game that requires this system and I hope it stays that way.

[kamikazekeeg]

Nintendo is fine.  The "warchest" is a thing, in that they aren't going to go under from missteps, but even with a misstep like with the Wii U, they can easily turn it around if they make the proper decisions with the upcoming NX.  I don't think too many are being thatblind to their issues as everyone knows the Wii U failed, that Amiibo's need more made, and that they have to compete better with the likes of the PS4 and even Xbone.  It's just that people also know Nintendo has the ability to turn things around when it gets rough.  They went from the underselling Gamecube, to the monumentally selling Wii.

I dont know why the Wii U has been a failboat as of late. Its a pretty decent system with many options that should have been better received. I think the motion controls of the Wii have soured a lot of people from even wanting to try the U. I have one and while its not my PS4 I can not say anything about the system I find bad about it

It's a mixture of I think the branding and a lack of enticing software.  As much as Nintendo fans buy it for the Nintendo games, if it doesn't have lots of other games from different companies, it's not gonna pull in everyone else.  I personally find the Wii U to be pretty fantastic after not liking the Wii, but I can see why it didn't take off.  I think they could remedy the problems with the NX if they have a real good set of launch games which could happen with Zelda pulling double duties on the Wii U and NX, along with Dragon Quest XI, and whatever else they can get that might be enticing.  That and they need a proper unified online service.

[egen]

wee

Pun opportunity: MISSED

Seriously though, I've always wondered about this. It seems like whenever the conversation comes up about which console line is going to disappear first, the question is always really "[how much longer] will Nintendo last?" more than it is "which one will go first?" Nintendo isn't indestructible, sure - any company can take major hits and go under. It just seems like people exaggerate the "hits" Nintendo is taking, like because of these decreased numbers they aren't turning a profit or they won't be around anymore. Not saying that's what you're doing here, just pointing out something I've experienced having been around other games and on the interwebz.

I'm also writing this as somebody who at this point only owns a PS2, so I'm not a Nintendo fanboy by any means. I've enjoyed games they made on just about all of their different consoles and that's about it. To me, the most bone-headed thing they did was come out with a console that pretty much requires motion control all the time. It's laborious. I want to sit down and play a game, like... normally, yo. To me, motion control is still a gimmick. It's a "look at how much reality is fusing with video games!" stunt and I don't really appreciate it. It's fun at times in party-game situations and such, but it's not a console I take seriously as a gamer at all (not like games should be taken too seriously or anything of course ).

[maximo310]

I wouldn't agree on many apologists for Nintendo; in fact I've seen a lot more criticism of Nintendo compared to Sony and Microsoft even back in the Gamecube era . TThe biggest problem they have with the Wii U is that the marketing sucks, and that they made a system that assumed that the rest of the market would continue with PowerPC. I've also heard conflicting stories where some developers said the Wii U was easy to develop for, while others said it was very difficult. The Wii U first party software has been pretty good for the most part, and some of the early third party ports like Deus Ex were good as well; its a shame that the 3rd party stuff sold badly. They really should have clarified to the consumers on the Wii- Wii U switch and marketed the system and its features as much as possible; that's whats been helping the PS4 and XB1 sell lots of consoles even though there aren't too many first party games for each platform yet.
For other markets, Nintendo has already partnered up with Dena, for mobile games/apps which was announced a few months ago. As for NX, there's a lot of speculation going on, but we don't have too many concrete details at this time.
For Amiibo's, hopefully they keep doing reprints of hard to find figures. I think the reason why there aren't many is that Nintendo is afraid of having overstock and losing money on their products, so they understock supplies and it just creates a cycle that makes it harder for the consumer to get their products.
I'm hoping that their games coming out in later 2015 will get physical releases and will be good. I've heard some mixed things about Devil's Third not looking good and frame rate being iffy and the creator isnt making things better by blasting people and say his game is the "greatest", but I don't know why they haven't showed off more Fatal Frame. That one looks pretty good.

[weirdfeline]

I've noticed a lot of them fade away after E3.

[fighterpilot562]

The last 2 E3s are the reason I want a Wii u. Before that,  i didn't care about it, like someone said, they need to market it better. I hope to get a wii u in a few months.

[aliensstudios]

The Wii U has no appeal to someone who isn't a Nintendo fan, that's the issue right now. Apologists are fanboys. Everything in pop culture has them. Nintendo's happen to be very outspoken.

[kashell]

Amiibos are lame and bad for the environment. Just like Skylanders.

[fighterpilot562]

Amiibos are lame and bad for the environment. Just like Skylanders.

That can be said for most things lol

[indenton]

Are we seriously having the "The Wii U is failing... " discussion again??? 

[indenton]

When Nintendo are working with a failing concept like the Wii U, I feel like the game developers go into crisis mode, producing some pretty stellar games.  But they're still one of only a few teams working with the platform, which means some pretty long time lapses between titles and ultimately a pretty small library of games. 

As much as Nintendo may claim that the NX will NOT replace the Wii U, I beg to differ.  We already have a glimpse of interest from Square-Enix (Who were not originally supporting the Wii U).  At the end of the day, whatever happens with Zelda Wii U will decide its fate... That is if Zelda Wii U ever sees the light of day. 

[spac316]

I love Nintendo and have the greatest utmost respect for them. I have many fond gaming memories involving their games. I know I don't regret my Wii U purchase.
But it doesn't mean I can't look past their flaws and recent business decisions. Heck, they screwed up with the Virtual Boy, which WAS their worse system. Not the Wii U. People often forget that.

I agree they should restock more of the hard to find amiibos, have better third party relations and be more lenient with people uploading Youtube videos of their games.