"If Nintendo fails to succeed, it is not Nintendo's fault."
He's not entirely wrong of course, but that's just delicious. I wonder if he has as much compassion for his fellow man.
Disagree. He's entirely wrong because he's blaming consumers for Nintendo's woes. Nintendo only have themselves to blame. They were late to the HD boat. They were late in getting an online service... and even that isn't a good service, may I add. They haven't attempted to get third parties on board with "well if you publish games on our system we'll eat some of the loss with you" in attempt to get them to publish games people may want on the system (but this isn't going to happen since "late to the HD party" means they're a full generation behind. Doesn't matter if it's "next-gen" or not, to developers and consumers at large it's "current-gen" while the Wii was "last-gen") and maybe get sales based on those games.
Now granted, that last one: Third Parties isn't entirely Nintendo's fault. Third parties have
half-assed attempted to publish games on Nintendo systems. And unless it's a smash like Resident Evil 4 (which was exclusive and had die-hards at the time buying it simply for that) most Nintendo console owners only have
themselves to blame in regards to not picking up those titles and buying the yearly Mario Kart #490530589348089, Mario Party #4902485853408953408 Mario Tennis #20984204802384028 title instead.
Now, you could say "but you could say the same of those third party titles on other consoles." Yes, but the thing is: Those other consoles
don't cannibalize sales of third party games like Nintendo. Add in the fact that Nintendo treated publishers like shit in the 80's (for good at the time, but bad in the long-term) and I can't fault third parties for being leery about Nintendo.
I really wish Iwata would resign like he "said"/"Japanese media implied" he would. He isn't really making any attempt on getting third parties on board. He NEEDS to be flying around the countries and going to EA/Activison/etc. and asking "what would you need to publish on Nintendo systems
besides sales" and trying to foster third party support again.
Nintendo's problems started with the transition from the SNES because by that time Sony was getting in on the party and treating third parties better than Nintendo's "family friendly" fascist boot-stomping was. Add in architecture that was easy to code for (hey, something the PS4 is doing. Circle of life and all that?) in comparison to the Saturn and N64 and it was over for Nintendo having a strangle-hold on third parties because they were the only "successful" console(s) for that time. They haven't made much attempts to fix it and have just let it fester.
Edit: Actually, thinking about it the long-winded "TL;DR" reply to you is: Nintendo has a problem with being
very late to solving issues people have with them... if they ever attempt to solve them. It's a recurring problem and Nintendo needs to realize it because sooner or later the handheld line that has been saving them isn't going to be there anymore and then their console business AND handheld business will be in trouble.
