Everyone wants to see Nintendo succeed. From loyal fans who have grown up on the classics, to gamers who have taken their interests elsewhere, to non-gamers who have but a fond attachment to Super Mario, everyone wants Nintendo to succeed. And because so many know of Nintendo’s troubled situations in the modern gaming space, everyone thinks they have the answer to end the financial woes of the Japanese pioneer.
Whether it be by tossing hardware initiatives to the side in order to focus on the delivery of unmatched software, engineering the most powerful piece of tech to trump the abilities of competitor gaming machines, or simply focussing on handheld gaming, everyone will feed you a different answer, one that they unequivocally believe to be the correct course of action. These solutions are nothing original, and they are certainly topics that have come up in discussion as gamers await Nintendo’s official unveiling of the NX. What I’m interested in isn’t the solution to Nintendo’s past shortcomings when it comes to creating, marketing and maintaining a successful home console; I’m interested in how Nintendo has, perhaps unintentionally, backed itself into a corner that makes others inclined to question, doubt and hesitate to applaud any new offerings from the company. Nintendo has provided the perfect concoction of toy-like surprise and childlike inconsistencies that it must put forth a great deal of effort to communicate new hardware initiatives to an audience of hungry, perplexed customers.
I would say that the primary reason so many question the shaky success of Nintendo is because no one truly knows where the competition lies. Does Nintendo want to compete against the powerful hardware put out by Microsoft and Sony? Does Nintendo even consider their gaming devices to be traditional entertainment hardware, or do they see it more as something that totally deviates from traditional games culture? When you ask these questions, you begin to realize that Nintendo has a very complex, multi-layered ordeal of a communication issue on their hands.
Take the Wii as an example. Instead of positioning itself as a powerful piece of tech like the GameCube was the generation prior, the Wii was intended to carry out Nintendo’s blue ocean strategy, a means to target customers who had never considered gaming before. From there Nintendo then released the Wii U, a console that denied the generation of button-haters by adopting the contemporary method of gaming—a controller with a complete array of inputs—with a slight twist that came in the form of a touch screen. Of course gamers and those just on the fringes of gaming culture are now left to question how Nintendo will proceed. They began to position themselves as a family friendly company with a focus on lowering the barriers of complexity inherent to modern gaming, only to sway the focus back to individualized experiences using mostly traditional methods of control.
Aside from the obvious confusion that arises when comparing Nintendo’s strategy over the past two generations, there is the other issue of identity, as previously mentioned. Nintendo, it seems, tries to use marketing speak to purport their consoles as devices that have transcended what the PlayStation and Xbox devices try to do. Instead of even making an attempt to rival these giants, Nintendo swiftly, and probably haphazardly, tries to estrange itself from the competition. But doesn’t this make their ability to push their new console, say the NX, even more difficult to do? By sidestepping Nintendo has in effect created a new competitor and one that has the potential to be highly formidable: themselves.
If a Nintendo console is to be considered outside of the competition of traditional gaming, then Nintendo is intentionally saying that their new piece of kit does something different, something innovative. And by claiming such a thing, Nintendo now has to prove why their next offering is better than, more innovative than and superior to their previous console. The situation quickly becomes messy, as seen by the lackluster performance of the Wii U.
Other gaming platforms don’t face the same issues that Nintendo does. Nintendo always has to prove itself, show why gamers of any kind should care. Because of that, and because Nintendo never does what the fans want, the company of surprises must always fight to be noticed. While the PlayStation and Xbox Consoles differ from their older brothers with a new user interface, slight differences in controller designs and leaps in graphical fidelity, there is nothing all that new, nothing that comes as a surprise to those who game on such platforms. Such a truth isn’t a slight against the consoles—gamers know what they want and they are perfectly comfortable with Sony and Microsoft giving it to them with the benefit of having specs to boast about. On the other hand, Nintendo’s erratic philosophy instills anxiety, anxiety that could lead to exceeded expectations or heaping disappointment.
I don’t know or claim to know the answer for Nintendo. Should they break away from the console-making industry? Should they actually create a console that can stand up to the other two main consoles in a given generation? Should they just focus on mobile gaming, their most successful method of delivering games? I don’t have an answer to these questions, but I also don’t really care to indulge myself in attempting to propose one. What I care about is how Nintendo has mystified itself and its messaging in an attempt to remain separate and relevant. With the struggle to embed itself in the minds of even those mildly interested in gaming as a distinct player in the games industry, Nintendo has also denied itself the chance to clearly showcase its efforts in a manner that doesn’t readily cause communication to go awry. I suppose it goes without saying that I’m morbidly curious to see how one of my most treasured gaming organizations handles the reveal of their upcoming console.