Nintendo releasing their games on multiple consoles would be the worst thing they could do. It would absolutely destroy them as a hardware producer. As soon as they made that shift, they would basically never sell another console.
Nintendo's problems are fairly complex right now. Their first problem is actually the tablet controller. It's innovative from a hardware stance, but it requires innovation from a software stance to be back it up. If you want to program a game for the Wii U, you need to program for the GamePad. This means a lot of extra programming for your game, and it makes it more difficult to port it to other consoles, because it would lack the GamePad features. A few companies may be willing to risk this, but not many. This makes it harder for Nintendo to pull in third party publishers, and that is where their major flaws lie.
You talk about Sony being innovative. It isn't, at all. What it has is a system that caters enough to third party and indie devs that it allows them to be innovative with its system. Flower, Journey, and Final Fantasy aren't Sony products (and Final Fantasy is hardly selling because of "innovation", just an FYI), they're third party products that have done incredibly well on Sony consoles.
Nintendo lacks this on the Wii U. They have it in spades on the 3DS. There are a host of
Also, Nintendo does innovate in software, even on its major franchises. If you take a look at The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, at first glance it will seem like just a High Definition version of Link to the Past. But it is actually is one of the most innovative games in the franchise, serving up a huge amount of changes to the series formula (all of which works brilliantly).
Then too, innovation is not everything. Hell, Game Theory said it far better than I ever could:
But let's take the recently released Yoshi's New Island. This game has been blasted by critics for bringing nothing new to the series, for being a stale copy of the original. The thing is, I never got to play the original, and after I saw it speedrun in AGDQ2014, I wanted to try it. So I bought the new one, and it has fulfilled my expectations brilliantly. It wasn't new, but I don't get games just because they're new. Sometimes, when you have something that works, iteration on the concept and basis is all you need. There are a ton of older, Nintendo era games that I would happily play today. There are tons more which are new to me, which I would probably enjoy if I got around to playing them. Releasing these old classics is not itself a problem. Nor is releasing iterative sequels to them (again, just look at any First Person Shooter series).
Nintendo has two major problems that I see right now. The first is lack of third party support. They aren't pulling in enough third-party developers to get a good game library on the Wii U, and they don't seem to understand the importance of doing so.
The second is lack of advertising. They either don't advertise well, or they don't know how to properly advertise their games and systems. The 3DS has actually been marketed really successfully, but the Wii U hasn't been supported nearly as well by adds. The Wii was promoted incredibly successfully because the promotion style they went with appealed to the casual market brilliantly. I don't even see promotions for the Wii U, though. Let alone promotions for any of the games. I can't watch a video online without seeing an ad for Titanfall for the 360 (even though you could get a better version of the game with better controls on the PC), yet I can't remember ever seeing an ad for Nintendo's big games.
Proper marketing could also solve their "oh, they're just a kiddy company" image. They have darker games for their systems. The 3DS has things like Bravely Default, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Shin Megami Tensei IV. Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney is another darker title that I can't wait to play. Heck, even Link Between Worlds is darker than most of the Zelda series. On the Wii U, we have titles like Bayonetta 2 and Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem coming out for the Wii U. We could see some marketing on the scale of the other consoles, an actual attempt to push the Wii U as a console for another market of gamers. But we probably aren't going to. Nintendo needs to learn how to market.
There's also the fact that they aren't properly utilizing their IP. We get three new Mario games in a year. Whoop de doo. I've never really liked Mario games either, BoB. But they aren't releasing new games for about 9/10ths of the great properties that they hold.
If they could fix these problems, they could begin to absolutely dominate the console market again. They still release fantastic games. They just don't have enough of them, they don't have the variety they'd get if they were better at attracting third party help, and they don't market them well.
Reply With Quote