Wii u
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Apparently the Wii U recently outsold the XBone..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...stmas-according-to-vgchartz/?partner=yahootix
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...stmas-according-to-vgchartz/?partner=yahootix
If it were that simple then it would have also outsold the PS4. I attribute the sales more to the uncanny number of bundle deals that came out during the holidays, not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure it was a hell of a lot easier to pick up a Wii U this season than it was a XBone. Hell from a financial standpoint it doesn't even make sense to go out and pick up a Wii U from a store shelf, when odds are you can get the system and a game or two for the same price, if not less. Still, until I see a $200 sticker on that thing the Wii U is just going to remain a pipe dream for me.
I dont know how it was easier to get a wii u in my area..I saw at least 4-5 xbox ones in stock at walmart/toysrus/gamestop every time I went there...I think it isnt really going to sell as well this gen...sad to say...it will sell enough to be second place as the wii u will not be a force I dont believe. heck the fact that the ps4 has already sold 1 million more consoles then xbox one should start worrying microsoft.
M$ had to know they wouldn't sell as many as Sony simply because of the price tag. $400 is a lot easier to deal with than $500. Still, it's a marathon, not a sprint, so we'll see what happens once these systems start getting some real games that aren't half-baked launch titles and ports.
The one that the Wii easily won? Sony did manage to catch up to Microsoft in the end, but both still lost out to Nintendo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(seventh_generation)#Comparison yeah, yeah, it's wiki, but it was an easy comparison to pull numbers on.
Worldwide
Wii = 100 million+
PS3 = 80 million+
360 = 80 million +
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/xbox-360-wii-ps3-won-console-generation/
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They won in console sales but these companies make most of their money from the software licensing fees. I would bet that Microsoft and Sony both blew Nintendo away in software sales. The Wii sold so well because non-gamers who thought Wii Sports was cool went out and bought one. They might have bought a couple games like Wii Fit and Mario Kart but the fad quickly came and went. I know my family had one and it was only used for the first 3 or 4 weeks we had it. Once the novelty wore off it was never turned on again and I would bet that happened in a lot of households.
Nintendo still has it's place for safe family games and nostalgic gamers who love those old franchises. Most people who actually spend a lot of money on games probably only used it as a secondary console though. It's great that they are trying to do something different with their consoles but they can't keep putting out hardware that is a generation behind. As long as they continue to do that they will continue to be a secondary console for most gamers who want a large variety of games. Most people aren't buying multiple consoles and if you can only get one a Wii U is a hard sell. If you get one you know you are only getting Nintendo first party games and a few ports that aren't as good as the PS4/Xbox One version. Most of the great third party games will never make their way to the Wii U.
Edit: The fact that the Wii sold so well with casual gamers and people who were never gamers before might have actually been a bad thing for Nintendo. It made them try to capture that market again with another underpowered, non-standard control scheme console. The problem is that market is willing to move to iPad or whatever else comes along to play their casual games. They were never console gamers before so they don't feel the need to stick with console games in the future.
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Nintendo may have won, but they really sputtered out at the end. The last 2-3 years of the "war" were not kind as the Wii couldn't sell anything other than "Just Dance" games and the like or 1st party games, and most major titles were just being released on the new Big 3 (360, PS3 & PC) Also, Microsoft deserves extra credit for staying so competitive when they have NO presence in Japan, which is a major market.
Yet another big release skipping the Wii U...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131142-Alien-Isolation-Not-Coming-to-Wii-U
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131142-Alien-Isolation-Not-Coming-to-Wii-U
That's probably going to start happening even more often when companies stop making ports for 360/PS3. When they are already porting a game down for those systems that are similar to a Wii U in graphics power it's easier for them to decide to put it on Wii U too. Once they stop that I don't see many companies taking their graphically impressive, next gen games and porting them down to Wii U. They already aren't getting many ports but I think direct ports to Wii U will be almost non-existent after 2014.
Now third parties might make a separate game specifically for Nintendo that is in the same franchise as their PS4/Xbone/PC game but it won't be the same game. Call of Duty and Madden did something like that for the Wii last generation.
I'm a bit pessimistic about the future of Nintendo. There really isn't a very compelling reason for any 3rd party developers to develop for it, and a number of companies have already woken up to that. As you mentioned, straight ports aren't really worth it because very few serious gamers only have a Wii U and nothing else. And exclusives are more useless because of the small install base. And that's a shame, because I think there's a number of good ideas one could do with the screen/tv combo. We can only hope that the Indie scene can pitch in. Hell at the rate they're selling, the PS4 and XBone will overtake the Wii U in sales by June 1st.
This isn't like the 80s/90s when the main console purchase group was parents for their kids, and the parents did not play the games, and thus didn't care about giving their kids the most games possible. Now that us "kids" are now the purchasers, we have no problem buying more than 1 console, similar to how we would probably buy more than 1 tv or other electronic. I've mentioned before that $200 is my price point for the Wii U, but even with that I find it hard to justify purchasing the thing. Looking at the miniscule game list, the only games I'm really interested in are the Super Mario games (3) and the new Zelda game (1). Okay I'll throw in Smash Bros as well (1). That means the Wii U only has 5 games that would appeal to me. I'm not going to buy any games for it that are on other systems, because they will likely be better on the other systems, or if they're on the PC, will DEFINITELY be cheaper in due time. And I think many consumers are picking up on this fact as well. The only reason 3rd parties kept making Wii games from 2011 to now was because of the massive install base, and most were just basic, sloppy ports. Hell, FIFA 2012 to FIFA 2013 literally the ONLY thing they changed was the roster. Everything else was identical.
At this point I almost want Nintendo to fail, just so they can finally do what Sega did and open up their IPs to the other systems. I know the 3DS is basically saving that company, but with smartphones and tablets continuing to rise, the dedicated game system is destined to eventually fail, as people are not buying the 3DS for the 3D, but because that's where the games are. Unless Nintendo does something drastic, this time next year we could see the house Mario built start to truly collapse. Hell there's only so many damn Pokemon games they can make whenever they need a cash infusion.
Well... this isn't good news if you're a Nintendo Shareholder to say the least..
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01...u-sales-forecast-from-9-million-to-28-million
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01...u-sales-forecast-from-9-million-to-28-million
I know many have said that Nintendo can keep doing whatever due to all their cash on hand, but it appears that may change, via CVG: Nintendo 'thinking about a new business structure'
"We cannot continue a business without winning," Iwata said on Friday during a press conference attended by Bloomberg. "We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each.
"We are thinking about a new business structure," Iwata added. "Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/445870/nintendo-thinking-about-a-new-business-structure/
Sent from my VZW Note 3
"We cannot continue a business without winning," Iwata said on Friday during a press conference attended by Bloomberg. "We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each.
"We are thinking about a new business structure," Iwata added. "Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/445870/nintendo-thinking-about-a-new-business-structure/
Sent from my VZW Note 3
I don't want to see them start moving their games to tablets and smartphones. However, I have said here lots of different times that I would be ok with them follwing in Sega's footsteps. If they were to give up the home console market and start making their games for PS4 and Xbox One they would sell way more copies just because the user base is so much larger. I sure wouldn't pick them all up because most of their kiddie games just don't do much for me. That would apply to a lot of Sony and Microsoft gamers out there but there are also lots of families and nostalgic gamers that would eat that stuff up.
They can stay in the handheld market if they want but for home consoles they either need to give up or quit putting out hardware that's a generation behind. At this point I'm not even sure putting out a machine that is as strong as their competition could save them though. They would finally start getting 3rd party support but they might have already lost most of their hardcore audience by putting out two underpowered machines in a row. They basically abandoned the hardcore gaming market with the Wii to try to grab the casual market. That may have worked at first but the last several years have proven that the casual market isn't sticky the way the core gamer market is. Those people are always willing to move on to the next thing and don't need a dedicated gaming machine in their lives.
Yeah, I don't think releasing a $400-500 console would fix anything for them, as a pretty silo'd off Japanese company they're so behind the times in networking, media partnerships, etc. The various things that are included in the bare bones expectations of a console that can be the center of your living room.
The biggest asset(s) that Nintendo has is its software IPs. Nintendo hasn't really been in the "hardware race" since the N64 days, and even then they chose accessibility over power (staying with cartridges traded off speed for data.)
Nintendo at this point would really be wise to just go software only like Sega. Getting out of hardware was the BEST thing Sega did. At this point, having "exclusives" aren't really a selling point. At this point it's more like imprisonment. I can't play the newest Zelda/Mario/Metroid games because Nintendo only makes them for the Wii U. That doesn't help Nintendo as a business, it just hurts me as the consumer and thus Nintendo because I don't want to spend my money for the "privilege" to play these games. Also, these "gimmicks" from motion control to a tablet have done little in regard to making actual GOOD games.
Let's take a look at the highest rated games (according to Metacritic) on the Wii:
With the possible exception of Resident Evil 4, NONE of these games required, or were enhanced by motion controls. In fact, in many cases the wiimote controller made the experience worse in some way. I know that Super Mario Galaxy would have been enhanced if they had let me use a Gamecube controller. Even 2 of my favorite games not mentioned here (No More Heroes & Madworld) could have done just fine with a Dual Shock/X360 controller.
So now Nintendo has fixed the controller issue somewhat with the tablet button design, but they're basically running on last gen hardware. The Wii got away with it last time because the whole motion control thing was enough to entice consumers. Now consumers are smarter and realize that there's only so many versions of "Just Dance" and "Wii Sports" and "Wii Fit" that they can tolerate before they want something that's a real GAME, and not just something you break out when there's nothing on TV but there's still a lot of booze around, and/or there are kids as well.
And let's face it. The DS system is not long for this world, and once again, the best games use the "gimmicks" the least (you can look at that list here.) The fact that a 2DS had to be made shows that the 3DS is basically a flop. I don't care how many units they sold. People bought it because of the games and because it was the next DS iteration. Very few bought it for the 3D effects. That and also for some reason people still feel the need to play Pokemon games, like they contain Heisenberg meth or something..
TL;DR: Nintendo is doomed unless they plan to release Super Mario 3D World 2 on something OTHER than the Wii U/3DS..
Nintendo at this point would really be wise to just go software only like Sega. Getting out of hardware was the BEST thing Sega did. At this point, having "exclusives" aren't really a selling point. At this point it's more like imprisonment. I can't play the newest Zelda/Mario/Metroid games because Nintendo only makes them for the Wii U. That doesn't help Nintendo as a business, it just hurts me as the consumer and thus Nintendo because I don't want to spend my money for the "privilege" to play these games. Also, these "gimmicks" from motion control to a tablet have done little in regard to making actual GOOD games.
Let's take a look at the highest rated games (according to Metacritic) on the Wii:
With the possible exception of Resident Evil 4, NONE of these games required, or were enhanced by motion controls. In fact, in many cases the wiimote controller made the experience worse in some way. I know that Super Mario Galaxy would have been enhanced if they had let me use a Gamecube controller. Even 2 of my favorite games not mentioned here (No More Heroes & Madworld) could have done just fine with a Dual Shock/X360 controller.
So now Nintendo has fixed the controller issue somewhat with the tablet button design, but they're basically running on last gen hardware. The Wii got away with it last time because the whole motion control thing was enough to entice consumers. Now consumers are smarter and realize that there's only so many versions of "Just Dance" and "Wii Sports" and "Wii Fit" that they can tolerate before they want something that's a real GAME, and not just something you break out when there's nothing on TV but there's still a lot of booze around, and/or there are kids as well.
And let's face it. The DS system is not long for this world, and once again, the best games use the "gimmicks" the least (you can look at that list here.) The fact that a 2DS had to be made shows that the 3DS is basically a flop. I don't care how many units they sold. People bought it because of the games and because it was the next DS iteration. Very few bought it for the 3D effects. That and also for some reason people still feel the need to play Pokemon games, like they contain Heisenberg meth or something..
TL;DR: Nintendo is doomed unless they plan to release Super Mario 3D World 2 on something OTHER than the Wii U/3DS..
And dropping 1,428 spots in Japan's Toyo Keizai Most Powerful Japanese businesses, it's Nintendo!
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...ummets-in-List-of-Powerful-Japanese-Companies
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...ummets-in-List-of-Powerful-Japanese-Companies
Pretty good article about Nintendo's problems, and that a drastic change is necessary. It also appears that most major 3rd party companies are tired of dealing with Nintendo's sh*t, including long delays in getting answers, language barrier issues (Nintendo only operates out of Japan; their satellite branches are just localized marketing companies,) delaying certifications so third party releases don't conflict with first party, and making sure that Nintendo released titles were of better quality than 3rd party releases.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/446277/blog/nintendo-must-reinvent-itself/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/446277/blog/nintendo-must-reinvent-itself/
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