The Japanese video-game giant Nintendo has had a very rough decade. Ten years prior, Nintendo was riding some high success courtesy of the commercial and cultural success of the Nintendo Wii, its famous and classic physical-controller console, and the Nintendo DS, its most popular handheld.
Nintendo's diminishing reputation
Nintendo's state before along with its stocks price climbed to some record heights by 2007. But the dwindling Wii remotes have proven to be a particularly short-lived trend instead of a lasting lifestyle. To top it off, the 2012 high-definition follow-up, the Wii U, ultimately disappointed the fans, critics, and consumers, and the company's total value had dropped by more than 80 percent by late that year.
More problems that lead to Nintendo's drop
Things haven't gotten any better since that. Nintendo's part-interest in The Pokémon Company gave it some life after the success of Pokémon GO this summer. But by Halloween, the game had already shed 60 percent of its current users. As winter approached, the stock was already trading at 2000 prices.
Right now, the company is, yet again, considered the third wheel towards Sony and Microsoft in the video-game industry. During this month, two new Nintendo products have offered insights into the current state of the company, its work, and its overall legacy. Overall, Nintendo's efforts of being able to rise again have been projected to again be a failure.
Reminiscing Nintendo's successful years
During the 1970s, video games started to rapidly grow in popularity as opposed to other recreational activities. Arcade games were already found in taverns and even bowling alleys. During this time, Arcade games have become the hopeful computational successors to pool, darts, and pinball.
When video arcades were introduced, they were considered no less seedy than bars, even despite the booze. Earlier home consoles like the 1977 Atari Video Computer System were first considered as a way to let families bring arcade games to the comfort and safety of their homes.
What contributed towards Nintendo's early success?
Afterward, titles flooded the concurrent console game gold rush, which eventually led to a sector-wide crash in 1983. Nintendo's rise to success during the mid-1980s, especially in North America, was due to the reinvention of video games as a form of children's media. A part of that strategy involved appealing towards toy retailers who had been shut down by video games.
When the agreement was made, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was introduced and was initially sold with a toy robot and light gun to make the purchase more than just a game system. Another part also involved tightly controlling licenses for games that are made for the system. Nintendo limited the number of games that developers could produce annually and handled every cartridge manufacture in-house.
The games were mostly harmless as well. Titles like Super Mario Bros., The legend of Zelda, and Duck Hunt were very friendly, cartoonish games. Even very difficult games, like Capcom's Mega Man series, still looked adorably cute from across the family room. Nintendo was known for tightly controlling the contents of the games it's developing, which is an easy feat to accomplish since they controlled the production process completely.