The Shrine

Even though 3DS ended up coming out on top this holiday season, the annual sales were only about 70% of what Nintendo expected. The Wii U was a dismal 30% for the year.

I think a lot of the problems are fairly obvious and very fixable.

Satoru Iwata wrote:"We cannot continue a business without winning... We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each."

"We are thinking about a new business structure. Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."

1. NINTENDO DIRECT AND MARKETING APPROACH - Nintendo's marketing has been fairly poor. Sony dumped 100 million USD into marketing in the US alone for the PS4 launch, and Nintendo has yet to spend that much; instead they opted for Nintendo Directs. I actually like the idea of the Directs, but not how they have been handled. Marketing does tie into pretty much everything below, as they need to effectively communicate everything in various ways.

The purpose of these Directs are to advertise to Nintendo fans and journalists right? Well, they're doing them wrong.

For the most part, the Directs are previewing software which will be available in the next 4 months, and then doing a preview video for Smash or Mario Kart. The problem is the audience who gets these Directs, they're the sort of people who made the decision on whether or not they were going to buy these games a year ago. These are games that should be marketed via other means, not Nintendo Direct. Finally, for the journalist, there is not really anything interesting for them to write about - they're going to get much better information from review copies and such. For Directs, Nintendo should de-emphasize their focus on software that already has better means available for marketing; in fact, Nintendo should do like Rockstar and heavily increase their marketing through journalists and ads. They have not been taking advantage of social media and youtube nearly enough.

With the Directs, Nintendo should be giving their fans information on more distant and more awesome projects - such as Legend of Zelda U, Xenogame, upcoming features for the Miiverse and OS, something on the future integration plans between the handheld and home console segments. These are the sorts of things that the major Nintendo fans will take and be excited to talk about with other people. These are the sorts of things journalists will pick up on and then inform the world that Nintendo has big things ahead.

In short: for the last 5 years, Nintendo has been very secretive about their future releases, I feel more in the dark about Nintendo's upcoming projects than I would like to be. It's difficult to post anything in these forums about Nintendo when my knowledge of Nintendo is fairly sparse about what they're doing beyond the next 2-3 months.

2. VIRTUAL CONSOLE - Big and fixable issues here;

A. I think Nintendo needs better distribution. I like the idea of spending $1.00 to migrate games from Wii to Wii U with all the additional Wii U bells and whistles; WHY CAN'T they do this with 3DS as well? Why is it that if I buy Castlevania on Wii and Wii U I can't also migrate the game to 3DS for a buck? Come on! Why don't they do more 3D classics on 3DS? Sega did a BUNCH just recently, and they were awesome, in fact, some of my most played games of the past couple of months. I want to see the 2D Mario games, Donkey Kong Country, and Kirby Superstar all do the same.

Next - stop with these stupid 1-4 game a week releases. Grab a QA team and pump through 10-30 classic games a week; give us as much as possible upfront and run advertised discount sales. Obviously Nintendo has nothing against discount sales as they have been doing it already; they just don't really advertise them well enough.

Nintendo should be pimping the crap out of the Virtual Console. Right now it's usually just a foot note. They should be marketing with campaigns that convey the following: "Virtual Console, now with over 800 classic games like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 from Sega Genesis, Donkey Kong Country and Chrono Trigger from SNES, Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask from N64, Super Mario Bros. 3 from the NES; and MANY MANY MORE!" They don't do that, their virtual console marketing is abysmal.

Give us something like Arcade coins, we get one coin per day which allows people to play a 10 minute session on ANY VC game they want, and then they can buy more Arcade coins for a micro transaction, or purchase the game outright for permanent ownership.

PIMP THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

3. PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Nintendo is obsessed with little lights that I barely notice as their notifcation system. You tap the top corner of the screen from the OS, and then read the 3 weeks wiorth of news. I think Nintendo needs to give the users the option for push notifcations; that is, every time I open my 3DS or look at my Wii U tablet, I will have a preview of the last 5 notifications. Social media thrives on this, and pretty much every mobile device has this option too. Give it to us!

4. NEXT HANDHELD:
Nintendo's main goal here should be to make the Nintendo handheld the only thing you need in your pocket. Since Nintendo has now brought tablets into their home console business as well, DO THE FOLLOWING:
A. Allow the next handheld to act as a controller for Wii U or the next home console.
B. Allow us to put Sim cards in, and add phone capabilities. Texting, etc...
C. Stop with the resisitive touch screens and get up to date with a capacitive touch screen.
D. There was a weather app on Wii, if the next DS is always connected, this is when a weather app would be very valuable to me. Also, stock market apps. At least with the Miiverse on 3DS, as dirty as it is right now, Nintendo has made one small step in the correct direction for social media.

5. GAMES

Home Console:
This is mostly going to be about the Wii U. When the Wii launched, it launched with the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess... But aside from that it also launched with perhaps the most heavily anticipated game in history: Wii Sports. A few months later we got Metroid Prime 3, and then a few months after that we got Super Mario Galaxy. On top of that Nintendo had a barrel full of other games: Fire Emblem, Battalion Wars, Super Paper Mario, Wario Ware Smooth Moves, Mario Strikers, and a dozen other retail games from Nintendo. On Wii U the biggest games are a remake of Zelda the Wind Waker, a Pikmin game, and a sequel to Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS. Now Super Mario 3D World on Wii U is fantastic, one of the best platformers of all time - but the problem is that Nintendo marketed it as "the sequel to Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS."

What Nintendo should have done is this: Year 1: you get Mario Kart 8 and MARIO GALAXY 3! For you people that like to shoot things - Metroid Prime Returns. Along with a dozen other games that we're going to back with 100 million dollar ad campaign.

Handheld:
MORE CASUAL GAMES - that much is obvious; right now we have access to a few, and I play them at least once every 3 days, and usually 1-2 times per day. I'm talking about their Street Pass collection. The big problem here is that the selection is very small, and not one of the games is a companion app for other games.

Do what Bravely Default does, make an RPG that has a town builder companion app that you can build up over a long period of time and aid you in your main RPG quest; it's the smartest thing Square has done in years. Give us some apps that are linked to Wii U titles, and allow us to sync this up with Wii U games and others.

Pokemon X and Y play with internal casual games to boost EV points, THIS is excellent; but the problem is that they made it require perpetual attention - whereas all of the best casual apps right now work even when your phone is in your pocket in sleep mode: Simpsons tapped Out is ALWAYS running, Clash of Clans is ALWAYS running. Pokemon needs this sort of a casual companion app - Bravely Default made it work afterall. Allow both Internet syncing and pedometer meters; that way when 3DS users are out away from home, they're building up points, and when they are home they are syncing up with the Internet to gain some time credits.

That's all I've got for now.

Nintendo is gonna Nintendo, I just don't think that company has the infrastructure to even recognize what they're doing wrong, the entire top of the company is made up of old Japanese guys who can't recognize trends and just want to trend-set instead.

Mr. Iwata noted that Nintendo's sales in Japan were better than they were in the U.S. and Europe, and said the company needed a better way of keeping in touch with trends abroad.

Word Iwata? You just figured this out? Well I guess admitting you have a problem is the first step.

Iwata says Wii will avoid major droughts that plagued GameCube. (March 2007)

“When we launched GameCube, the initial sales were good, and all the hardware we manufactured at that time were sold through. However, after this period, we could not provide the market with strong software titles in a timely fashion. As a result we could not leverage the initial launch time momentum, and sales of GameCube slowed down. To avoid repeating this with Wii, we have been intensifying the software development, both internally at Nintendo and at developers outside the company, in order to prepare aggressive software lineup for Wii at and after the launch.” says Iwata. He then says, ”We believe it is important to provide the market with strong software without a long interval in order to keep the launch time momentum.”

Iwata promises that 3DS will avoid major droughts that plagued Wii and DS.

“It’s important that you be able to supply software with no pause,” said Iwata. “With the DS and Wii, following the titles that were released at launch, the momentum dropped when there was a gap in software releases. We’re making plans so that this type of thing won’t happen.”
Source: http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/10/iwat...ware-with-3ds/

Iwata promises that Wii U will avoid major droughts that plagued 3DS and Wii.

“ As we learned a bitter lesson with the launch of the Nintendo 3DS, we are trying to take every possible measure so that the Wii U will have a successful launch.”
“The company was unable to launch much-anticipated first-party titles for the Wii nor for the Nintendo 3DS in a timely fashion in the first half of the term. In the game platform business, creating momentum is very important, but the momentum was once lost, and it has had a large negative effect on our sales and profits.”
Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com...on-iwata-vows/

Iwata apologizes for Wii U drought in January and February.

“I apologize to those supporting Wii U about the lack of titles in January and February.”
Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ftware-drought

I love Iwata.

In regards to other parts of your post, I don't know how Nintendo recovers back into the console game. Let's just state the obvious, the Wii U is going to sell less then the Gamecube. It's on pace for that atm, and the Gamecube dropped as low as $99.99 at one point, you'll never see the Wii U that low, especially with their particular GamePad(Unless they sell it without the Gamepad, but I don't even know if that works).

The part that kills me, is that in theory the only way for Nintendo to get back into the game is take the Microsoft route, make a powerful system, release it in say late 2015 or early 2016, and garner 3rd party support, then release another console 3-4 years later to compete with the big boys when this generation ends and the next begins(PS5, Xbox4k come out). The problem of course, is that Nintendo's pockets, while deep, probably aren't willing to take a 4 billion dollar hit like Microsoft did when they entered the industry.



Fucking up in this industry requires you to take some drastic steps to recover. Sony lost all of their PS2-era profits with the awful beginning of the PS3's lifecycle and only started recovering near the end. Now they're looking to have some pretty positive profits. Microsoft, despite what the more hardcore crowd thinks, is doing fine, they're behind the PS4, but they're also selling the more expensive system, if the profit margins look good, I think they're ok in the short-term. The question is whether or not being 2nd place is acceptable. I digress though.

As for their handheld division, that's also a shrinking market. Next handheld? How do you make a dedicated handheld going forward? You CANNOT ignore the Tablet market's grown at this point and its effect on dedicated gaming handhelds, it is way way way too prominent. I can name 10 of my co-workers off the top of my head that all own tablets and let their kids play on them while they use them for....whatever people use tablets for lol, that's your casual market right there. Now why would any parent buy their kid a dedicated gaming handheld at this point? It's a hard sell, maybe grandparents who don't have any interest in tablets would do it, but I think most parents in the 30-40 range are semi-savy enough to understand tablets, especially if they own smartphones. So your casual market is fickle as fuck and doesn't come back, what do you do? Target the hardcores? While there's a decent chunk of us, I don't think it's enough to sustain Nintendo in that arena. 3DS will likely fall short of PSP and GBA, not just DS. It's halfway to their LTDs and it is already plateauing/declining. It missed Nintendo's forecast by 30% this year.

Also a good read about Iwata and the current hierarchy of Nintendo.

The purpose of this topic, first and foremost, is to be a research topic, but there are some questions at the end to keep it relevant.

One thing I've noticed on the Internet is a distinct lack of data about early Nintendo corporate governance. Believe it or not, Nintendo has actually been a public company for a very long time. Here's a brief timeline:

1949 - Hiroshi Yamauchi becomes President of Nintendo
1951 - Yamauchi changes name to Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd.
1962 - Nintendo becomes a public company, gets listed on the second section of the Osaka Securities Exchange and on the Kyoto Stock Exchange
1963 - Yamauchi changes name to Nintendo Co., Ltd.
1970 - Nintendo moves to the first section of the Osaka Securities Exchange
1980 - Nintendo of America was founded in New York City, USA with Minoru Arakawa (Yamauchi's son-in-law) as president
1982 - Nintendo of America moved to Washington, USA
1983 - Nintendo moves to the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it remains today
1990 - Nintendo of Europe established in Frankfurt, Germany
1990 - Nintendo changes fiscal year end from August to March
2002 - Yamauchi resigns as president, stays on Board
2002 - Iwata becomes first post-Yamauchi president since company went public
2005 - Yamauchi resigns from Board, Iwata takes full control over the company
2013 - Yamauchi passes away

So I did some digging into very old Nintendo materials (microfiches, archives and whatnot), and I thought I'd tell you guys about how Nintendo's board of directors has progressed over time. This content really isn't anywhere else on the web, so I'm glad to be sharing it.

Color codes:

YELLOW = First year as a Board member
GREEN = Moved higher up in the Board hierarchy from the previous year
ORANGE = Moved down in the Board hierarchy from the previous year
RED = Last year that person was a part of the Board

Without further ado, let's get started!


In the beginning: (Nintendo's Last FY ending in August)




Minoru Arakawa joins the team!




In the lull between the SNES and N64, Tokio Sotani retires from Nintendo, Akio Tsuji gets promoted, and a host of new faces enter into the Board of Directors, including the infamous Howard Lincoln.



The next four years are smooth sailing. If the Early 90's was the Golden Age, this is Nintendo's Silver Age.




But a few years later, Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln retire from the Board (pretty soon, they'll retire from Nintendo of America as well). Katsunori Tanimoto, the Lead for Nintendo manufacturing since the '80s, retires. None of the Senior Managing Directors that were there in FY 89 are still at Nintendo.

However, a bunch of newcomers arrive. Atsushi Asada becomes Executive Vice President out of nowhere. Satoru Iwata, Miyamoto, Genyo Takeda, and Nobou Nagai fill up the lower ranks. Something big is about to happen at Nintendo...






And it happens! In one fell swoop, Yamauchi retires as Nintendo's president after holding the position since 1949! He chooses Satoru Iwata, #11 in Board hierarchy as his successor. However, Atsushi Asada is placed as Chairman to keep Mr. Iwata in line, and Yamauchi stays around for a few years to make sure everything is catered to. During this time, Yamauchi works with Iwata to design the DS and the Wii, Nintendo's most successful handheld and console. Akio Tsuji, the final member of Yamauchi's original FY 89 board team, retires. Only Hiroshi Yamauchi is still left at Nintendo from the original group.

Tatsumi Kimishima takes Minoru Arakawa's / Howard Lincoln's place as Nintendo of America's presence on the board, but compared to his predecessors, he prefers to take more of a back seat and let Iwata dominate.




Finally, Yamauchi is permanently gone from Nintendo, as is his appointed Chairman, Atsushi Asada. For the first time in more than 50 years, Nintendo is completely under the thumb of a new leader. Of course, Iwata finalizes his re-organization, promoting Miyamoto, Yoshihiro Mori, Shinji Hatano, Genyo Takeda, and Nobuo Nagai to the most senior roles. Iwata also brings in a few new faces.



The next few years are pretty quiet, though poor Mr. Nobou Nagai passes away prematurely, and various long-standing board members leave Nintendo.



More and more board members are preparing to leave as Nintendo profits continue on a steep decline...is Iwata planning something?



He is! Pulling in Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto into his closest inner circle, Iwata hired a wide array of new people to join him on the board.






What is the point behind Iwata's new appointees? Here's what Iwata had to say about them:





Is Iwata acting completely in good faith here? Perhaps he made this "generational change" in part to get rid of people who may have been conspiring to take over his place?

It seems as if Iwata is grooming Tatsumi Kimishima. Will Kimishima be Iwata's go-to guy if he gets ousted by shareholders?

But better yet, will these new people that Iwata appointed be any good? Or will they just continue to pursue the status quo? It's something that I think about an awful lot when it comes to Nintendo's top leadership.

We can't just discount the old players, either. Hiroshi Yamauchi has now passed and the future of his shares is still up in the air. Presuming the majority control goes to Minoru Arakawa, will he respect Iwata enough to not meddle in the company's affairs?

Nintendo in the 90's was very different from the company was today. As you can see from the past leadership, no one who used to run Nintendo is at the company anymore. Minoru Arakawa has an opportunity here to combat Iwata's leadership and do something about Nintendo...but I digress.

Here another quote from Iwata

"The way people use their time, their lifestyles, who they are—have changed," Mr. Iwata said. "If we stay in one place, we will become outdated."

As far as Satoru Iwata goes; I think he's still the best guy to hold the reigns. He made one mistep with the Wii U; but this mistep is not nearly as bad as misteps made during the N64 and Gamecube era. Plus Iwata presided over Nintendo's most profitable and successful era, and has really turned the 3DS around DESPITE the growing iPad market.

Saying the 3DS is going to fall short of PSP is just speculation at this point. The numbers tell a different story: 3DS has been out for less than 2 years and 11 months, and has sold 42.5 million; PSP took nearly 4 years to hit that total. 3DS sales have been fairly consistent for the last 2 and a half years; retail sales for the 3DS were: 13.25M for 2011, 14.4M for 2012, and 14.75M for 2013, 2014 should be another ~14.5m year. Unless Nintendo decides to release a new "third pillar" portable system this year that turns out to be wildly successful, I don't see 3DS seeing any decline until 2015, and no major decline until at least 2017. So if 3DS sticks to its guns, it should do around 95 million lifetime, give or take 5%.

Although this is still not really good enough, what Nintendo should be aiming to do is push their handheld brand to at least DS levels.

I expect Nintendo to release a "3DSi" with some additional features before jumping into the next generation of handhelds. Of course, they might do what they did in the GBA generation and launch a "third pillar" system which would screw the numbers. Although all I really think they need is a sleeker 3DS with a 3D movie service and some other new features like Wii U gamepad integration; perhaps even phone and bluetooth. I think keeping handheld and console apart from each other doesn't make sense anymore for Nintendo. Especially when their consoles are now using an interface and technology on their controller which can be made available to handheld.

Maybve they'll fix this generation; maybe they'll start from scratch in the next. What I would do is try to fix this generation, and then continue that momentum into the next generation at a date around Summer 2017.


One last point: Microsoft's red ocean hardware strategies are stupid. Yes it gets them market penetration, but they're not establishing themselves with any kind of guarantee of a strong permanent hold in the phone, tablet, or console markets; in order for that to work, they literally have to do what they did with Windows and monopolize the markets. It's strategies like that which have allowed companies like Apple have been able to surpass them and grow to twice as valuable as them, and recently Microsoft has fallen from 2nd into 3rd behind Google.

Sony is attempting Microsoft's red ocean strategy with the PS4; if it works out for them, they will get to survive. Right now they're valued around the same level as recent post-crash Nintendo. Sony from a business perspective is in the shitter. They are throwing hundreds of millions at advertisement, and loosing hundreds of millions more by selling their hardware below cost.

It might be that Nintendo should try an aggressive red ocean strategy, I think they'd be able to benefit most from it considering they have the most powerful software brands in the industry. They'd be able to much more easily recover from large marketing and hardware loss expenses.


Here's the link to your quoted post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=699964

Someone did their research, it's actually fairly awesome. Although the conspiracy theory of Iwata's hostile take-over from Arakawa is beyond far-fetched; it's not like he's going in and replacing Nintendo's staff with all of his former Hal Laboratories staff. People got old and retired; and that includes Arakawa and Howard Lincoln. This argument is not really consistent with "old men running Nintendo is a problem" considering the old men being complained about are in their 30's to 50's, and the ones who were "forced out in a hostile take over" are in their late 60's to mid 80's. Even Howard Lincoln is 74 years old now.

Also, WHY do these people think Arakawa would take control of Yamauchi's estate? This isn't feudal Japan where due to Arakawa marrying Yamauchi's daughter, Arakawa now becomes the legitimate male heir - that's not how the world works anymore. Damn Neogaf!

I am also not 100% sure of Nintendo's business structure, but I would guess that any promotions and such would require approval from the board of directors; and wouldn't just be at the whims of this evil Iwata guy.

I have noticed a conspiracy theory of my own though - the two generations following the SNES saw Kirby has taken a huge back seat. Then in 2005 he began squeeking back into the scene... By 2007 we were seeing multiple Kirby releases per year, sometimes up 6 when you include Virtual console releases. The real question is should MARIO and LINK be afraid? We have seen Link's stock sink drastically since the Gamecube era, could this be Iwata's maneuvering?


Clearly taking Link's position.

Also, for Mario? What's with this year of Luigi? Clearly some evil maneuvering involved in an attempt to off the red plumber!


Why is Mario not even in this game? Is Mario supposed to be dead? Was this an attempt by Iwata to eliminate Mario and see if people would buy into it? What can be clearly seen in the game is that Luigi seems VERY hostile towards the memory of Mario. Clearly Iwata overturning the old order and replacing it with his own people!

In all seriousness though: I am fairly interested to find out just what happened with Yamauchi's shares. I know that he had begun transfering his shares to the Nintendo estate back in 2004 - which he was the chairman of; I am not sure where his remaining 14 million shares went; perhaps buried with him somewhere in some massive forbidden pyramid tomb?

Nintendo Co. (7974) is under pressure to consider ending production of video-game machines after reporting disappointing sales of its Wii U console and forecasting a surprise loss, prompting its stock to tumble.

Nintendo fell 6.2 percent to 13,745 yen, its biggest decline in Tokyo since Sept. 9. The fall wiped about $1.2 billion in the company’s market value. Nintendo on Jan. 17 projected an operating loss for the year ending in March and cut its forecast for the Wii U’s annual sales more than two-thirds.

(Reuters) - Shares in Nintendo Co Ltd tumbled by nearly a fifth on Monday after it warned of a third straight year of operating losses, heaping pressure on the creator of "Super Mario" to abandon its policy of not licensing its software to rivals.
After the market close on Friday, the Kyoto-based company slashed its global Wii U sales forecast for the year to March 31 by almost 70 percent to 2.8 million units."Its console-based business model spells doom for stakeholders. It has no choice but to accept the change," Jefferies analysts wrote in a note. "We believe Mario on mobile is coming."

They raised their price target on Nintendo to 29,000 yen from 26,550 yen, with a 'buy' rating on expectations of a change in strategy. Nintendo has so far refused to allow its games to be played on consoles built by competitors or on tablets or other mobile devices that are increasingly used by gamers. At one stage, the shares fell as much as 18.5 percent. By 0104 GMT, the stock was down 11.9 percent at 12,900 yen. It was the most traded stock on the main board. If it were to finish the day at that last traded price, it would mark its worst one-day decline since July 2011, wiping off about $2.3 billion from Nintendo's market capitalization.

Nintendo now expects an operating loss of 35 billion yen ($335.7 million), compared with an initial forecast for a 100 billion yen profit. The weak Wii U sales stand in sharp contrast to those of its predecessor, Wii, which propelled Nintendo shares to a record high of 73,200 yen in November 2007. The stock has lost more than 80 percent since then.

The latest warning comes just three months after Nintendo reiterated its sales projections for the Wii U, counting on the console to revive its fortunes as Microsoft Corp released its new XBox One and Sony Corp launched its PlayStation 4. Nintendo also cut its sales forecast for its handheld 3DS to 13.5 million units from 18 million. It now forecast a full-year dividend of 100 yen, down from a previous estimate of 260 yen.

The Japanese game maker is to hold a management strategy presentation on January 30.

Some market participants thought the stock could go lower.

"You would have expected them to go down more and stayed down," said a hedge fund manager.

"Some people are buying on expectations (that Nintendo will change its strategy) ... but the chance of a change in the short-term is still very low," he said, adding that he would be interested in the stock if it fell below 10,000 yen.

($1 = 104.2700 Japanese yen)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A0J00V20140120

So the fun starts next Thursday. Interesting date, it's also Nintendo's eShop weekly launch day. I wonder if they have something for us?

You already know, the Iwata special.

Hahaha,

Give us an X trailer and some ACTUAL information, and unveil Legend of Zelda U; then I'll be happy for now. One of Nintendo's recent marketing trends since around 2009/2010, that I really hate, is that they try to hide mostly everything they're working on until it's time to be released. It's annoying, I hate being in the dark on games I want to look forward to. I really don't mind being hyped about a game for 2 years: Final Fantasy 7 and Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time taught me a long time ago that long waits can often mean massive anticipation...

You've probably seen the following around on Neogaf and websites. Personally I feel like this is somebody's pipe dream because the specs are fairly precise for what is probably 2.5 to 4 years away - and it sounds apologetic about the poor software schedule. We know Nintendo has been working on their next hardware since a few months after the Wii U launch, but that's not particularly odd; the Wii was already in its conceptual phases before the launch of the Gamecube. N64 was in progress from at least 1993.

It reads like something I would make up.... Like in my original post

In short, a really powerful 3DS with a capacitive touch screen, and an extraordinarily powerful terminal - which acts as the main console. You can use your 3DS as a controller for the console, then take your games on the go. With the notification system, the new 3DS model seems perfect for casual games - which today often have persistent online environments where you login multiple times a day for 1-5 minutes.

Add in some phone and bluetooth capabilities, give the handheld sleek design that is comfortable to play, and that's MY dream console!

Nintendo is feeling the hard times right now with the Wii U failing to sell and its games offerings relying on old and beloved characters. So the time might seem right for a new console using CPU: ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 GPU: Custom Adreno 420-based AMD GPU and even a "Thumbprint Security Scanner with Pulse Sensing Feedback".

And so these specs and more have emerged in not one but two units called Nintendo Fusion DS and Terminal. Yes, that was the name of the Nintendo lead rock tour in the 2000s. So, what are those specs?

FUSION DS

CPU: ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 GPU: Custom Adreno 420-based AMD GPU
COM MEMORY: 3 GB LPDDR3 (2 GB Games, 1 GB OS)
>2 130 mm DVGA (960 x 640) Capacitive Touchscreen
>Slide Out Design with Custom Swivel Tilt Hinge
>Upper Screen made of Gorilla Glass, Comes with Magnetic Cover
>Low End Vibration for Gameplay and App Alerts
>2 Motorized Circle Pads for Haptic Feedback
>Thumbprint Security Scanner with Pulse Sensing Feedback
>2 1mp Stereoptic Cameras
>Multi-Array Microphone
>A, B, X, Y, D-Pad, L, R, 1, 2 Buttons
>3 Axis Tuning Fork Gyroscope, 3 Axis Accelerometer, Magnetometer
>NFC Reader
>3G Chip with GPS Location
>Bluetooth v4.0 BLE Command Node used to Interface with Bluetooth Devices such as Cell Phones, Tablets
>16 Gigabytes of Internal Flash Storage (Possible Future Unit With 32 Gigbytes)
>Nintendo 3DS Cart Slot
>SDHC “Holographic Enhanced” Card Slot up to 128 Gigabyte Limit
>Mini USB I/O
>3300 mAh Li-Ion battery

FUSION TERMINAL

GPGPU: Custom Radeon HD RX 200 GPU CODENAME LADY (2816 shaders @ 960 MHz, 4.60 TFLOP/s, Fillrates: 60.6 Gpixel/s, 170 Gtexel/s)
CPU: IBM 64-Bit Custom POWER 8-Based IBM 8-Core Processor CODENAME JUMPMAN (2.2 GHz, Shared 6 MB L4 cache)
Co-CPU: IBM PowerPC 750-based 1.24 GHz Tri-Core Co-Processor CODENAME HAMMER
MEMORY: 4 Gigabytes of Unified DDR4 SDRAM CODENAME KONG, 2 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz (12.8 GB/s) On Die CODENAMED BARREL
>802.11 b/g/n Wireless
>Bluetooth v4.0 BLE
>2 USB 3.0
>1 Coaxial Cable Input
>1 CableCARD Slot
>4 Custom Stream-Interface Nodes up to 4 Wii U GamePads or 4 DSc
>Versions with Disk Drive play Wii U Optical Disk (4 Layers Maximum), FUSION Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) and Nintendo 3DS Card Slot.
>1 HDMI 2.0 1080p/4K Port
>Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound
>Inductive Charging Surface for up to 4 FUSION DS or IC-Wii Remote Plus Controllers
>Two versions: Disk Slot Version with 60 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage and Diskless Version with 300 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage.

Those come from Gaminrealm, which also quotes one unnamed source stating - in an incredibly garbled manner:

"Nintendo has already begin making demo software for the targeted prototype hardware in efforts to curb the Wii U mistake in the software pipeline (they started creating software after prototyping and were unable to give major software push the first two years as a result). Nintendo plans to make most of the software prototypes into games and applications around the launch of the unit.”

We reckon this means that Nintendo is going to make Fusion's O/S and SDK available in much more time than it for Wii U. That makes sense. A new piece of hardware within the next two years, that does not make sense.

http://spong.com/article/31220/Nintendo ... ecs-Leaked

Yeah that looks like BS.

Some overeagar fan was like "Nintendo is doing bad. Let me make up something magical!"

Maybe the Nintendo Fusion isn't so far fetched afterall as it looks like Nintendo has been hinting at unified platform integration; referring to the next generation (presumably gen 9) as having handhelds and console as being like siblings to one and other. I think we might see some sort of reveal as early as January 2016. I don't think Nintendo is going to invest in the Wii U for another 6 year generation. It'll be between 4 and 5 years. So I am thinking a launch between fall 2016 and fall 2017. They're also going to want to heavily build up their brand until then, so they're not dumping 3DS or Wii U before then.

Unified platforms have been on the plate for at least a year: http://nintendoeverything.com/iwata-uni ... platforms/

Anyway, some points of interest from the press conference last night:

* No plans to abandon hardware.
* Revamping its marketing strategy going into the holiday season - which ties into the theme of the next few points.
* NFC payment options will be added.
* Software which takes advantage of the Gamepad.
* Mario Kart 8 releasing in May, but not as just a one off boom for the first half, software release momentum will not drop for the remainder of the year (woohoo!).
* Nintendo will soon begin actively utilizing Smartphones to make connections with customers and encourage customers to purchase Nintendo products.
* More licensing of game characters to other partners - which means we may see Nintendo characters in mobile games, but not actual Nintendo games.
* Some sort of cryptic discussion about new Health Pack "non-wearable health monitoring devices" that will be announced in the future.
* Some sort of service app to bring more information on Nintendo.
* Nintendo plans to heavily boost budget in areas Nintendo is not good with.
* The pay cuts were as a sign that Iwata and the board of Directors are taking responsibility, but no one is stepping down or quitting. They believe in their current team.
* On the long Wii U software drought: due to improving studios for creating games that are much more resource heavy. Essentially, the a bad transitional phase.
* Iwata wishes to increase enthusiasm among software makers who make games exclusively for an older audience.
* Improve conditions for third party development.
* Future handheld and Home console systems will "Be like brothers" - motivation is he feels the technology gap between portable devices and home console has narrowed considerably.

Were you impressed by any of that?

Eric wrote:Were you impressed by any of that?

.... We both know the answer to that.

It's a presentation announcing new business directions and strategies, not some TGS or E3 presentation of products to impress gamers. Although they did drop some hints towards future product announcements for 2014.

I did leave me anticipating what is to come in 2014, and left a few hints towards their Gen 9 strategy - which I am VERY interested in.

I will buy their shitty WiiU when they give me a Nintendo account that gives me my virtual console games on every system that has the capability to play it. The WiiU is the first console in forever that I am perfectly fine never owning until they fix their shit. It seems like the handheld space never really learned how to do online well, so the 3DS gets a pass, but the WiiU just looks so old as a system. It looks like a launch PS3 in terms of online capabilities, system functions, and graphics, except I cannot put linux on it.

They said going forward they'll make a unified Nintendo account.

bovine wrote:I will buy their shitty WiiU when they give me a Nintendo account that gives me my virtual console games on every system that has the capability to play it. The WiiU is the first console in forever that I am perfectly fine never owning until they fix their shit. It seems like the handheld space never really learned how to do online well, so the 3DS gets a pass, but the WiiU just looks so old as a system. It looks like a launch PS3 in terms of online capabilities, system functions, and graphics, except I cannot put linux on it.

I transferred all of my Wii games to my Wii U. Sure, it's under a "Wii" app and you enter a new Wii desktop, but all my games are still there. It's just the handheld games that I don't have on there but they've never released those emulators on the consoles (well, they COULD release the Ambassador games but those are just a footnote in history now).

Nintendo initiates 9.5 million share buyback ($1 billion, Yamauchi inheritance)

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2014/140203e.pdf

Looks like Yamauchi's heirs want out, also stops any potential hostile takeover from happening.

Also Seek, I'm sure you know this, but the 3DS was the first console that Yamauchi didn't help Iwata with and the Wii U was all Iwata, his last 2 were the Wii(100 million), and DS(155 million+). :p

Iwata replaced Yamauchi in Spring 2002 as President. Iwata's "Blue Ocean Strategy" - an analogy to waters clear of other predators - was the successful central philosophy that drove DS an Wii to success. The key component to the strategy was to create an easily accessible interface that was not intimidating to users, and appeal to those gamers and non-gamers who didn't find post SNES controls to be intuitive.

It wasn't just the controls either, it was the price range. There was market lost due to console prices going up, and Nintendo made their pricing more appealing to families who won't want to spend lots of money on a gaming console. The N64 lost a lot of customers for more complicated controls, and pricing issues on the software.

3DS, I love the concept, but I feel like Nintendo dropped the ball on 3D video releases. I really wanted Avatar, Up, and other 3D movies to watch on the system.

Wii U - Looks complex to operate, I think Nintendo might have been better off having a tablet without the buttons and analog sticks. Box it with a tablet and classic controller. Obviously concepts like the Miiverse and such wouldn't work without a touchscreen interface; so dropping the touchscreen wouldn't be an option without sacrificing that. It's not like they couldn't develop good touchscreen only games for it.

Yamauchi was involved in those sir even after Iwata officially replaced him, he bowed completely out of involvement in 2005!