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"Nintendo in deep water"

Nintendo's share price is falling faster than a leaf in autumn. Why? The industry is pointing the finger at the poor sales of the Gamecube, citing all the surplus stock sitting on the warehouse shelves.

Nintendo are a big company, of course, but they are pretty worried about the fairly hefty fall in their company's profits by about 37 percent. Even their usual fallback on the handheld market is now being threatened by Sony's new handheld Playstation, currently being readied for release over the next year, and their Pokemon franchise, which is slowing down of late.

The news is that they want to ditch the Cube and try again, but doing this would drastically affect their company image. This was a company founded on trust, when they took back faulty NES consoles without arguement and replaced them with new ones in Japan it made their sales jump through the roof.

Whatever way they decide to stay afloat, it looks bad for the true gamers who were hoping and believing that there could be room for 3 consoles in the market. E3 showed that some companies are cutting back again on their Gamecube titles, despite earlier efforts from Nintendo to gain support from big players like EA Games. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Whether you believe it or not, Nintendo have an image that they'll never be able to shake - they make games for kids. No amount of Resident Evil games or blood-encrusted beat 'em ups will be able to change this in the eyes of Joe Public. I mean, just look at it for God's sake. It looks like a toy.

Goatboy wrote:
> Tiltawhirl wrote:
> I was talking about peoples opinions on which console has the best
> games.
> --
>
> Fair enough.
> But doesn't the fact that sales are not too good indicate that the
> games aren't that popular outside of loyal Nintendo fans?


Not that they aren't popular, just that they are unheard of. And many people will dismiss them before having played them.

Its all advertising. (comming from someone who wont have a GC until thursday/friday) If it wasnt for the net, i wouldnt know about Resi Evil 0, the upcomming Final Fantasy, or any other Nintendo title. Whereas Sony are even advertising games like Primal, mediocre games, when GC arent even advertising there best games (i saw an add for Metriod once, Pikmin once, and a few Zelda ones, but very rarely are they on). How many times did we see that damn Primal advert(there was actually more than one advert)? Casual Gamers dont know about games unless they are told about them, people like ourselves go on the net, buy there mags etc so we know whats going on, but casual gamers just buy the games that they see on the telly, the ones that are constantly in there face because 'the game must be good if its on the tv all the time'.

I used to be a major Nintyphile. But they have gone slightly wrong this time around. As someone pointed out, it was Sony who captured Gen X. And all companies need this to survive. But Nintendo lack this appeal.

There are reasons for this. Nintendo, no matter how hard they try still have a kiddy image. And that does not help them one bit. Whilst I like the Nintendo franchises, they have all been done before. And the GC lacks a big well known racer like PGR or GT3. If they had that then it would be more appealing. It needs to have shooters, racers and EA sports for it to appeal to most casual gamers.

Sony had that market sown up. Xbox got into it as well. Nintendo is still revered by true gamers, but not really by casual gamers. Hence they are in trouble.

The fall has been a long time in coming. It started with the N64, it just looked like Nintendo were in better financial health because of the license to print money that was Pokemon. But Pokemon is all but dead to most kids now. Nintendo need new ideas and fast. And not another "cute" game. Sex and guns and rock n roll. Casual gamers want to be the main character of a game. They want to be able to kill people and play great footy and drive really fast. But I don't know of anyone who really wants to be a fat plumber.

If Nintendo are not going to make those games then they need to persuade someone else to. Yes this christmas is crunch time I think for Nintendo. I do not think they would quit on the GC, but I think they might not make a new console IF the GC fails. They will probably stick with handhelds though.

Nintendo need a big marketing push before christmas, and not in their magazines. Get it on bus stops, on TV, to people who think that Playstation is the only console. A price cut would help, but better would be really good bundles. With 2 controllers! People want to be able to play games straight out the box and in multiplayer. So give them what they want. That was the great thing about my Sega Xbox bundle, two great games straight from the word go.

Nintendo have got a chance of surviving. but they need more marketing, more sales, more exclusives and crappy casual gamer ones at that.
Long live Nintendo!

I didn't find it that hard really, getting the platinum medals is an utter bitach though.

Oh and how hard is that game?! The amount of times I have cursed the screen getting shot at without knowing where they are shooting from!

RL 3's gonna have a lot of variety so it shouldn't get boring like the last game.

Having said that, I only really got bored of it because I lost my save and had to start again getting all the medals.

You are probably right. I just remember when I downloaded the Video for it from GameSpy it was labelled Rogue Leader 3?! Looks mighty good though. I enjoyed Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2 but it did get very boroing after a while. When I finish my GCSE's in a few weeks I will sit down and play it through again and try an unlock everything on offer :)

Nah it was Rogue Sqaudron then Rogue Leader then Rogue Leader 2.

Unless they've been stupid and called it Rogue Leader 3, which come to think of it, they probably have.

Rogue Leader 3 isn't it?