# How long before Nintendo go the way of Sega & no longer make hardware? 5, 10, 15 years, never?



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 31, 2013)

Nintendo are fucked, desperately low sales, making huge losses one year then barely profitable the next and now Wii U sales have tanked with a massive 50% drop in sales!



> Sales of the Wii U console fell to just 160,000 in the three months leading to June, Nintendo has revealed.
> 
> The dramatic figures show a drop in sales of over 50% since the preceding quarter, when 390,000 units were shipped worldwide.
> 
> Concerns for the beleaguered games machine were raised earlier this week when UK supermarket chain Asda announced that it would be withdrawing the console from the shelves of its 550 retail stores – although it will still sell the Wii U and its software online.


 
How long can this go on? Will they ever return to their former glory and dominance? Or will they live off their franchises until no one really wants Mario Kart 25 anymore and bow out of the console making business?


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 1, 2013)

I'm not sure anyone will be making specialised games consoles in 10-15 years tbh.


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## Nine Bob Note (Aug 1, 2013)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I'm not sure anyone will be making specialised games consoles in 10-15 years tbh.


 
People have been saying that for a long time. I only play PC games and don't see why consoles need to exist. But they do.


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## Silva (Aug 1, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Nintendo are fucked, desperately low sales, making huge losses one year then barely profitable the next and now Wii U sales have tanked with a massive 50% drop in sales!
> How long can this go on? Will they ever return to their former glory and dominance? Or will they live off their franchises until no one really wants Mario Kart 25 anymore and bow out of the console making business?


 
Except there are kids being born and falling in love with Mario every 7 or 8 years. 

They have a lot of their future running on th Q4 2013. They'll be going head to head with two new consoles and a few games (including Pokemon for 3DS). If they survive the onslaught, they might do fine. If their products are crushed during Xmas... well, other than slash prices (what saved the 3DS), I really don't see what they may have going.  Probably release New Super Mario Bros U 2 or Super Mario 64 U.


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## TitanSound (Aug 1, 2013)

Nine Bob Note said:


> People have been saying that for a long time. I only play PC games and don't see why consoles need to exist. But they do.



Ease of use and casual gaming. Personally, I like building a gaming PC and tweaking. But most people just want to hit a power button, boot up a game, play the game and that's that.

Cost is also a factor. Three years ago my PC died, I replaced it with an Xbox for £140.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 1, 2013)

Nine Bob Note said:


> People have been saying that for a long time. I only play PC games and don't see why consoles need to exist. But they do.



Not because of pc gaming. More that there's likely to be more combined systems. I know that's also something people have been predicting for a while but ten years is a long time.


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## debaser (Aug 1, 2013)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Not because of pc gaming. More that there's likely to be more combined systems. I know that's also something people have been predicting for a while but ten years is a long time.


 

Combined systems are just going to be glorified PCs and the manner games get bought and played will be the same as PC gaming currently. What we know as consoles will be publishers delivery systems, Steam/Origin which unfortunately means we may never see the end of the exclusive, we won't have to cough up for hardware to play them at least.

Steam already has "the big picture" their TV friendly UI waiting to pick up console owners. I think we're just waiting on the cheap wireless computer - tv interface, presumably soon built into both devices. Then eventually.. computer TVS, I think the term personal computer isn't far off going either!


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## kabbes (Aug 1, 2013)

Nine Bob Note said:


> People have been saying that for a long time. I only play PC games and don't see why consoles need to exist. But they do.


 
Every few years I get a PC that can play the current generation of games and remind myself why I haven't bothered doing so for the previous few years.  The PC is a great thing to play a game on when it works.  But by heck, PCs go wrong a lot.  Who has the patience for it?


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 1, 2013)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I'm not sure anyone will be making specialised games consoles in 10-15 years tbh.


 

That's a fair point.


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 1, 2013)

TitanSound said:


> Ease of use and casual gaming. Personally, I like building a gaming PC and tweaking. But most people just want to hit a power button, boot up a game, play the game and that's that.
> 
> Cost is also a factor. Three years ago my PC died, I replaced it with an Xbox for £140.


 

I just like gaming but I also have a limited time span on planet earth so I aint spending it trying to build some amazing rig I have to keep spending on to get it to run the way I want. Far better to just kick back and enjoy games these days for me...


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2013)

I dunno i think people still think PC gaming is like it was back in the 90s

a half decent PC will run most PC games.  sure you might have to bump down the screen resolution or something  but  this is no longer the era of having to get a new graphics card each time a cool game comes out.

sure  consoles are easier but   all this talk of having to have patience  and needing to build an awesome rig is blowing it well out of proportion


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## kabbes (Aug 1, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> I dunno i think people still think PC gaming is like it was back in the 90s
> 
> a half decent PC will run most PC games. sure you might have to bump down the screen resolution or something but this is no longer the era of having to get a new graphics card each time a cool game comes out.
> 
> sure consoles are easier but all this talk of having to have patience and needing to build an awesome rig is blowing it well out of proportion


 
It's not the specs, it's the fact that PCs just randomly stop working. And then if you buy another PC, the reinstallation never works the same way. And the patch downloads are even worse than on consoles. It's all just annoying.  The gaming is good but eventually something goes wrong and then I can't be bothered with it again for another five years.


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## Firky (Aug 1, 2013)

kabbes said:


> It's not the specs, it's the fact that PCs just randomly stop working. And then if you buy another PC, the reinstallation never works the same way. And the patch downloads are even worse than on consoles. It's all just annoying. The gaming is good but eventually something goes wrong and then I can't be bothered with it again for another five years.


 

I have been PC gaming for about 16 years now and none of that sounds familiar. If the PC randomly stops working I can figure out what it is and fix it or change the component (not possible on a comsole), re-installation takes about quarter of an hour and I've never had it not work in the same way. It's not as seamless as console gaming but it is far from the chore your post makes it sound to be.

Patches are a PIA but less so on a decent BB connection.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2013)

Since I started  using steam a lot I don't even notice patching.


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## kabbes (Aug 1, 2013)

I'm glad that it works for you guys, but I just can't be arsed with it.


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 1, 2013)

kabbes said:


> I'm glad that it works for you guys, but I just can't be arsed with it.



Yup and the games industry is what it is today because of console gaming. There's no way PC gaming could have got it here alone.


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2013)

Nintendo have been dying more times than Apple have been dying, which is saying something.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2013)

I wasn't saying that PC gaming isn't  ever problematic I just felt some of the comments were a bit much.  PCs don't go wrong THAT much.


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## maomao (Aug 1, 2013)

I don't trust Steam but it is fucking excellent.


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2013)

I find it a right pain in the arse personally - it was amazing about ten years ago but it is now dead clunky. Mind you I mostly buy drm-free stuff anyway, so never need Steam.


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## kabbes (Aug 1, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> I wasn't saying that PC gaming isn't ever problematic I just felt some of the comments were a bit much. PCs don't go wrong THAT much.


 
It's fair to say though, isn't it, that PC gaming is for the hobbyist?  Not for somebody who wants a quick blast once in a while without worrying about how hardware and software interact, or needing to keep up with the latest bits of knowledge.


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 1, 2013)

maomao said:


> I don't trust Steam but it is fucking excellent.


 

I don't like it, it's got an awful interface and isn't very fast to navigate.


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## kabbes (Aug 1, 2013)

I have Steam installed and found it great when I was regularly playing HL2 and TF2, but annoying when I wasn't really playing anything.  This is the problem really -- my PC is my work tool.  So having stuff downloading and doing things in the background can be a problem.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2013)

kabbes said:


> It's fair to say though, isn't it, that PC gaming is for the hobbyist? Not for somebody who wants a quick blast once in a while without worrying about how hardware and software interact, or needing to keep up with the latest bits of knowledge.


 

I don't think so.  yeah this kinda was the case back 10-20 years ago  but  not nowadays.

You don't need specialist knowledge for PC gaming. 


also you start to  go into  what  is a gamer  and  what counts as a game.   does solitare count  and  what about  casual/facebook games


if we are talking about  games that are like most games on consoles   well we are already narrowing it  down  to  something of a hobbyist market.

about the only  thing you need to do is ask at the shop when you buy "is this ok for games"  just to rule out   really underpowered PCs

that''s hardly  hobbyist levels  or  keeping up with the latesrt knowledge


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2013)

"PC gaming" as some sort of unified entity is a bit of an odd concept.


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## Epona (Aug 1, 2013)

kabbes said:


> It's not the specs, it's the fact that PCs just randomly stop working. And then if you buy another PC, the reinstallation never works the same way. And the patch downloads are even worse than on consoles. It's all just annoying. The gaming is good but eventually something goes wrong and then I can't be bothered with it again for another five years.


 
I've been building my own PCs since 2001, and that is not my experience at all   Yes sometimes when a PC is ancient a component will die, but the same is true of consoles.


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## Fez909 (Aug 1, 2013)

Most laptops now come with an i3 CPU + Intel HD graphics, and the amount of games you can play on them is quite impressive. There's no way it's a chore nor is it out of reach of the non-hobbyist.

Buy any £300+ laptop, download Steam and you're away. Extremely simple. The following list is games that are optimised for Intel GFX, and by all means not exclusive.



Spoiler




A Game of Thrones: Genesis*
Age Of Empires III*
Aion Tower of Eternity*
Alliance of Valiant Arms (A.V.A)*
Ask Tao*
Attack On Pearl Harbor*
Audition Dance Battle Online*
Avadon: The Black Fortress*
Bastion*
Batman: Arkham City*
Battle Of Europe*
Battlefield: Bad Company 2*
Borderlands*
Bricks of Egypt*
Bulletstorm*
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2*
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3*
Cars 2: The Video Game*
Celebrity Death Match*
Champions Online*
Combat Flight Simulator 3.0*
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3*
Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight*
Company Of Heroes: Tales Of Valor*
Conquest Journey*
Counter-Strike 1.6*
Counter-Strike Online*
Create*
CrossFire*
Darkspore
DC Universe Online*
DeathSpank*
Deer Drive*
Demolition Company*
Demon Dungeon*
Deus Ex: Human Revolution*
Dirt 2*
Dirt 3*
Dragon Age II*
Dragon Age: Origins Awakening*
Dragon Oath*
Dragon Power of Great Ming*
Dream Chronicles*
DuGujiujian*
Dungeon Defenders*
Dungeon & Fighter Online*
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion*
Emergency 3*
Empire Total War*
Enemy Territory Quake Wars*
EVE Online: Tyrannis*
F1 2010*
F1 2011*
Fable III*
Fallout: New Vegas*
Fantasy Westward Journey*
Farm Frenzy 2*
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin*
FIFA 11*
FIFA Manager 12*
FIFA Soccer 12*
Final Fantasy XI: Seekers of Adoulin*
Football Manager* 2011
Free Style*
Gatling Gears*
Ghostbusters: The Video Game*
Hidden Secrets: The Nightmare*
Hot Wheels: Beat That*
Hunted: The Demon's Forge*
Hunting Unlimited 4*
IGT Slots: Texas Tea*
In-Fisherman Freshwater Trophies*
Journey to Fairyland*
Jurassic Park: The Game*
JX3*
Left 4 Dead 2*
Legends of Atlantis: Exodus*
LEGO Batman*
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4*
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7*
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean*
LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy*
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars*
LEGO Universe*
LIMBO*
Lineage II*
Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard*
Mabinogi Heroes*
Madden NFL*
Magic: The Gathering - Tactics*
Major League Baseball 2K9*
Mass Effect 2*
Medieval II: Total War Gold*
Metro 2033*
Monday Night Combat*
Monster Hunter Frontier*
Mystery Case Files: Return To Ravenhearst*
Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse*
Nancy Drew Warnings at Waverly Academy*
Napoleon: Total War*
Natalie Brooks: Secrets of Treasure House*
NBA 2K10*
Need For Speed: World 2010*
Operation Flashpoint: Red River*
Pirates of Black Cove*
Plain Sight*
Popkart*
Portal 2*
QQ Dance*
QQ Speed*
Quake Live*
Ranch Rush*
Rift: Planes of Telara*
Rise of Immortals*
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3*
RuneScape*
Section 8: Prejudice*
Shank*
Sid Meier's Civilization V*
Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity*
Sleepy Hollow*
Slots Dual Pack*
Spore* (Test 1 or 2 variants)
StarCraft 2* (Americas)
Star Trek Online*
Street Fighter IV*
Super Street Fighter IV*
Supreme Commanders 2*
Tales of Monkey Island*
Team Fortress 2*
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus*
The Sims 2: Pets*
The Sims 3: Ambitions*
The Sims 3: High End Loft Stuff*
The Sims 3: Late Night*
The Sims 3: Pets*
The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff*
The Sims Medieval*
The Treasures Of Mystery Island*
The World Of Legend*
Tiger Woods Online*
Tiger Woods PGA TOUR*
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.*
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.2*
Total War: Shogun 2*
Toy Story 3*
Trainz: Driver Ed*
Transformers: War for Cybertron*
TRON 2.0*
TRON: Evolution*
Tropico 3: Absolute Power*
Tropico 4*
Virtua Tennis 4*
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II*
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II - Retribution*
Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning*
World in Conflict*
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm*
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King*
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne*
World Two*
X3: Terran Conflict*
XuanYuan* (China)


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## Epona (Aug 1, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> I don't think so. yeah this kinda was the case back 10-20 years ago but not nowadays.
> 
> You don't need specialist knowledge for PC gaming.
> 
> ...


 
Yep - how many office workers play farmville on a PC during their lunchbreak?  Like it or not, that's still gaming.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2013)

actually the real kicker is the best selling PC game is the sims 2

i don't think many sims 2 players  sit at home reading up pn ati vs amd battles


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## Epona (Aug 1, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> actually the real kicker is the best selling PC game is the sims 2
> 
> i don't think many sims 2 players sit at home reading up pn ati vs amd battles


 
PC gamers aren't on the whole hobbyists. People like me who are really into hardware and building PCs are hobbyists. Your average PC gamer is not. I get excited about building a system that can run The Witcher 2 on ultra settings, now The Witcher 2 was a fine game, but I have spent far more time playing Crusader Kings 2 which probably runs on a 5+ year old PC and barely uses my GTX 670 graphics card. I have the fancy hardware because I like the fancy hardware in its own right, not because I need it for the vast majority of stuff I play (some people collect comics, and they are not a  'necessary' thing to have) - that's what makes me a PC hobbyist, not the fact that I play games.


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 2, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "PC gaming" as some sort of unified entity is a bit of an odd concept.


 

Yet PC gamers always seem to push the idea that that is the case...


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 2, 2013)

Epona said:


> Yep - how many office workers play farmville on a PC during their lunchbreak? Like it or not, that's still gaming.


 

Less than play Angry Birds on a smartphone. Which is far closer to console gaming than PC?


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## Epona (Aug 2, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Less than play Angry Birds on a smartphone. Which is far closer to console gaming than PC?


 
A phone is obviously neither PC nor console, what an idiotic argument! Gaming on mobile devices is just as much gaming as is sitting down with a PC or console though - I'm not one to be snobbish about these things.  I use a phone for making phone calls, strange as that may seem.


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 2, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yet PC gamers always seem to push the idea that that is the case...


They absolutely do not; there is a huge amount of snobbishness. Some people are proper gamers with heavy graphics cards and all that. The losers just play facebook games and minesweeper.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 2, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yet PC gamers always seem to push the idea that that is the case...


 
PC gamers  or  people who play PC games?

because  when you start to bring gamers into the conversation  all hope is lost


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## mwgdrwg (Aug 2, 2013)

Never.

Comparing Nintendo to Sega show's your ignorance of basic facts.


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## Epona (Aug 2, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They absolutely do not; there is a huge amount of snobbishness. Some people are proper gamers with heavy graphics cards and all that. The losers just play facebook games and minesweeper.


 
I hope that as a PC gamer and hardware hobbyist I don't do anything to perpetuate that view - I will happily play games on my crap phone when I can't sleep (when the phone was given to me by my dad it had Sims 2 on it  ), or partake in a Windows card game (I am quite good at Free Cell). Gaming should be FUN. Whatever provides the user with FUN is probably worthwhile. Yes, I will criticise where I think a game lacks the complexity of earlier iterations in the franchise (only because I worry that any depth in games will be eradicated by the drive to reach a large audience in order to generate a larger profit, and I do like to have access to games that are complex). But not every game has to be fathoms deep in order to be fun. I have a blue cat called Sonic FFS - work that one out for yourself


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 2, 2013)

Epona said:


> I hope that as a PC gamer and hardware hobbyist I don't do anything to perpetuate that view - I will happily play games on my crap phone when I can't sleep (when the phone was given to me by my dad it had Sims 2 on it  ), or partake in a Windows card game (I am quite good at Free Cell). Gaming should be FUN. Whatever provides the user with FUN is probably worthwhile. Yes, I will criticise where I think a game lacks the complexity of earlier iterations in the franchise (only because I worry that any depth in games will be eradicated by the drive to reach a large audience in order to generate a larger profit, and I do like to have access to games that are complex). But not every game has to be fathoms deep in order to be fun. I have a blue cat called Sonic FFS - work that one out for yourself



You don't.


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 2, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They absolutely do not; there is a huge amount of snobbishness. Some people are proper gamers with heavy graphics cards and all that. The losers just play facebook games and minesweeper.



Not my experience, they usually don't consider those other things games and that real gaming is PC games in the conventional type. On a related note I've come across far more snobby pc gamers in relation to console gamers than I have in the reverse.


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## Citizen66 (Aug 4, 2013)

The games I play on a console such as bethesda stuff you can also get for the pc. The reverse isn't true as in I can't get paradox grand strategies for the xbox.


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## mwgdrwg (Oct 16, 2013)

Pokemon X & Y have sold 4 million copies in two days.

Clearly, Nintendo are doomed


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## kabbes (Oct 16, 2013)

mwgdrwg said:


> Pokemon X & Y have sold 4 million copies in two days.
> 
> Clearly, Nintendo are doomed


Outperforming even GTA V!


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## Yata (Oct 18, 2013)

Nintendo aren't going anywhere they have their slice of the pie and MS/Sony have theirs, totally seperate market they're not even competing tbh


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## Sunray (Oct 19, 2013)

Its not about now though.  Children grow up quite quickly and want better.

If they can't sell into that market right now then they will have failed to capture a core market in 5 years time and in 10 years they are a footnote.


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## souljacker (Oct 19, 2013)

Sunray said:


> Its not about now though.  Children grow up quite quickly and want better.
> 
> If they can't sell into that market right now then they will have failed to capture a core market in 5 years time and in 10 years they are a footnote.



Probably true. And what device does any self respecting primary school kid use for gaming? A DS.


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## kabbes (Oct 19, 2013)

Yes. And what is every kid playing right now? Pokemon.


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## mwgdrwg (Jan 8, 2014)

Japan game sales top 10 for 2013:

1) Pokemon X and Y (3DS) - 3,976,829
2) Monster Hunter 4 (3DS) - 3,293,312
3) Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) - 1,730,182 (lifetime to date: 4,017,159)
4) Tomodachi Collection (3DS) - 1,580,067
5) Dragon Quest VII (3DS) - 1,227,377
6) Puzzle & Dragons Z (3DS) - 1,005,697
7) Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS) - 982,737
8) Grand Theft Auto V (PS3) - 605,882
9) New Super Mario Bros. U (Wii U) - 584,479 (lifetime to date: 965,794)
10) Wii Party U (Wii U) - 518,766


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## kabbes (Jan 8, 2014)

Tomodachi?


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 9, 2014)

Gaming in Japan is shifting rapidly to mobile and on smartphone. Nintendo's days are numbered as a hardware maker.


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## kabbes (Jan 9, 2014)

2DS and 3DS sales seem to be holding steady, actually. A few million a quarter, and about 9m at Christmas. 36m total as at 3q 2013. Each one at a profit. Hard to see them exiting that market any time soon.


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## mwgdrwg (Jan 9, 2014)

kabbes said:


> Tomodachi?



Tamagotchi in the UK.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 17, 2014)

Looks like Nintendo is continuing it's journey down the shitter. Forecasting a $300 million odd loss and cutting sales forcasts for its consoles by TWO THIRDS!

Yeah this is a company that has a future...


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## fen_boy (Jan 18, 2014)

Only the Wii U forecast has been cut by 2/3.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 18, 2014)

Pedantic but fair point but that still doesn't exactly bode well given the mobile forcast has been cut by something like a third.

This is a watershed moment for their business...


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## fen_boy (Jan 18, 2014)

I love my Wii U. The kids love it too. I love Nintendo, I always have. They make the best games, I want my kids to grow up playing Nintendo games. But on the hardware side I think you might be right. It's all starting to feel a bit Dreamcast'y.
I still think there's still a place for the 3DS mind you.


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## Ranbay (Jan 18, 2014)




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## revol68 (Jan 22, 2014)

B0B2oo9 said:


>




Whilst I agree with his points and am an open minded kind of person, I really can't help but thinking making youtube videos like that is embarrassing, especially so when you are over 14.


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