Macroeconomic trends of Generation 9

[asia_catdog_blue]

https://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2017/01/15/macroeconomic-trends-of-generation-9/

Yeah, it's a Sean Malstrom Topic, I don't care!

I just want some people to think about what happening in Generation 9 of Gaming.

Nintendo does design their game consoles based on macro-economic trends. In the past, the game console was just better ‘hardware’ that did better graphics and all. After the Gamecube, Nintendo realized it needed to change.

With the Wii and DS, Nintendo saw the macro-economic writing on the wall especially for Japan. Japan had fallen economically from the mid 1990s. The demographics of Japan is an aging population. There are less and less babies. The pipeline of children coming in was shrinking which meant Nintendo’s core market was shrinking. It was THIS that caused Nintendo to look to sell to other markets and to non-gamers. Nintendo wanted to sell to older people because Japan is filling up with older people.

Nintendo’s pattern is that first party games create an install base for the console which third party companies then come in and exploit. For those of you talking about third party game companies and Nintendo consoles, did you know that there has never been heavy third party support for a new Nintendo console? The only one I can think maybe would be the SNES and most of those games were sequels to NES known franchises (e.g. Castlevania 4, Gradius 3, Super Ghosts and Goblins, Contra 3).

It’s a mistake to compare third party output for Nintendo consoles to Microsoft and Sony because both Microsoft and Sony are closer to PCs than consoles. Both Microsoft and Sony, who are not game companies, literally design their system around whatever the third parties want and take the massive financial risk to do so. Nintendo is not willing to risk billions of dollars for third party companies. Likewise, third party companies will not risk putting so much money into an unproven system.

This is why we see the cycle of a few third party games coming out which are very tepid efforts. The third party companies know that they need their staff to know the machine, in case it takes off, and they want to keep good relations with Nintendo. And when the console takes off, then the third party companies double down and make more games for the Nintendo hardware. For what we call ‘very successful’ Nintendo consoles such as the NES, look at the launch line up. It is nearly 100% Nintendo games. Third party games didn’t really get going for the NES until 1988 and 1989, two to three years after the system had been out.

This is just a small portion of the the topic talks about.

Do you agree with what it offers?

 

[finalark]

There's a lot of good points here, but they're ignoring some very important things.

With the Wii and DS, Nintendo saw the macro-economic writing on the wall especially for Japan. Japan had fallen economically from the mid 1990s. The demographics of Japan is an aging population. There are less and less babies. The pipeline of children coming in was shrinking which meant Nintendo’s core market was shrinking. It was THIS that caused Nintendo to look to sell to other markets and to non-gamers. Nintendo wanted to sell to older people because Japan is filling up with older people.

It's a good theory that holds water, but its also forgetting that Nintendo had been usurped twice by Sony, once by Sega (in Japan at least) and once by Microsoft. With the N64 and GameCube Nintendo had tried and failed to appeal to the same audience as their competitors. They took a risk with the DS and then an even bigger one with the Wii and it paid off.

Nintendo’s pattern is that first party games create an install base for the console which third party companies then come in and exploit. For those of you talking about third party game companies and Nintendo consoles, did you know that there has never been heavy third party support for a new Nintendo console? The only one I can think maybe would be the SNES and most of those games were sequels to NES known franchises (e.g. Castlevania 4, Gradius 3, Super Ghosts and Goblins, Contra 3).

I'm gonna stop you right there. Not only is this massively ignoring games like Chorno Trigger, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, all of which were popular SNES games that were not sequels to SNES games, but its also ignoring the fact that the SNES (and NES) had a hell of a lot more third party support than its competitors. Not to mention its devaluing sequels as "not real" third party support. Guess the PS2 didn't have great third party support since it had so many sequels to PS1 games on it.

This is called confirmation bias.

It’s a mistake to compare third party output for Nintendo consoles to Microsoft and Sony because both Microsoft and Sony are closer to PCs than consoles. Both Microsoft and Sony, who are not game companies, literally design their system around whatever the third parties want and take the massive financial risk to do so. Nintendo is not willing to risk billions of dollars for third party companies. Likewise, third party companies will not risk putting so much money into an unproven system.

I'll agree that Sony and MS' seventh generation consoles were designed to have a lot more utility. I'll even agree that Nintendo and third parties are caught in a vicious cycle of Nintendo wanting to keep their consoles affordable and third parties wanting more power to work with. But the one thing this copypasta has yes to acknowledge is that its Nintendo's own damn fault they have poor relations with third parties.

This is why we see the cycle of a few third party games coming out which are very tepid efforts. The third party companies know that they need their staff to know the machine, in case it takes off, and they want to keep good relations with Nintendo. And when the console takes off, then the third party companies double down and make more games for the Nintendo hardware. For what we call ‘very successful’ Nintendo consoles such as the NES, look at the launch line up. It is nearly 100% Nintendo games. Third party games didn’t really get going for the NES until 1988 and 1989, two to three years after the system had been out.

Okay, there's a lot if issues with this one. First off, you cannot pretending that the 80s and the 10s are comparable landscapes. You just can't. In the 80s consoles were proven to have been a failed idea. You wanted to make money in video games? You made arcade games. You want to know why it took so long for third parties to give the NES a chance? It probably had something to do with a tiny little event called the video game market crash of 1983.

Second, this post, like everyone in the video game community, monstrously overvalues a good launch lineup. Good launches don't actually matter. Some of the most successful consoles in history had damn near nothing at launch. There's a reason why it takes time before console sales begin rising, consoles don't get good libraries over night.

Third, the author once again fails to acknowledge that its Nintendo's old fault they have such a poor reputation with third parties. In NA they had heavy censorship policies with the SNES, the N64 refusing to use discs made programming for the console expensive, difficult and provided less space. Nintendo also refused to reveal how to optimize Nintendo 64 cartridges, which is why first and second party games on the N64 look so good while third party games look terrible. With the GameCube they refused to make the move to DVDs like everyone else had and instead forced devs to use special, Nintendo-only minidiscs with less space on them.

Do you agree with what it offers?

I'm not entirely sure what he's trying to say, but it feels to me like he wants to sound smart but hasn't done enough research into game history to make a solid argument.