I must apologize for I
have been remiss in updating this blog. The last time I made an
update was in the glow of last year's highly successful post-E3 glow.
A year on, Mario Maker is still on
the way so jury is still out (although I'm excited), Zelda has been
delayed, and Amiibos as it turned out, was a huge success, selling
well over 10 million units in less than seven months on the market,
and it didn't even hit all the markets at the same time.
There has been a lot of other announcements in the interceding months. The biggest
of which is Nintendo's partnership with mobile developer DeNA to
create a platform for mobile games.
With E3 2015 around the
corner, excitement is once again in the air. So let's discuss the
two things that definitely won't be discussed at E3
The NX Platform
Announced at the same
time of the partnership with DeNA to enter the mobile market, this
is, as company president Iwata explained a reveal in name only to
confirm Nintendo remains comitted to the dedicated games market.
As such not much is
known about this platform and there is considerable debate whether it
will be a console to replace the Wii U (which isn't doing well) or a
portable to replace the rapidly aging Nintendo 3DS, which is likely
the company's core profit center, or alternatively, it has been
suggested that the NX is a hybrid platform that bridges
consoles/handheld and mobile gaming.
Whatever it is, the NX,
when revealed next year will likely give us our first
understanding of Nintendo's unified platform strategy. My personal
view on this is that the hardware and the software needs to be highly
scalable such that they can release the platform at a reasonable
price in 2016, but produce higher tier versions in the future without
creating a segmented market. This would likely require Nintendo to
be more upfront with their development partners in terms of supply
specification differences to each NX tier as to allow them to program
scalability into their games and Nintendo's secretic (need to know)
way of operating historically is what worries me to most. But let's
hope for the best here.
Imagine being able to
play NX-portable games on NX-home console seamlessly, with the
additional power of the console version allowing for games to be
rendered at a higher resolution and or added effects. It could be as
simple as the portable version being rendered at a lower resolution
than the home version. Or texture quality being higher on home
consoles. While each platform may and probably will have
exclusives taking full advantage of each platform, this sort of
home-mobile interoperability could prove helpful to skittish 3rd
parties looking to maximize sales on the largest market possible. If
they can access a unified home/portable market it would help the
economics of their games
Furthermore, this
scaleability would allow NX-2, 3, 4 and future iterations to take
software from previous NX versions and not only run them, but run
them with all the new features of the new NX platforms enabled.
The biggest roadblock
to Nintendo's otherwise well-planned backwards compatability is that
the platforms are largely not the same and backwards compatability is
only achieved by including the previous generation's chipset inside
the console (think Wii mode in Wii U or DS mode in 3DS); This means
that the newer platforms reconfigures itself to become a Wii or a DS
when running legacy titles, losing all its other functionality. I
would love to post screenshots of DS games or share them on Miiverse,
but nope, DS mode in 3DS shuts all those features down. Ditto for the
Wii U in Wii mode.
Nintendo + DeNA
There isn't much to say
here but Nintendo has confirmed no mobile related news will be
revealed at E3, at the event is meant to be for core gaming
announcements. With at least one mobile game under the DeNA/Nintendo
partnership due out this year, one would expect a safe title, likely
free-to-start with microtransactions. This is the least interesting
bit (for me) of what Nintendo is doing but I could be converted if
they can marry their need to mobile revenues with their current
business in videogames and leverage both in a way that allows me to
spend extra money on their mobile apps without feeling like I sold my
soul.
Nintendo @ E3
Leveraging last year's
highly successful 'Digital Event', Nintendo is back again with
another Digital Event. Eschewing the stage managed and often
dull/embarrassing live conferences, the company is looking to recapture
the excitement from last E3 with a Nintendo World Championship in
place of last year's Smash tournament.
Will it work? It
remains to be seen, but early indications are good insofar as they
have a much bigger slice of the public looking at them this time
around. A quick point of comparison. Last year's Mega64 produced trailer announcing their digital event has 1.13 million views and 25k
likes in the 12 months it has been on-line on Nintendo's own Youtube
channel (this is not including mirrors, and views in other services,
such as the eshop). In comparison, the trailer released less than a
month ago announcing their Digital Event in June already has 1.5
million views on Youtube (in under 3 weeks) and 37k likes.
Their job will be
straightforward, although not easy. Show lots of games, announce a
few surprise games, throw in a few fan favourite Virtual Console
releases (Mother 3 anyone?) and don't take their consumers for
granted.
This won't alter Wii
U's trajectory very much as the 3rd place platform, but it
could mean entering their next hardware cycle as a relevant
well-liked 'dark horse' instead of being a disliked 'has been'. And their
continued support for the Wii U will most certainly mean a difference
in sales that cumulatively could mean a much more profitable company
going into a hardware refresh regardless of their placement in the
console-warz epeen contest.
Amiibos
Before I go, a small
note on Amiibos.
I understand the
difficulty of manufacturing so many distinctly different character
types and alloting enough units for each on a global basis. This
makes shortages of popular Amiibo types inevitable. As much as the
Amiibo craze has lifted the company's profile (at the very least
among resellers) it is increasingly leading to frustration
from consumers.
If proper supply
allotment for each Amiibo type is a problem, Nintendo should at the
very least institute a 're-order' program with Amazon and their
retail partners allowing consumers to place an order for an out of
stock Amiibo that Nintendo will then manufacture and ship out to
consumers, thus reducing the risk of over supply of reprints. Similarly, their pre-order programs should be expanded as
a market-test to see which of their Amiibos would be relatively
more popular.
As it stands, Amiibos
are released in 'waves' and snatched up so fast that casual consumers
who blinked would have missed out and there is then no way to
guarantee a reprint down the line. Pre-orders are merely ways for
Gamestop and Amazon to pre-sell their already alloted shipments,
rather than polling consumer interest and adjusting supply as needed,
further limiting Day 1 availability.
I want several legacy Amiibos but I don't want to pay scalpers with their 200-500% markup for one and frankly, after the relative ease of pre-ordering the Wave 1 and Wave 2 Amiibos last year (prior to the reseller market taking notice) it has been nigh impossible for me to easily get the Wave 3 and Wave 4 rare Amiibos. Fix this Nintendo and you'll have more of my money.
