SPIRES  

parislemon:

Daisuke Wakabayashi for WSJ:

Nintendo slashed its sales outlook in the wake of disappointing holiday demand for its new Wii U videogame console, which it had been banking on to rekindle consumer excitement.

…

For the current fiscal year to March, Nintendo now expects an operating loss of ¥20 billion, compared with an earlier projection for an operating profit of ¥20 billion.

Yikes. Hate to say “I told you so” here, because I love Nintendo. But the writing has been on the wall for a while. I just don’t see how Nintendo stays in the hardware business.

Yes, yes, you could have said the same about Apple way back when. But the difference here is that it’s not about mismanagement. The world has simply changed.

We’ll see how Microsoft and Sony fare later this year, but I’m pretty bearish on stand-alone gaming consoles. Microsoft is wise to make the Xbox more of an “entertainment hub”, and less about pure gaming.

I just wonder how long it will take the very proud Nintendo to license out their games. If I were Apple, I would give them a blank check for iOS exclusives on Mario, Zelda, etc. Apple is all about making moves to sell hardware — imagine how much hardware such a move would sell.

Apple could buy them out and shut down their hardware division. Then make a respectable official set of hardware controllers that make serious gaming possible on iOS devices. Hate the idea that all gaming will one day be lousy touch gaming.

01/30/13