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Tuesday, February 13, 2018

What Does NVIDIA SHIELD Say About Nintendo's China Strategy, and GameCube/Wii Virtual Console?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - (Spoiler alert: nothing.)

Following Nintendo's financial results for the nine-months-into Fiscal Year Ending March 2018, they held a Q&A with their laughable investors.

There was a question about Nintendo's business possibilities in China. Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima gave a non-answer about how China is big and important but that Nintendo products “are unavailable there at the present time.” Kimishima then expressed that Nintendo would like the Chinese to experience Nintendo products the way other countries do.

That brings us to a request we got back in December 2017 to write about the interesting Nintendo-related product release in China. I think Kimishima's non-statement is just what I was waiting for to make an informed article.

The NVIDIA Shield, a microconsole that streams games and likes to talk about how “4k” it is, got a special Chinese release that features, you guessed it (or why else would I be writing about it?), Nintendo games. ...Three of them, but they're not non-notable:

NVIDIA SHIELD Chinese Nintendo Gamestream Punch-Out!! Zelda Twilight Princess New Super Mario Bros. Wii games
Punch-Out!!, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii).
You can look at this page and see they have a LOT of games they can stream on it, but they choose to feature the Nintendo ones.

Allegedly, Super Mario Galaxy and non-specified GameCube games will also be on this thing.

People who don't really understand how China works think that this is a test-run of the Nintendo Switch's Virtual Console (which I've been told doesn't officially exist yet), particularly for GameCube games (which certainly are not on the SHIELD yet).

The fact that the president of Nintendo doesn't find this China go-to-market tactic with NVIDIA worth mentioning in an investors Q&A about China shows the sheer non-importance of Nintendo being featured on the NVIDIA SHIELD in China.

...CHINA.

Anyway, I have no idea why they'd pick Punch-Out!! (which was given the url /fighthotfight instead of /punchout) to be one of the games. Maybe it's because there isn't a Chinese guy in the game so it's okay. Well, it's a great game, so I hope they're enjoying it. We have no insight on how well the SHIELD or the Nintendo games you can play with it are doing because, as you might expect, everything is in Chinese and they're kind of secretive and no one really cares.

For people who still think this has any implications for the rest of the world, name me in the comments section one thing the iQue did that was then used anywhere else in the world.

I'll end by saying that in this investor Q&A, Managing Executive Officer Shinya Takahashi says that when they're doing software, hardware, and system development, Nintendo is taking an integrative approach that also involves their manufacturing, global marketing, and sales teams. Basically, information flows to and from more areas across that organisation.

I guarantee you that whomever is in charge of licensing the thing with the NVIDIA SHIELD is not in those conversations in Nintendo's Japan offices.


Ludwig enjoys receiving your requests, though he may not get to them immediately because he may wish for a more opportunistic time to write something about your favourite topic.


At least these games aren't being bootlegged in China.
The GeForce NOW lost Nintendo stuff but is gaining others.

6 comments :

  1. Sorry for not commenting, I'm currently putting my writing energy into three arguments for Team Love.

    Anyway, I think it's good for companies to expand their brands, although I think it's to be expected that Nintendo games would come to the NVIDIA SHIELD than another iQue product. I think the licensing is primarily due to the Switch having the NVIDIA Tegra chip (or something).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've gotten a ton of crap from Splatoon fans on a Facebook group for taking Splatfests too seriously. It's hilarious.
      Anyway, this is your request, so...

      I don't think the NVIDIA chip connection was a factor for why Nintendo would license with SHIELD. It's not like, as a favour or anything. There's no great strategic partnership between the two.

      Delete
  2. The current line-up of games is at least pretty solid. If I had never played any official Nintendo game before, Super Mario Galaxy would be a terrific starting point into their series. I did not play the original, but the sequel was fantastic and full of clever ideas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I dunno wot Chinese gaming preferences are even like.

      Delete
  3. Wait there is no Nintendo in China? Why?

    ReplyDelete

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