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Failure Leads to Success for Nintendo
Kubinator
July 1, 2010
N
intendo's performance at E3 was one for the record. They nailed everything and the 3DS looks like it's going to shake up gaming. However, not every E3 has been successful for Nintendo. Nintendo has made a few mistakes in the past, including: poor console design, passing over opportunities and bad marketing; luckily, Nintendo has learned from its mistakes.
Nintendo's best known mistake is when the company dropped the ball with a potential partnership with Sony for SNES CD-rom add-on. That would have moved the company forward. A partnership like this would have avoided Sony entering the console world and would have kept Nintendo at the top in the late 1990's.
Nintendo might be blowing gaming doors open today with the 3DS and casual gaming. But this was not always the case. Although the Wii is not as technically powerful as the 360 or PS3 it can succeed in its own right. This isn't so true for the GameCube and the N64. Although they were considered successful by fans, both consoles used older, outdated media, which hurt their long-term success. Due to the N64's cartridge size restrictions, the cost to manufacture the games and inability to play FMV, many gamers jumped ship and ran screaming toward the CD-based PSX because the games were cheaper, had FMV, and were packed with content. Most of the multi-platform titles of this generation got the nod toward the Playstation as console of choice.
By 2001 Nintendo had moved onto the GameCube. Every other console company decided to use DVDs and directed their focus toward online play. Nintendo once again avoided the mainstream and went with the smaller, limited storage mini-DVD roms. Nintendo also believed gamers didn't want online play; while Sony and Microsoft were pushing online play, the GameCube had very few online capable games.
The Nintendo Virtual Boy, by far Nintendo's greatest console flop, was a combination of portable and living-room gaming. A mixture of poor design, and
poor marketing, this red 3D vomit inducing machine was supposed to change the direction of gaming. The only thing it changed was gamers' perception of
Nintendo. The Virtual Boy cost Nintendo a ton of money. With only 770,000 units sold overall, this bleeding eyesore became one of the first video game
systems to become clearance fodder at Toys 'R' Us.
No company is perfect, Nintendo has leaned from its mistakes, and they are still willing to take risks; but it seems they do their research first these days. The Wii might not be the fastest console, but Nintendo's tapped into a successful market. The 3DS is going to show the world that Nintendo knows something about technology. There are still a few companies who've never learned... Phillips anyone?
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