Nintendo made $10.8B in FY24 with mobile and IP income up 81.6%
pocketgamer.biz
pocketgamer.biz
But it paid off, and if they manage to carry this momentum over a generational transition it will be very hard to see how anyone is going to displace their position, especially with the younger end of the audience, though it seems likely most of their revenue is with the older crowds.
What paid off for Nintendo was a willingness to bet on games and take risks on changing up their strategy.
Other gaming experiences, ironically, lack the playfulness of the Switch. The design language and marketing has been on point.
They are 7 years deep though and the suspected new console will have big shoes to fill. How can they farm revenue while not offending their current customers?
Oh for the days of nintendium. I got upset playing Sonic Advance 2 when I was little and overhand-hurled my GBA down an entire flight of stairs onto tile, ran down, picked it up then ran to the next door to throw it down the basement stairs to a concrete floor.
I was suddenly overcome with regret and ran to check my precious device. One small (4mm) stress fracture that did not change the surface of the plastic.
I don't know what our household's problem is then. We've had nothing but problems with joycon connections across three devices. Repeatedly one of the two controllers would fail to pair with the switches despite being physically docked. I've got to the point where I told my girls I'm not trying to help fix it anymore and they should play games on one of the many other options they have. Mostly they play games on PC now.
Switch hits the couch coop spot for casuals. I got converted by couple friend playing Luigi Mansion and I've converted a few others. People otherwise not interested in gaming / console gaming. It's just a nice way to pass time every once in a while, pretty cheap relative to other couple activities.
I bought my mother a Switch and a copy of Animal Crossing when it came out, early in lockdown. She had never played a video game before, but was looking for some new hobbies other than watching the news and getting depressed. She played it daily for years. It gave her something positive to do, she got to play online with my kids and my sister's kids... it was by far the best purchase I've ever made.
That’s been one of Nintendo’s biggest struggles, at least with their home consoles.
This is absolutely not true. They had enough cash reserves to keep operating with those annual losses for 80 more years.
Nintendo generally doesn’t keep adding content for games long after release.
I was always drooling over the hydlide3 box art used in ads of MSX magazines.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/msx/935001-hydlide-3-the-space...
Such wow
One thing to add a paid service to a game but to put features that were in the original game behind the service as well is not OK with me. Very similar to split screen multiplayer mode lacking in games these days. Now, if you want to play with a friend, well you need internet, you need another console, you need another game and you are more than likely not even playing in the same house let alone same room.