The Video Game Critic

In reading about Nintendo, you might come across the term 'Blue Ocean'. I decided to peruse the book the term comes from, the book Blue Ocean, written about 10 years ago.

In general, most markets are red, with lots of competition competing for the same pool of customers. You survive in a red ocean being better than a competitor in some way. A blue ocean is a market with a new product bringing in new customers, and making the competition less relevant. You survive in a blue ocean by being radically different. You can see how this can apply to Nintendo, with products like the Wii bringing in new customers or focus on 1st party games for a dedicated fan base. However, even a successful blue ocean product may not be viable for very long. Many fads would seem to be blue oceans that dry up, like gourmet cupcakes.

Nintendo going mobile is a foray into a very red market, but they are continuing all their other activities too. Its an interesting path.

This post is apropos to the current news cycle and something I've thought about quite a lot. The Switch commercial makes me a little apprehensive since the one thing Nintendo wants to be cautious about is trying too hard to be "cool" or go head-to-head with the other consoles. On the positive side they clearly are doing something unique by focusing on adapting to screen presence and in most excellent fashion - local multiplayer.

It's been my conclusion for a long time now that the way for Nintendo to remain successful is to keep on being quintessentially Nintendo. Or, to continue the analogy, keep working on Blue Ocean products - even when some of them are bound to make a lesser splash than others.

I am not sure what Nintendo being Nintendo really means anymore.

They have a brand which is two edged. Quality 1st party but few 3rd party, high priced but holds value, solid gameplay but often delayed, cancelled or just too few new products a year, gameplay which is good but not that different from previous games, their over zealous stance on protecting their IPs, lack of communication, lower technical specs and less capable online abilities, etc.

The WiiU is as much 'Nintendo being Nintendo' as any other product but the WiiU is a failure. The asymmetric gameplay, the expensive tablet controller, the very low rate of new games being released, the need for a hook or gimmick.

A large dedicated rather expensive portable that doubles as a low-fi console may or may not be a success. Njntendo has to follow through and emphasize what the fan base loves while diminishing the edges where Nintendo being Nintendo hurts them.

The thing I dont get is that tablet gaming is (and has been) a thing for a little while now. For example:

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-edge-pro


I mean, does that look a bit familiar? And that came out years ago.

I have always felt that Nintendo is still around because they dominate the mobile market. Though I never understood why they dominated that market. There have always been superior mobile product available, even since the original Game Boy was released, yet they continued to destroy all of them. Not one single company has been able to match them in the mobile department. However, with the exception of the Wii (which was a total fluke) every home console since the SNES has been a flop. Their console innovation has always shot them in the foot in some way.

It seems only natural that they would merge the two genres now. Again, as I have said, Im just not sure what their target market is for this thing? The average age of a gamer is 31 right now, so I guess that market? With that though, they will need massive 3rd party support. The WiiU was a perfect example that brand loyalty is not enough to carry an entire console generation. They showed the Skyrim game on the trailer, which is being released on PS4/Xbone pretty soon, so hopefully thats Nintendos way of saying they will be supporting big cross-platform AAA titles on this. Then again, they also promised that stuff on the WiiU and it never came. Soooo?

With all that being said, I have refused to make the leap in to the next gen market. My discount laptop that I purchased 4 years ago will play the vast majority of games still coming out, so whats the point? With that, I will say that I am huge fan of Nintendo 1st party titles. If the Switch is going to be a direct competitor with the PS4/Xbone, and can offer me the same cross platform AAA titles as well as amazing 1st party Nintendo titles, I will gladly pick one of these systems up.

If it just ends up being a portable WiiU with a bunch of pipe dreams that never come to fruition, I will probably never take that plunge in to console gaming in the foreseeable future. Thats the reason I never picked up a WiiU. They had all these promises, but have even failed to bring out quality 1st party titles for it. Its a damn shame.

Good reply.

I think a tablet or phone with controls is a good idea. A gaming tablet might also make a nice emulation machine.

The hook here is quality - build quality of the hardware but especially game quality. Nintendo cannot compete with emulation, so they have to give us things that totally outshine mkbile offerings. That is not that high of a bar, but they have to marmet, invest, colaborate and everything else.

I was thinking that tbe Gamecube and WiiU were not failures as much as Nintendo failed them. There is a difference.

Nintendothey has dominated portable gaming since Game and Watch even before Gameboy. The gameboy showed you dominate not with tech specs, but price and battery life and games....lessons that seem sometimes lost on Nintendo but even more lost on Sony. Its why mobile has taken off - wide selection of cheap games on a device you already own, long battery life, comfortable, etc. Can Switch compete with that?