There's no way having the ability to join games from the friendlist would result in a loss of money.
It would cost money to develop the feature.
The idea that every bad decision is the result of properly accessing data is a benefit of doubt Nintendo doesnt deserve.
Why? They have stuck around in the console market far longer than many of their competitors. Maybe there is something to their conservative strategies.
It should go without saying that a proper online services lead to more subscriptions, more sales of Multiplayer games, longer lasting Multiplayer populations, a better environment for 3rd parties and more DLC sales.
Yeah but would all of that create enough profit to actually make the expenditure worthwhile for Nintendo? No one here knows, people just assume based on their own desires and tastes.
Personally I think Nintendo will never be a primary platform for people who are serious about online gameplay and not just because of their service, but also because of the prices of games on their platform and hardware power. I think Nintendo would be foolish to even try to chase core gamers with more online features. But I have as much data as you, which is much less than they have.
Theres no way the data showed Nintendo that proper investment would have poor returns. They've got 15 years of data from competitive services that suggest otherwise. Nintendo's management either doesn't understand the market
That logic only works if you think that Nintendo only cares about the gaming market, which they don't obviously. They are more than happy to make money off of IP too, and maybe the money it would take to build out a bigger online service could get a better ROI backing feature movies, or making that Universal theme park better, or designing the next round of amiibo. Nintendo is a toy maker much more than a technology company like Microsoft and Sony are, and they probably feel their money is best spent enhancing value where they have core competencies (aka not online services).
Nintendo's target audience for online - 13Yo+ gamers, play Fortnite, and roblox, and minecraft, and Fifa, and COD online with their friends w/o jumping through ridiculous hoops.
But that isn't Nintendo's target audience.
Nintendo's Target audience is young children (aka preteens) and young adults who are nostalgic about Nintendo and who are often parents of young children. The online service reflects that.
My proof:
But the place that Nintendo has staked out and continues to own is the family market — which its competitors pay far less attention to.
"We are happy that they don't," Reggie says. "It's been an incredibly important market because the kid who's 5 or 6 today is going to be 12 or 13 and not all that many years later 18 or 19 … And when you have an affinity for Pokémon or The Legend of Zelda series or Mario Kart or Super Mario Bros. that affinity carries with you."
It's pretty obvious from that statement that Nintendo's number one priority is to target young children and get them hooked to be nostalgic adults one day. He makes it clear that he doesn't mind losing teens that want more from their gaming console, as they expect to make them customers again when they are adults.
So they sell a cheap online service built around safeguarding children and 80's nostalgia (aka perfectly aligned to the average age of parents of young children). Nintendo is competently executing their core strategy, but that doesn't mean every has to agree with or like that strategy.
