Do you think Nintendo would have survived with just their home consoles alone?

Or gone the Sega way? did their handhelds keep em alive?

Your poll needs a third option:

"Who thinks this has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with Neo Geo?"

.

The Gameboy was their financial life-line during the mid 90's when they only had the SNES to compete with the 32bit consoles (n64 debuted quite late) and their portables have always been so ridiculously dominant in the market and outright profitable that they've no doubt padded Nintendo's existance when it was no.2 in the market, against the massive flop of the virtual boy, and the under performance of the GC.

It's not that I don't think they would of survived, it's just that Nintendo would of been in desperate financial condition without it's line of portables and it's survival as a console manufacturer up until this point would of been so much less likely.

I think they'd still be ok - the reports about the GC causing Nintendo to be in dire financial straits are just unfounded. A bunch of people just started saying that kind of thing for no apparent reason, and people heard it so often that they just started to believe it, despite a complete lack of evidence.

In contrast to the other two machines, both of which were built with expensive options such as dvd players and hard drives, the GC was only built for one purpose. This allowed Nintendo to design a console that was actually profitable.

However, the handhelds are definitely a huge source of revenue for the big N, and they'd certainly be in worse financial shape than they are now. Would they be in such a bad situation that they'd have to leave the market entirely? I sort of doubt it.

They'd have folded after the N64 fiasco... I mean sure I love the system now, but even I hated it at the time it was released. Super Famicom will always be their GOLDEN MOMENT, and unless they return to that magic, plus get back to the "Famicom" title as Loopz mentioned in another post, I just don't see a future so bright that they'd need to wear shades.

MERCENARY X99
"El Hombre"

Well, Nintendo has dominated the hand held market since the release of the Gameboy. That has been a cash cow for them and has allowed them an amount of success to do pretty much anything they want.

However, Nintendo is a smart company. They would still be in the console market without the Gameboy ect. Who knows, maybe if Nintendo wasn't so focused on the hand held market at times, they would have done some thing more with the consoles they release.

Either way, the GBA, DS, make lots of money for them and because of good planning the make money off every GameCube they sell. (Even if those sales are not great at times)

Mercenary X99 said:

They'd have folded after the N64 fiasco...

MERCENARY X99
"El Hombre"

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What fiasco? Nintendo made more money selling the N64 than Sony made selling the PSX. Sure, Sony made up for that by raping 3rd party companies on software and having a more expansive library, but what Nintendo made was their own.

ForeverSublime said:

What fiasco? Nintendo made more money selling the N64 than Sony made selling the PSX. Sure, Sony made up for that by raping 3rd party companies on software and having a more expansive library, but what Nintendo made was their own.

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Still, the Nintendo64 was a failure - it delivered some really great games, but it was overall a failure.

Mushiki said:

Still, the Nintendo64 was a failure - it delivered some really great games, but it was overall a failure.

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Other than calling it a failure, how was it a failure?

Mushiki said:

Still, the Nintendo64 was a failure - it delivered some really great games, but it was overall a failure.

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Can you explain their failure? I don't see any failure in the N64's run. The only failed systems in that area where the Jaguar, the 3D0, and the Saturn to some extent. I am not trying to be abrasive and confrontational, I would just like to know why you view them as a failure.

I'm not saying great games didn't come out on the N64 or that NINTENDO didn't make out like a bandit, I'm saying it wasn't as "Mainstream" {now I guess I have to admit SouthtownKid was right on that note} as the previous two Famicom systems as in most ppl were holding out for PSone stuff, and die-hards like me were more into their import SATURNs. Thus to me, the 32-Bit/64-Bit era's fiasco was the N64 being cart based and every damned game being $70 + bucks that most parents didn't want to shell out. I worked in a gaming store at that time and 8 times out of ten, little johnny got a Playstation or nothing at all. I guess to me that's a fiasco.

Today I own an N64 and love it, but at the time even I was like "MEH" save maybe Super Mario 64 and a few other titles. Point is it was no Super Famicom

MERCENARY X99
"El Hombre"

ForeverSublime said:

Other than calling it a failure, how was it a failure?

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I don't understand this either, but have heard it said quite a few times. For a system to be called a failure, doesn't the system have to "die" (lose nearly all software support) before the next console comes out? Sure, the software for the N64 slowed down a little when the PS 2 hit the market, but that's to be expected. Nintendo supported the N64 all the way up to the release of the Gamecube. The Dreamcast, by contrast, was totally abandoned about 2-3 years after its release by Sega. It was a failure - the N64 just wasn't a colossal success.

I think from A Technical Standpoint, the N64 was ill conceived, and the cartridge format most certainly had it's limitations when compared to FMV, Digital Audio, 700 MB CD+ Sony PSX, and to a Lesser extent the Sega Saturn.
The cartridge system was an iffy move, to guarantee no Load times. For two major reasons.

1. Cost. The Cartridges could NEVER sell for less than 30$ because any less and it would be a loss... as the carts are very expensive to produce, we as Neo Geo fans know this better than anyone else.

2. Storage. Even the most massive Nintendo 64 games only ammounted to a few hundred megabits.

Nintendo was only able to make a decent FMV based game towards the end of it's life cycle, Resident Evil 2.

I'm not saying having beautiful CG scenes, and no action (while watching) ala the Final Fantasy series... is necessarily the greatest thing...

But CG, the titles being so cheap and abundant, and the smooth presentation has alot to do with why the PSX sold so well...

CurtWRX said:

But CG and the smooth presentation has alot to do with why the PSX sold so well...

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I'd definitely agree with that. Early on in the life cycle of cd-based machines, I think a lot of people were infatuated with the idea of having ultra-realistic looking scenes in their games, despite the fact that these usually contained little or no interactivity. It sort of reminds me of the whole craze that Dragon's Lair caused way back in the day. Currently, I think that most gamers no longer want to watch pretty cgi movies in their games, and would rather have the interactivity. It did take awhile though.

realgameplay said:

Or gone the Sega way? did their handhelds keep em alive?

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In my opinion, there are 2 things that are mainly responsible for Nintendo's longevity:

#1 : Gameboy

#2 : Pokemon

Again, just my opinion...

change title of the poll to "would nintendo have survived without the pokemon licence?", and that would prob have been more accurate.

son_of_bael said:

change title of the poll to "would nintendo have survived without the pokemon licence?", and that would prob have been more accurate.

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Defo a more accurate question personally i think they would of

galfordo said:

Currently, I think that most gamers no longer want to watch pretty cgi movies in their games, and would rather have the interactivity. It did take awhile though.

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Thats because its a ton cheaper to NOT have the cgi movies in games. This is what drove a lot of the dev costs up.

I think they would have been done after the N64

galfordo said:

I'd definitely agree with that. Early on in the life cycle of cd-based machines, I think a lot of people were infatuated with the idea of having ultra-realistic looking scenes in their games, despite the fact that these usually contained little or no interactivity. It sort of reminds me of the whole craze that Dragon's Lair caused way back in the day. Currently, I think that most gamers no longer want to watch pretty cgi movies in their games, and would rather have the interactivity. It did take awhile though.

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Nice eye- candy = $$$, IF its affordable.

N64 was not a failure.It sold about 35 million systems, BUT, it also sold tons of games, most of which were Nintendo´s or its second parties.Sony as game developer sold shit with the PSOne(as the most profitable companies were Square, Konami and EA) compared to Ninty

Watching Nintendomaniacs say the N64 wasn't a failure and that they would have been fine, is like watching a skateboarder fall off the top of a ramp and land on a railing with his nuts and say, "He meant to do that." I just don't get how you watch the situation and get that out if it.

Anyway, who cares why they're still alive...just be glad they are, and that they have another shot at making the giant comeback we're all hoping they will.

SouthtownKid said:

Watching Nintendomaniacs say the N64 wasn't a failure and that they would have been fine, is like watching a skateboarder fall off the top of a ramp and land on a railing with his nuts and say, "He meant to do that." I just don't get how you watch the situation and get that out if it.

Anyway, who cares why they're still alive...just be glad they are, and that they have another shot at making the giant comeback we're all hoping they will.

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1) It's a fact that it wasn't a failure. Just because it wasn't as huge as the famicom or super famicom doesn't mean anything. It was calculated. That's how they actually profitted off the damn thing. If they didn't take their new competition into account they would have died. There would have been 10x the amount of N64 units produced and never sold. Nintendo knew what was happening in the mid 90's - remember, Sony and Nintendo were working together at that time. This wasn't a huge surprise to anyone except the uninformed west.

2) This black and white ideology that you are either king of the mountain or a peasant is bullshit. "Why they are still alive..."? Sure, Nintendo took a giant hit in their marketshare... but they are still a HUGE company. There's no need for a comeback of any sort. Like I said, you don't need to be the most popular thing on the damn earth to be considered successful. They do just fine as a company that stands on integrity, planning, and dedication to their fans. That said, there's no real need for much of this conversation. Nintendo is stable.

Think about this: If a person bought one game for the N64 you damn well know he bought 3 extra controllers, too. 15-30$ each pure profit for Nintendo. That went straight to their bank and made up a lot of ground for their comparatively small game sales figures.

In the long term,

Smaller sales / larger profit margin > Large sales / petty royalties

Sony brought one great thing to the table with the PSX. They gave small development houses a platform to publish games. Sony was willing to take anyone. The sad thing is, many of those small companies didn't survive. They were lost with the rest of the crowd, and disappeared before people knew their games existed. That's why there aren't as many developers for the PS2 as there were for the PSX (still, there are CRAZY amounts of companies making games for the PS2). These small companies will continue to be thinned out as the years go on, and the leg Sony stood on for their game revenue won't be as strong as it once was. The people backing Sony need to remember the phrase they most often spit out to others, "It's the game-sales the bring in the bucks". Well, it's not Sony making the games. Those fans can wipe their eyes dry with the extra cash they have in their pocket.

All companies rise and fall. Atari, Mattel, Stern, Coleco, Videotronics... it's rare that a company gets hit and still pulls through after decades of entertainment development. Activision, Sega, Namco, Taito, and Nintendo are some of those very few (Atari took many, many hits to say the least, but their time of glory didn't quite parallel the length of the others). People's respect for these companies is not unfounded.

Scanline said:

The Gameboy was their financial life-line during the mid 90's when they only had the SNES to compete with the 32bit consoles (n64 debuted quite late) and their portables have always been so ridiculously dominant in the market and outright profitable that they've no doubt padded Nintendo's existance when it was no.2 in the market, against the massive flop of the virtual boy, and the under performance of the GC.

It's not that I don't think they would of survived, it's just that Nintendo would of been in desperate financial condition without it's line of portables and it's survival as a console manufacturer up until this point would of been so much less likely.

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More desperate would also have meant more drive to get the market back though. =(