Nintendo and the Quest for the One True Killer App

[Patticus]

I say quest, but really it has become more of a company-wide obsession, driven it seems by leadership which doesn't understand the videogames market at all.
 

In 2003, George Harrison, senior vice president of Nintendo of America, was asked by Electronic Gaming Monthy about what GameCube’s biggest shortcomings were.

“If there’s a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it’s not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key. Consumers, I think, are past the time when they buy a system just to get one game. We used to believe that was the case,” says George Harrison.

Fast forward to today in 2013. The Wii U is struggling in sales. So what does Satoru Iwata tell reporters?

“One game has the power to change everything,” said Iwata during an October 2013 meeting with reporters.

http://www.dromble.com/2013/12/10/nintendos-obsession-with-finding-one-game-that-can-sell-consoles/

She makes a solid point: A system will not sell on the back of one game alone (although it is true that some may bite if the price is right). I mean sure, you can have that one big title to help draw people toward buying your system; it's always great when it's there and people are like, "Hey, this one big game's on this system, it must be pretty good after all." However, if you want to seal the deal and promote strong sales over the long term rather than just the immediate term, what you absolutely need is to have as diverse a library as possible, which ticks as many of the boxes as possible.

As third parties seem no longer to be a part of the Wii U equation, Nintendo should be sweet-talking indie studios, getting them to develop new entries from the enormous back-catalog of Nintendo IPs which have been absent for years or decades. Sony is already doing this, recently having green-lit new Shadow of the Beast and Lemmings titles from small indie studios, and I've been hearing on the grapevine that there are more games on the way from the old Psygnosis library. If Nintendo can start covering a larger selection of genres, genres appealing to wider audiences, then the Wii U will inevitably become more attractive to gamers and developers alike.

[Milo]

Indeed, it seems that Nintendo (fans) like(s) to bank on one killer app/event/publisher that would save the system.

 

But if we take a look at the chalkboard (which was even mentioned in the article!)...

 

 

None of them seem to have worked. And by the way things are going, it doesn't look like the others will have any better luck. Half the list has been blown through now.

 

EDIT: It's also worth noting that people around here have also pointed out a similar (if not the) exact point the author was making in her article in the Wii U thread.

 

As an example, We know for sure that a good chunk of Sony franchises are coming to the PS4, along with dozens of third party games that have already been announced and shown off in detail.

 

The Wii U is lacking in both those departments. Especially the second one. 

 

 

The thing that Sony and Microsoft got right this time, is the who they were talking too. And that is everyone. They're pitching their product to gamers; gamers of all description. Dudebros, kids, casuals, hardcores....all possible gamers. They have multimedia for non-gamers, covered too. Sony got this really right. MS slipped at first, but they quickly put themselves back on track.

 

 

So no, buying a PS4 for Final Fantasy is nothing like buying a Wii U at launch for Star Fox, Zelda U, F-Zero, or whatever else. Because it actually exists. I don't know if you were the one who said that (quote wasn't marked), so forgive me if this shouldn't be directed at you, but if so, you'd have a point if I had said I bought a PS4 for The Last Guardian. I didn't, though. The games that I'm excited for are games I've seen footage of and am fairly confident about release dates for (DC, InFamous, WD, and Destiny will all be out before May of 2014, FF 2015, and KH probably 2016). Zelda U still doesn't officially exist. Nor does Star Fox U or F-Zero U.

You may not be interested in any of those games I've listed, but evidently a lot of people are. 2.1 million people to be specific. That's a hell of a lot more than the number of people willing to bank $300-$350 on the possibility of Zelda U being great when it technically doesn't even exist yet.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Gabe Scrooge

[LimeTH]

I'd be frankly surprised if Mario Kart and Smash Bros. doesn't move consoles, but I agree. They have to stop banking on ONE game and focus on MANY. 

 

Plus, I really like the idea of getting indie developers to make games for their old IPs, but god bless them, they'll probably never do it.

[Dejimon11]

What do you mean by banking on one game? Since September we've been getting games? Rayman legends, wonderful 101, wind waker hd sonic lost world, mario and sonic at Sochi and 3 D world?

[VO.SUPER]

More than anything, I think Nintendo has to stop being so reluctant to have other people handle their IP's unless they're directly overseeing the production.

They have a mess of IP's which they could be selling, but the majority of their in house developers want to work on Zelda and Mario. It's a sheer miracle that we got things like KI:Uprising and LM:Dark Moon.

But Nintendo has more, and they can't develop them all in a timely manner with just their in-house developers. They need other studios to work on this stuff, or how about buying more studios with the Wii money?

Retro Studios can only ever cover one game at a time and they've got little else on their belt.

Sure, these don't sell very hot, but that's probably because Nintendo rarely gives these other studio made games the attention they need, unless they star a really popular character, or are made by Sakurai.

But right now, Nintendo is doing what every Japanese studio seems to be doing, reluctant to change or get others involved in their business. It's just like the manga and anime industry when they needed to get over their traditional methods of selling their products to a changing market.

[Chaos Warp]

The Wii-U has it's killer app now: Super Mario 3d World. What matters now is marketing. I've barely seen ads for the thing, and the ones I have seen aren't the greatest thing in the world. 

[Solkia]

Oh boy, I can't see this thread ending well.

 

I think it's been made clear that the games aren't the Wii U's problem. It's an internal problem.

[Milo]

What do you mean by banking on one game? Since September we've been getting games? Rayman legends, wonderful 101, wind waker hd sonic lost world, mario and sonic at Sochi and 3 D world?

 

Releasing a game for the system =/= gambling that one specific game would most certainly boost sales for the console. And none of those games excluding 3D World were the latter. Also worth noting that most (if not all) of those games didn't do well in sales (and in the case of the two Sonic games, weren't critical hits either).

 

The Wii-U has it's killer app now: Super Mario 3d World. What matters now is marketing. I've barely seen ads for the thing, and the ones I have seen aren't the greatest thing in the world. 

 

I've seen Nintendo pull out quite some stops to sell this game-the airport Wii U giveaway promo, TV ads, etc. The game's high acclaim has also been touted in ads.

 

Yet it's not selling, let alone giving the Wii U the holiday boost some/Nintendo was hoping for.

[Salamander]

I think that "one good game" can become a kind of straw to break the camel's back; that is, you might look at any number of merely good games on a console and still think it's not quite worth it, but once that one great game comes along, suddenly the rest of the library looks so much more attractive.  In other words, I think a console needs both a diverse library of games and that elusive killer app to act as a kind of figurehead, a defining example and embodiment, in a sense, of the potential of the rest of the library.

 

I do think it would be a good idea for Nintendo to try and leverage their franchise catalogue a bit more.  They seem to concentrate their efforts on Mario and console-themed titles (I mean stuff like Wii Sports, Wii Party U), but they have this huge back catalogue of beloved titles which we rarely see any of, some of which we never see - I guess the classic examples that I see mentioned a lot on this forum are F-Zero and Star Fox.  They make the case that they're putting their new ideas and new gameplay experiences in stuff like Mario, but if they do that, then the casual consumer just won't notice because they make a point of making their games look samey.  That was the big problem with stuff like the Mario 3D World and Link Between Worlds announcements, that they had a lot of new stuff going on but we didn't necessarily find out for a while because they wanted us to make the link between those games and classic titles.  So I think they should maybe place some of those new gameplay experiences, if they have such confidence in them, into other franchise titles that they don't use so often, or else there's a danger that a Nintendo console becomes the console of Mario and maybe Zelda, rather than the console of Mario and Zelda and Donkey Kong and Star Fox and Metroid and so on.  And they may well sometimes want to do that by not feeling the need to have every game be an ultra-AAA big hitter; it's okay to make smaller games with smaller teams but price and market them in such a way that they'll punch above their weight, if you like.  Actually, there is a related problem that Nintendo doesn't always see the importance of strikingly original visual presentation to capture the imagination, and this again goes back to the 3D World versus Galaxy question.  Super Mario Galaxy had that strong visual hook right there from the start: Mario flying around in space, traditional Mario platforming with really obviously striking gravity effects, stuff like that.  Whereas 3D World looked very... conventional.  It's the reason people who haven't played them dismiss Mario games as stale or the same game rehashed over and over.

 

It's tough giving this kind of advice, though, because purely in terms of nominal successes then the Wii U hits a lot of the right notes.  Single amazing titles - check, you have likes of Super Mario 3D World.  A great games library - check, more and more this is true and there's more on the horizon.  Courting indies - check, they've been doing a much better job on that, just look at how often you hear of Kickstarter titles with Wii U stretch goals.  Wii U just doesn't have that sense of presence and accessibility, while the PS4 and the Xbox One are very big names, and I think that's partly because the Wii managed to look a lot more cutting-edge for its time and the Wii U doesn't, especially with the PS4 and the Xbox One boasting some pretty hefty technological improvements behind them.  I kind of wonder if the DS and the Wii were braver devices - double screens and motion-control came out of nowhere, and again they captured people's imaginations, but with the 3DS and Wii U Nintendo seemed to jump on the bandwagon a bit; 3D is popular so let's make the next DS 3D, tablet computers are popular so let's give the next Wii a tablet.   The 3DS was able to recover from the Wii U's position partly because it didn't have the same kind of competition, but the Wii U is in a tougher market.  Added to that problem is that the games available aren't always making the best case for the technology; they aren't showcasing the full potential of 3D and a tablet screen, and some would argue that they simply don't have the same kind of potential as the ideas they succeeded.

 

I'm aware that there's a problem that this is becoming a post for the Wii U thread, and I'm not sure I really have a right to make points for that thread when I don't have one myself (consoles don't suit my lifestyle in the same way that handhelds do, so frankly I would never buy a Wii U (or a PS4 or an Xbox One or a Steambox or whatever) no matter what it had going for it).  But I guess I think that Nintendo's best strategy for Wii U right now is indeed to make better use of its franchises and ensure that they get some new games, they need to keep the indies sweet, they need to not saturate the market with games from just one franchise (Mario), they need to get better advertising for both their games and their console - and they need to ensure that their games have that "wow" factor, that originality, rather than looking like exactly the same thing they launched a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, etc.  And behind the scenes, they need to be planning for the future - to make sure that their next console doesn't again throw some radical new underdeveloped idea into the mix but rather refines what they've got, to make sure they aren't technologically playing catch-up, and to make sure they start with a better launch line-up and more friends in the industry.

 

And if all else fails, well, they've still got handhelds, which have the advantage of being technologically constrained enough to not require the same enormous investments of time, money, and staff just to keep up with the competition.  Honestly, if there's anything killing the gaming industry, it's better technology without the money available to make it viable.  Always having to max out a console's technical specifications requires such extraordinary investment that it's far too risky to try something original, but people are bored with what everyone else is doing...

[Chaos Warp]

 

I've seen Nintendo pull out quite some stops to sell this game-the airport Wii U giveaway promo, TV ads, etc. The game's high acclaim has also been touted in ads.

 

Yet it's not selling, let alone giving the Wii U the holiday boost some/Nintendo was hoping for.

Have we actually seen what the NA sales figures were for November? As far as I know, we only ever discussed JP ones. 

[PSI Wind]

Have we actually seen what the NA sales figures were for November? As far as I know, we only ever discussed JP ones.

Well, we've seen Patcher's estimate, but his are all around the place.

[Chooch]

As third parties seem no longer to be a part of the Wii U equation, Nintendo should be sweet-talking indie studios, getting them to develop new entries from the enormous back-catalog of Nintendo IPs which have been absent for years or decades. Sony is already doing this, recently having green-lit new Shadow of the Beast and Lemmings titles from small indie studios, and I've been hearing on the grapevine that there are more games on the way from the old Psygnosis library. If Nintendo can start covering a larger selection of genres, genres appealing to wider audiences, then the Wii U will inevitably become more attractive to gamers and developers alike.

The problem here is that Miyamoto has specifically gone on record saying he doesn't want to work with other companies using Nintendo's IPs and wants to develop them internally. At the same time he says that he and the rest of the developers on hand only have so much capacity. It's a Catch 22.

 

Unfortunately, Miyamoto's words have a lot of weight both in the industry and specifically at Nintendo. The people with the power are the real problem with the Wii U.

[VO.SUPER]

The problem here is that Miyamoto has specifically gone on record saying he doesn't want to work with other companies using Nintendo's IPs and wants to develop them internally. At the same time he says that he and the rest of the developers on hand only have so much capacity. It's a Catch 22.

 

Unfortunately, Miyamoto's words have a lot of weight both in the industry and specifically at Nintendo. The people with the power are the real problem with the Wii U.

 

Yep. That's the problem with the more conservative members of Japanese industry in general. They're just unwilling to work with anything that doesn't suit their plans.

 

I think once a Japanese indie dev commented on this as well. So Nintendo is considered conservative by the standards over there too. 

 

I think more than anything, Nintendo needs a president who is more willing to put their works into the hands of others (so long as they're capable). I respect Iwata's decision to not lay off staff members, but he is seriously letting a huge opportunity go to waste by relying only on the in-house developers who can't possibly handle the entire library of IPs Nintendo holds. Miyamoto may have influence on the minds of the developers, but he's got to listen to a higher power still.

 

Hell, I bet now that Mario 3D world has been finished, they're just working on the next one. 

 

I mean, Nintnedo has enough IP to make a whole console library of different genres. Metroid covers FPS, Starfox is an arcade shooter, F-Zero is a hardcore speed based racer, Mario Kart is a Casual racer, Smash Bros. is a fighter, Fatal Frame is a horror game, Nintendo Wars is good strategy fun, Pokemon is... pokemon, Zelda is an adventure. 

 

And there's still more; you could make a console of just Nintendo's library and it'd be worth every penny.

[Solkia]

Yep. That's the problem with the more conservative members of Japanese industry in general. They're just unwilling to work with anything that doesn't suit their plans.

 

I think once a Japanese indie dev commented on this as well. So Nintendo is considered conservative by the standards over there too. 

 

I think more than anything, Nintendo needs a president who is more willing to put their works into the hands of others (so long as they're capable). I respect Iwata's decision to not lay off staff members, but he is seriously letting a huge opportunity go to waste by relying only on the in-house developers who can't possibly handle the entire library of IPs Nintendo holds. Miyamoto may have influence on the minds of the developers, but he's got to listen to a higher power still.

 

Hell, I bet now that Mario 3D world has been finished, they're just working on the next one. 

 

I mean, Nintnedo has enough IP to make a whole console library of different genres. Metroid covers FPS, Starfox is an arcade shooter, F-Zero is a hardcore speed based racer, Mario Kart is a Casual racer, Smash Bros. is a fighter, Fatal Frame is a horror game, Nintendo Wars is good strategy fun, Pokemon is... pokemon, Zelda is an adventure. 

 

And there's still more; you could make a console of just Nintendo's library and it'd be worth every penny.

 

I really wish people would stop saying this.

[VO.SUPER]

I really wish people would stop saying this.

 

I cover three different things. You're gonna have to be more specific. 

[MegasonicZX]

I cover three different things. You're gonna have to be more specific. 

I think he meant the metroid FPS thing which I can sort of agree with since I find the 2d metroids to be easier for me to play (without getting scared) than the prime games.

[Sami]

Oh cool, a new thread for this. I considered posting it in the Wii U thread earlier but didn't feel like getting ripped apart by ten different people on exam day, haha.

I agree wholeheartedly with her point. What Nintendo has to realize is that their biggest sellers were new and creative when they came out, and that's where their success came from. They need to go back to setting trends, not hoping that they can catch lightning in a bottle again by riding the success of their core franchises.

3D World is a beautifully crafted game of extremely high quality, but that alone is not enough. Getting Platinum to work with them is a fantastic move, but it's not enough. Zombie U was a good move in that it's an exclusive game by a popular developer in a popular genre, but it's not enough.

I'm not looking at this from a quality point of view - to many people, especially members here, that may be a great value. If I were personally invested in those genres and franchises, I'd have probably bought a Wii U myself. But the topic of discussion here is sales and relevancy, so that's what I intend to stick to in this case.

Back in the N64 era, Nintendo's most pivotal arm in the West was Rareware. They made two of the best selling and most popular games on the system with Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, which saw enormous success for playing a huge role in bringing the shooter genre to consoles. Think about that - back in those days, Nintendo's console was the go-to one for FPS fans. Those games had a more realistic art style, Goldeneye was based off a wildly popular western franchise of books and movies at the time, Perfect Dark was a new IP, and so on. What do they have that fits that appeal now? Zombie U's the only thing that comes to mind.

Like the article mentions, that's an enormous problem for Nintendo nowadays as well. Lack of diversity in their lineup. I mean, look at it -

NintendoLand - Bright and cartoony minigame collection.

Wii Party U - Bright and cartoony mini game collection.

Game and Wario - Bright and cartoony mini game collection.

New Super Mario Bros - Bright and cartoony Platformer.

Super Mario 3D World - Bright and cartoony Platformer.

Sonic Lost World - Bright and cartoony Platformer.

Pikmin 3 - Bright and cartoony RTS

Lego City Undercover - Bright and cartoony Open-World Adventure.

Wind Waker HD - Bright and cartoony Puzzle/Adventure. Also an upgraded port of a decade-old game.

Wonderful 101 - Bright and cartoony beat-em-up.

So... what is there to buy if you're not interested in "bright and cartoony"? Zombie U definitely, and I think Monster Hunter is also arguable, but that's it for the entire first year of the console's life. Other than Bayonetta 2 and X (is X coming in 2014?), I can't think of anything for next year either. I'm not saying that it's a bad style at all (I was sporting an Ace Attorney avatar just two weeks ago, lol, I really dig it too a lot of the time), but it does admittedly have limited appeal in the West, which begs the question... why would they have such heavy Japanese appeal when, you know, Japan doesn't care about consoles nearly as much as we do and is a much smaller market to boot?

I think putting Retro on Donkey Kong was a really bad move on Nintendo's part, personally. They're the only Western developer they own, are they not? Surely they're the best contender for getting some of that mainstream Western attention?

What I'm getting at is that Nintendo just isn't trying to throw a ton of different types of games out in hopes of it being "the one"; rather, they're depending on old franchises and established brands in hopes of them somehow setting the world on fire like they did when they were fresh and experimental.

This is kind of an out-there idea, but what if Nintendo had bought Bungie and/or Respawn when they left their respective companies? EA and Activision would be extremely difficult to outbid, but with the avalanche of money they were making in the last generation, they surely could have done it.

I mean, picture it - releasing exclusive to Wii U, Titanfall and/or Destiny. Kind of a big deal, no? New, creative IPs that both set out to revolutionize shooters in their own way. Destiny's a massive sci-fi open world MMO FPS. Titanfall is an extremely frantic and fast-paced multiplayer arena FPS with a core gameplay mechanic that the genre has never seen before. At least not with a game that's gotten as much exposure as Titanfall, anyway.

Those two games are trying in their own ways to lead the pack and do new things with their genres. Just like Halo, Goldeneye, Mario 64, Mario Galaxy, Donkey Kong Country, Super Smash Bros, Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, the Last of Us, and so many other amazing games from all three companies did in the past.

The problem is that I just don't see any Nintendo-developed games doing this anymore. Multiplayer in 3D World is a fantastic innovation for sure, but it doesn't capture my imagination like those other games I mentioned, and judging from the lackluster sales, I guess it doesn't for many other people either.

Again, I want to make clear that I'm not criticizing the actual quality of their games. They're good fucking games. Game & Wario, I'm sure, is a lot of fun. Mario 3D World is perfectly deserving of all the critical praise it's gotten and it really is a shame that a lackluster game like Knack is getting more success. Seriously. I'm only talking sales. Okay? Okay. :V

To tie it all together; their biggest hurdles in my opinion are limited western appeal and lack of experimentation. The money from the Wii and DS should not be underestimated. We speak of Nintendo's "war chest", but I have to ask why they don't actually utilize it for anything of worth. That money could have gone into studio buyouts that would have generated a better foothold in the west. That money could have gone into R&D for more powerful hardware. That money could have gone into building more studios from the ground up and general expansion. That money could have gone into the designing of a stronger online infrastructure between their devices.

They could have bought Bioware instead of EA and have had them develop exclusive WRPGs for more Western appeal. They could have bought Criterion and had them develop arcade racers for them, competing with EA's Need for Speed. They could have bought Insomniac and had them continue to make the types of games that they were already enormously popular for in the west.

Instead, the money's sitting in a "war chest", and Iwata is telling us that they are incapable of competing with their competitors.

What a joke.

[VO.SUPER]

I think he meant the metroid FPS thing which I can sort of agree with since I find the 2d metroids to be easier for me to play (without getting scared) than the prime games.

 

Ah, this winter theme made it hard to see. 

 

Sorry about that, Metroid can cover both FPS and Sidescroller. Though it's one of the few Nintendo games that's covered the FPS concept extremely well. (I guess First Person Adventure is the better name though.)

[Solkia]

I cover three different things. You're gonna have to be more specific. 

 

Metroid isn't a First-Person Shooter. At All. It's not even up for debate.

 

Metroid is an Action adventure series with heavy focus on the exploration.

 

An FPS is basically bad guy is bad, shoot them. Straight forward.

 

There are only 3 games in this series that use a First-Person perspective: The Prime games. While they have more emphasis on Shooting than previous games, the concept is still there. They are, first and foremost, adventure games.

 

If Nintendo wants to make a first person shooter, they'd be better off not basterdizing yet another one of their franchises.

[ProfessorZolo]

There are only 3 games in this series that use a First-Person perspective: The Prime games. While they have more emphasis on Shooting than previous games, the concept is still there. They are, first and foremost, adventure games.

Four. There was a fourth Prime game. On the DS.

I agree that Metroid is primarily an adventure game, but then, it's also an FPS. That's just the way it's played.

Like Mario & Luigi is a platform/ RPG hybrid. Loads of games can be described as more than one genre.

[Solkia]

Four. There was a fourth Prime game. On the DS.

I agree that Metroid is primarily an adventure game, but then, it's also an FPS. That's just the way it's played.

Like Mario & Luigi is a platform/ RPG hybrid. Loads of games can be described as more than one genre.

 

Hunters was the black sheep that started this FPS misconception in the first place. It's about as much of a Metroid game as Doom 3

[ProfessorZolo]

Hunters was the black sheep that started this FPS misconception in the first place. It's about as much of a Metroid game as Doom 3

I'm pretty sure Prime being called an FPS 'started' when Prime was first announced. Y'know, because it's first person. And you shoot stuff. A first person shooter, if you will.

Sure, it's a great translation of the 2D elements that make a Metroid game a Metroid game, but while it IS an adventure game, it's also an FPS.

[Sean]

It's called genre-blending. Calling Metroid Prime both an adventure and FPS is entirely accurate. It belongs to both genres.

EDIT: Sometimes I have no idea why people like my posts

[Conando]

I always called it a First Person action Adventure myself.

[VO.SUPER]

It's as I said before, it's not that Nintendo isn't pouring their money into a variety of realistic and cartoony games. It's that they just aren't dedicating enough money into all their franchises. 

 

I've just recently come down a list of Nintendo franchises at the moment: 

 

Mario

 -Party

 -Kart

 -Paper

Zelda

Smash Bros

Metroid

Pokemon

Animal Crossing

Earthbound/Mother

Brain Age

Donkey Kong

Custom Robo

Fatal Frame

F-Zero

Fire Emblem

Golden Sun

Yoshi

Wario

Pikmin

Pilotwings

Star Fox

Nintendo Wars

Kid Icarus

Excite

 

Look at that! That's over 20 right there. All unique enough to fill at least 2 years worth of a Nintendo Console. Some of this stuff could even work as digital only games and still be worth a players time. 

 

And what about the NES and SNES games that could be updated for the modern day? The games Nintendo abandoned after one title and never touched again? Give them some new hype and update them.

 

When you think of it, Nintendo's situation mirrors Disney's back in the 1960s-70s. At that time, the Disney studio was going through a major slump; all of their projects were being done internally by the aging team of the Nine Old Men, some of which who were retiring or dying. All their new animated films took forever to make, and Disney barely gave any of it a chance to shine. All they could do was milk their old animated shorts and films on television or in theaters with re-releases.

 

And with every film, all they could ask themselves was, "What would Walt do?"

 

It wasn't until the 90s, when their younger talent came in and basically said, "Guys, we're not Walt."

 

That's what I feel Nintendo needs to do right now. The younger developers need to take charge and say, "We're not Miyamoto." Because if there's one thing I feel Nintendo's suffering through the most right now, it's that all of the younger developers are living in Miyamoto's shadow and will probably live under it long after he's gone. That's why, as Miyamoto puts it, all the younger developers just want to work on Mario and Zelda. They're just living under the successes of the past and not letting themselves branch out more, when in fact branching out was just what made Miyamoto so successful during the NES-SNES days.

 

Also, just like Disney did, Nintendo needs to stop keeping all their franchises to themselves. They've obviously shown that they can't handle dealing with  all of them, and they can't watch over every developer like they do Retro Studios. They have to just trust these developers to do a good job and give the game the marketing support it needs to keep afloat. Don't pressure the developers, or anything of the sort. 

 

Or hey, they could make new studios and hire new employees to make their games. Heaven knows they've got the money to invest in new teams.