Nintendo is in a bit of financial trouble.
The company’s been around for decades, supplying video game goodness to our hands and eyes for years. Now however, Nintendo isn’t doing so well especially when it comes to sales. So, what exactly has been going on and what could possibly be done to fix it?
Nintendo has been bringing kids and families together for years. They’re the company that made capturing more than 700 pocket monsters on a Gameboy fun and jumping on turtles as an Italian plumber is not a weird idea to them. Recently however, things at Nintendo have taken a turn for the worst.
Representatives at Nintendo released their numbers for how many Wii U’s they hoped to sell by the end of the year and it was much lower than anticipated. They hoped to get nine million units off the shelves, instead they only sold a damaging five million worldwide. Company management took the hit hard and president Satoru Iwata, took a 50 percent pay cut, while Shigeru Miyamoto took a 20 percent cut.
Satoru Iwata
This is a huge problem for the gaming company that’s been around for decades. They basically got the console party started and knew what they were doing from the beginning. So, what happened? It could be poor management, lack of new innovative ideas or even the release of the Xbox One and PS4. Gamers too could be to blame, perhaps there aren’t as many interested in the more kid and family friendly oriented games on the Wii U. Or could the lack of first-party games at the time of the consoles release be to blame? Miyamoto says no.
“When we launched Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DS, we were unable to release any games from any of our main Nintendo franchises to coincide with their launches,” “With Wii U, however, we released, along with the hardware, New Super Mario Bros. U as well as Nintendo Land, which was a very unique proposition. If you look beyond, we also released a new installment in the Pikmin series after a long interval, and we also had Super Mario 3D World at the end of last year. By the end of this year, we will have Mario Kart 8 as well as Super Smash Bros.Therefore, I feel that we have managed to overcome the challenge of releasing enough first-party franchises on Wii U.”
Shigeru Miyamoto
He went on to say that these games did not generate greater sales for the system and Nintendo is concerned with that issue. Still to come on Nintendo’s first-party calender for this year are Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Hyrule Warriors. Which brings up the question; could Nintendo rely too much on first-party games? That answer could be yes.
Mario Kart 8
Hyrrule Warriors
Their top games since forming in 1989 are Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid and Pokemon. This trend has continued throughout the years and does not seem to be stopping, which isn’t a bad thing. I’ll always try my luck at saving Princess Zelda over and over again, but could they do something to dig themselves out of this mess?
Focusing on their 3DS would be a huge win for them. At the end of 2013 the hand-held gaming device sold more than 40 million units worldwide. Then they could bring all those tiny screened games to the big screen, I don’t know how many times I’ve wished to catch Pokemon on a console, Nintendo make it happen already! 
They could create games for other consoles, highly unlikely but I feel it’s about time Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo be friends. Or perhaps they could head the mobile route. Mario on iPhone and Android? That might get the coins flowing in their ridiculously large wallet.
Unlikely to happen
Finally, I think it’s about time we see some new titles come out from Nintendo. Yes, the classics are great and wonderful but something new and unheard of would get people thinking. One that comes to mind is the upcoming game X. Holy wow, this game looks awesome.
X for Wii U. Looks amazing
Either way Nintendo has a lot of shifting around to do to get their funds where they want them. The company has been around for decades and I don’t see them going away anytime soon. As for now their focus will be on health.
“What Nintendo will try to achieve in the next 10 years is a platform business that improves people’s [quality of life] in enjoyable ways,” Iwata said.
So what do you think? Is Nintendo going to go off the deep end? Do you think we will see anything new and different from the company? Let us know your thoughts down below.
