What makes nintendo successful

For starters, major esports companies own multiple franchises and non-franchise teams across many games. Cloud9 owns both the eponymous Cloud9 League of Legends franchise and the London Spitfire Overwatch franchise, for example, as well as non-franchise teams in Halo , Counter Strike: Global Offensive , Fortnite , and other games. The revenue streams for esports companies are also extremely varied. Instead of having to pit companies against franchises, direct league-to-league comparisons will be possible, and the differences will likely shrink from billions to millions.

Visualizing 50 years of gaming history, from the first wave of arcades and home consoles to a tsunami of mobile gaming. View a more detailed version of the above by clicking here. Every year it feels like the gaming industry sees the same stories—record sales, unfathomable market reach, and questions of how much higher the market can go. Research from Pelham Smithers shows that while the tidal wave of gaming has only continued to swell, the driving factors have shifted over the course of gaming history.

The arcade table-tennis game was a sensation, drawing in consumers eager to play and companies that started to produce their own knock-off versions. Likewise, it was Atari that sold a home console version of Pong in , and eventually its own Atari home console in , which would become the first console to sell more than a million units. In short order, the arcade market began to plateau.

After dwindling due to a glut of Pong clones, the release of Space Invaders in reinvigorated the market. Arcade machines started to be installed everywhere, and new franchises like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong drove further growth. By , arcades were already generating more money than both the pop music industry and the box office. Eager to capitalize on a growing home console market, Atari licensed extremely high budget ports of Pac-Man and a game adaptation of E.

They were rushed to market, released in poor quality, and cost the company millions in returns and more in brand damage. As other companies also looked to capitalize on the market, many other poor attempts at games and consoles caused a downturn across the industry. At the same time, personal computers were becoming the new flavor of gaming, especially with the release of the Commodore 64 in It was a sign of what was to define this era of gaming history: a technological race. In the coming years, Nintendo would release the Nintendo Entertainment System NES home console in released in Japan as the Famicom , prioritizing high quality games and consistent marketing to recapture the wary market.

Source: Wikipedia. Nintendo looked to continue its dominance in the field, with the release of the Game Boy handheld and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. At the same time, other competitors stepped in to beat them at their own game. In , arcade company Sega entered the fray with the Sega Mega Drive console released as the Genesis in North America and then later the Game Gear handheld, putting its marketing emphasis on processing power. It became the first console in history to sell more than million units, and the focus on software formats would carry on with the PlayStation 2 DVDs and PlayStation 3 Blu-rays.

It was the rise of the internet and mobile, however, that grew the gaming industry from tens of billions to hundreds of billions in revenue. A primer was the viability of subscription and freemium services. But another reason I think the Switch has caught on so well is the variety of controller options people have at their disposal. Right out the box, two people could play Mario Kart together with single Joy-Cons, but you can play most multiplayer games with any combination of controllers, be they single Joy-Cons, two Joy-Cons docked on a Joy-Con grip or ideally , Pro Controllers.

Nintendo has created a console that can be enjoyed in pretty much every situation imaginable and this can be attributed both to its hybrid design and multiple control options. You could get away with having the Switch be a dedicated TV console in docked mode, but being able to take it with you wherever you go? After all, Nintendo has been lacking strong third party support since the Super Nintendo era, so there was little reason to think that the Switch would be any different.

Sure, most of the AAA experiences released so far have been ports of older games like Doom and Skyrim , but the portability factor has helped make these games appealing again and any support is a good thing at this point.

By contrast, accessing games on the Switch is quick and efficient, requiring only a few button clicks after powering the system on. The console may still be barren when it comes to additional features and stuff like apps, but having almost non-existent barriers between players and the games has paid off so far for Nintendo.

The Switch, by contrast, not only has a number of must-have exclusives, but is the only hybrid gaming platform on the market, which has helped it stand out over the course of its first year. The Switch would be nothing without games to play and to that end, Nintendo went allout in making sure their new console was stacked with incredible exclusives over the course of its first year. You can hook it up to your TV at home, and when you're ready, you can pick it up and take it to play on the go. One of the biggest benefits the Switch has over the Wii U and the Wii is the larger digital library.

There are just so many games you can play on the Switch, your favorite, my favorite. These characters have followed players across generations to different games, different consoles, and this is no more apparent than in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate," which is a megamash of Nintendo characters. I mean, come on, that's the whole family right there. I think that Reggie and the different marketing videos and silly demonstrations that they did really resonated with fans who were just as excited and crazy about the games.

As it stands right now, the Switch has very little competition in the portable gaming space. I think that a lot of their competitors are looking past what the Switch is right now and looking into streaming games and removing the need for a console or hardware entirely. But I think the Switch is going to stand out as a unique piece of hardware for a long time. There's still going to be an audience that wants what is essentially the Game Boy, the original handheld system that you can go around and play.

And it certainly won't hurt if you can bring it home and plug it up to your TV. Given the success of the Switch, we'll have to wonder where Nintendo's going next.