“Nintendo have relied on countless revisions of the Mario games to help boost console sales, but how long can this tend continue?”

However Nintendo’s policies where formed in an era when the video game industry was in its infancy and companies were viewed a kin to toy manufactures. Nintendo having a long and successful history in the toy manufacturing business prior to their switch to the video game industry. The problem they face now is that the video game industry has moved on from its kid orientated origins and matured alongside its aging gamers. Gamers who want something a little more than Mario in a cat suit, a game like The Last of Us dealing with adult subject matter raking in a host of awards over the last year. It is a sign of the times that as far as the console market is concerned games are generally aimed towards an adult audience. Nintendo over the last decade has managed to sell record amount of devices with their Wii console hitting the 100 million mark. In spite of this sizeable market lead many AAA titles that are ported over to the console failed to sell anywhere near those numbers expected for such a popular console. A fact that has led publishing giant EA to become increasingly hesitant to publish any of its titles to Nintendo’s latest WiiU console. Former EA CEO John Riccitiello stating in March of last year, that no future titles were in the works for the WiiU platform.

 “Nintendo’s flagging console sales saw a sharp increase with the launch of the Wii, its successor the WiiU has come nowhere close in comparison.”

This is the fundamental root of Nintendo’s problems is that despite the falling out between the company and major publishers like EA they ultimately seem unconcerned. Nintendo long ago became the kingpins of the video game industry and it’s a state of mind that they haven’t lost even in the face of their impending failure. Nintendo’s failure is not something that can be predicted by diving into the future but instead taking a look back at the past and a company in a similar situation Nintendo is in today. Sega were Nintendo biggest rivals with the two consistently going head to head with their console platforms throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Like Nintendo they often favoured first party development over licencing deals with third party companies, relying on iconic video game characters like Sonic The Hedgehog to sell their consoles. The 1998 release of the revolutionary but ultimately poorly selling Dreamcast is the device that spelled an end to Sega’s days as a console manufacturer. Sega announcing its intention to become solely a video game publisher only three years later, this has allowed them to remain reasonable profitable within the video game industry. Even going as far as to swallow their pride and negotiate an exclusivity deal for the Sonic franchise with their old rivals Nintendo.

 “Nintendo might take heed for their former rivals Sega. Whose consoles failure to gain a sizable percentage forced the company out of the console market for good.”

Pride is something that would be a bitter pill for the Nintendo executives to swallow if they ever came to approach Sony or Microsoft about licencing Mario to rival platforms. It is also the fact that despite poor sales for their WiiU console they have managed to retain a decent share of the handheld market in the face of stiff competition from mobile devices. Since the launch of the GameBoy back in 1989, Nintendo have managed to rack up impressive unit sales in that sector of the market. The games developed for the handheld market are generally of a more casual nature and aimed at a younger audience. Something that Nintendo excels at with franchises like Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Kirby, etc. Many analysts have stated that one way for Nintendo to re-establish itself in the industry would be to port many of its handheld titles over to mobile platforms. The latest version of their handheld devices the Nintendo 3DS and 2DS have sold over 42 million units combined, double that of their preceding device. Although something has be said for the fact that there are over 250 million iPhones and over 1 billion Android devices. Just looking at the numbers it might seem like an obvious move for Nintendo to port its games to mobile, but it is unlikely Nintendo will want to enter into a market where they would have to relinquish a certain level of control. More importantly they would have to share in the profits with Apple and Goggle, one reason why Nintendo are so guarded over they own IP’s.

 “Nintendo have hinted that they are doing some research into smart phone technology, but seeing any of their games on iPhone or Android will be a long way off yet.”

Nintendo is somewhat stuck at a crossroad with it obvious to see that their latest console is a failure but on the other hand they seen positive sales of handheld titles. The latest games in the Pokémon franchise accumulating over 11 million in sales in the last 12 months. Boosts to profits like these will only help Nintendo in a small way with its general loss of market share in the console sector not looking good on their financial reports. Should Nintendo follow Sega’s path and give up on the manufacturing side of things and primary focus on software development. That question will become clearer based on the sales of Nintendo’s next console; the company cannot afford to have another console launch fail to generate sales. Another WiiU would surely spell the end for Nintendo’s console days. However many would have said the same around the time of the GameCube, that like the WiiU lost Nintendo a sizeable share of the market. However they were able to bounce back with the highly successful Wii console so a lot rides on the success of their next console launch. In essence Nintendo needs to remove itself form its self-imposed ideology formed in the early 80’s and join the rest of its competitors in the 21^st Century.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post The State of the Industry: The Fall of Nintendo appeared first on Game Design Ireland.

The development of the game was in reaction to the failure of Nintendo’s earlier arcade title Radar Scope. The game was an attempt by Nintendo to break into the American market, unfortunately the game didn’t sell as well as expected and the American based Nintendo operation was left with a number of unsold Radar Scope cabinets. President of Nintendo at the time Hiroshi Yamauchi, approached a young designer at the company Shigeru Miyamoto with a plan to convert the unsold cabinets into a new game. Miyamoto took the novel approach at the time to draw up the designs and storyline for the game before any coding or development was carried out. This came from Miyamoto’s lack of programming skill and his primary job as an artist and designer, his first job at the company had being creating artwork for an earlier arcade game called Sheriff. His inspiration for the games titular character came from the Popeye series of cartoons with the villain of the comic Bluto being re-imagined as the ape known as Donkey Kong. Initially Nintendo had hoped to gain the licence for the Popeye characters with a movie being released in the same year it seemed like a good marketing opportunity. However the deal fell through and Miyamoto was forced to turn Popeye into a carpenter known as Jumpman and Olive Oyl into a Princess. When he approached the programming team at Nintendo with his concept for the game he was met with apprehension at the complexity of the game. Nevertheless the games development was soon underway with the unsold Radar Scope cabinets being converted to play the new game. When the US office received the game from Japan for testing, it wasn’t popular among the staff at the company who asked for the name to be changed. Their request was refused, however they did rename the princess to Pauline after the companies warehouse managers wife and the Jumpman character became Mario after the landlord of the warehouse. The latter of course would go on to be the companies’ most recognisable figures.

“The barrels that Jumpman had to avoid in order to scale the girders, became synonymous with Donkey Kong’s character”

The game was released in July of 1981 and was an instant success with the company soon selling 4,000 units a month and struggling to keep up with demand. Within a year they had sold over 60,000 units, earing the company around $180 million. The game announced Nintendo’s arrival in the American market and cemented them as one of the leading companies in video game development. Soon rival video game companies where looking to licence the Donkey Kong game for their systems, both Atari and Coleco vied for the rights for their respective consoles with Coleco winning out in the end. The game was packaged with the ColecoVision in order to boost sales of their console, later ports were also licenced to other consoles such as the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. All in all Coleco made $153 million of the sales of Donkey Kong cartridges on various consoles with Nintendo taking $5 million in royalties. There were many companies who looked to bypass Nintendo and it licence fees by simple making clones and illegal copies of the game. Versions such as Killer Gorilla for the BBC Micro or Sega’s Congo Bongo games where among the most popular clones. One company Tiger Electronics gained the licence to King Kong from Universal City Studios and used it to make a direct copy of Donkey Kong game under the King Kong name. This led to a court battle between Nintendo and Universal. The movie studio argued that Donkey Kong infringed on their own King Kong property, arguing that consumers would be confused by the similar names and themes. The court eventually ruled in Nintendo’s favour and ordered Universal to pay out the profits from Tiger’s game which amounted to $56,000, damages and attorney’s fees.

“Donkey Kong evolved from being the antagonist in the earlier games to being the main protagonist of later title such as Donkey Kong Country.”

Donkey Kong would continue to be a major franchise for Nintendo with numerous sequels produced and ports to subsequent consoles, the Famicom featuring the game as one of its launch titles. The game would later evolve beyond the basic platform genre that it pioneered and branch out into more advanced side-scroller’s such as Donkey Kong Country, with racing and rhythm based games also carry the Donkey Kong brand. The game has become one of a handful of Nintendo titles that have become the backbone of the company’s success with a multitude of Donkey Kong themed games being released on a regular basis. The game that was created to make up for a financial misstep by the company, went on to not only recoup their loses but herald in a golden age for the company and the beginning of their rise to the pinnacle of the video game industry.

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