Dear Mr. Iwata, Please fix this Nintendo of America problem...

"There are some people in the video game industry that like to place all the blame for Nintendo's current financial and Wii U situation on Mr. Iwata, the current CEO of Nintendo Company and now CEO of Nintendo of America as well. Some of those people deny that employees and management in other regions for Nintendo, like at Nintendo of America for example, might actually be part of Nintendo's overall problem as well though.

There is currently one Nintendo problem though, directly related to Nintendo of America's region, that I don't think Mr. Iwata made and might not even be aware that the problem exists. At least, I don't think he would have made this decision, based on one of his own more recent comments. It is a problem that Mr. Iwata now as CEO of Nintendo of America can hopefully address and get fixed though, for consumers and Nintendo investors.", writes CoffeeWithGames.

[jjdoyle]

hows this an issue still!? mores than two years since amazon sold a nintendo console and people still have jobs that made this decision?

[N4g_null]

I think ill take a break from the bs. The best thing to do is enjoy your games and see what happens when wii fit, dktf, mario multi, and the party game drops. Of course people want Nintendo dead. Why bother discussing it.

[mii-gamer]

fix nintendo of australia while you are at it

[hollabox]

Fix Nintendo of Japan by getting rid of their hardware R&D and start recruiting Sony's talent.

[lilbroRx]

Why? So they can reach a 30 year low in stock prices and loses billions year after year?

[hollabox]

Or maybe so the Wii U2 in 2015 can be competitive! If I'm not mistaken but didn't Nintendo have $7 billion in the bank when the Wii U launched? Latest reports claim Nintendo is down to $5 Billion. $2 billion in less than a year, if this continues Nintendo will be done in 3 years. Last time I checked Sony had $22 billion in the bank with potential revenue from more than just video games and the Seattle Mariners!

Based on the latest sales with the Wii U selling 27,000 plus units globally last month I think gamers have spoken. Not enough software at this point in time, not enough hardware potential, and lackluster marketing. Decisions mostly made by Japanese men, so yeah they need to fix NOJ first and the rest will fall in order.

[jjdoyle]

hollabox
dont knows what ignorant fanboys site you read, but evens with english as second language i found the info in 30 seconds.
you could find outs that info out instead of spreading ignorance around:
http://www.forbes.com/compa...

11.6 billion cash on hand as of march this year

3 years and done. rofl! the ignorance in 2013 amazes me. not sure if ignorance or just laziness

[hollabox]

@ jjdolye

I got my information from IGN, as of July 31st this year from what they claim its $5billion in actually cash not including assets! So no my information gathering was not being lazy at all. I do agree Forbes information holds more weight, but I found multiple sources that has Nintendo's net worth all over the place.

In 2011 Nintendo had $10-11 billion in the bank with just under $2 billion in loans. Giving Nintendo an net worth in actual cash value of $8.5 billion in 2011. Ign is claiming that figure is down to a little over $ 5 billion as of July 31st 2013. So I'm mistaken Nintendo is not losing $2 billion a year, its about $1.75 billion.

http://www.ign.com/articles...

http://blog.pricecharting.c...

[jjdoyle]

hollabox
ign? cant spell ignorant without it. no surprise there.

"That’s $5,038,214,927.30. More than 5 billion dollars. In cash. And almost that much in “short-term investment securities”, which are essentially bonds."

unless somebodys cooking books at nintendo noway done in 3 years. that is ignorant to even suggest

maybes if noa would get their house straight and sell their units on this site it could help some

[AbortMission]

Are you slow? Sony has been on the rise for quite a while now Lol. Someone's desperate (or bitter)

[TheVideoGamHer]

@hollabox LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheVideoGamHer]

@AbortMission Actually Sony has not been on the rise. What you're referring to is the fact that they are FINALLY starting to make a profit on the PS3. While this is good, their overall financial situation is not as good as it could be. With the PS3 JUST turning a profit, I kind of wished they would have held back just a tad with the PS4. Hopefully Sony will continue to profit from the PS3 while also being in good standing with the PS4.

[ChickeyCantor]

Their R&D looks at new innovations/ideas/viable stuff. It's the higher ups ( Iwata ) that says what will actually be developed.

[hollabox]

@ jjdolye

"That’s $5,038,214,927.30" That's about right, in the grand scheme of things $5 billion is not a whole lot if net cash value is being reduced by $1.7 plus a year. In 3 years if this continues as stated in my earlier post Nintendo will exceed their actual cash value in the bank right now.

Now I'm not saying Nintendo can't take loans, nor do I wish financial hardship or downfall on Nintendo. I'm simply saying you have to start at the head (NOJ) before the body will follow (NOA, etc). So this article about fixing NOA I call bull crap since its NOJ hardware/software, and marketing decisions that has Nintendo in this situation. Starting with the hardware team designing a system maybe a third more powerful than current gen with the largest controller since the Jaguar.

Now with Satoru Iwata running the show in both territories, and if the Wii U continues to struggle it all falls back on who? NOJ! Same thing can be said if Nintendo is successful, NOJ will get the credit and Satoru Iwata a vote of confidence with a pay raise.

[kwandar]

Okay, so let me help you out here. Their functional currency is likely the Yen, so the drop in value of the bank accounts (when restated to US) is likely due in large part to currency swings. Ohh .. and a decreasing Yen helps sales.

No accountant I know (and I know MANY), would impute that business is going south based solely on the change in cash balances. No offense, but that just shows a complete lack of understanding. If you want a real answer, read their cash flow statement.

[josephayal]

Nintendo should stop making consoles. They could make a fortune selling Mario,Zelda games on the X1 and PS4

[SpiralTear]

No, they shouldn't, because they would not make a fortune doing that.

People buy a console because of the things they can't get on other systems, in this case, a Nintendo system for their exclusive franchises. That's basically replacing a console sale and a game sale with just a single game sale.

[DragonKnight]

Actually they would. For the Big 3, software always makes more money than hardware. For Nintendo this is especially so because their games have long shelf life due to continuous demand. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is still a full priced game despite being out for YEARS. Why? Because Nintendo can legitimately get away with not having to lower the price.

If Nintendo stopped making consoles and only made games, they'd actually make MORE money because the R&D costs for consoles would be gone and all they'd have to worry about is keeping the quality of their titles high.

[ChickeyCantor]

@Dragonknight,

Their income also comes from selling hardware( not always at the start but eventually). They would be loosing far too much.

[DragonKnight]

@ChickeyCantor: Barely. The money they make from hardware sales is dwarfed by the money they make from software sales. They have to cover R&D and distribution costs with hardware and they are only selling the one home console for the most part. Say the Wii U sells 30 million in its lifetime, but Nintendo releases hundreds of first party games throughout that lifetime. You can even begin to make the claim that the amount of money made on hardware comes close to the amount made for software.

The only one of the Big 3 that would take a hit from not selling hardware is Microsoft because they don't have the first party offerings that Nintendo and Sony do, but Nintendo could be far more profitable as a software only company than a software/hardware company.

[PopRocks359]

@DragonKnight

I have to disagree there. You have to consider what Nintendo accumulates with both hardware and software. Their consoles are typically sold at a profit with few exceptions and of course they make money on software as well.

If you insist they will make more money by going software only, you are leaving out the fact that 1) they are now no longer making money off of hardware and 2) are now paying licensing fees to their competition, therefor making less money than they would have on software than if it was on their own hardware.

Considering there's no sight of Nintendo leaving the handheld market, I don't see much reason for them to leave the console market as well. If the GCN was not enough to end their run, I doubt anything would be. Well, except for any of the awful decisions that led to Sega going software only.

[PopRocks359]

@DragonKnight

I have to disagree there. You have to consider what Nintendo accumulates with both hardware and software. Their consoles are typically sold at a profit with few exceptions and of course they make money on software as well.

If you insist they will make more money by going software only, you are leaving out the fact that 1) they are now no longer making money off of hardware and 2) are now paying licensing fees to their competition, therefor making less money than they would have on software than if it was on their own hardware.

Considering there's no sight of Nintendo leaving the handheld market, I don't see much reason for them to leave the console market as well. If the GCN was not enough to end their run, I doubt anything would be. Well, except for any of the awful decisions that led to Sony going software only.

[PopRocks359]

Ah crap. Sorry for the double post, guys.

[SpiralTear]

Iwata and Nintendo need to fix this problem, especially with advertising and clearly illustrating the Wii U. I can't say I've seen much advertising of the Wii U itself; mostly it's for the games.

However, Amazon US is certainly not innocent either. I would really like Amazon US to explain why they aren't selling any Nintendo systems directly. They should at the very least stock the 3DS, the current poster-child of sales success after a downright terrible launch.

In pure irony, his article as a whole seemed to point more fingers at Amazon US than Nintendo, which is probably not what the author wanted to do. With every problem listed, note that Amazon should do just as much of the legwork to fix it as Nintendo.

Both sides are clearly at fault, but this article seemed to balance the blame scale more than tip it in Amazon's positive favor, at least from my perspective.

[linkenski]

Lately i've started to think Reggie is more of an actor than he is a marketing minded businessman. He's out of the loop, completely. Iwata actually makes some good policies but he ia also very regressive/restrictive about things and that's gonna hurt nintendo in the long run.

[Xof]

Why does it matter? The third parties selling on Amazon.com are selling at BELOW the MSRP, and the sale is still kosher with Amazon's fantastic customer service--the return policy, the free shipping, the whole thing.