Everyone today has an opinion about what Nintendo should do. A hedge fund is pushing the company to develop mobile games and add more in-game microtransactions. Some analysts believe that Nintendo should acquire former rival Sega, or develop software on rival hardware platforms. These ideas, presumably, could reverse the company's 70% and 25% respective reductions of its Wii U and 3DS sales forecasts for fiscal 2014.
All of those ideas, however, overlook the biggest problem of all -- that Nintendo isn't properly growing its brands or evolving as a company. So let's examine how Nintendo can evolve its business by taking cues from a similarly iconic company that grew into a media conglomerate -- The Walt Disney Company.
With so many games fighting for players' attention and interest losing out over time, time sink games are at risk of eventually losing steam.
It was worrisome to begin with.
It's a niche genre with only a handful of hits that can stand the test of time.
I like the sound of that!! I will for sure never support these gaas games.
Sony must be shocked at gamer's reaction, making them cancel a few of these and hopefully go back to the good heavy hitters they had us used to..
now bring on that PSPro reveal and show us some SP 1st party awesomeness.
It's pretty ridiculous.
Imagine having a breadth of data at your disposal to see the statistically low success rate of these games, only to be laser focused on the exceptional case studies.
Only a few will catch on. You need a perfect storm to be successful in GaaS and a bit of luck on top of that. But a potential cash cow will keep them trying and some will go out of business because of it.
Helldivers 2 manages just fine…
Keep production costs low… don’t just make custscenes until the mechanics and enemies are perfected first.
Make so much content that you can drip extra content for years, and the game already feels complete without them.
Most importantly: make weapons, enemies, levels, and mechanics that will stand the test of 1000 hours. This might require more devs embracing procedurally generated leveled, which I think separates Helldivers 2 from Destiny’s repetitiveness.
Nameer from eXputer: "Some exceptions aside, I don't think the battle pass is a net positive for gaming with how they're implemented in most live service titles."
I like the way Helldivers 2 does battle passes. It allows you to make purchases on each level of the battle pass and gives you the option of choosing which item to unlock first. The more purchases you make using medals the further you progress. There is no timer and you can earn medals towards purchasing stuff via personal orders and Major orders.
I haven't played much live service games that have battle passes but I remember some games that have battle passes where you progress through it linearly using an exp system. What makes it really bad is that the battle pass will have like 50 or more levels with the cooler stuff being closer to the end. They also have an in-game shop that sells exp boosters so you can reach the end of the pass before it refreshes. Everyone ilse will have to grind their way through.
battle pass in fortnite is perfect; buy one and it buys the rest for every other season as it gives you more money than the first cost. so 8.50 and season ends with you getting 13.00, it pays for the next and you have some pocket change to save up for cash shop. All of which is optional
Hanzala from eXputer: "The cruel hammer of Nintendo has fallen. Farewell, 3DS and Wii U, you surely brightened my life and many others; you won't be forgotten."
Mario's already more popular than Mickey Mouse, so I can't see why not.
Also, Disney has acquired a bunch of more mature titles and studios, I wouldn't mind Nintendo doing that.
In fact, I agree with the article completely. Nintendo needs to evolve, they need to make more mature titles, but they should definitely keep their family oriented games as well.
Nintendo would make more Star Wars games if they acquired Lucas Films like Disney did.
Nintendo should have just made a console in the same league as PS4/xone and finally warmed up to 3rd party publishers by making it have easy to develop for hardware and a strong online infrastructure.
If Nintendo's console had the power of xone/ps4, all the third party titles, proper online and controller, it would have been unstoppable.
I don't know why Nintendo never tries to appeal to 3rd parties, there's so much money to be made from licensing fees - and honestly, they couldn't have done any worse. They failed since N64 and got lucky ONCE with Wii. Doing the same thing each gen and avoiding the typical core gamer is not working for them at all. N64 (demolished), GC (demolished), Wii (woohoo short term success then lost all new casual gamers to phones/ipad), Wii U (people are questioning whether they can survive making consoles).
I for one would been happy to have the console that plays BF4, Destiny, Division, etc. at the same level of PS4/xone AND Metroid, Mario Kart and Zelda.
Nintendo is fine doing what it is doing.
Wonderful article but....Nintendo is Nintendo and disney is disney. Mario is already more popular than Mickey.