What's your take on a dramatic price cut? Would it help and if so, when would be the best time to announce one?
I think it would certainly help motivate sales as I see price as the main barrier to buying a system with only a small amount of games, but having several of them be very high quality.
That said, I feel Nintendo's core issue is that as a company, they're largely defined by their IPs and their cash pile. If they significantly eat into their cash pile, they basically become what Sega was before Sammy bought them, where they are constantly on the line depending on their next software and/or hardware to be a hit or risk serious financial issues.
Without a successful secondary business, running a significant loss-leading business is very risky.
That's why I feel they should actually design a system that can be sold very cheaply without losing money, or at least basically breaking even.
Personally, I think Nintendo should have a short gen and try to focus on long-term investment. In services, in research, and speeding up development. Sort of like how Sony screwed the pooch on the PS3 but built up PlayStation Plus quite a bit.
Yeah, I think they basically need to heavily re-examine their "platform experience". Their games are largely fine, but the systems both from a hardware (especially standardized featureset for developers/game engine technology as well as both initial cost and cost reduction over time design) and system software (OS, eShop, community features beyond the MiiVerse, streaming, instantaneously/snappy feeling, etc) perspective is not great.
In the current market I feel your product needs to be both great in terms of library and hardware/platform design, whereas in many previous generations you could often end up nailing one or the other and still generally do okay or at least acceptable.
The thing is, without third party support and the lack of lightning in a bottle, what is the point of another Nintendo home console to pump out more of the same Nintendo first party titles? It seems that with each generation (bar the crazy success of the Wii, but there were clearly many other factors there), the core Nintendo crowd has been falling off. The people that buy the Marios, the Karts, the Smash Bros etc. Nintendo can only milk these cows for so long, clearly shown by what's going on with Wii U. I agree that the portable market is a different kettle of fish, but I don't think another home console with the same tried and tested NSMB, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Smash Bros etc. will do much better than Wii U to be honest. Even if it comes in at $250. The Nintendo hardcore, what few of them remain, will buy the console and the games for sure...but that market is now so small I wonder if it's even worth going after. Nintendo has done so much, it seems, to push these people away that they've backed themselves into a corner. I'm not saying it's impossible for Nintendo to come out of this with a success, because only a fool would totally count Nintendo out, I just think it's extremely difficult for them to make a comeback in the home console space any time in the next 3-6 years.
Oh I think $250 is way too much. I think they should aim for $150 and also considering charging $30-$40 a game. If that's too low for all software, they should still consider releasing a fair amount of retail software around that price point and of course keep pushing a lot of $10-$20 digital software as well. Just Dance's price point on the Wii ($30-$40) was certainly a part of why it became so successful, and the $20 Touch Generation software on the DS was a very good choice as well.
Basically I feel they need to accept that they're going to be a device for:
A.) People who are buying a system for their kids
B.) People who are huge Nintendo enthusiasts or
C.) People who are buying their system in addition to another system
A and C benefit a ton from price, and B will also benefit from price in that any of them who are financially pressured will be able to jump on much earlier.
