Systems Theory: Nintendo Holiday Season 001

Also, the answer depends a lot on exactly what the question is.

"Will Nintendo exceed the accumulated lifetime sales of he PS4?" Not during the PS4's active life, obviously. . . but since the PS4 had a four year head start, this is trivial and meaningless. Will it exceed the PS4 eventually? At the rate the Switch is selling, it could entirely happen; just not until after the PS4 retires, most likely.

"Will Nintendo take first place on a by-week or by-month console sales chart?" Certainly, and it almost certainly will happen in the near future. The PS4 and XBone are heading towards the ends of their lives, while the Switch is new. The expected sales curve will be very favorable towards the Switch, and only maybe switch over again once the XBone 2 and PS5 come out. . . and probably not immediately, even then.

"Will Nintendo take first place on a generation total sales chart?" Tough to say, since we don't really have any information on the Switch's actual generational rivals. Until the XBone and PS5 come out, we can't really say whether they will outsell the Switch overall or not. The 9th Generation could follow the same pattern as the 8th, or it could be a tight competition, or it could be a complete upset, its impossible to tell yet.

Obviously he's talking aboit monthly sales but you already knew that and pretended not to to suit your agenda.

Obviously it'll not overtake anytime soon a successful console with a 4 or 5 years head start. When it's all said and done? Maybe.

And people always seem to forget this: for console warriors this seems to matter too much, for the Sony and Nintendo what matters are profits. If you put together a the money nintendo made with their gaming division vs Sony's, Nintendo is wipping the floor with Sony. Sony has a much more aggressive price strategy than Nintendo. They need to sell more consoles than Nintendo to stay relevant so you see huge price drops on their hardware and software throughout its lifetime, Nintendo on the other hand does not do it often and rarely sells consoles at a loss (wiiu at launch was the only exception?).

You're not missing much, @Ryan_Si

I have all three. The only reason I even keep my PS4 Pro plugged in is to readjust my PSVR Rev2 screen size sometimes (which I use to play Splatoon 2 and many other Switch games), otherwise the wait for Death Stranding and other truly amazing exclusives has been a struggle. Not saying it doesn't have some good games, but the best games it has are also on PC (or are timed exclusives and eventually on PC). 

I was hoping Persona5 would change my mind on this, but after only being able to play for around 15min of the first 3 hours of cutscenes, I ejected the fucking disc. This is the problem with a lot of PS4 exclusives -- If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a fucking movie. Where's the fucking gameplay?!

I still buy games for it to give it some love, but the draw isn't there like it is for Switch if you have a great gaming PC, all because of almost all games being multiplats after PS4/XB1 brought x86 to consoles (and death to themselves due to developers porting everything to all 3 now).

Bloodborne is great and my favorite PS4 exclusive by far... but no Pro patch really makes it look more dated than it should, and most people can live with DS3 if you're not into those games. GoW and HZD are alright to show people HDR, but their gameplay is mediocre due to the fact that they offer nothing new, instead giving players a mix of other games' gameplay and throwing a pretty package on top as if that's supposed to make up for the core gameplay feeling like a poor imitation of MGSV + SoulsBorne with some Zelda mixed in. I'm expecting the same from Spiderman - great for when I'm in the mood for a pretty girl with nothing going on upstairs, but that only lasts so long.

Hate to tell you but the DS & 3DS had the touchscreen & 3D gimmicks....
Nes, Snes, GB/C/Advance & I think the Gamecube are the consoles that didn't really sell on a gimmick.

That's not entirely true. The NES, SNES and Game Boy introduced features that were not in other consoles at the time, such as the D-Pad, shoulder buttons, link cable, etc. They're part of the standard now. One can argue motion controls are part of the standard as well.

The only console that truly had no gimmick at all was the GameCube, and that failed tremendously.

I feel like that's really an overbroad definition of the term "gimmick". At least IMO, any feature that later becomes common, if not standard, is definitionally not a "gimmick". A 'gimmick' is only properly an extraneous feature that *doesn't* actually contribute to the core function of _____. If it does contribute, its not a gimmick, and if others routinely embrace it, that's a pretty clear sign it does actually contribute.

I would also argue that one needs to distinguish between consoles that succeeded because of their gimmick, versus consoles that succeeded aside from ( or in spite of ) their gimmick. One also should distinguish between gimmicks that are core to a console's design and function, versus gimmicks that are more secondary. For example, the 3D in the 3DS is something I'd accept as a gimmick, but there certainly is no evidence to suggest it was the reason for the console's success. . . particularly since it was so extraneous, they made a "3DS" model without the 3D.

I don’t even think Nintendo needs a price drop to perform well on holiday season. Sony and Microsoft have to make massive price drops to even compete with Nintendo. Nintendo is going to be strong with excellent system sellers in Pokémon and Smash thst will drive the most sales in the season that attributed to most of the console sales 

Plus we are getting increasing amounts of third party support like civilization, Megaman 11 and more. Excellent. Excellently excellent. Nintendo’s domination is beneficial to all console gamers because:

1. Sony will drop their PS4 price so it’s dirt cheap to try to even compete with Nintendo, making it a cheap system similar to the 2DS

2. Sony will have to focus more of their efforts on their home console next gen

Competition is excellent. I am excited to see what happens next.

Switch will most likely outsell Ps4 in December. But too soon to say who will end up 2018 best seller. 

But you're underestimating RDR2. It will have massive hardware sales boost for PS4(and xbox but xbox can only compete in US). GLobally PS4 and Switch have been neck and neck all year. Switch outsold it for the first few months then Ps4 came back with God of War. 

Neither console will dominate. But Don't underestimate what RDR2 will do to Ps4 Hardware sales. Especially in Europe. Europe is the one continent That is stopping Nintendo from dominating anything. Sony is absolutely crushing it over there. PS4 sells more a month in Europe than it does in Japan and American combined. Switch is killing it in Japan but Japan is much smaller market compared to Europe and America. 

No doubt Smash will have a huge effect but that game comes out way too late.

I'm sure pokemon will effect sales but if i'm being honest..that game looks like Trash.
I can't find the link, sadly, but I did run across one article with a claim by someone from Sony that they expected it to sell 20M. I will certainly be glad for this to be disproven as telephone gone awry.

( Also, seriously, its quite irksome to see Sony fans bandy around sales figures for games, and quietly forget to mention that these are *multiplatform sales totals*. How many copies of a game that Rockstar manages to sell *across multiple platforms*, is not indicative of some degree of extraordinary success upon the part of *Sony*. They deserve credit for the amount sold on Sony platforms, no more. But then, they also seem to love to claim every multiplatform title as if it were a Sony exclusive. . . )

Systems Theory: Nintendo Dialogues 001

Mario Odyssey first and foremost. But you already knew that!

For platformers, DK Tropical Freeze, Captain Toad, and Rayman Legends are must plays.

For strategy, Mario Rabbids (though it's not an essential title imo)

For multiplayer, Splatoon 2 has both addicting online and a really charming campaign. Just keep in mind, 20 bucks a year for online starting next week. Also keep in mind, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has some decent extra content.

For RPGs, Skyrim is actually a must. Even for the veterans. Just playing it on the go is surreal.

For JRPGs, it's really between Octopath Traveler and Xenoblade 2, though I've played neither

For Indies, the essentials are Hollow Knight, Celeste, Dead Cells, and Stardew Valley

1 - "You were told about it in advance, so shut up."
- Saying in advance you're going to do a shitty thing does not make it okay to do that shitty thing.

2 - "Microsoft and Sony are doing it too!"
- That doesn't justify any of them doing it. Just because something is often done does not make it okay to do. Lootboxes are often done, but they're getting into hot shit in Belgium.

3 - "You're not entitled to online play, so shut up."
- "You're not entitled to it so you can't complain about it." is a terrible line of thinking. You are entitled to exist and breathe, and that's about it. If you do not pay for food, you will have a hard time staying fed. If do not pay for your water and/or power, they will be turned off. If you do not pay for your home, you will be thrown onto the street. These are some critical things that you are not entitled to, and I'm sure you would complain if you felt you were being denied them unfairly. Just because online components of video games are not as important as these things does not mean one cannot complain about them. Speaking of...

4 - "There are more important things to worry about than paywalled online, so shut up."
- That's not the battle being fought here. Simple as that. There is a time and place for each conflict, and this is not the time or place to talk about the greater problems of the world.

4 - "It's just twenty bucks, so shut up."
"What are you, poor?" is not a defense.

5 - "Servers cost money."
- Sure! But no console manufacturer foots the bill for third party servers, and peer to peer connections are common amongst consoles rather than use a dedicated servers. Not only that, but using this as a defense for paywalled online is deliberate ignorance to the fact that companies make money through other means. If video games were not profitable, Nintendo would have gotten out of the business years ago, and the Switch sells like hotcakes and, notably, is not sold at a loss. The only way for paywalled online to be necessary to a company's survival would be for them to otherwise always be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, which no strong company does. Period.

6 - "Companies exist to make money."
- That is not carte blanche for corporations to do whatever they want as long as it makes them a buck. See again, lootboxes in Belgium. Companies exist to make money, and lootboxes are made to make money, yet they have gotten on the bad end of a legal dispute. If "companies exist to make money." were a Get Out Of Jail Free Card, then this would not have happened. Simple as that.

Did I miss anything?

Here's the thing. I don't like paying for online, but it's pretty much the way things are now. Microsoft started it, Sony followed. It was literally a matter of time before Nintendo did. However, how they are doing it is like a slap in the face. No messaging. No voice chat natively. Peer to peer. These things are standard these days. The fact that we are paying for a substandard service is the issue. I'll still pay for it, mainly for the cloud saves, but this is all ass backwards. And for whatever reason, so many people on this board are drunk off the damn coolaid. I just want actual features that are standard with online services. And there is literally nothing wrong with stating that.

This topic again? I guess I'll add you to my ignore list after posting one thing for the knowledge of other people, as you obviously don't care about knowledge.
Nintendo has approximately 200 Network Engineers.
https://nintendoeverything.com/updated-list-of-employee-counts-for-nintendo-companies/
The remaining amount after math is about 286. iQue and ND Cube are smaller parts of Nintendo, so that would leave approximately 200 employees for Network Service DB employees

Average pay of a Network Engineer = $111,000
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/network-engineer-salary-SRCH_KO0,16.htm

Network Labor Costs = $22,200,000

NBA2k18 takes up 5 Gb per save
https://www.destructoid.com/the-file-size-for-nba-2k18-on-switch-is-a-technical-foul-461427.phtml

At 390,000 software sales, assuming just 2 saves a person, that game alone would require almost 4 PETABYTES of cloud storage.
http://www.vgchartz.com/db/game.php?id=174556

Skyrim saves can get to the 100s of MB, and that game sold 1,000,000 copies as well.
http://www.vgchartz.com/db/game.php?id=161518
Thats another 100 TB from that game with only 1 save file. Skyrim will tend to have MUCH more than 1 save file PER playthrough, and thats not even taking into account multiple characters.

These hard drives are having millions of writes a day, so they will be under heavy use, which means they will need to be replaced.

All of these are costs for the Nintendo Online.

You can say "*but but steam!" but steam had that as part of its profit margin built into the store from conception. This was an added cost for all of the big three. Any time you add a service, there's an added cost. And even though throwing money at something won't automatically make it better, letting something hemmorage money is a guaranteed way to make sure it stays bad.

Oh no! Ignored! Whatever will I do?

I mean, nevermind that Point 5 already destroys that because it's literally "Servers cost money!" with a little extra fluff.

Oh, I knew I was forgetting something! This is what it is!

7 - "But they're giving services that cost money."
- Two pointers here. One, services like cloud saves that do not intrinsically have anything to do with online play. The cloud saves could still be behind the premium subscription without the online play being with it. This has never been an argument against having a premium subscription at all, only one against gutting content that was advertised with the game for the sake of making a buck. Two, these corporations must not be coddled for the consequences of their decisions. It was Nintendo's decision to implement cloud saves (not even for all games) to the exclusion of local backups. Indeed, it was their decision to break into online games as well. They knew the costs that would imply, and they chose to do it anyway. If they were so grossly incompetent at business that starting a heavy lean toward online play would bankrupt them without paywalling it (spoiler: they're not), then they would have dug their own grave, an action for which the end user cannot be held liable for. We are not Nintendo's guardians or defenders. Hold them accountable for their decisions, especially those that turn out poorly for you.

#27

There's nothing to say. He blows off Steam saying "but steam had that as part of its profit margin built into the store from conception", which is simply not an argument, and there are three huge reasons why.

1 - With all the massive piles of crap alongside the worthwhile games that Steam hosts, as well as their open, blanket supplying of cloud saves to every one of their users, their server costs will easily exceed Nintendo's by a massive margin. Not only that, but he specifically namedrops NBA 2K18 and Skyrim, which are both games that, go figure, Steam also sells. He is, on some level, trying to imply that between the two only Nintendo will have to host their data which is bordering on being a bald faced lie.

2 - He says "built into the store fromconception", but it is a critical skill of a business to be able to change course and adjust your planning as it's needed. If Nintendo were to barrel into cloud saves without considering the costs that would entail, they'd be a gaggle of pure idiots, to put it simply. He speaks as though the console manufacturers were completely blindsided by the notion of cloud saves, and that also is simply not true. They each had as much time as they wanted to crunch the numbers and gauge whether it'd be worth it to bother with them. Not only that, but the closest you could say Nintendo is being forced to do this is through their own will, having decided to not allow for local backups. Again, companies must not be coddled for their decisions. Nintendo knows what the costs will be for this, and if they somehow managed to grossly underestimate those costs, then that is their failure, and not a failure the consequences of which should be passed onto their customers.

3 - The margin between the console manufacturers and Steam is not as wide as it is made out to be. The Switch in particular, as I have said many a time, is not sold at a loss, so for Nintendo it cannot be said "But they need it to help recoup the cost of making the consoles" since the consoles already pay for themselves. True, Valve has not done much consistent work in game production, but just as much as that is their decision, it is Nintendo's decision to upkeep a strong first party lineup, which again I say must be working for them because if their first party games were not profitable, they would have bailed out years ago, and to say that first party games is a detriment to their finances is even more laughable when you remember that Breath of the Wild double dipped with a season pass and Splatoon 2 has its own premium DLC.

The arguments of "servers and network engineers cost money" are moot because that's not a problem exclusive to Nintendo, and attempting to write off the main point of evidence that those costs can be supported without a subscription at all (though, again, a subscription is only a problem when aspects of games already paid for are gutted) because that company doesn't manufacture consoles is just trying to drape the elephant in the room with a blanket. It won't work.

And finally, to speak coarsely for a minute, his head's clearly up his ass with him announcing "I SHALL IGNORE THEE, IGNORANT PEON!". He's not, and potentially was never interested in actually addressing anything I have to say. His response to continued pressure that contradicts his viewpoint was effectively to take his ball and go home, which I find perfectly fair to interpret as a forfeiture.

Haven't hit ignore yet, so I'll do one more response.

Sailor_Razor posted...

but it is a critical skill of a business to be able to change course and adjust your planning as it's needed.


Yes, and that's why they are having a cost for it.

Sailor_Razor posted...

But they're giving services that cost money."
- Two pointers here. One, services like cloud saves that do not intrinsically have anything to do with online play. The cloud saves could still be behind the premium subscription without the online play being with it.


But the online still costs money and is still a constant service. Bandwidth for being able to connect millions of devices to millions of other devices, and needing servers in all parts of the world costs money. I don't have numbers for those, as I don't know where to even begin outside of the cost of network engineers which I already covered. And oh man, could you imagine the rage of it was just cloud saves that cost $20 a year?

Sailor_Razor posted...

The arguments of "servers and network engineers cost money" are moot because that's not a problem exclusive to Nintendo, and attempting to write off the main point of evidence that those costs can be supported without a subscription at all


Your right, it's not exclusive to Nintendo, and neither are premium subscriptions. That's what you are ignoring.

Sailor_Razor posted...

There's nothing to say. He blows off Steam saying "but steam had that as part of its profit margin built into the store from conception", which is simply not an argument, and there are three huge reasons why.


None of these are arguments that aren't already addressed (which is why you are being put on ignore, you don't address points, you try to mock them as if that makes you right).
You see, I have listed a ton of sources in my post, you have listed none and are just posting conjecture. The gap isn't as wide? Lies! I say stands profit margin is 1 BILLION TIMES LARGER!!! (OK, that was mocking , I admit that).

Here is the thing, Nintendo tried doing bare minimum, just as Sony tried doing bare minimum for online. Nintendo held it a little longer, as they had other things they were trying out to avoid online betting the focus of their consoles. Bars minimum will only get you so far, and if you want a premium service out will cost you a premium cost. Nintendo knows this, and instead of screwing customers by adding it on to a console that it was never advertised for, they waited for their next generation. That way any consumers would have the choice of getting it with that knowledge.

Sailor_Razor posted...

Nintendo knows what the costs will be for this, and if they somehow managed to grossly underestimate those costs, then that is their failure, and not a failure the consequences of which should be passed onto their customers.



Actualy, the cost of a service is exactly what is passed onto customers.

Sailor_Razor posted...


And finally, to speak coarsely for a minute, his head's clearly up his ass with him announcing "I SHALL IGNORE THEE, IGNORANT PEON!". He's not, and potentially was never interested in actually addressing anything I have to say. His response to continued pressure that contradicts his viewpoint was effectively to take his ball and go home, which I find perfectly fair to interpret as a forfeiture.


Actualy I announced it so that when there's no responses, it would be evident as to why. I feel no pressure from you because, as I've noted in this post, you don't actually address anything. You act like you do, but you don't. I ignore people who can't do this simple thing.

#34
That just stinks of being an attention whore. Let's crack it down one by one.

1 - Citation - Being a business that exists to make money is not carte blance to do whatever they want. They can be criticized for their decisions.

2 - If it were just the cloud saves, that would be on them for that decision. They make the willful choice to not go the route of having a subscription that lets you play anything of their old library, and also letting you pick and choose if you'd rather. That it's a constant service doesn't matter. Nintendo is not going to stop making and releasing games and just hope the subscription covers their costs. That too is a constant service, which already has a significant price tag to it.

3 - I'm not ignoring anything. It is also shitty for Microsoft and Sony to paywall online play. If they did not, their premium subscriptions would be fine. There is an exact line being crossed here.

4 - They can not do the bare minimum while also doing something. That's what PS3 PSN+ was. If it was inadequate, they should have improved it, not said "Oh now you have to pay or we're taking away shit you already paid for!" Also, your interpretation is too kind.

5 - Citation - "Video games are not so unprofitable that they cannot support secondary services, or Nintendo would've bailed out years ago.

6 - Continuing on with that holier-than-thou "BE IGNORED, IGNORANT PEON!" nonsense. Begone with ye.

#38
There's enough time in the day to do more than one thing.

#39
"This isn't a frivolous "we want more money by doing nothing" kind of thing though.". From my perspective, it literally is. Their competitor, Valve, has proven that paywalled online is not necessary for a sustainable model. By trying to exclude people who don't want to pay them a subscription, that is the definition of a cheap cash grab.

#43
That they're so opaque about it, that's what I fully expect. I just want it to go so badly that they get covered in bad PR, and have no choice but to backpedal permanently.

$45 and #46
Ad hominem attack.

#49
I can't see it that way.

#51
Or it's the first way they thought of to make themselves look like a better option.

If/when they raise the price to $60, I will just laugh, for I have predicted it, as Sony did the same thing.