Skittzo0413
Member
I respectfully disagree.
It is true what you say about the 3DS.
But the actual issue was a totallu different one.
There is, and has been, very little Nintendo could do to gain core audience over the last ~10 years, i.e. during the Wii and WiiU era, with the huge shift to the West of the market.
I don't think we can classify as a serious attempt at regaining the core audience a bunch of late ports and some more or less obscure Platinum games (barring a vocal minority on GAF, Bayonetta means nothing to the masses in a CoD/GTA/AssCreed era we live in).
And Ubi support, while offering simultaneous ports more or less on par (they deserve credit for that), wasn't going to do a lot mostly due to the lower specs.
Maybe, had the EA partnership actually come to life...
I think they have a point with Wii Sports (not Resort!), while it is undoubtely one hell of a killer app, it was nothing more than a big tech demo compared to, say Nintendogs.
You may be right that it wasn't a serious attempt but it's been well documented that it was an attempt to do so. This was even the stated reason for having so little first party software at launch- they wanted third party software to thrive and be a big draw for the core audience. Again, this was clearly a terrible decision but unless they blatantly lied in several presentations and interviews (which is certainly possible) it was nonetheless their intention to try to regain the core audience.
I do doubt that they thought it would be all that successful, but I really don't think they could've predicted how massively terrible it turned out. They were hoping that the Wii brand would carry over casuals which would increase the install base, getting them more third party games and sales, but virtually none of that happened.
Then, left without much of any first party software the Wii U died pretty much instantly.
So maybe I'll agree that it was a half-assed attempt to regain the core audience, but I do think it still was an attempt.
Edit:
I think you guys are expecting a bit too much of Game Freak. Sun/Moon is poised to be printing money, so I doubt that the later Pokémon are really that toxic to the franchise. And even then, Game Freak has been doing more than enough Gen 1 pandering with Gen 6 & now with the Alolan Forms in Gen 7.
I'm speaking purely about the casual/mainstream audience who typically wouldn't be interested in dedicated hardware. Pokemon GO has given the 3DS some sales spikes so hopefully you're right that Sun and Moon will benefit hugely from that, but if Nintendo's goal with mobile is to convert as many smartphone users to their dedicated hardware I think something more in the vein of Pokemon GO (as in, gen 1 at least at first) has much more nostalgia power and recognition than if they were to introduce all 7 gens at once.
I know it's anecdotal, but plenty of my friends say the day Niantic adds anything after gen 1 is the day they stop playing, and that seems to be a fairly common sentiment based on some posts here too like that of KAL2006. Although if Nintendo's stated goal of converting mobile gamers doesn't really pan out at all then there really would be no point in pandering to gen 1.