Lasse Penttinen
11 Aug 2003 12:10
The Japanese game and console manufacturer is struggling with their flagship gaming machine. According to the source, the product lines are halted until the unsold inventory of built machines is cleared.
The Japanese company Nintendo has temporarily halted production of its GameCube consoles until the autumn.The struggling games maker says it needs to clear its warehouses of unsold machines before it makes any more of them.Nintendo’s excuse for the lack of market demand is a rather interesting one.
Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata, has also said he wants to move away from increasingly sophisticated and time consuming games, which dominate the games industry at the moment.In gaming industry discussion the common opinion seems to be the opposite of Satory Iwata’s. Many people consider Nintendo’s game portfolio childish, too simple or lacking variety. People are choosing PlayStation 2 or Xbox due to the more challenging games that are more targeted to the mature gamers. Now it seems that Nintendo is concentrating to the same old niche that has been it’s strongest part always: Simple but fun(?) games.
The games market shrunk dramatically last year, Mr Iwata said, because players were getting frustrated with the ever more sophisticated games.