A busy day over here, as we are leaving for a trip to Salzburg this weekend. You know how it is when you go away, whether it’s for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, you tend to work towards the trip as if everything at home has to be left in perfect order. So I’ve been so busy that there was hardly any time for a cup of coffee. Well, let’s have a quick cuppa now!
This past week the financial results of the last fiscal year for Nintendo were released, along with information about the release of the new expected console, the NX, and about the next two mobile additions to the range of Nintendo gaming. First of all, the NX will not reach us before March 2017. Kimishimi stated that they want to make sure that the quality is there as well as a good library of launch titles. The effect will of course be that the WiiU, that has suffered low sales from the beginning, won’t sell much anymore. I mean, everyone will want to wait till the NX is released. The stock market reacted of course, by a decline of the stocks to the lower level of the beginning of April. 
The announcement that made me happy was that Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem will get a mobile game in Autumn. I wrote about this in this blog. I got a lot of reactions on social media and in Wordpress, some people where equally enthusiastic, and others weren’t. Some were even appalled. I do understand concerns that were voted that it will be the death of the full games for 3DS or WiiU, or their successors. And I see where people are coming from that they don’t want to be bogged down by micro transactions. Mobile gaming really has the Nintendo fan base divided, huh?
I’m curious, if Nintendo hadn’t made any move towards mobile, what do you think would have saved them for the next decade? Look at the sales figures this past year of WiiU and New 3DS too! I sincerely believe they need the casual gamer to survive and thrive like in the Wii era. Back then a lot of my colleagues toted their hard won Wii home to play together with the kids. They had never before played games, but this family fun could even include grandma and grandpa! All their younger children had Nintendogs and a DS, even some of the ladies at my work played Brain-training games or Layton.
Nowadays I’ve had friends say to me: ” what do you play on? A 3DS? I didn’t know they even made those devices anymore. My kids DS’s have long been gathering dust”. And the colleagues that were so happy with their Wii, have long since moved on to PS4. “Did you know that with a PS4 I don’t even need a Blue Ray player?”
I honestly believe that Nintendo has to take this route if they want to survive the next decades. This is the way to introduce people to the wonderful games that they are unaware off, and get them back into the Nintendo consoles! Bring the casual gamers back. And yes, Nintendo had better make sure they don’t forget their loyal fans in the process. Not an easy task for Kimishima and his company.
I know this isn’t the comfy cup of coffee you might have been expecting, but I felt I had to share my thoughts here. Let’s meet again next week, when I’ll show you some of our sight in Salzburg. We will surely enjoy our ” Sound of Music” tour, and with a bit of luck, we can sing along to a spot of Edelweiss! See you next week, and thanks for reading.
Very interesting subject. Nintendo is undoubtedly stuck between a rock and a hard place, and getting themselves out of the bind they’re currently in is going to require a lot of ingeniosity. I think this is pretty much the first time in gaming history that casual gaming has its own dedicated systems, i.e. smartphones and tablets; this brand-new conjuncture forces developers, amongst which Nintendo itself, to craft games for more systems in order to reach all potential audiences. Let’s see how Ninty negociate this change of paradigm! Hopefully everything will work out for them. And if if doesn’t… Well, all console manufacturers must rise and fall! Nintendo already did enough for gaming to be proud of its contribution and retire from the industry with dignity if it comes to it.