Is Nintendo dying?

[Mango Smoothie]

What do you think?

[E3kHatena]

Nintendo's been having probably their best few years in recent memory. The latest Mario game brought back some classic conventions of the sandbox exploration games while also offering a whole lot of new ideas and characters, Splatoon's been one of their most successful IP launches in decades, Smash Brothers Ultimate is shaping up to be probably the best entry in the series, the console's sold like hotcakes, and with everything from Crash Bandicoot to Doom 2016 to West of Loathing on the handheld, it's cornering the market the 3DS did years ago and Sony could barely touch while also offering its own experiences. Opting for a more portable alternative to the XBox and PS4has ensured the Switch can coexist with the PC and other console options for quite a while.

[Chemistara]

well, the way i see it here, Nintendo can ALMOST be considered nonexistent

[Florida Man]

They have been dying, but the switch bought them some extra time.

Give it another decade or so

[Gus the Crocodile]

引用自 Jej：

Not even in the slightest. Plus even if they didn't make anything for a decade they have enough rose-tinted shade wearing people in the fanbase to keep them in business.

引用自 Tito Shivan：

Even rose tinted shades-wearing people get bored or fed up. I was a loyal Nintendo customer for decades, until I decided it simply was not worthy the hardware investment in order to play some selected games.

Right, plenty of people are now ex-Nintendo buyers (I’m currently one of them, though that’s probably due to limited cash on my part as much as anything), but I think the next thing in this line of thinking that it’s important to note is: Nintendo are getting on just fine without those people. There may be a bunch of Nintendo fans there for nostalgia, but I think a lot of that kind of criticism of Nintendo‘s position comes itself from nostalgic thinking: from people who remember fondly the time when they were the centre of that market.

It’s actually illustrative of the fact that Nintendo can move on, that they’re not banking their business on the same customers they had from the beginning. They just released a pile of foldable cardboard for god’s sake. That’s not there for the nostalgia value.

[GLO BOY GOAT]

they were until the switch became a huge thing

[secuda]

they sold most amongs three consoles in u.s.a. So nice try op.

[WorkingLikeADog]

Nintendo is very hard to gauge. Zero youtube access. Consoles with very limited computational power and zero RAM. Culture that refuses to buy an xbox one, perferring games from 20 years ago. Then they come up with some collection game that takes the world by storm. They are not dying. They are fickle. That's what holds them back.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Is... not wanting to buy an Xbox One supposed to sound like... a bad thing?

[Captain Morgan]

If it keeps making people angrier (by C&D fangames all the time)... If fangames keep being better in quality to the original games they try to pay tribute to (like AM2R)... If Nintendo keeps rigging contests (like the one they forced removal from candidates, of Pokemon Uranium and AM2R)... If their official Mario Maker is still expensive and inferior to quality, against FREE projects like "Super Mario Bros X"...

Then, most definitely, yes! Although, it will take some time.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

引用自 Gus the Crocodile：

Right, plenty of people are now ex-Nintendo buyers (I’m currently one of them, though that’s probably due to limited cash on my part as much as anything)

引用自 DarkOvcharka：

Culture that refuses to buy an xbox one, perferring games from 20 years ago.

Honestly, I'm basically a Nintendo fan type, just not a current Nintendo buyer, mostly because of limited cash (and to a lesser extent, time) on my part. I fit that profile pretty thoroughly:
* preference for genres considered old, such as 2D platformers
* preference for family-friendly games and games with brighter aesthetics, as opposed to games with darker/edgier aesthetics and grittier/more "realistic" settings/stories
* interested in Switch and Wii U
* no interest at all in any of the XBox line of consoles; limited interest in Playstation systems
* lately playing item randomizers for Super Metroid and Zelda ALTTP

It's just that it's quite an investment for me to jump back into Nintendo these days, and in the meantime I've found a number of ways to get some of the games I want, on PC -- between indie games serving the platformer and shmup genres really well, and a recent surge in the availability of top-notch JRPGs like Falcom's stuff, Symphonia, ValChron. As well as specific older PC games getting re-releases.

(I was quite tempted to jump on the Wii U, but I didn't, mainly because I felt I might not actually have the time to really enjoy Splatoon as much as I'd like.)

[Tito Shivan]

引用自 Gus the Crocodile：

It’s actually illustrative of the fact that Nintendo can move on, that they’re not banking their business on the same customers they had from the beginning. They just released a pile of foldable cardboard for god’s sake. That’s not there for the nostalgia value.

But they're still kind of a niche market. With the driving force being a couple franchises not being distributed anywhere else. Almost every person I know that has bought a Nintendo console in the last ten years has been just for the sake of playing a (couple) specific Nintendo games (Pokemon, Zelda, Super Smash Bros)
That's what I meant with niche. And that's the part where I think they're painted themselves in a corner. Their hardware division depends almost exclusively on people wanting to buy what their software division sells. The rest of the console market has learnt to diversify and offer more features for their hardware than 'it just plays these couple games'

Damn, right now I have several friends thinking on buying the Switch just to play the new Pokemon game.

引用自 Quint the Slacking Angel：

It's just that it's quite an investment for me to jump back into Nintendo these days

I found the money investment in a console just for the sake of playing the last Pokemon/Zelda/Mario was no longer worth it. Specially since I moved away from the console market after the PS1 and the original Game Boy. I can buy a lot of PC games for the price it'd cost me to play the last Zelda.

[novasunshine]

what why where

[BossGalaga]

I'm sure anyone would be happy to take their "dying" company off their hands.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

nah
their console platforms are but their games are still kicking it out there
i mean they sorta recycle the same characters and junk like CoD but rather than reuse them they sorta make them a little better
aka mario party what are we on now? 11?