Nintendo bosses take big pay cuts in penance for Wii U failure

[Ride the Walrus]

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/29/n...y-cut-penance/

We don't really need numbers to tell us the Wii U's flopping, but figures released today quite clearly spell it out. Something's gotta give at Nintendo, and that something is head honcho Satoru Iwata's salary, and that of his chums. The AFP is reporting Iwata's paycheck is to be cut in half, which is the same reduction he took as recompense for poor early uptake of the 3DS, while several of his execs will see a 20 to 30 percent drop. Much like the frustration of Acer's top tier and their dwindling income, Iwata & Co.'s pay cut is only a temporary measure to claw back some cash, with things changing again in July when sentences have been served. Perhaps it's time for Nintendo to think about a move into mobile after all? There's money to be made from apps, or so we hear.

[Éclair]

So in 2013, they sold 2.8 million Wii-Us.

Wow.

I called it from the start, the Wii-U is a flop from a business standpoint. Needs more games that aren't first-party sequels, and probably less shovelware.

[Ride the Walrus]

They know exactly what they need to improve on, this is quite hopeful as a Wii U owner, kind of shows solidarity and understanding

[Éclair]

I think a price drop could help. It worked for the 3DS.

I looked up the games, and there's only 3 on the Wii-U that I want, that I can't get on the PS3. Two are currently only available in Japan, one isn't even out in Japan yet. A lot of the potential big sellers from the Wii are absent from the Wii-U, I think if they tried to get some of those on board, sales could start looking up.

[Cronus]

I also had my doubts from the start. Having already saturated the market with the Wii their mistake, and frankly ignorance was calling it the WiiU and then expecting their main consumer base to know that it was a brand new console and not simply a Wii add-on (as indicated by various polls)
Further, their desire to attract the hardcore gamer base has largely backfired because it's under powered. Dated technology wise before it rolled off the assembly line and now the true next consoles are here, the only people who want it are hardcore Nintendo fans. Couple that with the stream of third party developers that have decided not to develop for it and you can see why they have only sold 2.8 mill in a year.

[Éclair]

I also had my doubts from the start. Having already saturated the market with the Wii their mistake, and frankly ignorance was calling it the WiiU and then expecting their main consumer base to know that it was a brand new console and not simply a Wii add-on (as indicated by various polls)
Further, their desire to attract the hardcore gamer base has largely backfired because it's under powered. Dated technology wise before it rolled off the assembly line and now the true next consoles are here, the only people who want it are hardcore Nintendo fans. Couple that with the stream of third party developers that have decided not to develop for it and you can see why they have only sold 2.8 mill in a year.

One of the comments on the article pretty much summed it up. To paraphrase. "If they rolled it out 4-5 years ago it'd be a different story."

[Vyse the Legend]

Nintendo really just lack any form of support from so many major names in the industry, and whilst Microsoft and Sony are fighting it out with record sales, Nintendo are struggling on their own, trying to make whatever ends meet they can.

A price cut is more or less a do or die at this stage, unless they are able to somehow encourage some developers to bring out some unexpected big guns. If there were a few more Bayonetta 2 like surprises, they really could see their fortunes change, but at the moment, I just can't see it.

They can reduce the price, and sure that will help, but even then I think they need more, and just seeing how many comments around the net feel they should just give up the ghost already, really shows how little expectations gamers have at the moment. The technology is behind, the price still isn't that competitive, the games just aren't frequent enough to warrant the cost, and the competition is light years ahead.

Really do hope I'm wrong and they can pull something out of the hat, but it's looking grim. This E3 could be a huge one for them, it really could.

[Ride the Walrus]

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library...140130/02.html

[Éclair]

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library...140130/02.html

That doesn't fill me with confidence. Iwata says that a price cut isn't currently in the scope of the console, and he wants to focus on more games/applications developed specifically for the Wii U gamepad rather than the console proper. This summer they're releasing a firmware update to add a quick-start menu to the gamepad, as well as adapting DS titles to the Virtual Console.

He says the core sales this year will be from Mario Kart 8, which has been pushed back to a May release. He wants to breathe more life into the 3DS, but doesn't say how, aside from constant references to Angry Birds and PazuDora, which makes me think "breathe life into" actually means "get lots of cellphone games onto it". He also keeps alluding to Nintendo "being hard(core)" now.

It appears (I'm not...entirely sure, I don't quite understand what he means) that he wants to reduce the price of games. He seems to say that if games were $30 instead of $50 a consumer who only bought 1 game a year before would buy 2-3 a year.

And here's the bit I've been saying they need to do for a long time now

"Additionally, in the past Nintendo had a rich tradition of character IPs, and we want to use them more in the future. At the moment, IPs are risky and can be damaging." (paraphrased and translated because my brain is ****ed atm)

The next page is basically preening, talking about his time as company president and comparing his time there to that of Yamauchi, as well as some vague allusions to improving the quality of life from Nintendo in general. No real ideas on how to do so, though. Near the end of page 4 he talks about healthy gaming, such as Wii Fit and Cooking Navi, and how they help to open up the world of gaming to a wider audience.

Finally, he talks about "an announcement" in 2014 regarding Nintendo's business practices, and "a project" in 2015-2016 that will completely change the business model(?). I don't understand what that means.

[Turnip]

Got to say the price of console games is sort of startling. I love my Wii U, but don't own that many games yet, where i'm used to spending little over £25 on games for PC (or considerably less in Steam sales) £45 for a new Wii Ugame seems a bit crazy, but the problem is that they don't get any cheaper if they're old either.