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Ex EA COO Bing Gordon’s bleak prediction
In an interview, Gordon recently predicted that Nintendo is likely to go down the same route as former rival Sega, and become a software-only developer. Sega hit a low point in 2001 after poor sales of the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast systems, instead consolidating their losses to focus on producing games for other consoles. This allowed them to concentrate on their games franchises and recoup losses, and paved the way for games featuring both Sonic and Mario– something that would’ve been unthinkable 15 years ago.
Gordon claims that Nintendo’s first annual loss is a precursor to Nintendo suffering the same fate (evidently revealing his thoughts on the upcoming Wii U), which he believes will lead to Nintendo turning their most famous franchises into apps available on mobile devices and potentially other systems.
Of course, he may be biased; he’s now a board member for Zynga, the games developer that brought us FarmVille and Mafia Wars on Facebook, so perhaps he’s just trying to reinforce the thought that apps are the future of gaming. On the other side of the coin, the 3DS is overcoming its rocky start (much as Wii and DS did), so maybe he’s wrong. He did get one thing right though, praising Shigeru Miyamoto’s innovation “When [he] makes a perfect game…it’s worth buying a system for”. So how will this affect Gordon’s prediction? Only time, and the Wii U’s release, will tell.
Source: The Escapist
Nintendo piracy ring broken
Customs officials in Korea are claiming to have uncovered and shut down a piracy ring composed mostly of bootleg Nintendo DS software. Over 90000 pirated games and copying devices were seized, amounting to over 87 milllion US dollars, in the covert operation which has been carried out since April this year.
Most of the games were sold to adolescents and children, meaning prosecution of the buyers is unlikely (as well as the sheer numbers of sales made). 15 of the games pirates were alleged to have avoided authorities by changing IP addresses and basing themselves at various internet cafés. Nintendo is infamous for being hard on piracy of their games, and even created iQue for the Chinese market to get around this problem. Does such a huge operation by so few people represent precedent enough for Nintendo to make a similar move with their handheld software?
Source: Wired
Nintendo’s OTHER interests…
This is technically Sports news, but it’s still Nintendo news, weirdly. In the early 1990s, Nintendo bought the baseball team the Seattle Mariners, which upset many fans because at the time the idea of a foreign company owning a home team was almost unheard of (how times have changed).
Yesterday, Mariners player Ichiro Suzuki left the team as he felt that he was of no use to the predominantly twenty-something team. He was traded to the New York Yankees after a press conference in which he thanked CEO’s past and present, Hiroshi Yamauchi and Satotu Iwata, as well as NoA head, Dear ol’ Reggie Fils-Aime. Now why didn’t I know Nintendo owned this team before now?!
Source: Kotaku
Here’s a head-line for you: Ex-EA nobody seen powering a blimp with rectal discharge.
Lordy. Seems he forgot the billions of dollars that Nintendo has made throughout the years (and saved). Seems he forgot that no matter what markets outside of Japan may say, Nintendo still has Japan. Seems he forgot that what’s most iconic about playing Nintendo games, is that you have to play them on a Nintendo system, and no-one really complains about that.
Oh wow, Nintendo saw it’s first year ever loses, when it coupled a price-drop for new-hardware (a brilliant marketing strategy that has allowed the 3DS to remain not only relevant but as the yet-again dominator in its market) alongside the cost of production for a new system going into effect alongside the very last year for its current generation system. Seems buddy from EA doesn’t know a thing about how game-machine makers operate because HE DIDN’T WORK FOR A GAME-MACHINE MAKING COMPANY.
Oh really, Mr. COO? Nintendo is going to be making games as applications? Give. Me. A. Break. I’ll admit, FarmVille was a ton of fun, but most of these games are just latent money-grabs not interested in creating memorable franchises, but in milking a hither-to non-gaming segment portion of the population by using the dirtiest skinner-box mechanisms to hook their hose right up to your wallet? Really, the guy that works for these clowns is giving his predictions on what’s going to happen to Nintendo? Isn’t that kind of like a back-door softcore porno animation studio ringing the death-knell for Disney?
I have no idea why this clown was even brought up in a news segment. He uses one piece of data, taking nothing into consideration as to what actually comprised it, and then makes a generalized, broad, and sweeping statement?
E! A! Sports! It’s in the game!
This stooge isn’t though.
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And what? You didn’t know that Nintendo owned the Seattle Mariners? For . . . real?
All the Ken Griffey games? The fact that they were the first to scout Japanese talent? The probability that you don’t follow baseball?
Still though – yeah dude – they own the Mariners.
You are aware that “COO” stands for Chief Operating Officer and isn’t actually his surname, yes Casey?
Also, we’re merely reporting the news and whether you agree with it or not (and I’m guessing you’re erring on the side of disagreement, just a hunch) it is newsworthy. EA is the second biggest independent publisher in the industry, one of their head honchos has a valid opinion. Hence why we omitted any references to flying aircraft propelled by fecal matter. Thanks though.
No Adam, I must admit, I honestly just thought he must have been a distant relative of CEO. You know, because all last names are spelt with capitals.
I know you’re not making a comment with “news reporting,” but it makes a comment none-the-less with what you report. Someone says something – fine. But is this even worth repeating? Stating a similarity between Sega and Nintendo and then actually expecting someone to buy that crap is simply insane. It’s the same as saying that because the sun is round and is the colour orange at times, the fact that you can squish and destroy an actual orange means that you can do the same with the sun.
Isn’t it curious how when people, and I’m not talking about video game loyalists, but regular Joes and Janines, remember the “old-school” video-game era – they more often than not remember Nintendo, and not Sega? I always wondered why, in all my travels, both in real life and Internet, this always seemed to be the case. Well, as it would turn out, it’s because Nintendo had roughly five times the number of awesome games on it’s SNES system than Sega did on it’s old Genesis. Also due to it crafting some of its most memorable franchises within that time. Sega could have done the same – but it didn’t. And if you happen to say that they couldn’t do the same – then it still proves my point, that Sega and Nintendo are in different leagues, and are thus incomparable.
Remember when Nintendo went into it’s two system down-swing from being most prolific game-producer, publisher, and general video-game face identity, to being all but almost forgotten during the later N64 and (especially) GameCube eras? That was the same time Sega couldn’t really pull it together to fight Sony either. And guess what happened to them. They got out of the business. Guess what happened to Nintendo? They came back after that and single-handedly took the entire industry back, both by consumer-sales, and in terms of video-game direction.
Yeah, way to go former EA COO! These two companies are lining up like peas in the m’f’n’ pod. Wow! Nintendo and Sega are companies that make video games – both make consoles – oh, wait, one stopped making consoles a decade ago – and when they stopped making consoles, it happened to coincide with a year where they lost money . . . So, that means then . . . because Nintendo had a year where they lost money, they too are going to stop making consoles? Wait . . . what???
Was it maybe not because Sega produced roughly three to four add-ons to the Genesis that flopped prior as well, or the fact that they had tanked whatever few of their franchises they had with poor sequels, or the fact that they were already losing pretty big to Nintendo before Sony entered the picture?
These two examples, listed as the crux of his argument, shows buddy COO has no understanding of the history of the video game market, or that Sega and Nintendo have travelled distinct enough paths, have a swath of different resources, have an altogether different business model, approach, and mantra, alongside perception within the world of video games themselves. Ask people who Sega is these days, and if they are old, and know video games, they’ll ask, “Oh, you mean the one’s that made that hedgehog character a few decades ago, right?” Ask people who Nintendo is these days, and they’ll tell you their grandmother plays the Wii.
Next up – buddy worked at EA – and now he works at Zynga? Guess what happened today. Zynga lost around 35% of it’s stock value. Ooooooooooooooo-snap! Guess that means buddy knows how to pick losers, right? I mean, EA certainly is no trophy, considering both their quality of products (Can’t wait to buy NHL 25), their practices concerning employees, and their history of shovel-ware crap, but in my opinion, they’re still worth something. Buddy thought it was great to jump ship from these guys to Zynga? And he just so happens to suggest that everything and everyone, including Nintendo, are going to be making Flash games?
Why anyone cared that this moron spoke is beyond me. Why he made the news here is beyond me. At its best, it’s sensationalistic, at its worst, rather, in its actuality, it’s not even news. If you think this is news, well then . . . what can I say.
To be fair, Diamondo, reporting what other people say is a big part of what journalism is all about. You may not agree with it and you may not think it’s newsworthy, and that’s fine, but it’s up to each individual member of staff to decide what news they’re going to write about each day, so please respect Joseph’s decision to report it.