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[michaelius]

I think the worst has now passed for Nintendo, and the new forecast seems about right. Hopefully the losses have stopped, and the company can move forward towards a recovery. The Wii U will never be a true sales success, but at least they can use it as a means to get better at HD development for the successor platform in 2016 / 2017.

Worst is just ahead

Wii U will peak at 3,6 milions shipped (assuming they can even reach their forcast) and 3DS started fadind down with no successor in sight.

And that's before launching new consoles which might or might not be successfull out of the gate.

 

[E-phonk]

Am I the only one thinking that a further 3.6M Wii Us seems optimistic? I'm not sure if Mario Kart or Smash Bros have that kind of pull for an otherwise dead platform.

Smash (11+m on wii) and Mario Kart (35+m on wii) are amongst the biggest (console) franchises they have.

 

[iori9999]

One of the first things they need to do with the Wii U itself is revamp the UI.. It is still sluggish to this day and is not that easy on the eyes for me atleast.. Something that runs swiftly like the Xbox Dashboard or PS4 ui would suffice.. I know the PS4 still has some blandless, but the performance is a huge step up from the XMB..

 

[AniHawk]

Am I the only one thinking that a further 3.6M Wii Us seems optimistic? I'm not sure if Mario Kart or Smash Bros have that kind of pull for an otherwise dead platform.

it's possible. sales have been steady in america and japan was weirdly responsive during the holiday push. so maybe some really big software can do it. i think the mario kart 8 -> smash bros. 4 push will be a lot more prominent than that new super luigi u/pikmin 3 -> super mario 3d world push last year.

 

[Always-honest]

Damn.. that's pretty sad. i axctually think if they didn't cheap out on the components and just releaded the wiiU with a normal controller and another name it would have been better for them.

Having said that, i kinda like the gamepad a lot. And the games are awesome.

 

[AniHawk]

imagine a zelda game that tackles the origin of link,and creates a narrative that explains his connection to princess zelda?

 

[StreetsAhead]

imagine a zelda game that tackles the origin of link,and creates a narrative that explains his connection to princess zelda?

Um, they did that already.

 

[E-phonk]

haha. Perfect.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Until they hire some damn competent software developers and focus on delivering some ACTUAL value

They are going to continue to struggle in the face of the aggressive competition.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Um, they did that already.

Are people even trying anymore lol.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Or the world of possibilities with Samus? The prime trilogy was already incredible, why not try to tell a compelling story and adapt the gameplay to appeal to more people? I would rather have adaptation in the gameplay and more metroid games tha to " stay pure" and have one every 4 years.

Have I fallen for it

 

[StreetsAhead]

Are people even trying anymore lol.

I wasn't 100% sure if it was satire, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[BY2K]

And still not a single layoff in sight, unless they do it behind the scene.

 

[shinra-bansho]

They impaired their inventory this Q. No specific numbers, just that inventory was impaired. That along with extra R&D caused a larger than expected operating loss.

Oh, didn't see the supplemental note. They're still holding a crapload of inventory though. :S

The impairment should have been charged to cost of sales, but gross margin increased? I guess it's from the increase in software sales. I think they report the amount in their annual report whenever that comes out.

 

[ProfessorX]

Nintendo deserves to do better IMO.

 

[Taker666]

Am I the only one thinking that a further 3.6M Wii Us seems optimistic? I'm not sure if Mario Kart or Smash Bros have that kind of pull for an otherwise dead platform.

I'd think they could just make it..but the reduction in advertising spend this year could make things tricky.

If they were serious about selling hardware they'd double the advertising budget so it was back up to 2009 levels. Reducing it from last year (when the marketing seemed limited anyway) doesn't seem like a good idea in regards to selling systems or software. If they don't back Mario Kart and Smash with strong marketing then they won't sell big.

 

[DieH@rd]

Smash (11+m on wii) and Mario Kart (35+m on wii) are amongst the biggest (console) franchises they have.

Wii was incredibly attractive console to casual gamers, who purchased a lot of consoles that had MK bundled in, for a price that was way lower than any high horsepower console of that time.
http://www.axiomagames.com/images/Limited-Edition-Wii-Mario-Kart-Bundle.jpg

I don't think new MK will repeat such a feat.

 

[Ansatz]

Nintendo wants to unify handheld and console, software and architecture wise. That should allow them to release a new console early - together with their next handheld. Unifying the two would fix many of their current problems. They don't have to spread themselves too thin because they only have a single platform to support, and they actually have pretty solid 3rd party support on the handheld side. On top of that, the future unified architecture will be based on the Wii U architecture, so they can easily port or move over Wii U titles currently in development.

This is a logical step but there's still the question of software. It's clear what the market accepts, and that ain't Japanese game design.

 

[blankempathy]

This is a logical step but there's still the question of software. It's clear what the market accepts, and that ain't Japanese game design.

If i was stuck playing only western designed games Id probably quit gaming or at least only stick to pc gaming.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Nintendo deserves to do better IMO.

I want them to

They really need to stop delivering COMPROMISING hardware and software for such high prices.

They should have started streamlining and unifying their systems way before now.

Sony/Microsoft are quite as nimble as I would like but they are so far ahead in quality/features over Nintendo and they do it for less (in certain areas)

MS kind of has the same issues with the XB1 right now but not as bad apparently.

 

[Nozem]

Nintendo deserves to do better IMO.

Why?

 

[jett]

I guess that forecast means that Nintendo isn't rebranding the Wii U, isn't dropping the price, isn't going to try to make a final push, they're finally beyond caring. They'll ride out this abject failure until their next console release. Which for their sake I hope is soon, because their software is just being totally wasted on that thing.

 

[SenatorBot]

Smash (11+m on wii) and Mario Kart (35+m on wii) are amongst the biggest (console) franchises they have.

We can do a quick comparison with similar games that's already out on the Wii U to determine the LTD of the games. Also the fact that the games kinda aim for the same demographic of Nintendo gamers.

Smash on Wii sold as well as Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii
NSMB sold as well as Mario kart on the Wii

With that, we can imagine that the Smash on the Wii U will sell about 2.17 million, which is how much Super Mario 3D world is doing right now.

Then if we look at NSMBU, it sold 4.16 million on the Wii U. So we can expect Mario Kart to do similar numbers to that. Both in total are pretty respectable numbers.

 

[Metallix87]

Worst is just ahead

Wii U will peak at 3,6 milions shipped (assuming they can even reach their forcast) and 3DS started fadind down with no successor in sight.

And that's before launching new consoles which might or might not be successfull out of the gate.

If they don't post losses, it will be seen as a huge improvement however you slice it.

 

[E-phonk]

Wii was incredibly attractive console to casual gamers, who purchased a lot of consoles that had MK bundled in, for a price that was way lower than any high horsepower console of that time.
http://www.axiomagames.com/images/Limited-Edition-Wii-Mario-Kart-Bundle.jpg

I don't think new MK will repeat such a feat.

Offcourse not, MK sold more than Wii U ever will - but it ARE heavy hitters.

We can do a quick comparison with similar games that's already out on the Wii U to determine the LTD of the games.

...

With that, we can imagine that the Smash on the Wii U will sell about 2.17 million, which is how much Super Mario 3D world is doing right now.

Then if we look at NSMBU, it sold 4.16 million on the Wii U. So we can expect Mario Kart to do similar numbers to that. Both in total are pretty respectable numbers.

I agree on both. I'd say Smash can get a little higher due to the lack of other appealing software on the platform and the new improved features.

 

[Metallix87]

Just because their forecast is being called realistic doesnt change the fact that 3.6m units shipped in a year is beyond awful in every way possible.

And they don't seem to be doing anything to improve its image.

As long as they don't lose more money, they can stabilize. The system's image can't be salvaged right now without a relaunch, and the cost to do that is likely too great. Better to just learn from the system while trying to get back in the black, which they should this fiscal year.

 

[coldfoot]

It's over, period. Nintendo lost their last ace, and that's the end of their Wii U hopes and dreams.

It's not hyperbole, it's not fanboy drivel. It is LITERALLY it for Wii U. Nintendo has nothing left, nothing they can reveal tomorrow would fix the hole now created. There is no reason left for any one, hardcore or casual, to substantively invest in a Wii U. Except if they want to play Mario Kart or Zelda. Which will all be multiplatform at some point.

Nintendo took the last reason away that anyone would NEED to own a Wii U over a PS4/XB1/PC (except WII U GAMEPAD LOL GAMING), and the cavalcade of Nintendo titles that will be nice but won't stir up any sales is not going to salvage the underpowered, overdesigned behemoth that was Wii U.

There may be some hardcore gamer's that stick around. Some did it for Gamecube. But the last bell tolled. Maybe next decade.

The age of Nintendo is done.

 

[Majine]

Nintendo needs a new leadership for the new age, there's no way around it.

 

[Bulbasaur]

Ouch.

I guess that means they've finally abandoned hope for the Wii U lighting up significantly. Shame though I've really grown fond of the system.

 

[Riki]

It's over, period. Nintendo lost their last ace, and that's the end of their Wii U hopes and dreams.

It's not hyperbole, it's not fanboy drivel. It is LITERALLY it for Wii U. Nintendo has nothing left, nothing they can reveal tomorrow would fix the hole now created. There is no reason left for any one, hardcore or casual, to substantively invest in a Wii U. Except if they want to play Mario Kart or Zelda. Which will all be multiplatform at some point.

Nintendo took the last reason away that anyone would NEED to own a Wii U over a PS4/XB1/PC (except WII U GAMEPAD LOL GAMING), and the cavalcade of Nintendo titles that will be nice but won't stir up any sales is not going to salvage the underpowered, overdesigned behemoth that was Wii U.

There may be some hardcore gamer's that stick around. Some did it for Gamecube. But the last bell tolled. Maybe next decade.

The age of Nintendo is done.

It's not even a good parody of the orginal.

 

[Zeyphersan]

It's over, period. Nintendo lost their last ace, and that's the end of their Wii U hopes and dreams.

It's not hyperbole, it's not fanboy drivel. It is LITERALLY it for Wii U. Nintendo has nothing left, nothing they can reveal tomorrow would fix the hole now created. There is no reason left for any one, hardcore or casual, to substantively invest in a Wii U. Except if they want to play Mario Kart or Zelda. Which will all be multiplatform at some point.

Nintendo took the last reason away that anyone would NEED to own a Wii U over a PS4/XB1/PC (except WII U GAMEPAD LOL GAMING), and the cavalcade of Nintendo titles that will be nice but won't stir up any sales is not going to salvage the underpowered, overdesigned behemoth that was Wii U.

There may be some hardcore gamer's that stick around. Some did it for Gamecube. But the last bell tolled. Maybe next decade.

The age of Nintendo is done.

I know it's a joke but

 

[Mandoric]

This is a logical step but there's still the question of software. It's clear what the market accepts, and that ain't Japanese game design.

The market accepts what's fed to it as good. Sometimes it's American design, sometimes it's Japanese design, increasingly (on PC, the wave hasn't hit consoles yet) it's Korean, Chinese, or Euro design.

Whether any given design floats or sinks depends on how good of a job is done convincing people they should like it, and THAT Japan has huge problems with - "read the untranslated book" is kind of a nonstarter in the US, as is "it works like a modern version of (title that sold 3m on Super Famicom and 30k on SNES)".

There's also the ravenous US taste for dudebro to take into account, driven as a result of cultural changes post-9/11 (and post-multibillion dollar marketing efforts to sell militarism as a virtue), but as that's fairly irrelevant everywhere else in the world it's not hugely relevant to pronouncements about the global market, and will only decline in importance as the European market grows in global share.

 

[Ty4on]

Wii was incredibly attractive console to casual gamers, who purchased a lot of consoles that had MK bundled in, for a price that was way lower than any high horsepower console of that time.
http://www.axiomagames.com/images/Limited-Edition-Wii-Mario-Kart-Bundle.jpg

I don't think new MK will repeat such a feat.

It will ofc not sell 30 million, but it will be huge for the WiiU. Might even reach the forecast and 3.6m is quite a lot higher than the 2.7m last year.

We can do a quick comparison with similar games that's already out on the Wii U to determine the LTD of the games. Also the fact that the games kinda aim for the same demographic of Nintendo gamers.

Nah. Many games like Wii Party U break this despite the bundles.

 

[Tobor]

Jesus, the damage control in this thread.

"The R&D money is why they posted a loss!"

R&D money wasted on the QOL debacle. Awesome. Iwata would have been better off blowing it all on coke and hookers.

"The war chest is down a billion because of a buy back! The Yamauchi kids...blah blah blah"

It doesn't matter why it's down. It's down. And it isn't being replenished anytime soon. And when the QOL flops, it will drop again.

This is a deeply troubled company, straight up.

 

[KingSnake]

The next year forecast for Wii U also means there won't be an official price drop in sight.

 

[Metallix87]

Jesus, the damage control in this thread.

"The R&D money is why they posted a loss!"

R&D money wasted on the QOL debacle. Awesome. Iwata would have been better off blowing it all on coke and hookers.

"The war chest is down a billion because of a buy back! The Yamauchi kids...blah blah blah"

It doesn't matter why it's down. It's down. And it isn't being replenished anytime soon. And when the QOL flops, it will drop again.

This is a deeply troubled company, straight up.

Why are you so sure QOL will flop?

 

[Sammy Samusu]

Realistic forecasts, I can actually see Wii U selling more than expected!

Smash, Kart, X will be a good punch.

 

[Majine]

Mariokart won't move the needle in any direction, just like NSMB U didn't despite that insane attach rate.

 

[Nothing1016]

It's over, period. Nintendo lost their last ace, and that's the end of their Wii U hopes and dreams.

It's not hyperbole, it's not fanboy drivel. It is LITERALLY it for Wii U. Nintendo has nothing left, nothing they can reveal tomorrow would fix the hole now created. There is no reason left for any one, hardcore or casual, to substantively invest in a Wii U. Except if they want to play Mario Kart or Zelda. Which will all be multiplatform at some point.

Nintendo took the last reason away that anyone would NEED to own a Wii U over a PS4/XB1/PC (except WII U GAMEPAD LOL GAMING), and the cavalcade of Nintendo titles that will be nice but won't stir up any sales is not going to salvage the underpowered, overdesigned behemoth that was Wii U.

There may be some hardcore gamer's that stick around. Some did it for Gamecube. But the last bell tolled. Maybe next decade.

The age of Nintendo is done.

ehhh 3/10.

 

[Metallix87]

Realistic forecasts, I can actually see Wii U selling more than expected!

Smash, Kart, X will be a good punch.

Don't forget Bayonetta 2. The first did pretty well, didn't it? Not a huge hit, but a good seller.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Realistic forecasts, I can actually see Wii U selling more than expected!

Smash, Kart, X will be a good punch.

X won't make much of an impact.

 

[E-phonk]

Mariokart won't move the needle in any direction, just like NSMB U didn't despite that insane attach rate.

Yes it did. The WiiU had a good launch.
They weren't able to follow up on it in any way - with months of software drought, but the launch with NSMB U wasn't that bad.

 

[Metallix87]

X won't make much of an impact.

On a system starved for content, if the quality is high, a proper marketing push could make it a strong seller.

 

[wsippel]

Jesus, the damage control in this thread.

"The R&D money is why they posted a loss!"

R&D money wasted on the QOL debacle. Awesome. Iwata would have been better off blowing it all on coke and hookers.

"The war chest is down a billion because of a buy back! The Yamauchi kids...blah blah blah"

It doesn't matter why it's down. It's down. And it isn't being replenished anytime soon. And when the QOL flops, it will drop again.

This is a deeply troubled company, straight up.

We don't know where the R&D money went, we don't know what the QoL platform is, and the money they spent on Yamauchi's shares isn't gone because they can sell the shares again.

 

[Jo Shishido's Cheeks]

Here you go. I made bar charts with Wikipedia numbers:

Looks cool, good job.
Any chance you could add everything in a single graph in chronological order?

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Jesus, the damage control in this thread.

"The R&D money is why they posted a loss!"

R&D money wasted on the QOL debacle. Awesome. Iwata would have been better off blowing it all on coke and hookers.

"The war chest is down a billion because of a buy back! The Yamauchi kids...blah blah blah"

It doesn't matter why it's down. It's down. And it isn't being replenished anytime soon. And when the QOL flops, it will drop again.

This is a deeply troubled company, straight up.

Change of leadership is required in my opinion.

 

[Log4Girlz]

With price drops and enough time, it could probably come pretty darn close. The biggest obstacle is price, IMO. Say what you will, but a 2DS is $130, a 3DS is $160, and a 3DS XL is $200. Yes, there are sales and deals, but those are the base prices. Nintendo needs to try to get the prices down to $99 or less for at least the 2DS and maybe even the 3DS.

Another major issue is software. A lot of the content from Japan isn't being localized in the West, resulting in the software library looking noticeably weak. This was never an issue for the GBA, and Nintendo needs to start convincing publishers to bring over more content. A healthy software release calender can only help and not hurt the platform.

So another 30 million in sales left in your estimation?

 

[maxcriden]

Skimmed through a bit of the thread, but it seems like there are two camps: those who think this means they'll give up on the Wii U, and those who think this means they'll try harder to push it. I realize we're coming up on some news tonight and next month at E3, but I think the English copy of the earnings release indicates they still plan to unveil some new software, i.e. the NFC. I don't see how DS VC will help the system, though. It's a tricky balance for them at this point. I imagine they will give the console a shorter generation but still play out the string for a bit first. So I think the answer is somewhere in-between both camps, and I'd love to be wrong and for there to be more games, but not if it means they can't make more games and consoles in the future.

 

[jonno394]

Why are you so sure QOL will flop?

Let's be honest, even without knowing much about it there's a decent chance it probably will.

 

[nikatapi]

He's not canned because he's still probably the most successful manager in the industry overall. He's also not solely responsible for everything that goes wrong. I believe there even was a Nikkei article a while ago claiming that Wii U wasn't really what Iwata wanted, it's what some members of the board wanted. If true, that failure would potentially strengthen Iwata's position internally.

That sounds interesting, i would like to read this if you could provide a link please.