What's Eating at Nintendo?

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Denial will get you no where. The handheld market is simply different from the console market. It's much more difficult to get people to pay $200 for something that fits in their pockets than something that hooks up to a TV. People don't want a handheld they need to treat like an expensive peice of machinery. If it isn't rugged and it isn't convenient, it isn't going to break out of a certain limited market (hence the barrier with PDAs).

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And like I said before... you think Sony doesnt know this? Seriously now...

PDAs have had a barrier of entry... it's that they're so damned expensive and, well, most people have no use for them. I bought a PDA a few years back and I barely used it. Waste of $$.

But dude I see so many people out on campus with iPods its not even funny. Probably 20 or 30 a day. And iPods are sure as shit a lot more than $200. Granted yes it is a college campus but like I said that's where the market is, and Sony knows that.

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

Tetris was a huge phenomenon. There's no doubt it sold systems. The Nintendo name was probably the biggest selling factor since Nintendo-mania was in full swing.

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Yea... and right now is almost, almost a Sony-mania. People think great games are on Sony's systems. Shit, 50 million people buy PS2 compared to what, 13 million Xboxes? You just cant beat that. Sony has this huge market of ready and willing customers, just like Nintendo had back in 89.

Most of the things George said made a lot of sense. But, why do I just know Nintendo will screw up. The PSP will sell there is no doubt about that. It will take sometime to be the market share leader, because the GBA already has a huge base. But, you can rest assured that the PSP is going to sell like mad.

One thing George said that didn't make sense was this.
Dreamcast or Saturn that not only didn't have enough good software, but also didn't have enough product to meet the retailers' needs.

Dreamcast and Saturn had software for days. They had better lineups than the N64 and Cube combined.

Yeah, anyone thinks the Dreamcast, Saturn or Master System failed due to lack of good software is dead wrong. There are other reasons these systems failed in certain regions.

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Originally Posted by The Shiva

One thing George said that didn't make sense was this.
Dreamcast or Saturn that not only didn't have enough good software, but also didn't have enough product to meet the retailers' needs.

Dreamcast and Saturn had software for days. They had better lineups than the N64 and Cube combined.

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Yeah, I caught that too. I kinda figured he was talking about the early life of those systems. Saturn had a pretty weak start especially in terms of franchises that people really cared about, but even if that's what he meant, DC had a killer launch and kicked into gear right away.

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Originally Posted by diffusionx

And Scourge, yea, 15%-20% market share in the first year is reasonable, but what's that compared to 0%? If Sony can do that, and build to 35% in 2 years, that will be huge and it will be more than enough to crack Nintendo's stranglehold.

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Agreed. It *will* be a huge hit. For the first time ever, there is going to be 2 viable handheld systems. My numbers were based on 30mil gba/sp's out there now and Sony selling 4+ mil PSP's in their first year on the market. At some point, I can see a 50/50 market split, but that's 5 years down the line if not more probably.

However, it *is* important to remember that Nintendo is going to release a GBASP2 in the not so distant future. That's where the real showdown is going to be. Will Nintendo's next handheld be able to compete with the PSP? That's where affordability can have a huge impact. Don't forget, the next GB will be disc based; that solves a lot of manufacturing cost problems straight away for third parties.

I agree with you, diffx. Anyone who doesn't see it is smoking crack.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Though it seems to me that the handheld market is far less dependant on the existance of a "killer app" than the console market. People don't usually buy as many handheld games as consoles, and it's not a substitute for console gaming. It's generally regarded as a time waster when other gaming isn't availible. People will buy a handheld system because it's cheap and it's "cute" even if there isn't a particular game motivating the purchase.

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And the obviously un-researched opinions of a message board participant are relevant how?

I find it funny that this is your opinion, you recognise it as an opinion, yet to cling to it as fact, reguardless of how many points the opposition brings to bear.

Nintendo is going to be in a bad way for the PSP launch unless they seek to change. Arrogance has only ever bought them one thing, and that thing is second place.

even being their fanboy i'm getting sorely disappointed in them every year.

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Originally Posted by Ammadeau

People who think the PSP won't sell are forgetting how well the PS2 sold on nothing but hype. It presold out despite one of the worst launch lineups ever. Nintendo has plenty to worry about.

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What was the PS2 going up against though? A dying N64? Sony completely fucked up the PS2 launch, but it didn't matter, because it had no competition. They can't do that with the PSP.


Is their a potential for a good and sucessful system? Yeah. But so far the PSP is nothing but a few specs, and the GBA is the best selling videogame system on the planet with tens of millions of owners and a catalogue of over a thousand games and counting. Doesn't take a genius to figure out who has the upper hand.

People, for the love of videogames, don't believe the Sony hype again. Judge it on its actual merits when, ya know, it actually exists.

That's actually the strong point of their release, it being on a not so smart date actually turned in their favor. Impatient buyers jumped on the PS2 even though it's price was a bit high, it looked like it was in concurrence with Sega's Dreamcast and it being the first one gave it more time to release more titles and become more favored among the masses. If Nintendo we're to bring it's release date to the same quarter as Sony did to their's, and to maybe change the launch color from gay ass purple to platinum or black, they would have stood better odds now.

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Originally Posted by DjRocca

If Nintendo we're to bring it's release date to the same quarter as Sony did to their's, and to maybe change the launch color from gay ass purple to platinum or black, they would have stood better odds now.

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For the record, there were black Cubes at launch. My launch-day Cube is black.