[Sinis]

First off, let me post a link to an article about Nintendo's views on their Wii U so that way we can all be on the same page here.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/17/wii-u-not-selling/


This news literally took me by surprise but then I thought "So they finally admitted it...now what?"

I wonder of how much longer that an 'updated' version will come out like a remodel or even just an entire new console altogether.  I heard that they are focusing on wanting to go to handheld app's right now so maybe they'll be going to those in the future entirely?  Just speculation on my end for that one.


For myself, I own a Wii U but haven't touched it in a couple of months.  In my opinion, the Wii U feels like a 'super' 3DS but without the 3D feature stuff added into it.  Mainly bought it for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and hopefully some new Metroid and whatever other Zelda titles they come out with but that's about it since I'm more into Sony and PC gaming.

I'm curious of how many of their 'wooden' nickles Nintendo will be losing out on all of this after this announcement.

[Nightcrawler]

This has been a long time in the making. They were just plain lucky that the decline didn't start already with the Wii, which was just literally an overclocked Gamecube with a bluetooth motion controller. Nintendo has been trying to sell solely on the gimmick in the past several years while offering little else. While they got lucky once, it is now evident it will not work any longer. The compeition has far surpassed them now and it is painfully obvious now that Nintendo is lacking.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo ultimately move away from consoles and stick to handhelds where they hold a much nicer position. They will need to seriously rethink what they are doing in the console market. In the short term though, I expect some type of repackage, upgrade, or new gimmick to try and salvage sales. 70% under target is pretty poor performance, so they will be motivated to do something.

[Kiyoshi Aman]

With all due respect, the implication that the Wii is an overclocked Gamecube is entirely false and completely ignores how game-changing the Wiimote is. The fact that both Sony and Microsoft have had to implement the third dimension of control on their respective platforms underscores just how much the Wiimote changed gaming. The Wii didn't need to be graphically on pair with its competitors: the Wiimote set it apart in a way that disrupted that generation. Note how the Wii, until its successor was introduced, outsold its competitors by a fairly wide margin individually.

There is no such distinguishing feature to set the Wii U above the Wii, especially as the Wii U looks exactly like a Wii, gamepad aside. That alone has done more damage to the Wii U than the fact that the gamepad is an incredibly stupid gimmick. The Wiimote, whatever you may think of 'flailing' it, added an entirely new dimension of control and provided a new way for gamers to interact with their games. The gamepad is literally nothing more than a console-tied tablet with gaming-oriented buttons bolted on.

I don't know why you're trying to take Nintendo to task over the Wii when it dominated its generation almost as well as the DS dominated the PSP.

[Lilinda]

Aerdan I agree with most of your post but it did not dominate the generation as much as you say it did: http://gematsu.com/2013/11/worldwide-playstation-3-sales-reach-80-million

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/17/xbox-360-80-million-sold-and-counting

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e1309.pdf

At first it did no question, but that's old news, outdated by years now.

Really, I'd argue there was no single winner, as most of Nintendo's sales were in two groups: 1. Diehard Nintendo Fans, of which there are an insane amount. 2. "New" fans that don't normally play a lot of games. Much of the standard gamer market which gamed on the GC's 3rd party games migrated to PS3 and X360.

The profitability question is also a bit muddled. The PS3 and X360 sold initially at a loss, the PS3 very much so due to the blu-ray drive of financial doom, but they eventually got the costs down, and had a huge amount of successful third party games alongside of their first party games. Nintendo did not have nearly as many third party games that sold hugely, but they had lower developmental costs both in terms of the future hardware and in terms of their own games. Plus, until the 3DS price cut, they had never sold a console at a loss before, so the Wii's base hardware made them a fuckton of cash.

Nintendo also did not jump on the Online Games bandwagon nearly as much as Sony and MS did. A large reason why WiiWare failed was the 60 or so MB limit it had, and it was never really pushed. Virtual Console on the other hand, made a lot of money but I don't think any public figures have been announced as to how much they made from it. PSN Store and XBLA sold a far, far higher amount of games, but they were, for the most part, not as profitable per sale as the VC ones were.

In addition to all of that, we don't know how much money the various video/music services and MS/Sony's outright selling of videos and music made them. Or, more importantly, how that was counted on their balance sheets. Those might not be listed under the video gaming portion of their list of corporate profits, I don't know. I don't really know where to look over than their SEC filings, and even then there's so much paper to look through there it'd take me ages.

Combine all of that with the fact that all these consoles are still selling, and who the fuck knows which of the three won the console war of last gen.

All we really know is that Nintendo made a fuckton of cash, Sony's gaming division lost a fuckton and then made a fuckton, and MS' gaming division almost entirely lost a fuckton.

[DarkSol]

With all due respect, the implication that the Wii is an overclocked Gamecube is entirely false and completely ignores how game-changing the Wiimote is. The fact that both Sony and Microsoft have had to implement the third dimension of control on their respective platforms underscores just how much the Wiimote changed gaming. The Wii didn't need to be graphically on pair with its competitors: the Wiimote set it apart in a way that disrupted that generation. Note how the Wii, until its successor was introduced, outsold its competitors by a fairly wide margin individually.

There is no such distinguishing feature to set the Wii U above the Wii, especially as the Wii U looks exactly like a Wii, gamepad aside. That alone has done more damage to the Wii U than the fact that the gamepad is an incredibly stupid gimmick. The Wiimote, whatever you may think of 'flailing' it, added an entirely new dimension of control and provided a new way for gamers to interact with their games. The gamepad is literally nothing more than a console-tied tablet with gaming-oriented buttons bolted on.

I don't know why you're trying to take Nintendo to task over the Wii when it dominated its generation almost as well as the DS dominated the PSP.

But the Wii WAS an overpowered Gamecube, how else would have it maintained the backwards compatibility?   Being an underpowered console doesn't take away from how much of a gimmick the WiiMote was, even though tons of casual gamers became hooked to WiiSports.  The Wii captured that casual market where people who wouldn't normally have bought video games at all. (AND the console was freaking cheap as hell too compared to the 360 and the PS3.)

There is no one problem with the WiiU.  It's a comedy of errors that Nintendo has been perpetuating since the N64, and just just been getting worse since.

[KaioShin]

With all due respect, the implication that the Wii is an overclocked Gamecube is entirely false and completely ignores how game-changing the Wiimote is.

It's not game changing at all, it was a fad. A fad that is already over.

Everyone hates the XBone for including the Kinect and being that much more expensive for it. Everyone celebrated the PS4 for not including Move despite earlier plans. NONE of the most anticipated games from the last E3 had anything to do at all with motion controls. Very game changing indeed.

[FAST6191]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo ultimately move away from consoles and stick to handhelds where they hold a much nicer position. They will need to seriously rethink what they are doing in the console market. In the short term though, I expect some type of repackage, upgrade, or new gimmick to try and salvage sales. 70% under target is pretty poor performance, so they will be motivated to do something.

I think the same report also covers the 3ds selling below expectations, though that probably does not mean too badly.  Also would you really do that in a world where Android is slowly but surely eating your customer base (potential, previous and otherwise), attracting many of your better devs (either in whole or at least "well there is also an android version") and with the rapidly advancing hardware not looking likely to fade any time soon?

[Lilinda]

It's not game changing at all, it was a fad. A fad that is already over.

Everyone hates the XBone for including the Kinect and being that much more expensive for it. Everyone celebrated the PS4 for not including Move despite earlier plans. NONE of the most anticipated games from the last E3 had anything to do at all with motion controls. Very game changing indeed.

I think honestly the only reason it's mostly over is because no one figured out how to make new styles of games with motion controls. Mostly they tried to either adapt existign games to motion controls(See a lot of ports of games that also have PS2 versions on the Wii) or they tried to adapt existing genres without seriously rethinking them.

There's nothing wrong with motion control per se, though as a cripple I get pissed off as fuck when games like Epic Mickey require it when the sequel works just fine on an X360 controller, it's just how people use it in their games.

Really, I think the Wii mighta had more third party support if all games that were not entirely based around the motion controls also required standard controller support via the GC controller port or the Classic Controller. I know I'd still have my copy of Epic Mickey, I enjoyed the little I played of it.

[KaioShin]

I think honestly the only reason it's mostly over is because no one figured out how to make new styles of games with motion controls.

Either not a single developer (including Nintendo themselves) figured out a good idea for it in 8 years because they are ALL incompetent and stupid or there simply isn't that much use for limited motion controls (without haptic feedback!) as you might imagine. Occam's Razor.

[Kiyoshi Aman]

Either not a single developer (including Nintendo themselves) figured out a good idea for it in 8 years because they are ALL incompetent and stupid or there simply isn't that much use for limited motion controls (without haptic feedback!) as you might imagine. Occam's Razor.

Considering how many developers put out buggy piles of shit like Skyrim or Battlefield 4 or SimCity 5, do you really have to imagine a world with incompetent studios?

[DarkSol]

Considering how many developers put out buggy piles of shit like Skyrim or Battlefield 4 or SimCity 5, do you really have to imagine a world with incompetent studios?

Considering that two out of the three examples you posted came from one publisher, and that publisher just happens to be EA... 

I think that a lot of people are overlooking the fact that Nintendo had to adjust their forecast by 70%, in the negative, with the respect to the WiiU.  That is a huge problem.  Companies don't just write off a -70% change, and shareholders certainly won't idly sit by and be okay with this.

[Isao Kronos]

As an aside, I think my favorite Wii games used the motion control as a supplement to controlling gameplay rather than one of the sole methods of controlling gameplay. Like No More Heroes.

[DarkSol]

Yeah, Nintendo is getting a beating in the stock market today.  -17% change in one day is horrible for any company.

[Sinis]

Yeah, Nintendo is getting a beating in the stock market today.  -17% change in one day is horrible for any company.

One hell of a nose dive that's for sure!

It's how the saying goes "Either keep up with the times or make room for someone else to give it a try."

[BRPXQZME]

Keeping up with the times means going mobile. I don’t care if it’s bad for business; screw everything about that.

[SargeSmash]

It should be noted that their projections were ridiculously rosy in the first place.  I don't think the Wii U is going to be a complete flop, even if it doesn't achieve the stratospheric success that the Wii did.  And if Nintendo hadn't gone the disruptive route, we'd have been talking about this with their non-Wii Gamecube successor many years ago.

The gambit didn't pay off this time (yet).  But taking that chance at least gives them a shot at sniffing first place, as opposed to perpetually in third place.  At least if they end up there this time, they were swinging for the fences again.  (Seriously, guys, the GamePad is awesome, just for the off-screen capability.  I can multitask so much more easily that I wish all my other consoles had this ability tightly integrated.)

Keeping up with the times means going mobile. I don’t care if it’s bad for business; screw everything about that.

Agreed.  Screw that.  Depending on how much convergence we see this gen between PC and consoles this generation, Nintendo might end up in a pretty good spot as having the only home console that doesn't feel like a slightly-compromised gaming PC.

Also, let's talk again when we get Mario Kart and Smash.  I have a feeling that will move some units.

[Nightcrawler]

I think honestly the only reason it's mostly over is because no one figured out how to make new styles of games with motion controls. Mostly they tried to either adapt existing games to motion controls(See a lot of ports of games that also have PS2 versions on the Wii) or they tried to adapt existing genres without seriously rethinking them.

I think I might agree with this. The vast majority of Wii games were continually designed in such a way that they didn't need any motion controls to play equally as well. There simply wasn't many innovative titles that utilized the Wiimote in a new and exciting, game changing way. After the general public got tired of Wii Sports and realized it wasn't that great, they quickly moved on. The rest of the fans got saddled with titles like New Super Mario Brothers requiring motions controls when it really didn't benefit in any way from motion controls. Thus the motion controls came as a tacked on 'waggle' gimmick to many games, similar to the stylus usage on the DS. There is just way to much poor usage of these additions that it overshadows any real smart innovative ones.

[BRPXQZME]

At least the Wiimote doesn’t have the “zero button mouse” problem! I may have an overinflated sense of how important video games are in the grand scheme of things, but almost everything cool that has been done with the Kinect has very little to do with gaming.

[MisterJones]

I actually enjoyed the stylus use in some of the games for the ds: canvas curse, bowser inside story, nitnedogs, sim ccty, etc

[FAST6191]

Yeah there was precious little that did stylus stuff as more than a pointless addon at first but as time went on it got good, certainly I have caught myself wanting a stylus in many other games for various things. Pity it took so long to get some really nice card games. I still have a good chunk of the Wii library to go through but I have yet to find anything that I would say truly benefits motion controls. Maybe if it is was considerably more accurate but it is not the case, part of that considerable chunk does include the motion plus but I would like to think I would have heard if it is was the path to the land of milk and honey.

On going mobile... I actually do not care for most Nintendo handheld games (it was mostly third party stuff I liked on the GBA and DS, a significant percentage of which are already doing IOS/android stuff) but I reckon it would be a good thing.