3DS Underperforming

Nintendo have confirmed that the 3DS has not met its launch sales projection, although not by much. After its launch month, the console has sold 3.61 million units, but was expected to get 4 million sales. Nintendo have reasoned that it was the Japan disasters, An off-shot marketing plan, and no strong launch titles. The Japan disasters would have no doubt put a big impact on its sales, as Japan would be the strongest launch region the 3DS had. With the country in a state of rebuilding, the economy was also struggling, and people would obviously be focused on buying necessarily supplies, and not gaming consoles.

The failure of a rather bad ‘hope’ by the marketing campaign was that word of mouth would increase the sales of the 3DS, and as such, there will be an increase in marketing for the 3DS in the coming months. To make the console more appealing, there will also be a push for developers to release games onto the console; which is something you think Nintendo should have done and got a few more launch titles. Nintendo still remains confident though that the 5th venture into 3D was not and will not end up being another embarrassing mistake.

Nintendo’s 3D history begins with the infamous Virtuaboy, which looks like something you’d expect from a B-movie Sci Fi. It’s limited wireframe-display and poor game releases led to it being one of the worst consoles of all time, discontinued only 3 months after being released. Nintendo tried various methods of putting in 3D to their consoles, and the next time they would successfully do so was with the GameCube; however only the launch title for the GameCube ever had this capability, and the option was disabled.

If the 3DS ends up failing for Nintendo, it will surely be a sign that the 3D trend sweeping cinemas and leaking into other parts of entertainment is going to fade out; and from what most of the critics are saying, it won’t be missed.

“Project Cafe” / Wii 2 – Nintendo’s new console

Nintendo is officially releasing a new console to the market, entitled ‘Project Cafe’. While not officially announced to be a successor to the Wii, it’s more or less a Wii 2.

The console is being rumoured to surpass the capabilities of the Playstation 3, the most advanced console available. While Sony has done this themselves in the NGP, for it to be released on a console means that Nintendo is obviously now seriously trying to compete with the 360 and PS3 for supremacy of the 7th Generation. Considering the success of the Wii, it won’t be hard for Nintendo to squeeze out a big initial launch sale.

With the graphical specs to surpass the PS3, does it mean that it will be kick-starting the 8th Generation, as the Wii did to the 7th? Probably not. Both Sony and Microsoft have promised that their respective consoles are having fairly extended life cycles to that seen in the 6th Generation.

So, is it necessarily wise of Nintendo to release a major competitor half-way into the shelf life of the other consoles? Probably not. While Nintendo’s family-oriented focus will bring in the sales as it always does, the PS3 and 360 being ahead in sales over the Wii should be telling Nintendo that they are selling poorly in the console market because of the fact that the generation belongs to the serious/hardcore gamers. Gamers who don’t want to stick around and play family games- although with the release of Kinect and Move, it’s becoming less and less clear what we gamers actually do want- there is a chance that unless Nintendo is really offering something with Project Cafe, that it’s not going to be surpassing the sales of the Wii. 84.64 million units since 2006 is a significant amount of sales over the other consoles, but when taking into consideration that the majority of the world’s population are still in financial insecurity after the crash of 2008, the sales of a new console like this might not be as desirable, and this price of the console will no doubt be affected by this GFC, but more importantly- the japan disasters. With the price of hardware no doubt rising in Japan, the technological capital of the world, Nintendo might be making a risky decision.

And then you need to look at whether or not gamers want a new console, and whether or not developers want to develop for it. Nintendo does have some strong IP’s, but it’s limited to the basic 3 franchises of Mario, Zelda and Pokémon; all of which have had recent (or even very near future) releases. Plus, with 84.64 million Wii sales, and 50 Million sales for both 360 and PS3, You’ve got to wonder if there is even a need for a new console.

Nintendo 3DS- Eyesight conflicts, and Life Cycle thoughts

Nintendo revealed that the 3DS won’t be suitable for playing by children under 6 years of age, saying that it may harm eye sight development. That might prove to be a small issue for Nintendo upon the launch and life of the 3DS- Undoubtedly, Younger children probably accounted for a noticeable amount of sales in the original DS. Then, on top of that, Nintendo recommends that no matter what age you are, you take regular breaks from the console every half-hour. That’s kind of an inconvenience for some of those big games that may find their way onto the system.

The system itself is a rather great way to kick off the 2011 gaming year, as it brings a new concept not seen in Gaming, and what was probably not expected to debut on the handheld format- Direct to your Eyes 3D. Nothing is needed except yourself (and preferably clothes) and your eyes. Exactly how it works has not been revealed, but the system also contains a switch of some sort to manually change it into 2D or vice versa.

However, even if it’s a great console, Nintendo has had issues with sales for their Consoles when it comes to older serious/hard core gamers. Reflected instantly in what games are actually available for the DS and Wii, the 3DS will probably end up slipping into the same pattern. The range of games available on the DS is thin. And unfortunately they don’t vary very much. The console has had some really great games, and has presented some great games with even greater concepts that wouldn’t work on any other system half as well as it could on the DS (that’s actually a good thing) games like ScribbleNauts, Drawn to Life, WarioWare are prime examples of these great concepts. And, there are absolute master pieces that truly should be showcased by Nintendo themselves in their World Headquarters’- The World Ends With You would definitely belong there.

It’s almost as if though that the good games are dragged down by piles of games that must have had “JUST MAKE IT USE THE TOUCH SCREEN AND IT WILL BE FINE” as the entire design document. Which leads to a million bad games, taking for granted what was an innovation in gaming, and screwing it into something that serious gamers now hate. It’s a dumping ground for new (and sometimes old) companies to just release their games too, hoping that the easy-to-persuade demographic of the DS (most of its market is probably aged 7-12) will buy it and the company will make a profit.

If the 3DS ends up having the same effect, a million games but only a handful of actual good ones, then I think Nintendo needs to spread some new wings and fly to an older demographic, where you will in-turn get better games, having bigger console sales, and less crap all around. Let’s face it- it’s apparently got the power of a GameCube, and if you’ve seen some screenshots of the games already announced for the 3DS, they look on-par with the best Playstation 2 games. it’s a real opportunity for Nintendo to move into an older age demographic all-around instead of just having a mixed demographic with seemingly no point.

“Square Enix”- is the worst over or just begining?

One of the biggest RPG developers in history have gotten a harsh wakeup call this year. SQUARE ENIX, known for their high profile IPs “Final Fantasy”, “Dragon Quest” and “Kingdom Hearts”, “Tomb Raider” and probably alot more, have had a very tough year. Which is a shame, seeing as 2009 was the best year the company had ever seen. So, what happened? Firstly, keep this in mind while reading: To make a big game, you need big money. When a big amount of money goes into a big game, and the big game ends up a big failure, your loosing even bigger amounts of money.

About 3 weeks ago, the company released a statement saying they are re-estimating their profits of the first fiscal quarter of next year. That’s not really a big thing, companies do that alot. but when a company has cut profit estimates by 91%, now that’s a big one. The release pointed the finger at “Negative critical reaction against a Key title” (FINAL FANTASY XIV), and a “Decrease in software sales”. The statement then confirmed the delay of Deus Ex, and then also stated that “a key management issue has been indentified in our video games department as a result of this”. Wa-Oh. Now, let’s rewind to the beginning of the year-

FINAL FANTASY XIII. Square Enix’s homerun to securing the earliest possible advantage in the year. It partly worked. The game absolutely dominated its competitors at the time- big titles such as God Of War III, and also Nintendo’s milking tactic uh sorry franchise release Pokémon: Soul Silver and Heart Gold. Well, the sales were strong at first anyway. Once the reviews started coming in, I don’t think the remaining copies saw anything other than shelf life->bargain bin. What was supposed to be the most “anticipated rpg of the year” turned out to be nothing more than below average. Now, Square Enix also tried to pull a fast one on XBOX 360 owners in Japan by releasing an “International Edition” for the 360 in Japan. It hasn’t even passed 3 million units yet. While the game was the most successful PS3 Game of the year, however, bringing in the “platinum trophy” from Sony’s awards night.

So, it’s clear the problem doesn’t lie in the earlier part of the year. But Square Enix can get a lesson out of this:

1. International Editions are useless. It’s the age of the DLC, stop re-releasing your games with miniscule amount of extra content and then full-price them like there new releases.
2. Stop taking 6 years to develop your games. Seriously.
3. Never release a game like XIII again, it sucked.

The problem must lie at the other end of things:

FINAL FANTASY XIV

The game was delayed, delayed again, etc. Until finally released. To extremely little success, and a HUGE amount of negative reviews. In fact, they even “re-structured” the entire developer’s team of XIV shortly after the amount of negative reviews made a massive shadow against the positive reviews. None of the original developers work on XIV anymore (I believe. I could be wrong.). So, what’s gone wrong there? Most likely the same things at XIII. They tried to much to put new ideas and new systems in that they forgot about glitches, bug testing, and oh- staying true to your own series.

However they did have a great year in there smaller releases- Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep has been greatly received by both critic and consumer, and it’s up there with Peace Walker as best psp game of all time. The companies acquisition of Eidos PLC definitely payed off too, with some great sales and new international relationships. What hasn’t gone so well, is the big titles. So, while there hasn’t been even a whisper about XV yet -and I doubt there will be for at least until mid next year- is it safe to assume that Square Enix is going to end up slowly disappointing fans each time they release a big game?

They might. it’s 50/50. However, the company has some of the biggest “trump cards” a game development company could wish for. and they still do have a quite a bit of money. If they ever find themselves in a bit of a problem, they might decide to remake the most requested to be remade game since the 7th generation- FINAL FANTASY VII. You’ve also got the options to reboot your IPs. It’s an undoubtable fact that Square Enix is one of the bigger developers- but they are definitely treading on some thin ice. It’s the beginning of what will hopefully be a beneficial period of cautiousness on the company’s behalf, in the long run.

 

Playstation: It might be winning the war

Sony has finally overtaken the Japanese gaming market from Nintendo. The PSP has outsold the Nintendo DS, most likely due to the recent releases it’s enjoyed: Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, and Monster Hunter. The Playstation 3 has overpassed the Wii’s sales in japan too. This is the first time the Playstation 3 has seen any sort of big achievement like this in a while-and it might not be the last. The Playstation trails worldwide xbox 360 sales by only 2 million, and it has also enjoyed some nice releases: Gran Turismo 5. Sony has also got an exclusive PS3 announcement on December 12th. Playstation consoles also have the chirstmas advantage: 250gb 360’s are not shipping untill after christmas, and the Playstation Slim models might not be facing the same situation.