In more coverage of Nintendo’s press conference last Friday, Iwata’s points regarding Nintendo’s self assessment, and possible future plans, were made more clear. To be plain, Iwata believes that the proliferation of smart devices is not the end of dedicated game consoles.
His argument is bolstered by a clarification on last week’s financial predictions. Although 3DS will be missing the mark to a wide degree (about 25 % less of original projections), it is still the star performer for gaming consoles in the last year. In absolute terms, its sales figures still tower above the newly launched and massively hyped 8th generation consoles, the Playstation 4 and Xbox One.
Iwata believes that Nintendo doesn’t have to put Mario on smartphones. Rather, they need to reach out to the gamers who are being weaned on smart devices, and convince them to play Nintendo games on Nintendo consoles.
Bolstering his argument that consoles can exist side by side with smartphones, he points to Puzzle & Dragons Z, which sold over a million units on 3DS last year, months after the original Puzzle & Dragons peaked and fizzled out on smartphones.
Overall, Iwata’s position is thus: even though he is considering a reevaluation of the company’s business model, there is still value in offering good games to sell dedicated hardware. Nintendo’s self-assessment is they need to step up to the challenge of getting the word out on their games even more.
It’s great to get this clarification now, since it seemed when the news originally came out that Iwata was leaning towards the idea that the traditional game console retail model was no longer a tenable way to do business. Nintendo has been accused of trying to turn back the tides of time on this, but if they can prove that dedicated game consoles with good games can still sell, the industry as a whole can keep on making games the way it has for the past forty years.
Image is from Puzzle & Dragons Z.
