Why do we relish Nintendo's crisis so much?

This year is Nintendo’s 125th anniversary, and so the company is celebrating by haemorrhaging money. The figures are dour. Nintendo announced net losses of $229 million for fiscal year 2014, a saddening reversal of 2013’s return to profit. Just 2.7 million Wii U units were sold last year, compared to 7 million PS4s and 5 million Xbox Ones shipped in half as much time.

[BattleAxe]

I don't put relish on anything.

[guitarded77]

Not even a hot dog?

[mikeslemonade]

Cause they screwed is over with the Wii1. Now I can have fun seeing them rot this generation.

[Maddens Raiders]

I grew up on Nintendo and Sega (nintendo first). I loved Nintendo games back then, but in my teens I slowly migrated to to the Genesis games more b/c they captured my attention a bit more with more violent "mature" content-filled games like say Jungle Strike, Desert Strike, Herzog Zwei, M-1 Abrams battle Tank, G-Loc Air Battle, and of course sports games like /Madden/. After Sega fuct up royally with their consoles, I adopted this little unknown system at the time called the PlayStation.

I love Nintendo to this day for what they stood for in my childhood and all the memories I had on the NES and SNES. I feel it would be a shame to lose such an iconic company from the vg landscape. I also thought the same about Sega's consoles at one time. Sadly after my SNES, I never bought another Ninty console, but still played their games on my friend's systems who did especially Mario Karts and SSBB.

I don't feel that I left Nintendo behind, but that they never had the future of guys like me figured into their long term business models.

[Vegamyster]

@Maddens Raiders

Everyone has different preference, I've gone between all 3 companies and the PC because i saw good games.

[s45gr32]

No especially not a hot dog I simply don't like relish.

[BattleAxe]

@ Guitarded

Nope

[Maddens Raiders]

@vaegamyster - Where did I say the games weren't good? I said my preferences for certain /types/ of games changed as I got older, specifically, the content. Is that ok with you?

[sloth3395]

people hope Nintendo fails because they really want Nintendo games on other systems

[admiralvic]

I wouldn't say people relish in Nintendo's crisis, as much as I would say that the media knows inflammatory headlines and doom / gloom articles get views. This is hardly unique to Nintendo, as we've seen a number of articles focus on Sony's losses, M$ screwing up, someone has said every current console besides the maybe the PS4 (I've at least never seen anyone make that claim) are doomed and many many many similar articles. Not much more to it than that, since negativity sells, positivity doesn't.

[diesoft]

I think because they used to be SO much better and then decided to be okay with falling behind technology-wise and shift their focus away from who made them successful to a more casual audience. Nothing wrong with casual gamers but it came at the expense of a lot of bread-and-butter gamers. So the ones who are interested enough in video games to write articles are upset about how Nintendo used to be.

The casual fans don't come to gaming sites as much so we don't hear quite as often from them.

Don't be upset with me if you're a Nintendo fan. I am one, too, but they just don't make as many games for US anymore. It saddens me.

[s45gr32]

Nintendo has never targeted adult gamers or hard-core gamers at all. It has always been children and pre-teens. Sega before becoming a software only company was the one that targeted hardcore gamers. Look at Jurassic Park for SNES compared to the Genesis version or better yet look at Mortal Kombat for both Genesis and super Nintendo.... The last part I do agree with

[vengeance]

I never really understood why people bring up mortal kombat to make the whole kiddy argument, sure the first game was toned down for the snes but the second and third ones had all the blood and gore in them, people just seem to get hung up on that one game for some reason, don't get me wrong, I know they have a family friendly approach to their games but seriously, the whole mortal komat thing....let it go guys.

[Sincere0121]

People who relish in it are usually very sad people with no life and are lacking something in their lower region and they just take all their insecurities and criticisms out on Nintendo for some reason as it makes them feel better about themselves.
It's a mental disorder, no normal person relishes at anyone who is in crisis.

Nintendo's not perfect and has made some pretty crap decisions, but these weird folk take it way to far.
Don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for these weirdo's.

[Bathyj]

Nintendo got lucky last gen. As spectacular as their success was, it could have just as easily been a spectacular failure.

Because of their good fortune they decided to rest on their laurels and tried for lightening in a bottle twice. Sufficed to say, its not going as they planned.

Everyone can benefit from a humbling.

Backlash at Sonys arrogance made them try harder and they turned PS3 into what was easily the best supported console by the respective platform holders of the last half of the generation.

Outcry from MS constantly treating on their own extremities has caused more 180's than anything else in history and while I still dont personally trust them to lie straight in bed, they at least seem to be trying to point in the right direction now.

Nintendo hopefully will have a good hard look at themselves and reevaluate and try to get back into the console market as a competitive force on a hardware level with their next machine so one day we might own a Nintendo console whose sole purpose isnt just to play Nintendo games, which as been an issue for them as far back as N64, and get some 3rd party support back.

[s45gr32]

I don't know why you get disagrees when you posted an intelligent comment not based on emotions but on facts.

[Bathyj]

Some people dont like my charismatic smile. I try to get on with my life as best I can.

[for we are many]

"We" ?? trying to make that look like the norm?!! It's only a bunch of overly vocal fanboys who hate the fact that Nintendo continues to provide the gold standard of quality and fun in video games throughout their long years in a market not only they single handedly saved and reestablished but made great contributions and innovations over the years. Yes, they make some errors and mistakes here and there, but to HATE Nintendo is like hating the idea of videogames itself, because Nintendo IS videogames.

[s45gr32]

Ummm why can no one admit that Nintendo is the Disney/Pixar of gaming. That Nintendo's targeted audience is kids, pre-teens, and people that are child at heart. Knowing and understanding this we can move on from the hollowness of sales to what is really important do these games appeal it's targeted audience, do the games bring innovation, creativity, and gaming experiences that say audience has not experienced before. By answering these questions we can get the answers as to how and what strategies will Nintendo use to move into success.

[GenericNameHere]

And just like with Disney and Pixar, Nintendo has had a lot of hit-and-misses. Not all Disney movies from the 80-90s were blockbuster hits. And mid-2000s, they completely gave up on Disney Network, and added a whole bunch of tween BS, like Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon did. And Pixar... I think it's fair to say CARS was horrible.

Nintendo's problem is, the fanbase they want to attract are moving on to mobile. Why spend $300 on a Wii U and $60 on games when they can find an alternative on their or their parents' iOS or Android devices? There were a lot of great and innovative FPSs on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Why didn't they succeed? Because Call of Duty and Battlefield completely own the FPS genre, and also because if you look, there are thousands of generic FPS on mobile that are either free, or just a few bucks each. $60 for Spec Ops The Line, or pay $2.99 for this FPS on my iPad? Guess which most people would go for.

PS at the headline: Same can be said for the Playstation during early 7th gen, and still right now. People will always bring up that Sony is in the red. As for Microsoft and Nintendo, people will always bring up their warchest.

[s45gr32]

Yes is true there is a lot of articles about Sony in the red; however, those bloody Sony TVs, home theater, etc. never go down in price. If a company is in the red one the company would lower the prices of their product, two heavily market their product, downsize and restructure their company. The only thing Sony has done is the last one. The problem with sales is the lack of record for digital distribution sales, catalog sales, and no record of imports/export sales. So by going with only with retail sales and retail sales alone the consumer is only seeing 25 percent only a quarter of the success or failure of a company and its product. That's terrible and that's what needs to change, which is 99-100 percent accuracy of sales not a measly quarter. The reason why I bring up digital distribution and catalog sales is due to the fact that if there's more demand for buying games at a digital store or catalog and not a lot of demand for retail. Where do you think the supply is going to go, that's right digital or catalog..... What Nintendo needs right now is to bring say kid friendly titles that differ, innovate, or excite its targeted audience to buy a wii u or like you said is going to lose their current audience to the mobile market.

[Apex13]

F me someone actually called out the elephant in the industry of online journalism, gaming and blog site. Why is a dam good question which I don't understand. Support or don't, simple.

[Dannycr]

I pretty have had every single Nintendo console ever made (except for a couple of them maybe like Virtual Boy :P ) but the problem is the fans. They are happy with whatever Nintendo gives them, even if it is sub-par.

People who are vocal about Nintendo's shortcomings are people who wants Nintendo to succeed by providing (much needed) criticism. Well, at least I do want Nintendo to succeed and be on-par with the competition, but there are areas where they are severely lacking and keeping quiet about it won't improve it.

[gerbwmu]

Clearly Nintendo is not in a crisis. They have the money and the history to overcome what has been a few bad years profit wise.

Those who relish in this "failure" dislike Nintendo because that's what's cool at the moment.

The rest of us either like Nintendo for what they are, have criticisms based on what we wish they would add to their repertoire, or have no interest in Nintendo and could not care less about what they do.