It seems like Nintendo beats the blind. The truth is that we could resort to many sayings and sayings of the popular proverb to try to adorn with words the situation that the historic video game company is currently going through, which has contributed so much to the industry and has achieved so many successes.
However, that course taken since the time of Wii not all liked and the desolate Wii U it heads out to sea where voracious whirlwinds called PlayStation 4 y Xbox One they can devour it if there is no captain with the courage to steer the ship in the right direction.
It is clear that the video game industry would not be what it is today if Nintendo It would not have been the company of yesteryear that delivered powerful franchises, iconic characters, and various hardware innovations. Let's think about franchises Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda… It goes without saying much about these games that have always been synonymous with quality and fun associated with Nintendo. Some innovations in hardware from the hand of the big N have been genius such as the cartridges themselves as a support for games, the shoulder buttons on the pad of SNES, the standard analog stick on Nintendo 64, the introduction of vibration ... which have become the standard in any current control knob.
Regarding their consoles, there has really been one of lime and another of sand. The first console of Nintendo, the endearing NESIt was a great success and the cradle where important franchises and characters of current renown spent their first days. That machine was a balloon of oxygen for the crisis that was going through the sector and sold about 62 million units worldwide.
During the golden age of 16 bits, with that mythical and unforgettable rivalry between Sega y Nintendo, Super Nintendo it was a real consolation that today is a cult machine respected by all retrogamers. Donkey Kong Country, Super Castlevania, Los Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Killer Instinct, Super Metroid, Contra, Final Fantasy… The catalog of Brain of the Beast it was just that, a beast, though Super Nintendo did not reach the sales of NES, staying at 49 million consoles, although of course, this was influenced by the savage competition that was Mega Drive, especially in the US
The 32/64 bit era was more turbulent, with a significant number of competitors trying to gain a foothold in the game console market as they saw the rate at which the sector was growing. Among that noise of machines, only three remained standing: Saturn, Nintendo 64 y PlayStation, although the console Sega It was not long before he fell to the knee with his sales of just over 9 million consoles. It was just at that time, after the breakdown of agreements between Sony y Nintendo to produce a CD version of SNES, when the word videogame would cease to be colloquially associated with Nintendo and it would be Sony who would receive that honor: more than 102 million PlayStation sold was the achievement of this company - compared to the almost 33 that it placed Nintendo of its 64 bit-.
Nintendo acknowledged many of the mistakes made by Nintendo 64 and promised to redeem himself with GameCube, although paradoxically some of those mistakes were repeated, such as being late or the incorrect choice of support for games. At the time, Sega played his last card as a console maker with Dreamcast (10.60 million units sold), Microsoft went into business with the most powerful console ever made, Xbox, which had sales of 24 million machines, but Sony broke records again with PS2: 155 million of the PSX successor were sold worldwide.
Y Nintendo? GameCube was a commercial failure, although according to big N they did not lose money for each console sold, whose sales figures remained at 21.74 million, behind Xbox and remaining in third place - note that the United States has always been the country in whose market most consoles have sold Nintendo no doubt, and the fact that a North American company launched its console made many customers opt for Xbox instead of by GameCube: Yes Xbox it would not have been on the market, perhaps today things would be different in the sector. Yes N64 was considered a failure with those 33 million, you can imagine what the 21.74 of GameCube. And beware, both machines had magnificent exclusive games: Super Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DD, Wind Waker, Resident Evil, Metroid Prime...
Nintendo saw that the formula of betting on powerful hardware was not working. In addition, he reserved in his sleeve that peripheral that he was going to leave with Mario Party 6 and they said it was going to be a revolution: the wiimote. With a different proposal, Wii was born with a hardware that trembled beside Xbox 360 y PlayStation 3, but it became the fashion machine, with more than 100 million consoles sold, a number that can only exceed Microsoft y Sony if they add up the sales of their two consoles.
That twist in the philosophy of Nintendo Not many people liked it, but the untapped niche of customers they bombarded with this product was obviously larger. In addition, they opted for a more conventional format for games and the console was easily piratable, factors that played a lot in their favor. However, the effect Wii it was deflated over time.
In the portable field, we can hardly argue with the Japanese, with myths like the old Game Boy (which between its various reviews sold 118 million consoles) or the tremendously successful Nintendo DS, which sold 154 million machines, being the most successful laptop in the company (and interestingly, also easily hackable)
However, it seems that trying to repeat the play with Wii U it has not been smart. First of all, there has been consumer confusion in naming the console that way - as was initially the case with 3DS and remember that most of the public of the last machines of Nintendo was not a scholar on the subject - then the effect Wii has dissipated, many consumers of that profile have switched to Xbox 360, PS3, smartphones y tablets, the console does not have a proper catalog - third party support is regrettable and most exclusives will arrive in 2014, with PS4 y Xbox One on the street - and the next generation of Sony y Microsoft are just around the corner, and for the price it costs Wii U -hereinafter, 350€ with the Digital version from the remake of wind waker- it seems like an expensive whim that cannot compete in any way with the PS4 y Xbox One.
It is clear that this offer NintendoIn terms of money and quality, it is still a sin and a more aggressive downgrade should be the company's goal. What do you have in mind then Nintendo? Hold on with 3DS as wholesalers desperately try to get rid of the stock of their Wii U? Expect a miracle when the 2014 games come out? The truth is that they give the feeling of being a bit lost.
The latest announcement from Nintendo 2DS It could be interpreted as an attempt to scratch money where it can be, with a hybrid console of two generations planned with the premise of low cost and maximum benefit. It seems that being masters of software recycling is currently not enough to Nintendo. I have the conviction that we are not facing a case similar to that of Sega: Nintendo he knows that his brand, characters and games sell, and whoever wants to get close to them, will inevitably have to go through the purchase of one of his consoles.
We will see in a year what happens when PS4 y Xbox One are more established and the battery of miraculous titles of Wii U are on the market. I do not know why I have the feeling that in a few years we will be before a new console of Nintendo It could be a portable machine with desktop properties, but beware, they should not lag behind in the field of handheld consoles either: smartphones and tablets are already the most widely used devices to play video games.