|
A while back, I talked about the situation around Yamauchi's shares and how they would be inherited. Here is Nintendo's share buyback plan: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2014/140203e.pdf http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2013/131225e.pdf (Statement on Yamauchi's shares after his death) Here's what I learned from this document and some news articles about the share buyback. This shares will be kept as treasury stock and not cancelled/retired. The major motivation for this is to stabilize the stock price. However, the secondary motivation is to create treasury shares for future mergers and acquisitions. Of course, this assumes potential partners are interested in Nintendo's treasury stock instead of their (dwindling) cash. The recipients were five people who were closely related to Yamauchi. For example, Yoko Arakawa (nee Yamauchi) received about 16.46% of the inheritance which is worth 1.97% out of the entirety of Nintendo's stock. The major thing thing to note is that the recipients of Yamauchi's shares want out. Since the sheer number shares would have a disastrous effect on the stock price, it's in the interest of both Nintendo and its shareholders for the company to buyback the shares. In the short term, it will kill the company's liquidity (about 8-10% of their cash/short term investments). In the long term, it will stabilize the stock price, possibly allow them to slowly trickle back shares, and potentially provide a strong defense against takeovers. Furthermore, the inheritance tax in Japan is roughly half of the total amount due to the amount being worth more than 300 million yen. Some of the Yamauchi family's inheritance was already set aside to help cover taxes and the transition from the heirs to Nintendo. Nintendo currently holds 9.74% of the total shares and this will rise to 16.44% of all shares after this buyback. Iwata has said there could be even further buybacks to build up treasury stock for mergers and acquisition. This would have the unintended(or intended) effect of giving Nintendo a considerable portion of all shares and the power that comes with it. This would not only make takeovers extremely difficult due to the volume of treasury shares but also give management tremendous power since they can effectively ignore shareholder concerns failure to meet short-term goals for the foreseeable future. As it is, Nintendo will take a significant hit to their liquidity in order prevent the stock price from going haywire. The company's future strategy will partially depend on Nintendo's policy towards treasury shares. It would give management a lot of power if their use of treasury shares have few limitations in how it is used. It's not too unusual for major Japanese corporations to have agreements in that management has considerable autonomy in how they vote in meetings. Nintendo also has an opportunity to perform further buybacks as their stock price will be relatively low for the foreseeable future. I might have made an error in my summary since I was going through over a dozen different documents between three languages so feel free to correct me if you spot something wrong. I've also found some contradictory reports on the exact amount of Yamauchi shares and how they will be purchased, such as a bulk buyback with near future purchases of outstanding shares or a partial buyback followed by repurchases done without the benefit of the rainy day inheritance tax fund.
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 03:40 |
|
|
Oh well that makes more sense then. Good research.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 19:37
|
|
|
If they buy back the full amount that's a good billion dollars or so gone from the stock pile.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 19:52
|
|
|
If they're buying buildings does that necessarily mean new development studios are opening up or it could be just about anything? They could always re-open the love hotels.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 20:35
|
|
|
Bobnumerotres posted:If they're buying buildings does that necessarily mean new development studios are opening up or it could be just about anything? They could always re-open the love hotels. The new buildings are where they plan to put all the unsold wii u's 
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
More stuff from the Investor Q&A: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/140130qa/index.html quote:The goal of our application on smart devices is not to generate profit, at least in the short-term. The biggest point is to create consumer awareness and use that opportunity to have consumers know more about our information. quote:Regarding Wii U, it is not easy to make a significant profit with the current units sold. The price reduction of the hardware in the overseas markets represents a large amount of our total expenditure for this fiscal year, but based on the premise that we will not make such a reduction in the next fiscal year, I think our business can operate without such a negative effect on our profitability. quote:Iwata: I have never thought of resignation as an option, and I believe that my job is to do whatever I can do to deliver results, and I am as passionate about this responsibility as ever. quote:Miyamoto: I feel that we have managed to overcome the challenge of releasing enough first-party franchises on Wii U. I do not think that these games were not well-received because they lacked appeal. Our biggest downfall last year was that we failed to communicate the true value of Wii U, failed to make children persuade their parents to buy our products for them, and failed to offer products that parents could not resist. quote:Although we have recreated some of our past games for Wii U, we are actually trying to use many outside developers to help us do so, while we focus our internal resources on making new games. quote:Whether a machine is powerful or not only has meaning in the context of whether that can express itself in terms of gameplay to consumers, and I therefore do not intend to go into fine detail about the specific numbers. I apologize for not directly answering your question, but it is my personal belief that explanations of such a nature have little relevance to consumers. quote:Currently it requires a huge amount of effort to port Wii software to Nintendo 3DS because not only their resolutions but also the methods of software development are entirely different. The same thing happens when we try to port Nintendo 3DS software to Wii U. quote:[For the next system] It will become important for us to accurately take advantage of what we have done with the Wii U architecture. It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately. quote:Currently, we can only provide two form factors because if we had three or four different architectures, we would face serious shortages of software on every platform. To cite a specific case, Apple is able to release smart devices with various form factors one after another because there is one way of programming adopted by all platforms. Apple has a common platform called iOS. Another example is Android. quote:I believe not many consumers wavered between Wii U and those new consoles from other companies because I believe that our user demographics are different to a certain degree.  quote:Licensing Mario in digital areas would mean that there is a possibility that Mario will appear in stamps or wallpapers for smartphones, and I will not rule out this kind of business. This is because we believe that this would not be in direct competition with Nintendos business and would not threaten our video game platform business which integrates hardware and software. quote:I am not planning to announce any specific themes today, but to give you a hint, non-wearable does not necessarily mean it is something that will be used in the living room. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Feb 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 20:49
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:(?? Are they porting games? They've lost me here.) I think he was talking about NES Remix there. They didn't develop that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 20:59
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:(ominous)
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:06
|
|
|
Wow, barely a year into the WiiU and they are already speaking about the next platforms? Maybe the WiiU will get a shorter life after all...
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:06
|
|
|
They're putting a lot of money into R&D this year but won't say specifically why. I'm pretty sure it's the next system.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:08
|
|
|
greatn posted:Why are they wasting money on buyback, trying to pump up their own stock value? That tactic just flat out doesn't work, and they're going to blow both their cash reserves and still have their stock drop in value. Nintendo has done pretty well for the past 20 years, maybe they know what they're doing? Nah you're right, they're just dumb japanese xenophobes 
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:14
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:They're putting a lot of money into R&D this year but won't say specifically why. I'm pretty sure it's the next system. It's definitely the QoL platform. They want to release it next fiscal year so they're probably expediting the R&D on it. Sunning posted:Yet another awesome post One question that may potentially be real dumb. How does the buyback help them get more control of the company/fend off shareholder pressure? Presumably the Yamauchi shares have been voting with Nintendo leadership 100% of the time up to now, and as far as I know Treasury Shares by definition don't have voting rights. Doesn't this actually reduce the number of effective shares that the leadership are in control of, or are the laws in Japan just different from the US/UK?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:15
|
|
oswald ownenstein posted:Nintendo has done pretty well for the past 20 years, maybe they know what they're doing? Nah you're right, they're just dumb japanese xenophobes Nintendo has made stupid decisions that have eroded its value since the mid 90s onwards. They knew what they were doing 20 years ago.
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:17
|
|
|
leidend posted:Nintendo has made stupid decisions that have eroded its value since the mid 90s onwards. They knew what they were doing 20 years ago. This is a pretty dumb thing to say. Not that they haven't made stupid decisions, but they have generally always been profitable until recently. This is not a company that never makes any money.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:20
|
|
|
Paper Jam Dipper posted:Which is what everyone will become soon enough. Some company is going to eventually build a device that's perfect for connecting your TV to a computer and everyone will want to buy it. Once that happens it's all about who puts their games on it. Nintendo is better off learning how to make games for something like that than even consider putting games on another console. Everyone is going to be streamlined sooner than later. You can already hook up your PC to your television, hell I'm doing it right now and all I have to switch to composite or HDMI to use my consoles. The console and PC markets doesn't correlate nearly as much as some people think they do.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:36
|
|
Zack_Gochuck posted:This is a pretty dumb thing to say. Not that they haven't made stupid decisions, but they have generally always been profitable until recently. This is not a company that never makes any money. You can erode your value and still be profitable. Choosing cartridges over cds for the N64 was the first stumble I think.
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
Zack_Gochuck posted:This is a pretty dumb thing to say. Not that they haven't made stupid decisions, but they have generally always been profitable until recently. This is not a company that never makes any money. Just because they have been profitable doesn't meant that they haven't made stupid decisions.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 21:48
|
|
|
leidend posted:You can erode your value and still be profitable. Choosing cartridges over cds for the N64 was the first stumble I think. Treating third parties like garbage during the NES-SNES years came before that, the decision to stick with cartridges only made it easier for companies to not look back. Nintendo has been engineering the situation they face with the Wii U for a long time, on many different levels. Nintendo still believes that because they are Nintendo, third parties will support them, they just need to have "that game" show up on the system. Maybe such a game could exist, but I doubt there's a developer out there today who can do that. Popular systems get support because they are popular, or because the console maker bought the rights to a game for exclusivity. They DON'T get support just because a developer 'likes' the system. Liking the hardware can only go so far, liking the company can only go so far. Profitability trumps empty statements about unprecedented partnerships. The Wii U feels like Nintendo expected the last generation to continue without seeing new consoles for another three years, and even if that were the case, they still spent two years mismanaging the reveal of the system and the marketing behind the system.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
Astro7x posted:Just because they have been profitable doesn't meant that they haven't made stupid decisions. Zack_Gochuck posted:This is a pretty dumb thing to say. Not that they haven't made stupid decisions, but they have generally always been profitable until recently. This is not a company that never makes any money. Uhhh... leidend posted:You can erode your value and still be profitable. Choosing cartridges over cds for the N64 was the first stumble I think. Except that their stock peaked in value around 2007/2008. They were more valuable then than they ever were in the mid 1990s. The SNES pushed less than 50 million units, the Wii sold over 100 million. They were objectively a more valuable company in 2007 than they were in 1994. I honest to god don't know what you're talking about when you say "Valuable" if you're not talking about their value on the stock market. They've made some pretty bad blunders over the last three or four years, but let's not say thing that are outright retarded. Zack_Gochuck fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Feb 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 22:17
|
|
|
Alteisen posted:You can already hook up your PC to your television, hell I'm doing it right now and all I have to switch to composite or HDMI to use my consoles. You missed where I said "which everyone will want to buy". Everyone in the industry knows that eventually, the majority of what people use desktops and laptops for (watching videos, social media, games) will be done on your TV or phone. It won't be done on a computer. It's already slowly going that way. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have both tried to create consoles that do that stuff to varying degrees of success and failure. That said, that doesn't mean they will be at the forefront of it. Right now Roku, Apple and Android are all trying to create the next great device that's going to ensure people don't buy a game console or a computer to hook up to their TV. Instead you buy their box, or as I think will happen, it'll be built into Samsung or other popular TVs and you get all of that stuff from the box. You get it all from just connecting to a Wi-Fi signal in your house. Once that happens, you're going to see more "smartphone" games built for the home experience. And once those games actually make themselves some money, more companies are going to be pressure to just make games for that. Just as there is already pressure for major third party publishers to make more smartphone games. Eventually things will get more streamlined and likely, any videogame company still trying to sell a specified box is going to be left in the dust. Everyone will just play games on their Apple/Android TV. Or whatever else takes over as the standard. The market demands streamlining. It won't be streamlining to a Playstation, unless that's what Sony tries to call their iteration of Apple TV that'll probably fail like all of their TVs fail.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 22:27
|
|
|
They are definitely on the spectrum for being retarded after reading that Q&A.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 22:30
|
|
Zack_Gochuck posted:Uhhh... Being a sperg about usage of words is not a great way to argue your point. From the N64 onwards they've been the company with inferior hardware, poor third party support and poor sales - with the exception of the Wii on the last point. 20 years of the same mistakes after dominating in those same areas with the NES and SNES.
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 22:35
|
|
|
technically the gamecube was more powerful than the PS2
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
Paper Jam Dipper posted:You missed where I said "which everyone will want to buy". I really don't think you're going to see this happen until smartphones and the like can play the types of games you'd expect to see on a console. Considering the current rate of slowdown in the build of processing power I'd say that's probably gonna take a while, and that's before we even consider the fact that the big manufacturers are too chickenshit to release something that looks like it could be used to control a game. The Android/iOS standards will pose a real threat when they're housed on devices that can approximate console experiences at a reasonable price. And when I say 'console experience' I'm not just talking about the ability to render huge battlefields with huge playercounts or whatever. I'm talking about quality control too. The smartphone libraries are an even bigger mess than the Atari 2600's.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:03
|
|
|
Paper Jam Dipper posted:You missed where I said "which everyone will want to buy". Yea that still ain't happening for a long rear end time, consoles and mobile stuff still offer vastly difference experiences.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:08
|
|
|
Pixeltendo posted:technically the gamecube was more powerful than the PS2 I don't really know what went wrong with the Gamecube, other than their weird disc format screwed them over most likely. I know companies like Square didn't want to develop for the N64 because of the cartridges, and their games are typically pretty large.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:10
|
|
Pixeltendo posted:technically the gamecube was more powerful than the PS2 Xbox was better than PS2 for hardware. I don't remember anything looking best on game cube, just like how nothing on Wii U looks better than ps3 or 360 now despite being supposedly "technically" better.
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:10
|
|
|
Zack_Gochuck posted:Uhhh... So you're arguing that failing to make a successful console once in 20 years, outside of a literal miracle that sold to a completely different market which now no longer exists, is just a 'blunder'? Lol.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:13
|
|
|
Pixeltendo posted:technically the gamecube was more powerful than the PS2 The N64 was also more powerful than the PS1, the texture issues were almost entirely because of cartridges, which they insisted on because otherwise they might not be able to boss third parties around as much. leidend posted:Xbox was better than PS2 for hardware. I don't remember anything looking best on game cube, just like how nothing on Wii U looks better than ps3 or 360 now despite being supposedly "technically" better. No it was actually more powerful. I think part of the problem was that the only way to compare graphics was cross platform titles, most of which got lovely ports because nobody had a gamecube, so why redo the graphics?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:15
|
|
|
leidend posted:Xbox was better than PS2 for hardware. I don't remember anything looking best on game cube, just like how nothing on Wii U looks better than ps3 or 360 now despite being supposedly "technically" better. RE4 looked a LOT better on Gamecube than on PS2, for one. I think that was the most obvious disparity, there were other games like Viewtiful Joe where there was a difference but not big enough for most people to notice. It was probably limited to games where GCN was the lead platform. icantfindaname posted:So you're arguing that failing to make a successful console once in 20 years, outside of a literal miracle that sold to a completely different market which now no longer exists, is just a 'blunder'? Lol. See, once you've caught lightning in a bottle once, it's easy to catch again. It's just that first time that is tough. Just ignore the fact that people got sick of the product almost immediately, our competitors beat us on the tech within a couple of years, and also those decades of declining market share and terrible executive decisions. I'm sure our stock will be on the up and up any day now.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:So you're arguing that failing to make a successful console once in 20 years, outside of a literal miracle that sold to a completely different market which now no longer exists, is just a 'blunder'? Lol. That's a pretty weak argument unless you have a pretty limited definition of successful. They have failed to make the dominant console in every time period since the SNES but the Wii U is the first console they've had which is a financial bomb. In comparison Microsoft and Sony have both put out systems that were serious financial screwups in that time frame as well even if they sold better.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:17
|
|
|
I think it's interesting they're planning to develop their own in-house OS (NintendOS?) for their future machines. The fact that they're going to make Wii U their future template brings into mind what I thought of when I first heard about the Wii U - why didn't they use the 3DS as the tablet? The way Iwata mentions the future handheld and console as "brothers" suggests just that sort of arrangement: Rather than two loosely related platforms, we'll probably see a more intimately interconnected system. Whatever they're brewing up in Kyoto, it'll probably be interesting. At the very least, the new 3DS will have that second analog stick from the start.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:20
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:So you're arguing that failing to make a successful console once in 20 years, outside of a literal miracle that sold to a completely different market which now no longer exists, is just a 'blunder'? Lol. What is a successful console?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:40
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:The N64 was also more powerful than the PS1, the texture issues were almost entirely because of cartridges, which they insisted on because otherwise they might not be able to boss third parties around as much. Screw the haters, I loved cartridges! I could be playing a game of Wayne Gretzky 3d Hockey within seven seconds of powering on the system. I remember it taking 1 1/2 minutes just to get to the title screen on my friends PSX. Say what you want about CDs vs Carts, but that generation had horrible load times on disc based systems.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:58
|
|
|
Zack_Gochuck posted:What is a successful console? One that has a significant market share and/or is profitable? In this sense the N64 was fairly successful in the US And besides this, the only one of their failed consoles that was actually profitable was the N64. The gamecube was until they cut the price to $99 two years in. The company has always been supported by handheld profits, the consoles are not what makes them profitable (minus the Wii) and haven't been since the SNES. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Feb 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 23:58
|
|
|
Zack_Gochuck posted:What is a successful console? Success in this thread varies between profitability and systems sold, generally whichever one fits their argument the best.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 00:00
|
|
|
Astro7x posted:Success in this thread varies between profitability and systems sold, generally whichever one fits their argument the best. Except that they failed by both metrics. The N64 was mildly profitable or break even, the GC lost money, the WiiU is hemorrhaging it. The argument "But they're profitable!!!!!" is bullshit because their consoles aren't actually profitable. Their handhelds are profitable.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 00:04
|
|
|
Astro7x posted:I don't really know what went wrong with the Gamecube, other than their weird disc format screwed them over most likely. I know companies like Square didn't want to develop for the N64 because of the cartridges, and their games are typically pretty large. Nintendo went into the GameCube at a disadvantage. Sony established an incredibly strong brand with the PS1. They beat Nintendo in the console market handily, something that nobody really expected. While Nintendo was dealing with (more like failing to deal with) the aftermath of pissing off third parties across the board during the SNES and N64 years, Sony was concentrating on maintaining and expanding what they built. I feel that the N64 years firmly established Nintendo systems as platforms you bought if you wanted Nintendo games only, and that's a reputation that sticks to this day, EVEN IF it's not exactly true. The Cube was in a tough place of trying to justify why you should buy a Nintendo console after the N64. The PS2 was more or less a promise to continue bringing gamers the sort of library that made the original PS outsell everything else on the market by a ridiculous margin, and then they delivered. Astro7x posted:Screw the haters, I loved cartridges! I could be playing a game of Wayne Gretzky 3d Hockey within seven seconds of powering on the system. I remember it taking 1 1/2 minutes just to get to the title screen on my friends PSX. Say what you want about CDs vs Carts, but that generation had horrible load times on disc based systems. Short load times don't make up for lacking on Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Front Mission, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Tekken 1-3, and the list goes on. Ultimately, anything good the N64 had was smothered by all the good the PSOne had. The load time argument, even back then, was reduced to being the last resort of angry console warriors. fivegears4reverse fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Feb 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 00:19
|
|
|
fivegears4reverse posted:Nintendo went into the GameCube at a disadvantage. Sony established an incredibly strong brand with the PS1. They beat Nintendo in the console market handily, something that nobody really expected. While Nintendo was dealing with (more like failing to deal with) the aftermath of pissing off third parties across the board during the SNES and N64 years, Sony was concentrating on maintaining and expanding what they built. The Gamecube was even outsold by the original XBOX, which was arguably at even more of a disadvantage. Microsoft were complete newcomers to the market and had basically zero support in Japan. When it originally came out it was regarded as a bit of a joke too (XBOX HUEG, the Duke controller etc).
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 00:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 03:40 |
|
|
fivegears4reverse posted:Short load times don't make up for lacking on Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Front Mission, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Tekken 1-3, and the list goes on. Ultimately, anything good the N64 had was smothered by all the good the PSOne had. The load time argument, even back then, was reduced to being the last resort of angry console warriors. Totally agree, but I had both systems and generally bought anything that was on both on the N64 purely because of load times. I was pissed when Resident Evil finally came to the N64 and they left all the load screen animations in between rooms to keep it more like the original. One of the reason I hated that game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 00:33
|
|