Monday, September 24, 2007

NintenConspiracy part 2: The big picture

The second and final part of NintenConspiracy. Enjoy.



In the first edition of NintenConspiracy, I focused only on the closing of the NSider forums. But this tangled path of mystery goes even further, right on up to the very top of the company. The question I'm asking? Is Nintendo secretly falling apart? Here are a few events and such that, when added together, seem to indicate just that.

Nintendo Power no longer being headed by Nintendo themselves

As everybody likely knows by now, Nintendo has decided to no longer publish Nintendo Power personally. They have instead decided to enlist the publisher Future US to handle all things Nintendo Power from here on out. Why did they do this? Nintendo has been publishing this magazine for 20 years! Why change things now? Everything seems to be going just fine with Nintendo Power! I still have my subscription, even though all the news I could ever need is right here at my fingertips online. All is well, and there's no apparent reason why Nintendo should ever do what they've just done.

Is money too tight for the gaming giant? Does Nintendo no longer posses the funds necessary to producing a monthly magazine? Sure, Future US is going to deliver an extra holiday magazine every year, as well as get Nintendo Power on more newstands than ever before, but Nintendo could have easily done the same, and with far less trouble! It seems that something is wrong down at Nintendo of America, and they're not telling us what...

The move to San Francisco

Nintendo's marketing and sales division will be largely relocating to San Francisco soon. When asked why, Nintendo merely states that they just are. Uh, okay then. There has to be some good reason for moving half of your company so far away!

Some of the marketing and sales people not going to San Francisco will instead be off to New York(!). Again, why?

There's also the slightly older news of Nintendo selling some land in their hometown of Redmond, Washington to competitor Microsoft. Having trouble paying the bills, Nintendo?

Closing the European Nintendo forums

This event in particular happened mere hours ago. Following suit after last week's closing of the NSider Forums, Nintendo has decided to also close down the European Forums. Sure, they've been locked up for ages, but now they're gone, kaput, pushing up daisies. This could be another indicator of any of the bizarre theories outlined in NintenConspiracy part one, but it's pretty unlikely.

So what is happening, then? Is the Wii not doing as well as Nintendo says? Are profits down? Is something rotten in the state of Washington? Just look at it, folks: Selling land to Microsoft, moving all over the country, closing the forums, outsourcing Nintendo Power... Is this all some sort of bizarre series of consequences, or is something genuinely wrong at Nintendo HQ?

Loss of profits?

Poor management?

An end to Nintendo's 118 year-long legacy?

What's happening to our beloved Nintendo?


The Duck Has Spoken.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you actually believe any of this conspiracy crap? please don't fall into the trap of sensationlistic journalism, esp. at the expense of a company that's obviously doing extremely well. no offense, but i expected better of you.

Anonymous said...

Why can't the company be doing well and thats the reason for all the shifting? Maybe they have some fantastic plans for the company to move forward and needed to do some ground up work to get it done. I think the forum closing is mysterious, but will end with something better. Nintendo is always trying crazy stuff, so these changes arent that surprising. I think you focus too much on the fact that "change is bad". It could be, sure, but I think Nintendo is on the right path and we will all be happy with the outcome. Can't wait to see what happens!

Anonymous said...

One theory of mine has to do with the Friend Codes system. On the Nintendo forums site, nobody was allowed to share that, so that doesn't really encourage the use of the wii as a communication device. By closing the forums that were very populated, the users have to find new forums that DO allow friend code sharing. I've searched for a few new forums for myself, and each one has a sticky thread right on the top for Friend Codes. This is Nintendo's way of getting people to share codes and not taking liability for it.

WJUK said...

It was a pity closing down the forums... even if I wasn't particular active in them...

Nevertheless...

BRING ON WII/DS Forum-type things.

woot! That would be amazing.

CMM1215 said...

Duck....I don't know what's up with both of those posts, but this one was especially ridiculous. You follow the news like the rest of us, and it's quite clear that Nintendo is doing very well.

Another thing to note right about now are the annual and quarterly financial reports that Nintendo releases each year. If these were fake, Nintendo would be facing very steep legal issues.

Daimyo Nintendo said...

This conspiracy stuff is fun..you don’t have to believe in it (I don’t, I think Nintendo is doing just fine..more then fine,) but it is still fun to speculate, nothing wrong with ideas.

One thing I am happy about are the loss of the Nsider forums..in my opinion they are carp. Its not just the European site but I have also heard Nintendo.com is also closing down the forum why? Because it costs a load of money for crap..the Nintendo forums are crap. There are hundreds of Nintendo blogs out there as well as game news sites like IGN etc which cover news and have blogs and forums where people can post. Why should Nintendo spend money on this when other are doing it..Nintendo can then allocate that money elsewhere!