Sure, but it's still going to be agoodsuccess, just not a "holy shit" success.
Right, which is what I said when I said the 3ds will be a 'tepid success', at best.
Nintendo's not even remotely in danger of doing poorly and has a shitload of money.
Nintendo is doing poorly. Their share price, which has fallen to Gamecube era levels, is proof of this -
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?...TO.BE;range=my.
Like I said, they still have the time and resources to turn things around. They need new blood running the company, though. Iwata has to go.
Their hardware numbers may fall abitfor handhelds, but their core software still sells amazingly well. To think that they are in any danger of disappearing or dying out is absurd.
They will be around - they just won't be the tour-de-force that they were last generation.
The worst case scenario for Nintendo is that they pander to their existing Nintendo fanbase. The question is: will they be happy with this? Will their shareholders?
The DS was also never about capturing the casual market either; it was about having an amazing game library. Good software sold that system and good software will sell the 3DS. The 3DS started out poorly due to bad pricing and it's recovering from that.
Brain Training and Brain Training 2 sold, combined, over 30 million copies. Nintendogs sold over 25 million. The touch generations games sold millions. Casual puzzle games sold millions.
These games were targeted and designed specifically for casual gamers. Remember those TV ads showing middle aged mums playing games on their DS's? They sold the DS to those types of gamers. Those gamers have left the Nintendo ecosystem behind and they likely won't be coming back. The 3ds sequels to those games will sell a fraction of the numbers of their DS predecessors.
The Wii U is looking to be a complete failure in contrast and I don't think them dropping out of the console business is out of the question. Nintendo putting all of their energy into their handheld division wouldn't be surprising.
Which is fine, assuming Nintendo and its shareholders are happy with being a small niche company that caters to a small niche audience with very little growth potential.
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Two things:
1. Witcher 2. It cost less than $10M to make and that includes the development of an entirely new engine. Pretty sure not one person has ever said anything about shitty textures or bad graphics in relation to that game, considering that it can still make even the most powerful PCs today struggle when all the bells and whistles are turned on.
Cd project red were smart. They knew in advance that they wouldn't have the budget and manpower available to them that the big developers would so they created efficient development tools for their programmers and artists to use. They also benefitted by working like a lean startup. Less managers to run things poorly. And, I imagine, they had a much smaller marketing budget to work with, too. They're an example of how game dev should be done.
You also can't ignore the fact that they benefited from being based in Poland where salaries for programmers/artists etc. are significantly lower than what they are in the western world. That helps a LOT.
Edit - I think this article is relevant here;
http://www.warhorsestudios.cz/index....entry=blog_007
(Interestingly, when I was in Beijing recently, I met a bunch of western game developers working at game development houses over there. While they earned approximately 1/3rd of what they used to in the western world, their quality of living was much better. Increasing numbers of companies seem to be focusing on outsourcing development abroad in a bid to reduce costs.)
The first Gears of War cost Epic $10 million to make. The third Gears of War cost them around $30 million to make. That's a huge increase in development costs in a relatively short amount of time.
2. People who use the word "entitled" in political discussions are a magical combination of pretentious and retarded. People who use it when talking about fucking videogames are infinitely worse.
Thanks!
Look - I think a lot of complaints about pricing by gamers are fuelled by a lack of knowledge of the industry. It's in dire straits right now and, by all accounts, it doesn't look like things will change massively any time soon.
Games are cheaper now than ever before yet people still complain about how expensive and overpriced they are.
If entitled isn't the right word to use, what is?