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[The perfect Dark]

I fail to acknowledge anyone truly believes this wonky line of reasoning. That console you weren't paying attention to, you will now, because these other more powerful consoles are out!

Yes it's true. Believe it or not.

edit: Having said that, I don't say it will happen, but there's a chance.

 

[Shiggy]

Yes it's true. Believe it or not.

edit: That said, I don't say it will happen, but there's a chance.

There's also a chance that the Wii U will become the best-selling system once it's released in Syria.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Yes it's true. Believe it or not.

I only deal in truthfacts not sketchy beliefs.

WiiU is not catching any hype from next-gen boxes right NOW despite all stores advertising the shit out of PS4 and Xbone in every spare inch of store space they have. When people do turn up to plonk down $400 and Battlefield, Killzone or Forza, they're not going to be magically woo'd away by, shock of all shocks, a new Mario game on a Nintendo console because everybody already knows thats whats on a Nintendo console.

Maybe those potential Knack buyers could be woo'd though. So good luck with that huge contingent.

 

[Nikodemos]

It wasn't just the holiday season. That's ridiculous. Did the holiday season help? Yes. Was it the sole reason? No.

The 3DS's situation was somewhat improved for the very simple reason that it was (mostly) improvable. All Nintendo had to do was abandon their initial sales pitch (and initial sales price). Once they realised people generally didn't give a shit about glassless 3D on a portable platform (particularly a somewhat low-powered one and especially at the prices Nintendo initially demanded) and slashed prices accordingly (closer to what would have been expected from an evolutionary successor of the DS, which they've ended up positioning it as), numbers started improving, although the price cut caused issues with profit margins on unit sales, which was to eventually lead to the 2DS's creation

Spoiler

(which I predicted)

.

The Wii U is harder to fix, since it doesn't have a single big issue that can be fixed. A price cut could increase unit movement, but the Wii U is already being sold at a loss, so there's a very tricky economic minefield to navigate. Dumping the main 'feature'

Spoiler

(so as not to use 'gimmick' again)

from their sales pitch is a bit more complex, since unlike the 3DS, it's integrated into the core of the system. They really made it to be pretty hard to fix in the event of a dud (although selling it at a loss was caused by poor sales, thus the per-volume BoM is heavily underamortised over such a small number of units sold, a bit of a self-reinforcing feedback loop).

 

[Darryl]

I fail to acknowledge anyone truly believes this wonky line of reasoning. That console you weren't paying attention to, you will now, because these other more powerful consoles are out!

Huge price-drop was pretty important in 3DS getting its groove on, and WiiU isn't going to experience that. 3DS also had the bright future ahead of it with actual third party support and there again... WiiU isn't going to experience that.

Well it isn't going to work for people in high information like us. For people in low information who don't even know what the console is, they aren't necessarily living every moment, day to day, ignoring the option of buying a wii u. they have probably never even thought about it up till now. but when people in their social network start making that decision, it'll bring the option out and they'll realize that maybe they should do it as well. they'll get to the store and maybe some of them will second guess themselves. it's a $400-500 purchase with $60 games, it's not crazy to think that people will substitute it down for a cheaper product. a lot of people just want the thrill of owning a new gaming gadget.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Well it isn't going to work for people in high information like us. For people in low information who don't even know what the console is, they aren't necessarily living every moment, day to day, ignoring the option of buying a wii u. they have probably never even thought about it up till now. but when people in their social network start making that decision, it'll bring the option out and they'll realize that maybe they should do it as well. they'll get to the store and maybe some of them will second guess themselves. it's a $400-500 purchase with $60 games, it's not crazy to think that people will substitute it down for a cheaper product. a lot of people just want the thrill of owning a new gaming gadget.

Well, pledging to the misinformed "I don't really know these game newses for me kiddles" market for holiday success, its a good thing Nintendo named and designed their new box differently enough and with a clear change in type of software so the 100 million owners of the Wii don't think they already own this new box with Wii Party U and Wii Fit U and one of those Marios in the cupboard.

 

[kswiston]

It wasn't just the holiday season. That's ridiculous. Did the holiday season help? Yes. Was it the sole reason? No.

If you look at the NPD reports for 2011 and 2012 for Apr-Jul (the months prior to the 3DS' price cut in 2011), sales are only up by 10-20% over the previous year that people were saying was so horrible.

3DS sales in 2011

Apr - 194k
May - 97k
Jun - 143k
Jul - 114k or less

3DS sales in 2012

Apr - ??? (can't find the total)
May - 114k (+19%)
Jun - 155k (+8%)
Jul - 124k+ (+ 9% or more)

a 10-20% boost over "horrible" sales doesn't seem like a turnaround. Once you get into the 2011 post-price cut months, 2012 3DS sales in the US were often behind their 2011 counterparts. Not exactly what you want from your system in year 2.

Looks like EU was about the same.

The big boost from 6M to 17M was almost entirely the holiday quarter. Nintendo shipped more than 7M units from Oct-Dec 2011. This sort of big boost is also pretty universal in gaming hardware. Moreso for Nintendo consoles due to demographics, but all consoles have a larger Q3. Don't be surprised if we are reading about the Wii U reaching 7-8M shipments this January, even if the overall situation is still dour.

 

[jvm]

There's a problem there in the NDS has basically collapsed entirely now in the European market, and while it was still respectable at the start of the year in the US it's now collapsed there too.

And the 3DS isn't really picking up the slack.

In order for Nintendo to match last year's handheld sell-through numbers in US+EU the 3DS basically has to sell a million a month in each region for the remaining calendar quarter.

You can get a quick look at all of these figures, I believe, using the quarterly hardware sheet I put online.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtXhc02VTSWzdHpZWUxGWkxHQVlZN1FpTEpxNV9NUEE&usp=sharing

TTM Handheld Hardware US + EU
09/2009: 24.7mm
09/2010: 18.7mm (-24%)
09/2011: 16.6mm (-11%)
09/2012: 13.1mm (-21%)
09/2013: 8.9mm (-32%)

Total contraction over four years: 64%.

In the 12 month period from Oct 2011 - Sep 2012, Nintendo shipped 15.5mm 3DS systems. In the last 12 months, they shipped only 12.8mm, and that annualized hardware sales rate has been decreasing each quarter. Hopefully this is the impetus for the 2DS, and I eagerly await results on that system.

 

[AzaK]

Thats why Nintendo should have been preparing for HD the last 5-6 years. It's bit them in the ass dedervedly so.

This cannot be expressed enough. They should have had HD development starting years before Wii U because they knew there would be problems if they looked at ANYONE else in the industry.

No excuses for it. None at all. Especially seeing as they were sitting on top of so much money.