Hi Ray - Best of luck with this pivot. Just wondering if you have any bandwidth nowadays to get in touch and help out a fellow startup guy (god I hate the word "entrepreneur"). I am setting out to build a mobile social network with some other partners. Would love to pick your brain on how to get things started. If you are still in the bay area I can buy you coffee =)
The post actually contradicts itself in many different ways and therefore I don't think the prescription can cure Nintendo at all.
1) I agree that Pokemon on smartphones will definitely be a hit, but I am very skeptical of Nintendo's capability to execute well against that particular platform. Mobile gaming is a very different beast from the packaged goods console gaming space in which Nintendo is currently comfortable. They not only lack the experience and expertise, but more fundamentally lack the willingness to adopt a new platform. This is actually a common trait among almost all established game publishers such as Activision and Ubisoft. I highly doubt an iOS Pokemon would be the success it needs to be.
2) Handheld is a declining market. Period. Continuing making handhelds is not going to dig Nintendo out of the hole they are already in. Putting Pokemon on iOS would definitely not help, as the franchise is likely the biggest hardware mover for them. This is where the original post contradicts itself: doubling down on handheld while making a move on smartphones is a very bad idea.
3) Stop making home consoles and make titles available on rival consoles? Really? The post is simply suggesting Nintendo to castrate itself of a core competitive advantage of theirs. The level of disingenuousness is simply appalling.
If you haven't seen Breaking Bad then you really need to avoid any discussion topics about it. The ending has been widely discussed pretty much everywhere (including other places in this discussion, though comically not in the article itself)
