It is clear from Nintendo’s past that they prize the cohesive value delivered by a tight integration of hardware and software. Unfortunately due to market changes, their console and mobile hardware has fallen behind the times (see here: http://news.investors.com/091013-670460-apple-beating-nintendo-in-portable-game-market.htm?ven=djcp&src=aurlabo). Some argue this is not important, but I see it is as a critical flaw against newer mobile gaming platforms such as iOS and Android. Others argue that Nintendo should abandon hardware and go the route of an iOS (and maybe Android) game publisher, using their powerful IP in that sphere to drive iOS game prices up to a reasonable $10-20 each. One thing I think all long-time Nintendo fans would agree with is that we don’t want to see them follow the path of Sega to irrelevance. That would be a complete shame.
What I would propose is a hybrid approach, that keeps who Nintendo is at its core but also abandons some old ideals. In short, Nintendo should give up the console hardware itself, be it mobile or console. It is an expensive endeavor to undertake, and they are woefully underfunded and out of their league when it comes to their competitors, companies like Apple, Samsung and every other mobile and computer vendor. In screens, CPUs, memory and more they just do not have the resources or the expertise to compete with these companies who hire the best and brightest, and have nearly unlimited funds to invest in the latest technology. Rather than compete with these companies, I propose they should leverage these companies.
How do they do that you ask? Nintendo should utilize the core of these competitor platforms, in specific I would recommend Apple’s iOS platform to focus on. Assuming they ever agreed to do such a thing, it would play out like this. Apple has nearly a complete gaming stack, so again why compete in an area you are outgunned in. What are the things Nintendo is not great at that it could leveage?
1) Apple has the world’s largest and highest spend AppStore
2) Apple has the way for any iOS device (iPod, iPhone or iPad) or even the latest macs to push content wirelessly to a TV using AirPlay with an AppleTV, even multiple devices at the same time, like some games that can do 2-up and 4-up screen splits
3) Apple devices utilize BlueTooth 4.0 for the latest in low-battery usage
4) Apple is at or near the top of the pack in screen technology and CPU performance depending on when in the product cycle you are looking
5) Apple has relatively few hardware options to plan for
Great you say, so what does Nintendo do without giving up the farm? Nintendo has many of the world’s leading characters and game franchises, and if put on Apple’s AppStore, gains hundreds of millions of potential buyers an impulse buy away. Many of these are longtime Nintendo supporters who would love to have their games on the device that is now always with them. If they set prices from $10-20 they would move more than ever before, but the price is a fraction of what they charge now at retail, so revenue would drop.
Now you enter the hardware expertise, from the company that brought us the D-pad, the Gameboy and the Wii. iOS games (and Android and others) are often criticized for the difficulty in traditional gameplay with no hardware buttons. Now a new class of games has been doing very well in the last several years, adjusted to this lack of buttons, but Nintendo makes games with buttons and joysticks, so it would not be easy to just port them over with drastically re-working gameplay and more.
To avoid the rework, and utilize Nintendo’s strengths, they should release hardware controllers specific for iOS Nintendo-licensed games, that talk to the iOS and possibly even macs using BlueTooth 4.0. I am thinking of two primary class of controllers:
1) A portable unit along the lines of a 2DS that cradles an iPhone/iPod as the screen, but has all the buttons one would expect, and clearly it has a touchscreen as well
2) A dedicated controller along the lines of a GameCube controller
If their games required the use of the controller to be detected, they now have their hardware angle, and could charge $50-100 each for the controllers. So now they have their traditional games using hardware buttons, but they have completely gotten out of the console aspect, where they have proven they cannot keep up, but rather leverage those assets already in the market, and build their IP on top of that mountain. With the AppleTV, gamers could do as much as 4-player mode, with each using their own iOS device and their own controller. You would essentially have the second screen gameplay the Wii U was aiming for, but with top of the line hardware.
Games could be written in such a way that they will show more detail and demand more processing from later generation devices, but can scale back the demands to the devices playing the games. So even in 4-up mode on an AppleTV, if one user has an iPhone 5s, they will see top details and effects using the very power GPU and CPU in that device, while on the same TV, an iPhone 4s user would see a degraded view, but still very enjoyable and playable, just using graphics their device can support. iPads could be used in cars, planes, trains and other remote locations as the screen with the help of the dedicated controller to have a fun gaming experience in a portable manner.
What’s more, if Nintendo did this exclusively with Apple, they would no doubt get some premium publicity and marketing from Apple, and especially gain the coveted space in Apple’s retail stores, where prices in the $50-100 are not that uncommon for accessories.
Pysan 