[holmium]

> Sad that I had hoped some exec at Nintendo would veto this approach as "Not Nintendo" rather than choosing to tarnish the brand and take the money, like Apple did.

They did, originally. They released a $10, no microtransactions Mario game (Super Mario Run) in 2016. The general consensus is that the game did not live up to Nintendo's commercial expectations[1], and I think that's true. Nintendo entirely switched to the more standard App Store game model for its later mobile titles, and they print money.

As for "tarnishing the brand," Nintendo still hasn't really put a "full title" on mobile, with the maybe possible exception of Mario Kart. It feels like they are still keeping their distance, but who knows what would have happened if the Switch sales were more like the Wii U than the Wii.

--------

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Run#Commercial

[airstrike]

There's a huge spectrum of pricing possibilities between $10 flat for a generic run game (in 2016!) and lootboxes

[krageon]

Super mario run is very good (teaches you the mechanics well, has ramping difficulty, keeps things fresh with challenges, etc) and well themed, it's hardy a "generic run game".

[freedomben]

They could have released DLCs that added more levels for increasing somewhat recurring revenue. I would have gladly jumped at that.

[doodpants]

Don't know about anyone else, but the reason I never bought Super Mario Run was because it required a constant internet connection, AND you had to create an account with Nintendo. (At the time, I had an iPod Touch rather than a phone with a cell connection, and usually kept Wi-Fi turned off to save battery, so I only played games that could run offline. So my situation was probably not common, but Nintendo's choices here still feel a bit invasive.)

[freedomben]

Yep, and it refused to run if your phone was rooted. A game refusing to run. And of course with no internet connection it wouldn't work so you couldn't play while you were camping even though the entire gameplay was offline. And the moment a new version was released you had to download/install it otherhwise the game would refuse to run, even if you were on wifi 5 minutes earlier and now on mobile data which is super expensive.

They let their extreme love for DRM and proprietariness completely overwhelm the user experience. But instead of asking themselves if that's why it didn't sell well, they of course conclude that they weren't making money because they weren't being scummy enough.

I bought Mario Run and even with the absurd restrictions I enjoyed it and probably would have bought more of their games if they'd continued. Quite the disapointment.

[jandrese]

It's not directly Nintendo, but Pokemon Go is adjacent and is still an absolute cash cow loaded with mobile cancer. Pushing back against that kind of moneymaking potential is quixotic in any corporation.

[hospitalJail]

People have no idea how strong Nintendo Marketing(aka brainwashing) is. Pokemon is such a solid brand because we used to watch a 30 minute commercial every Saturday for it.

At what point is Nintendo's ability to manipulate us with their corporate mascots/IP a type of mental illness or cause for public concern?

[ineedasername]

Yes, I think Nintendo believed they really needed to compete in the mobile space but also didn't want to cannibalize game purchases on their console platforms. Software is their profit center but exclusivity to their hardware gives them much greater control. It also let's them act as a toll collector for anyone else who wants to publish on their platform.

None of this is new information, but a precursor to this point: Nintendo, strategically, couldn't afford (or at least wasn't willing to risk) to develop mobile content on par with the quality of their proprietary hw platforms. Super Mario Run had to be a sub-par experience compared to what was obtainable on their own platform to avoid this risk. Yet they still released a sub-par experience at what, for mobile, was a high premium price of $10. It was doomed to fail from the outset.

They might have maximized the popularity of Mario Run by coming out with a $2-$3 price tag and marketing campaign that essentially gave the message of "Hey this is just a fun little thing we made, hope you enjoy" but that price tag would risk anchoring consumer expectations of the cost of actual premium Nintendo content to a lower benchmark: "Why is Nintendo charging me $40 for New Super Mario Bros. 2 when a similar game (in visual aesthetics only, but still) only costs $3? Ripoff!"

Or at least that might have been their fear at the time. Mario Run appear a in the year prior to the Switch and after the mediocre reception of the Wii U.

The confusing thing to me is that, even after the Switch's success demonstrated the mobile App Store platforms didn't need to be an existential threat, they still went ahead with a freemium lootbox game, or really any freemium game. It's like their still fighting the previous war. Now the emerging mobile war surrounds gaming services that can provide a full console or PC experience on just about any mobile device. I'll lump the Steam Deck in there as part of that war since Steam has demonstrated that really avid gamers are willing to pay to 1) have access to their existing deep library of games and 2) not have to deal with the downsides of streaming. A more casual gamer can get a decent experience streaming w/ Game Pass for $15/month on their phone and/or tablet, a more dedicated gamer might still do that for convenience but can also go for the Deck (or potential competitors) at a price near that of traditional consoles, etc.

There's lots of dust still in the air here that has yet to settle, but Nintendo has yet to show their strategy for this next era of gaming while their current hardware is aging and their gaming service is not only restricted to that hardware but also limited mostly to older games from previous gen consoles.