nintendo in trouble, cutting production and avoiding "complex" games

[lord of the mark]

Nintendo is temporarily ceasing production of gamecube, to clear inventory. They also seem to be trying to refocus on "simpler" games, fearing that complex ones have cut into sales.

BBC on Nintendo


What does it all mean?

(hopefully that the PC remains and develops as THE platform for complex games, from my POV, but i realize theirs a big gap between this news and that noble goal)

[Harry Seldon]

I feel bad for Nintendo, just like I felt bad for Atari, TurboGraphics, Sega, etc. It's just their time to go. Hopefully they won't make a mess of it like Atari (think Jaguar).

[Jamski]

Ha! Die evil console companies! Hopefully Playstation will die next, and then X-Box! Then software developers will concentrate on making new PC games for me to play.

/me goes of singing with happiness *

-Jam

[Urban Ranger]

Unfortunately, consoles will never die, unless PCs (without monitors) would be priced roughly in that range.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Unfortunately, consoles will never die, unless PCs (without monitors) would be priced roughly in that range.

Im not really even close to the borderline myself, since scarcely any games im interested in come out on consoles at all. But i think one thing that would help PC's in the console vs pc wars, and in general would be improvements in the ability to a run a given game on different PC configurations. I realize it will never be possible to assure that for every odd hardwar and software configuration out there, but it would be nice if a game could at least be guaranteed to run on any machine made by the major PC manufacturers (which meet minimum specs) with original software configuration.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Jamski
Ha! Die evil console companies! Hopefully Playstation will die next, and then X-Box! Then software developers will concentrate on making new PC games for me to play.

* Jamski goes of singing with happiness *

-Jam

Not even clear to me that gamecube is quite dead yet.
And if it does die, probably sales go to Playstation and Xbox. But a nice side benefit would be a drop in shelf space devoted to Gamecube games, and some shift back to PC games.

[Harry Seldon]

Xbox is outselling the Gamecube; if that's not a death toll I don't know what is.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
Xbox is outselling the Gamecube; if that's not a death toll I don't know what is.

ISTR that Xbox is outselling gamecube in US, but GC is outselling xbox globally, due to higher GC sales in Asia.

[Dis]

I never thought Nintendo would die

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Dissident
I never thought Nintendo would die

nintendo's not dying, just Gamecube. Gameboy is still selling well.

[Sandman]

Nintendo have been shielded for too long from the serious criticism that they richly deserve. A pity that they may never recover from this.

I doubt the PC as a games system will derive any benefit from this. It has too many other problems, particularly half-finished games.

[mrmitchell]

Nintendo's in deep ****. But hopefully they'll get their act together and start SERIOUSLY competing in the console market.

[DrSpike]

Wow, wasn't expecting this. I guess a name is not enough forever...........you must keep delivering and not fall back on past glories. Long live the market.

[Nubclear]

This is sad, however not unexpected nor surprising.

[lord of the mark]

dont be too sad (or happy ) guys. They're not discontinuing the GC. They are clearly well under their annual sales targets - stopping for an extended period was probably not something they wanted to do, and is not a good sign, but it hardly means they're exiting the market. Just raises questions about their general future.

So what do you think of their strategy of "simpler" games?