Word: nintendos
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...Nintendo's slide can be traced back to 1990, when plans for a game-platform joint venture with Sony broke down and the consumer-electronics giant decided to build its own machine. At that time, Nintendo made the Cadillac of consoles?but in coming years a challenge was fielded by the Sega Genesis, which for a time became the No. 1 machine on the market. (Sega abandoned the hardware business in 2001.) Failing to strike an agreement with Sony proved to be fateful, because as that company's PlayStation become more popular, Nintendo made a series of what analysts...
...Perhaps more devastating was Nintendo's initial reluctance to market itself to older teenagers and adults, sticking too long to the low-growth market for kids under 14. Sony identified adult gamers as one of its key markets early on and encouraged game developers to produce titles with sophisticated themes (read: crime and violence, including titles such as Grand Theft Auto 3). While Nintendo still emphasizes the family-friendly nature of its products, it's since brought out more mature games but it is struggling to convince consumers it is anything but a toymaker. At this fall's giant Tokyo...
...least Iwata can still count on his steady handheld business, right? After all, Nintendo's Game Boy has become practically synonymous with portable gaming?and the bleeping scourge of every family road trip. But all those gaming boys and girls are growing up; Sony hopes to repeat its console success in handhelds by focusing on adult customers. The stakes for Nintendo are high, because Game Boy hardware and software now account for about 60% of the company's annual sales and a similar share of its profits. Sony recently announced plans to enter the handheld market next year with...
...Despite its troubles, no one is seriously suggesting that Nintendo is going to be squeezed out of the hardware business almost overnight, as Sega was. Nintendo is sitting on $6 billion in cash and carries no debt, which could provide a war chest with which to outsource a competitive next-generation hardware system. The threats to its Game Boy monopoly are, at this point, hypothetical; and it does have a core excellence in producing seductive software, which makes it (still) one of the largest game publishers in the world...
...question among analysts is whether Nintendo?a company that is almost proudly antitechnology?can compete against Microsoft and Sony at a time when the industry is poised for a major transformation. Digital devices of all shapes and sizes?such as entertainment-enabled personal computers that can link up with a TV and stereo; and Web-surfing, TiVo-style video recorders?will over the next several years invade the living room. Microsoft and Sony are already selling game machines capable of connecting to the Internet, anticipating the shift to multipurpose entertainment devices. And Nintendo? Iwata recently declared that the company...