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Why Nintendo Stopped Chasing Power — and Changed the Game - Video học tiếng Anh
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Why Nintendo Stopped Chasing Power — and Changed the Game
Why Nintendo Stopped Chasing Power — and Changed the Game
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Phụ đề (132)
0:06
Nintendo is the king of handheld consoles. It's no exaggeration to say that with the
0:10
NES in the 1980s, Nintendo revitalized the entire console gaming business.
0:15
Nintendo because of the way it has innovated um console
0:18
hardware has had an influence on game design.
0:21
They have like decades of experience developing games for handhelds,
0:25
but they also have decades of experience developing games for traditional TV consoles.
0:30
Nintendo's enduring success in video games has been built on the powerful
0:34
combination of timeless character-led franchises and innovative hardware.
0:48
I'm Arjun Kharpal and in this episode of Built for Billions,
0:52
I'm exploring Nintendo's console evolution.
0:55
From the NES to the Wii U and the Switch,
0:57
the Japanese game makers bold experiments have produced both hits and misses alike. But that
1:04
very willingness to experiment is what has so often left rivals racing to catch up.
1:16
Nintendo entered the home console market with the Famicom in Japan in 1983,
1:20
which became the Nintendo Entertainment System - NES- internationally in 1985.
1:26
Its launch came just after the video game crash of 1983 when poor quality
1:31
consoles and games flooded the market and nearly wiped out the industry.
1:40
By pairing strict quality control with iconic titles,
1:44
the NES restored trust in video games and created the blueprint for Nintendo's future.
1:49
And it wasn't long before Nintendo followed up with another game changer, the handheld Game Boy.
1:55
The Game Boy and the Famicom and what they did, it brought Nintendo to living room. Um,
2:00
Game Boy and Tetris were very iconic moments in the early '90s.
2:03
I think that the Game Boy was the first commercially successful console. So, it was
2:08
portable, affordable, the battery life was pretty good because the screen was just monochrome.
2:14
Nintendo back then was very clever in bundling it with Tetris with which
2:19
is until today one of the most iconic video games that we have.
2:23
But Nintendo's hardware success wasn't always guaranteed. In the mid '90s,
2:27
the company suffered a major setback with the Virtual Boy,
2:30
a premature attempt at 3D gaming that was discontinued after less than a year.
2:35
By the early 2000s, they faced even more pressure with the GameCube. It was a powerful,
2:40
capable machine, but it was ultimately overshadowed by Sony's PlayStation 2.
2:45
The GameCube sold just 21.7 million units, while the PS2 moved a staggering 160 million,
2:53
becoming the bestselling console of all time.
2:56
And yet, while Nintendo struggled in the living room, its handheld dominance remained untouchable.
3:02
The Game Boy Advance and the dual screen DS revolutionized
3:06
portable play with the DS eventually selling more than 154 million units.
3:11
At the time PlayStation was trying to get into portable gaming. They launched the PlayStation
3:15
Portable and um and Nintendo rather than just create a more powerful Game Boy, they went and
3:20
created a dual screen device and a touchcreen. This is before the iPhone popularized all that.
3:24
So when Dragon Quest came out in in the late ' 80s, early 90s, um,
3:29
and this was the first iteration of a Japanese RPG and had all the elements that we know today,
3:33
sort of these manga characters in a sort of a fantasy world with a turn based combat,
3:39
a single player sort of story line that can be followed. All of a sudden,
3:43
we get the ability of playing a game across two screens. So for um a role playing game,
3:48
that means then you can have map access all the way through your game on a second screen. So it
3:53
can actually sort of declutter the main world and and allow for more um transparency. And so I think
3:59
yeah that that's what draws people in is sort of Nintendo's ability to push these innovations.
4:04
For instance, with the Wii, all of a sudden people are playing tennis in their front rooms.
4:09
On paper, the Wii was an underdog. While Sony and Microsoft chased raw power and
4:14
cutting-edge graphics, Nintendo moved in a different direction, unlocking a new market.
4:20
The Wii wasn't a powerhouse, but its simplicity, motion controllers,
4:24
and irresistible packing game Wii Sports, made it a cultural phenomenon.
4:34
There was Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and they were all doing very similar things,
4:39
and they were trying to compete with one another. And Nintendo realized
4:42
they couldn't play this game. And with their next machine, the Nintendo Wii,
4:46
it wasn't actually much more powerful than the GameCube. In fact, it wasn't even a HD console.
4:49
Everyone moved to HD at that point. Nintendo did not. They made they they made a motion
4:54
control device. And waving a controller around was a lot less complicated than using an analog
4:57
stick and a controller. It made games more accessible, broadened it out to the family.
5:01
But the Wii's massive success was followed by one of Nintendo's most baffling chapters, the Wii U.
5:07
It was a console caught between two worlds, part tablet, part home system,
5:11
with a marketing campaign that left consumers more confused than excited.
5:16
"Here's why we need Wii U."
5:18
It ultimately became one of Nintendo's biggest misses,
5:21
selling just 13.5 million units, a tiny fraction of its predecessors, more than 100 million units.
5:28
The Wii U was a flop, and Nintendo has um acknowledged as such. People felt
5:33
it was an update of the Wii, but didn't quite realize that the new controller,
5:37
which had the touchscreen, was allowing different play options,
5:40
which weren't possible on the Wii or any other consoles for that matter.
5:44
I think that in the case of the Wii U, uh Nintendo learned not to be arrogant, not to
5:48
be too complacent, and they learned also there was still something in that idea of the Wii U,
5:54
uh to disconnect the TV from portable gaming and
5:58
kind of have like an almost hybrid device in the case of of the Wii U.
6:03
Meanwhile, mobile gaming exploded. Smartphones and tablets were suddenly everywhere,
6:08
and with them came a new wave of low cost games that kept users coming back.
6:13
Titles like Angry Birds, Clash of Clans,
6:15
and Candy Crush created an entirely new audience of casual gamers.
6:20
For the first time, Nintendo wasn't just competing with other console
6:23
makers. They were competing with the phone in everyone's pocket.
6:27
In 2012, mobile gaming was just a small slice of the pie, accounting for 18% of the
6:33
$70 billion dollar global games market, while consoles represented nearly half of revenues.
6:39
But just four years later, everything flipped. By 2016,
6:43
mobile had shot past both PCs and consoles to claim 40% of the rapidly growing industry.
6:50
Almost overnight, smartphone games were dominating the headlines,
6:54
investor calls, and everything. And people were questioning whether the company's handheld
6:58
consoles like the 3DS and its brand of casual games aimed at young gamers even had a future.
7:04
Even Nintendo started thinking about its own um business model back in the
7:10
time. So they I think during that time wanted to appease investors to some
7:14
to some extent by going into mobile by kind of like breaking their own rules.
7:19
And then in the summer of 2016 came Pokémon Go. While the augmented
7:24
reality hit wasn't actually developed by Nintendo. It features some of their most
7:28
iconic creatures and became an overnight global sensation.
7:32
I remember the absolute madness. Crowds of literally hundreds
7:35
running through parks to catch rare Pokémon.
7:38
Suddenly, Nintendo's worlds felt alive in the real one,
7:42
and it completely reshaped the perception of what the company could be in the modern era.
7:51
At that time, Nintendo um uh released Super Mario Run, which which was a mobile game. So,
7:56
that was, they were prepared at that point to take their character
8:00
IP out from the console space into other areas into almost competitive platforms.
8:05
The timing couldn't have been better. While Nintendo's mobile games didn't deliver huge
8:09
revenue, they achieved something more important. They brought back old fans,
8:14
created new ones, and reminded the world why Nintendo's characters
8:18
mattered. Just months ahead of one of Nintendo's biggest hardware gambles.
8:26
In 2017, Nintendo launched the Switch, a hybrid console that
8:31
could be played at home or on the go. It was the culmination of decades of
8:35
experience merging Nintendo's legendary handheld DNA with home console power.
8:40
I think that when the Switch came out in 2017,
8:43
you could see that Nintendo radically transfer transformed internally.
8:47
They've harnessed some of the things that they did well with the Wii U but didn't
8:51
sell particularly well to put that in innovation into the Switch and and
8:55
actually do a good job at marketing that and bringing that to a broader audience.
8:58
Nintendo had redeemed itself. The original Switch went on to become
9:02
Nintendo's bestselling console ever with over 155 million units sold,
9:07
fundamentally reshaping an industry that many thought had outgrown dedicated handhelds.
9:13
Now Nintendo is building on that momentum with the Switch 2, a console designed to
9:17
carry the hybrid philosophy forward while giving developers more power and fans more flexibility.
9:23
The Switch 2 mainly seems to be an upgrade, a hardware upgrade of the Switch. And many people
9:29
felt like, okay, it was kind of necessary. The Switch was getting to 8 years um old.
9:34
It's quite hard to follow a successful machine with another successful machine.
9:38
More than 40 years after the NES pulled the industry back from the brink,
9:42
Nintendo still faces the same fundamental challenge. How do you keep reinventing the
9:47
hardware without losing the simplicity and charm that made you a household name in the first place?
9:53
Their creativity is at the heart of everything they do. They're always
9:57
often trying to do something innovative or new with everything they create.
10:00
I don't think they can just put out a Switch 3 which is going to be another
10:04
hardware improvement. People don't want that. They don't so much expect Xbox or
10:08
um Microsoft or Sony to to radically innovate something. But we still expect it from Nintendo.
10:15
My concern for Nintendo is maintaining momentum,
10:17
it's how can you keep that audience coming in, How can you keep them um engaged?
10:21
In the final episode, we'll look at Nintendo's boldest gamble yet. From movies to merch,
10:28
find out how the company's leveraging decades
10:30
of nostalgia to build a universe that exists way beyond the console.
