Nintendo Is "Evolving" Into An Entertainment Company, According To Doug Bowser

I know it’s his real name, but Doug Bowser sounds like some fake shit the real Bowser would use to disguise his identity.

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I really hope he was the best candidate when Nintendo were choosing a new NOA president (afiak, he's been doing a good job), but I feel his last name definitely made him stand out from the other candidates.

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- Maria Mario, Luigi Mansion, Supersmash Bros: Melee, Sam Aran, and Zelda Williams all were very upset.
  
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- I'm sure you've heard of this phenomenon but I'll mention it anyways:
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
  
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giant mustache

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Evolving? They've always been an entertainment focused company. They've been around for ages, and got their start making cards, then later electronic games and toys. Nintendo is basically Hasbro.

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Breaking news: The company that created the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System is evolving into an entertainment company!

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Funny, but I think he means they want to take on the likes of Disney. Not necessarily be known for movies; but games, movies, shows, maybe even theme parks.

If any company has the ability to do it, it's Nintendo.

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- Don't they effectively do all of those things already? Maybe they have someone else produce or run them, but they already seem to make all of those.
  
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I sure wish journalism would "evolve" so that every article wasn't some brain dead take.

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Well they used to be that way so maybe journalism is in more need of devolving.

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....are they not already?

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So this whole time they haven’t been producing entertainment products. Curious.

(I know what he’s saying, I’m just having a laugh.)

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I know right? I could've swore they produced an entertainment system back in the 80's.

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- and TV shows… and later a Mario movie (the better one)…
  
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Lol that's what I was thinking...so my NES/SNES/64/Wii/wiiu/switch have all been....???? Educational or something else that's not entertaining lol

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- Man, I learned a TON about the Caribbean sea islands and colonial era big cities from Pirates on the NES. Countless hours spent pouring over this map to find hidden treasure and hunt down leads
  
  http://fandelanes.emu-france.info/images/nop/pirates_nes_carte.jpg
  
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Maybe the article explains exactly what he meant. Just maybe. (Spoiler alert: it's not maybe, it's literally in the beginning of the article)

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- But how can I make snarky comments if I read the article?
  
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all companies seem to be "evolving" into some bullshit subscription service, instead of a business that produces things customers use

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They were founded as a playing cards company so... aye?

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This feels like a very natural progression to me, I really don't see a problem with it as long as they continue to make sure their games are the core of the model and use other media as supplemental ways to build up brand and character awareness. I think anyone would agree that some types of stories are better told via games and others via movies, shows, or books. Broadening their scope allows for more stories to be told.

And theme parks or things of that nature are just cool ways for people to tangibly experience Nintendo IP.

I'm all for it.

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I had a bit of a rant about this a while back when I was playing Splatoon with friends.

The crux of the argument is this "if we stop trying to look at Splatoon as a good game and instead look at it as an entertaining game, the issues we run into make sense. The bugs glitches and bad balancing issues don't matter as much from an entertainment standpoint. You get in you play and you're entertained. Even if the match drops you can get back in an be entertained. It doesn't mean it's a good game, but it is entertaining."

My friend's and I are now freaking out about my prophetic words.

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I have to ask then: what's the difference between a good game and an entertaining game?

From my perspective, games exist to be entertaining so if a game is entertaining then it is a good game. I don't know what other metric would be used to determine if a game is good.

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- Unfortunately that's the part of the rant I don't remember. I had a pretty decent definition for both a good game and an entertaining game and why they aren't exactly the same thing but I also had a decent amount of beer that night.
  
  If I think of it I'll reply to your comment again with the update.
  
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- Mobile games, case in point. They often aren't designed to be good or even fun, they're designed to maximize playtime over the long term
  
  That means you start off making it fun and easy to advance, but then you start to back off on the rewards and make them grind and wait more and more. It's the Facebook technique
  
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Like WWE?

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We all get what that means, and don't think otherwise for a minute. It'll be unfinished 70€ titles, requiring 3 30€ dlcs to feel mostly complete, requiring a paid 15€ subscription on top of that. We've seen this a dozen times too many by now. Nintendo are just always late to everything

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Or it just means Nintendo isn't going to rely on video games for growth.

The idea of paying anything for video games is already going away, with free to play games doing well in the youth market. And while the Switch is their best selling console, it is effectively a tablet with Bluetooth controllers and standard hardware. I don't see Nintendo being able to maintain selling hardware after this next generation.

But Nintendo has a lot of IP that it hasn't really tapped outside of video games. I expect that to change.

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No, as that's fully against their philosophy. They ship complete games, on time, with limited if any bugs and with no microtransactions and large DLC expansions for most games.

He is clearly talking about their expansion into film, theme parks and other entertainment avenues other than games consoles or anything really done prior (Pokémon movies are TPC, rather than Nintendo).

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@DannyMac I didn't know Bowser had a first-name...

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Yeah his full title is Doogie Bowser, MD

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Nintendo hasn't even gotten a hold of being a game company in 2023. Maybe they should focus on catching up, as the switch has stagnated and the eshop is filled with trash

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Honestly I think Nintendo are killing it in 2023. I loved TotK and Pikmin 4, and have high hopes for Mario Wonder and the SMRPG remake. Yeah the switch is aging out, but it's no big secret that a Switch 2 is deep in development and probably coming next year.

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- I hadn't touched my switch in about 6 months before TOTK came out and haven't touched it since I finished it. I notice I have been using my switch about as much as I used my Wii U. It's more of a dedicated Mario Kart machine that I occasionally use for a AAA Nintendo game like Zelda or Mario, but it's mostly just there for when I have friends over and we want to Mario Kart
  
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Every game store is filled with trash though.

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- yeah, but not like the eshop. the eshop is a dumpster fire of a store. it's what steam used to be before valve tried to build automatic curation systems. the eshop is 100x worse than every other game store available today. I don't even look at it because I know that I can't find anything interesting between all the crap
  
  I can 100% look at other stores, i just look through the new releases on my playstation every few months and generally find something i want
  
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I have not owned a console in a decade or so, i only play on PC. I bought a switch for my nephew to play around when he visits. I literally only ever held a switch once and i didn't really know what to expect. I like a lot of the hardware part. Like controllers are super easy to pair, they even show up in the right colour, i like how you can use them in different ways. Docking and undocking, handheld mode, all very cool. But oh my, the eshop is a nightmare. The nintendo account thing took me a while until it worked for unknown reasons. What i absolutely despise tho is that i bought mario kart and i paid full price for that game that came out in 2014. It had dlc tracks (that was expected i guess) and they just show up as normal tracks with a slightly different symbol. These assholes know exactly what they are doing. Kids keep pressing these tracks until the parents spend 25 or so more bucks for some more tracks on a game from 2014 that still costs full price.
I assume they do that with smash as well an all of these games. I loved nintendo when i grew up, like a lot. But now i really just regret that i gave them money.

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