{"id":1171,"date":"2014-07-31T15:11:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T20:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/nintendo-should-just-give-up\/"},"modified":"2021-02-03T16:39:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T22:39:51","slug":"nintendo-should-just-give-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/2014\/07\/nintendo-should-just-give-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Nintendo should just give up!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Being a native Washingtonian, I have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo (their US headquarters are located in Redmond Washington).&#0160; Not only did they arguably create the first mass market for casual games, they have continued to create perennial fun and entertaining games.<br \/>&#0160;<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/articles\/nintendo-swings-to-net-loss-1406706326\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reading their latest financial results<\/a>, with a huge operating loss of $92.7 million (more than double the previous year) as well as a lack of product pipeline to bolster their shrinking console business, made me want to shoot out some thoughts on how they could potentially turn around the proverbial ship.<a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"http:\/\/thedarkknight.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d8347c274d69e201a73df8c68a970d-popup\" onclick=\"window.open( this.href, &#39;_blank&#39;, &#39;width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0&#39; ); return false\" style=\"float: right;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Nintendo\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d8347c274d69e201a73df8c68a970d img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/thedarkknight.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d8347c274d69e201a73df8c68a970d-320wi\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;\" title=\"Nintendo\" \/><\/a><br \/>&#0160;<br \/>Nintendo continues to remain unwavered by their approach to customer lock-in through their proprietary hardware and software.&#0160; Owning the family entertainment room is a fine goal, but it comes with a lot of competition from &#39;over-the-top&#39; boxes from Google, Apple, and Roku as well as console manufacturers (Microsoft&#39;s Xbox and Sony).&#0160; I am not advocating for Nintendo to not own the hardware.&#0160; Rather, they should build a flanker strategy that embraces the tablet-style gameplay that has exploded on iOS and Android.&#0160; Heck, Amazon didn&#39;t build its own operating system, they leveraged (and forked the code) from Android in order to leverage the huge population of Android app developers.&#0160; Nintendo built their own version of their tablet that a) has a non-standard gaming metaphor that tablet gamers are used to and b) have not thought about how to embrace third party developers (aka developers outside of Nintendo&#39;s wonderful franchise).&#0160; They built a weird, single purpose device that doesn&#39;t provide utility to move consumers away from their current mobile gaming experiences.<br \/>&#0160;<br \/>What would I do?&#0160; Here are some ideas:<br \/>&#0160;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Build an Android tablet<\/strong> &#8211; if you can&#39;t beat the trend then join them.&#0160; Let Google own the OS while you focus on specific hardware gaming hooks and features in the hardware.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>If you own IP, keep it closed<\/strong> &#8211; if you own a mega property (e.g., Super Mario), then keep it in your ecosystem.&#0160; That is a huge asset and a beloved game IP that can help you in my recommendations above.&#0160; Make your own IP as one of many motivators for people coming to your platform.&#0160; Be careful to not completely lock out other game developers &#8212; why not put special hardware buttons and\/or screen elements to launch your games on an Android device but, have a democratic (or fairly biased) app store.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Separate P&amp;L, separate marching orders<\/strong> &#8211; I wouldn&#39;t try to have the innovators and market disruptors exist physically or fiscally near the traditional P&amp;L.&#0160; Organisms like traditional businesses have a tendency to deploy antibodies designed to kill innovation or new business start ups.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Conclusion.&#0160; Give up on the WiiU and build a kickass gaming tablet.&#0160; Consumers love you Nintendo.&#0160; We are rooting for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being a native Washingtonian, I have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo (their US headquarters are located in Redmond Washington).&#0160; Not only did they arguably create the first mass market for casual games, they have continued to create perennial fun and entertaining games.&#0160;Reading their latest financial results, with a huge operating loss of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startupwhisperer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}