There are rumblings today in the investors arena that Nintendo’s wild success is going to be bad for video game publishers.
From Seeking Alpha:
The DS and the Wii are taking the video game industry by storm. Both appear to be bringing new gamers into the market. However, this may not be a positive dynamic for the major video game publishers. Nintendo has not only increased the size of the market, but it has also re-segmented it in its own favor, in our view. Nintendo is dominating software sales on its popular hardware platforms, leaving the publishers with a smaller slice of an only somewhat incrementally larger pie. Moreover, we feel that the likely shorter product cycles of Nintendo’s platforms put the publishers in a permanent catch-up mode. We think the upcoming releases of Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption will highlight this phenomena this holiday season.
I’ve said it before, but more gamers of all shapes and sizes is a GOOD thing for the industry. It forces them to think differently and get out of this action movie bad voice acting rut (honestly, we’re giving Steven Segal a run for his money these days).
And I’ve this before too: Maybe the problem isn’t Nintendo, but developers and publishers who have become accustomed to shoveling utter sh*t into the hands of gamers who really have no way to decline it or else risk not playing games anymore. Oh wait, the industry was in decline… maybe that was already starting to happen.
If Nintendo’s recent resurgence back into the driver’s seat of gaming is responsible for weeding out some of the low hanging fruit in the industry today, then so be it. The fact that Nintendo saw a huge opportunity in the market that allowed them to remake it into their own image is too bad so sad for the industry, yes, but that’s business. If Nintendo continues its upward trend, and I think it will (50-person lines in April, during a Nintendo Drought?!), then it’s going to be a whole new software development ballgame.
Deal with it.