Because many people are invested in the whole Nintendo going third party narrative. And because GAF loves hyperbolic statements that they will never have to back up or get called on. Thats just how system wars works (see the Vita for similar shit). Next thing we will have the Nintendo is for kiddies argument coming back.
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SM3DW sells 107k in Japan, lowest 3D Mario debut ever
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Because many people are invested in the whole Nintendo going third party narrative. And because GAF loves hyperbolic statements that they will never have to back up or get called on. Thats just how system wars works (see the Vita for similar shit). Next thing we will have the Nintendo is for kiddies argument coming back.
I can't for the life of me understand how multiplayer in a Mario game is that much of a game changer to people. I played it with my friends for about an hour and a half to two hours and we all burned out. During our gaming they were talking about how great Mario 64 was in comparison.
It seems you are comparing it to it's competitors (360 and PS3), which received successful reboots and relaunches half-way through their lifespan (Kinect for the Xbox 360 and the total PS3 rebranding and redesign). Before those, game consoles were usually strongest during their midway point before waning off in the latter third of their 5 year lifespan before a next-gen system takes over. Which, of course, is also how it went with Wii, with it's strongest years were during 2008 and 2009, the mid-way point for it's life. If the Wii is a fad, then every game console before then was a fad as well.
And there are most likely a bunch of Wii owners that would pounce on a next-generation Wii, but the Wii U is not providing that experience (it doesn't even come with a Wii remote). Obviously they are going to move on into something more interesting, like mobile gaming.
I already offered my counter-points to your "smoke," and none of what you said is enough evidence to justify completing ignoring the gains the Wii made
That's the thing though. The Wii U is not a continuation of the Wii concept. It almost completely contradicts the philosophy established by the Wii. The tablet controller rejects the simplicity and intuitiveness of the original Wii remote for something more traditional and with a high barrier of entry. The console is far outside the price-range of casual gamers interested in getting into console gaming. The failure of the Wii U is not evidence of the Wii concept being a fad.
My answer to both fix the immediate problem and to what Nintendo should do next is to introduce the true successor to the Wii. Make it roughly as powerful as the Wii U, but drop the tablet and replace it with the next generation of the Wii remote. Nintendo should look at what made the Wii success and try to replicate it. I believe the success of the Wii can be repeated, but we'll never know unless someone tries.
@Verendus: The PS2 days for Sony are long dead. Sony is still very much in crisis mode, no matter how much the PS4 appeals to you.
@Everyone else: Read my fist post!
Ignoring my joke post earlier, perception and brand association of a platform is very important in my eyes. Rather than having one or two big gaming franchises, it's more important that your brand has a strong association with diversity, industry support, and is the general home to many big franchises. Nintendo's biggest problem with home consoles is that they have increasingly been isolated since Playstation entered the scene, and the Wii did nothing to help them in the long-term regardless of how successful it was initially. They created a system in the Wii U which is, essentially, shit. It has no real redeeming qualities and Nintendo have not done a good job of making their brand very appealing to the general gaming audience. Part of that was born from necessity due to the Wii taking a diverging path and Nintendo trying something very different after N64 and Gamecube did poorly, but the biggest failing with Wii U was that Nintendo didn't leverage the success of the Wii to try and make an entry back towards the traditional gamer with a more powerful platform and more aggressive approach to securing third party support. They also timed their launch wrong as the industry moved with Sony and Microsoft.
It's a stark contrast to their handheld, which whilst still finding it a little difficult outside of Japan, has a much stronger brand and quality in the eyes of general people. That's thanks to the established precendent of success and quality leading all the way back to the Gameboy. It's consistency.
Nintendo home consoles haven't been consistent, and the company in general seems confused.
They've been out of crisis mode for while. The PS2 days may be long dead, but the Playstation brand is more than healthy and poised to be the industry leader once more. If $599, a late launch to market, a terrible production template, and a mass exodus of exclusive support didn't manage to do much more than slow Sony's mindshare down, then there isn't much stopping them now with everything going the oppositive way in terms of pricing, launch and future support from the industry at large. At least they've managed to sustain and protect the brand to set up future prospects, rather than flail around like Nintendo is doing with the Wii U.
But I'm sure your genius idea of focusing on the casual market and that audience is the right way to go for Nintendo in a post iPhone and tablet gaming world.
Solid Samus
Banned
I'm just pointing out that aside from 64 (which again - most anticipated Nintendo title on flagship 3D hardware) Mario 3D World sold to a comparable percentage of its userbase as the rest of the 3D Marios (if not more - iirc there were around 4 million Gamecubes in the wild with Japan representing the bulk of them when Sunshine dropped, a little less than 4 mil 3DSes in Japan when 3D World dropped, etc. etc. and yet a third less is shocking on a system that has a 3rd less units in the wild
That's worth considering alongside
Very strategic cherry picking of my quotes.
metalslimer
Member
Uh...no. Sunshine did much better comparably and is a much better comparison than the Wii as software sales do not scale with hardware sales
The crazier thing is how you apparently can't read the posts you are responding to.
Fun Factor
Formerly FTWer
bomba.
Agreed. I wonder if Nintendo is going to release an earlier trailer than planned.
Solid Samus
Banned
How did Sunshine do better comparably, or at least could it even be considered that it did 'significantly' better? I'm not saying you're wrong but to my understanding you are. Maybe I'm missing information but I gave my justification in the post you've quoted so if it's wrong then please correct me.
No proof? You mean the fact that motion control gaming died about as fast as the latest 3D television fad proof?
Oh you just brought mobile gaming argument making console gaming irrelevant... Lol never mind. They both just had the biggest launches in console history. Both of them will outsell their last gen counterparts, you can bank on it. The WiiU, well I think they might be lucky to break 25million lifetime. Graphics do matter, the kids playing these kind of games do grow up you know...they eventually want something other than Mario and Luigi.
Guess Microsoft and Sony didn't get the memo.
metalslimer
Member
It had much better sales and 10% better attach ratio. No matter what metric you use it did significantly better unless you want to qualify the sales with the console market decline in Japan.
timetokill
Banned
As proven by every gaming device released today having some form of motion controls. Yup. Totally dead.
MS is trying to force the camera down your throat for different reasons, and nothing about the PS4 has anything to do with the waggle gimmick of he Wii. Not sure what you are trying to point out.
Nicktendo86
Member
This thread is going around in circles now. Some people are dead set on the idea that this game has nothing new and is an upscaled 3d land, some posters saying the world is sick of Mario and some (correctly IMHO) pinning this to the general 'meh' to the wiiu. Nintendo have completely fucked up the marketing with this console and need to get back on track, I'm the end it will be profitable for them I am sure and they will learn some harsh lessons. But the hyperbole in this thread is really annoying.
Solid Samus
Banned
I mean I could but you'd still be right. I also like to think that Sunshine being the immediate follow-up to 64 may have also had something to do with its initial sales, and at this point I could still say that Mario 3D World isn't doing badly given the amount of Wii Us out there compared the other 3D Mario games (3DL, Galaxy 1 and 2), besides DS which had the benefit of being the only good launch title for a system that tons of people actually did want and sold more units in most individual regions in weeks than Wii U has sold to date in the same regions.
Holy Order Sol
Member
It's Anticitizen One. By "people" he means himself.
Different reason? It's because it sold well.
PSEye and continued PSMove support.
http://youtu.be/9hUUsqhetX4
Nope.
Or unless you want to include digital sales.What could it add, 10%?
Successful reboots? What reboot did the PS3 have? It just became cheaper over time, as consoles always do, and it had a long way to go because it began at $499/599. And Kinect was hardly the impetus for the 360 continuing its strong sales... it had a very strong 6 months and then by the end of 2011 it was no long a mandatory part of many 360 bundles. Gradual price drops and a continual string of software support have prevented the 360 and PS3 from having a significant drop-off.
Also, if you check the charts of life to date sales after X number of months on the market, you'll see that the Wii's rise and drop-off happened much more quickly than the PS2, which was still selling well for 24-36 months longer than the Wii did. It would have happened even more dramatically but for the fact that the Wii was sold out continually for most of its first year on the market.
The Wii's drop-off happened much earlier in its lifecycle, and much more dramatically, than other successful consoles. Consoles that burn up the sales charts in their early years normally have incredibly long legs.
As you can see from the chart, the Wii is sitting just north of 40m units in the US. It hit the halfway point of that number around December 2008. So it took around 2 years to sell its first 20 million, and 5 years for the next 20. The Xbox 360 took around 4 years to sell its first 20 million, and another 4 years to sell the next 20.
That's more proof of the industry's resistance to change than the strength of the Playstation brand. The PS3 was such a flawed console, but every third party was determined to make it work because MS wasn't really doing so hot outside of the US and working with those filthy casuals was unthinkable.
There have been dozens of reports that Sony is in financial straits to the point that even if the sales of PS4 are healthy, it might not be enough to support Sony as a whole. They might have had a amazing launch for the PS4, but we need to wait until January or at least a year to see if the PS4 is truly the right path for Sony. For now, it's way too soon to tell.
@x-Lundz-x: You seem to be confusing me with someone who has shown more than complete apathy toward the Wii U hardware. Super Mario 3D Land looks cool though, and I might buy one down the line for it and X.
"But I'm sure your genius idea of focusing on the casual market and that audience is the right way to go for Nintendo in a post iPhone and tablet gaming world."
It's a hell of lot better idea than sitting on the Wii U and twiddling their thumbs.
Solid Samus
Banned
Media Create does not. Something I hadn't considered but it's also something that probably might amount to what, ten thousand more sales at most? Who knows.
Oh you mean those optional devices that will only be used by a small user base and select games and not an entire console designed around it? Those things? There is a reason why they are not in the box, Sony knows better and it shows in the sales and interest level of the console.
They focused on giving you the best traditional console money could buy, and guess what? It's working.
Agreed. Nintendo lured in non-gamers with the Wii, but summarily lost them all to a new fad. They're basically trying to sell the Wii U to a demographic that was temporary. The game is probably amazing, but it's hard to sell it when nobody owns the console.
Neff
Member
Wii U's Gamepad is less a 'gimmick' for the benefit of gameplay (although it has proved its worth in that area) and more a novel convenience feature for the streaming of games and movies that hasn't quite caught on yet, despite those who have tried it wholly advocating it.
Don't for a minute overlook that PS2's success in the beginning was down to being both the first affordable player of new optical technology, and the first successor to the most successful games console in history. Such amazingly fortunate circumstances couldn't be replicated by anyone today, let alone Nintendo.
Before we start the Sony party, let's remember that they still have a ton of debt to clear, and despite a good launch and a strong brand, their gaming division is nowhere near as profitable as it used to be.
the dual shock 4 has motion controls and so does the vita.
You're missing the point, motion control is clearly not dead to either Microsoft or Sony. That's why they showed them on a show that gets a broad amount of viewers and why Microsoft packages it in every box.
Agreed.
I mean, we will never get as big of a graphical jump as we got from the PS1 to the PS2 ever again. That combined with it being an (at the time) cheap DVD player was the perfect combination.
Can't think of any features that a new console could have in the future that would be able to duplicate the impact of those features back in the year 2000.
I'm the same way, but it's still damning for a lot of franchises (not Mario).
And your grand idea is for the industry to abandon the traditional audience which has been cultivated through several generations, and can be relied on, to target casuals who would be much more willing to adopt the model provided by mobile gaming or gaming on the go with tablets etc. A huge market which is dynamic, changing, and can't easily be controlled. The big publishers can't just change directions on a whim; that's not how these things work. And this is a technology driven industry.
Yes, the industry wasn't willing to let go of Playstation. That's because they're linked to the success of each other. Why should they have let go and supported Nintendo with the Wii who have only increasingly isolated themselves and share differing values with regards to the advancement of technology for a lot of those companies? On what planet would that make sense to any one of those companies?
And PS4 is the right path for Sony. Gaming is one of Sony's pillars. That isn't going to change anytime soon. Wii U's problems are just an extention of problems Nintendo has been having for over a decade. Both the Playstation and Xbox will end up faring much better.
You're right about one thing.
Poimandres
Member
I wonder how many copies it would have sold on 3DS?
If the Wii U and it's games keep selling like this, I don't see how it's financially viable for Nintendo to stay in the home console market. I'm not even sure if they will make another home console honestly, but if they do and it flops I can definitely see Nintendo going handheld only.
If the Wii U and it's games keep selling like this, I don't see how it's financially viable for Nintendo to stay in the home console market. I'm not even sure if they will make another home console honestly, but if they do and it flops I can definitely see Nintendo going handheld only.
nintendo actually has less of the gimmicky stuff supported than sony does at the moment. they don't have all the knobs on the vita (which actually people love looking at tearaway) and certainly don't support no ps eye stuff. overall there isn't many differences between the consoles when it comes to this subject you just got suckered by the branding
the also have continued software support. dkcr and epic mickey put up fantastic numbers in 2010. and then nothing really happened for the wii in 2011. no new wii ____ games, and no major franchise titles for about 10 months (that sounds familiar). third-parties weren't putting anything out for it aside from your occasional just dance.
2011 would have been an ideal time to release the wii mini (without removing so many of its features, or at least the online), at a $99 pricepoint, alongside something like the rainfall titles and mario party 9. they were focused on the 3ds at that point, though. nintendo treated it like their failure systems.
The ds3 also had motion controls. Has it or will it ever be the focus of the console?
Aaron Strife
Banned
vita also has a touch screen which gamers were bitching about endlessly in 2004
I'm still amazed at how they managed to do almost absolutely nothing in those two years.
ZealousMonkey
Banned
I hate to say it but the Wii U is dead. What can happen in the future to preserve some things: Backwards compatibility and just F'ing kill that Gamepad requirement like it's a bad bug and axe it from the system NOW. That thing has single handedly fucked up everything N needed to do this gen. People say this and that about needing the gamepad. No, no one needs the gamepad and most games should be designed from here on out full well knowing that thing will never come back again.
For the future of this company they have to ride this out. A new system in fall of 2016 is about right I'd say. But if they wait til 2018 then things are not going to go well in the console business UNLESS they have those big games ready at launch. If they can get that stuff ready for a big launch in 2016 or 17. I sure as hell know that all I want is 1080p Nintendo games. And yes 720p with little AA is simply not good enough for me for an investment.
For the future of this company they have to ride this out. A new system in fall of 2016 is about right I'd say. But if they wait til 2018 then things are not going to go well in the console business UNLESS they have those big games ready at launch. If they can get that stuff ready for a big launch in 2016 or 17. I sure as hell know that all I want is 1080p Nintendo games. And yes 720p with little AA is simply not good enough for me for an investment.
Again, there's no magic spell that turned the ship around for the PS3, PSP, and 3DS from being considered hopeless platforms to being decently-selling. The Vita too, as long as it's not discontinued, will persevere and eventually have enough of a library to start building up the hardware sales. The Wii U could be in the same boat, and given its first-party support, I have a little more confidence in it than I had for the Vita a year ago.
Solid Samus
Banned
Value is and will always be in the eye of the beholder.
That's why the Gamecube 2.0 sold millions at $250
It's why PS4 and Xbox One sold well to hobbyists and casual gamers alike
I think by the time they've weathered this beating, it won't be viable for them to make another console. They got desperate when they put out the Wii, which then made them overconfident. Now they're basically relying on the 3DS to keep their entire business afloat.
Nintendo has all its eggs in one basket, whereas Sony and MS have a wealth of markets to dip into. It's sort of like how video stores all died off while convenience stores or retail outlets that also rent things remain in business. If the rentals slow down, they can still make money other ways.
Nintendo might be screwed. If they kill off the Wii U too soon they're probably out (because it will harm success of their next console), but if they keep it on life support they're still probably out (because they won't have the money to put out the next console). They need a new revenue stream, and I think NES games on ios is the answer. It doesn't diminish their exclusives that way, but adds cash flow.
Nintendo's consoles are WCW, and the Wii was its nWo (sorry for the wrestling analogy, I just feel it works well).
metalslimer
Member
I hope to god you are being sarcastic and realize that a 10% increase in sales would be like 10k and that would not even come close to the attach ratio difference. Like I said, please read the conversations you respond to instead of being as reactionary as you currently are so you don't come off looking as extreme and ill informed.
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