Investors push Nintendo to make iPhone games
updated 08:10 am EDT, Thu August 11, 2011
Nintendo faces pressure to port to iOS
Nintendo has been facing calls Thursday to drop its policy of developing only for its own systems and support the iPhone. Following a steep 3DS price cut to make up for slow early sales, Stats Investment Management fund manager Masamitsu Ohki argued that Nintendo should either "buy its way" into the iPhone's platform or else make something of its own. He along with others is believed to have seen the Pokemon wing's plans for an iPhone game, and Nintendo's refusal to follow suit, as a sign of a disconnect with the mobile strategy.
"Smartphones are the new battlefield for the gaming industry," Ohki told Bloomberg, while MF Global FXA Securities had made a call to sell the stock claiming the company had given up creative thinking and was "behind the times."
Commons Asset Management president Tetsuro Ii was meanwhile complaining that Nintendo was making poor use of a $10 billion-plus cash reserve for strategic moves.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has so far steadfastly clung to Nintendo's policy of making games only for its own systems. Ironically, the company often takes an Apple-like approach and usually believes only its unique combination of hardware and software works best. Apple has cut deeply into Nintendo's profits, however, with many who would have once bought a DSi or 3DS getting an iPod touch or iPhone that consolidates their gaming with many other tasks.
Nintendo was getting some uptake for the 3DS in the wake of the price drop. In Japan, Tokyo's famed Yodobashi Camera had a significant line of people queued up to buy a 3DS after the price cut. It's not expected to produce the same effect in the US, though, and may simply see the 3DS take over from the DSi as Nintendo's mainstream handheld.
The company's long-term fate may depend on the Wii U. Original Wii sales were key to record performance and console dominance from 2006 up until mid-2010, but the company is hoping to replicate some of the advantages of tablets and fend off the iPad in the home while sticking to its fundamentals as a console maker.
Dedicated MacNNer
Joined: Aug 2004
Cash grab
These investors are looking purely at a potential cash grab. Simple fact, the iOS devices an run games but controlling those games simply does t work as well because iOS devic es don't have physical buttons. I understand the investors' fears but just because there is a correlation beetween the rise of iOS sales and a decrease in Nintendo sales doesn't mean there is causation.
The people who play iOS, for the most part, are not the people who play Nintendo DS (and Sony PSP) games. iOS gamers want cheap, quicky games while traditional handheld gamers want a deeper gaming experience. I have tried the ports (Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3 and FF Tactics), and in every case the PSP and DS gaming experience was better due to the physical buttons. FF 3 did look nicer on the iPhone, but it didn't improve gameplay.
While iOS devices may steal sales from traditional handhelds simply due to a customer's limited fund restricting them to one purchase, I don't believe for a second that the games are equal on an iOS device. Nintendo's problem this time around is that people are tied of the Wii and expected great new things and instead got an overpriced gimmick in the form of 3D instead of truly contemporary handheld gaming device.