Gaming Nintendo Confirms Wii U Has Flopped, Slashes Sales Forecast By ~70%

[Foxi4]

I said the next one wasn't coming out.

Ehh... Which makes you contesting my point in the first place completely baseless, but fair enough.

That's not a software "draught".

It sort of is when the only two games people seem to be waiting for are Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. I can't seem to think of too many notable upcoming releases.

Because you'd mentioned that there weren't many Nintendo exclusives.

There's only so many they can push out, sure. They're quality exclusives though, I'll give them that.

They AREN'T cheaper though. Plenty of good games are $30 or less, and they aren't just on clearance. If you're going to talk about price drops, then all games from every system that isn't $60 is a price drop.

Yeah, you have to understand that retailers will lower prices of stock they know won't sell in the nearby future to get rid of it and make space for stuff that does sell. Give me one good reason to buy Batman Origins on the Wii U for $30 and not have access to all the DLC and multiplayer instead of the same game on the PS3/360 with access to all the DLC and with multiplayer for $32? Because if I have to pay $2 extra for those two features then I'm willing to and it's still better value for the money.

The next generation console won't be out for like 7 years. I suppose next you'll be talking about how you could "care less". (...) You may or may not be aware of this (I expect not, since you keep acting like it's not true), but not everyone in the world owned a Wii.

See edit above. The Wii sold 100+ million units - if you didn't have one then either you live under a rock or you're not interested in Nintendo hardware anyways. All those people require an incentive to upgrade and that incentive is not given to them.

Stop saying stupid things and start looking at prices.

Uh-huh.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Ehh... Which makes you contesting my point in the first place completely baseless, but fair enough.

You said that there wasn't DLC for the game, even though all DLC is available for it. What the future holds isn't

It sort of is when the only two games people seem to be waiting for are Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. I can't seem to think of too many notable upcoming releases.
There's only so many they can push out, sure. They're quality exclusives though, I'll give them that.

That's not the same thing as a drought. A drought is a complete lack of something.

Yeah, you have to understand that retailers will lower prices of stock they know won't sell in the nearby future to get rid of it and make space for stuff that does sell.

That's not always the reason prices are low and you know it.

Give me one good reason to buy Batman Origins on the Wii U for $30 and not have access to all the DLC and multiplayer instead of the same game on the PS3/360 with access to all the DLC and with multiplayer for $32? Because if I have to pay $2 extra for those two features then I'm willing to and it's still better value for the money.

If you can get a deal that good, then go with the PS3/360 version. It's funny that the list price has been lowered so much on those two. It was $60 like a month ago, and they were like $45 each or something, except for the Wii U version.

In this instance, the only good reasons to buy the Wii U version is that it doesn't have any of the bugs or tearing on it (which was a really big problem), and the enhancements with the Gamepad.

See edit above. The Wii sold 100+ million units - if you didn't have one then either you live under a rock or you're not interested in Nintendo hardware anyways. All those people require an incentive to upgrade and that incentive is not given to them.

I know tons of people who don't own a Wii, but do own another console. Besides, unless you use it for homebrew, you can knock off a chunk of the Wii U price by trading in your Wii while still keeping all games and peripherals.

 

[Foxi4]

Fair enough JoostinOnline, you make some fair points. I suppose the matter is highly subjective - to me, a 360 or a PS3 would still be a better deal simply because they get substantially more software released for them even despite the fact that they're on their way out. On top of that, they already have established libraries, so building a personal stash of titles isn't all that difficult. I often use the term "draught" not in reference to an absolute lack of software releases, rather the fact that they're rare and far in-between. I'm glad to see that certain companies continue supporting the Wii U, but I honestly think that Nintendo should work on garnering up more attention around the system and negotiate to get all the top titles on it as well. I don't see a reason for the PS3 and 360, at this point aged consoles, to get highly-acclaimed releases while the Wii U with its superior horsepower under the hood is getting the mere scraps and left-overs. Perhaps I pushed my point too harshly, I often use hyperbolic statements, so that probably led to some confusion.

 

[slingblade1170]

I purchased Batman Origins on the Wii U because of the off-screen play which it a lot of Wii U owners is a huge feature to the console. There are enough Nintendo first party titles that are gaining hype to counter the games the Wii U have missed so far. Ubisoft is a huge developer and publisher and they are a strong ally for Nintendo. Do you really think they are going to let this lack of third party really go on forever? There is a reason why Nintendo is still around and they aren't going anywhere for the time being.

Why judge something you do NOT own so strongly? Nintendo may be having a rough time presenting the Wii U but it doesn't make it a bad console.

 

[Foxi4]

I purchased Batman Origins on the Wii U because of the off-screen play which it a lot of Wii U owners is a huge feature to the console. There are enough Nintendo first party titles that are gaining hype to counter the games the Wii U have missed so far. Ubisoft is a huge developer and publisher and they are a strong ally for Nintendo. Do you really think they are going to let this lack of third party really go on forever? There is a reason why Nintendo is still around and they aren't going anywhere for the time being.

Why judge something you do NOT own so strongly? Nintendo may be having a rough time presenting the Wii U but it doesn't make it a bad console.

Ubisoft is just one company though - support from EA, Take-Two, Konami and other big-name publishers could only make things better. As for me judging, again, I'm bringing a point from a couple pages back - I want to buy a Wii U, but I will only buy it once I consider it to be a relevant system. So far, the offering is a tad underwhelming.

 

[slingblade1170]

Ubisoft is just one company though - support from EA, Take-Two, Konami and other big-name publishers could only make things better. As for me judging, again, I'm bringing a point from a couple pages back - I want to buy a Wii U, but I will only buy it once I consider it to be a relevant system. So far, the offering is a tad underwhelming.

Yes I agree, Ubisoft is just one company and that really doesn't pack a punch for the Wii U. But, doesn't Nintendo themselves bring enough to the table for you purchase one? Within a year there will be quite a few games from and for Nintendo that the average person could spend the cash to pick one up. I do see where you are coming from though, I haven't picked up an Xbox One yet because there isn't enough games, not because the games are horrible.

There are people who regret a Wii U purchase but Foxi I don't believe you will be one of them. I've owned a Wii U since March 2013 and it truly has been a great system, through my opinion I would definitely say it is relevant for this generation of consoles and games.

 

[Foxi4]

Yes I agree, Ubisoft is just one company and that really doesn't pack a punch for the Wii U. But, doesn't Nintendo themselves bring enough to the table for you purchase one? Within a year there will be quite a few games from and for Nintendo that the average person could spend the cash to pick one up. I do see where you are coming from though, I haven't picked up an Xbox One yet because there isn't enough games, not because the games are horrible.

There are people who regret a Wii U purchase but Foxi I don't believe you will be one of them. I've owned a Wii U since March 2013 and it truly has been a great system, through my opinion I would definitely say it is relevant for this generation of consoles and games.

As far as Nintendo's offering is concerned, I'm only interested in Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros. unless Nintendo will wake up and provide me with some Metroid Prime goodness for me to wallow in. My lass would probably want one for the sake of Zelda and Pokemon (yes, we heard the rumours), but none of that on the horizon at this point and no, we're not interested in Wind Waker - that game never appealed to me or her and she's perfectly fine with just owning the Gamecube version (limited edition, no less! Mind you, she *hates* Wind Waker, but loves Ocarina of Time which was included on the bonus disc). Sega's exclusive Sonic titles are a factor here, but until those come out, the Wii U still has to wait. Funny story, we were about to grab a Wii U a couple months back but Argos was all out of their promotional Basic sets and we were unwilling to spend £200+ on a system that only had 2-3 games we wanted to try, so that fell through. Maybe next year, we'll see.

 

[slingblade1170]

As far as Nintendo's offering is concerned, I'm only interested in Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros. unless Nintendo will wake up and provide me with some Metroid Prime goodness for me to wallow in. My lass would probably want one for the sake of Zelda and Pokemon (yes, we heard the rumours), but none of that on the horizon at this point and no, we're not interested in Wind Waker - that game never appealed to me or her and she's perfectly fine with just owning the Gamecube version (limited edition, no less! Mind you, she *hates* Wind Waker, but loves Ocarina of Time which was included on the bonus disc). Sega's exclusive Sonic titles are a factor here, but until those come out, the Wii U still has to wait. Funny story, we were about to grab a Wii U a couple months back but Argos was all out of their promotional Basic sets and we were unwilling to spend £200+ on a system that only had 2-3 games we wanted to try, so that fell through. Maybe next year, we'll see.

God, I hope to see a Metroid Prime and Star Fox on the Wii U. Tons of people have put down Sonic Boom but I think it looks great and I do plan on buying it. As for multiplatform games that is already out for Wii U such as Splinter Cell Blacklist and Assassin's Creed IV, I was able to compare them to the 360 counterpart and they do have noticeable graphic benefits and the extra RAM allows more NPCs in the screen at once.

 

[Foxi4]

God, I hope to see a Metroid Prime and Star Fox on the Wii U. Tons of people have put down Sonic Boom but I think it looks great and I do plan on buying it. As for multiplatform games that is already out for Wii U such as Splinter Cell Blacklist and Assassin's Creed IV, I was able to compare them to the 360 counterpart and they do have noticeable graphic benefits and the extra RAM allows more NPCs in the screen at once.

I've recently seen some new gameplay footage and listened to an extensive interview and a lot of my gripes with the game have been addressed, so I'm willing to try this out. I mean, the plot of the cartoon is based on humour and character development, the stories are written by ex-Simpsons writers and the game is developed by ex-Naughty Dog employees - this almost sounds like a recipe for success. As for multiplatform titles, I think this generation those titles will be on my PS4 list of purchases rather than the Wii U one unless the gamepad significantly improves gameplay, and I haven't seen a lot of that going on.

 

[Bladexdsl]

their going to make a metroid for the wiiu retro kinda hinted it in a recent interview about dktr. lets hope it is NOTHING like other M

 

[JoostinOnline]

I'm glad to see that certain companies continue supporting the Wii U, but I honestly think that Nintendo should work on garnering up more attention around the system and negotiate to get all the top titles on it as well.

In my opinion, almost everything that's happened is Nintendo's fault. Horrible marketing (I still have to tell people that the Wii U isn't just a Gamepad peripheral for the Wii) and poor launch titles are a huge part of it. People keep pointing fingers at third-party companies, but it's not their job to keep a system afloat. I still think that there's more to the story with the whole E.A. debacle (I wouldn't be surprised if the Origin vs Nintendo Network thing was true) because they have actually gone out of their way to put down sales (mostly badmouthing, but they also cancelled a fully-running version of Crysis 3), but other companies just did what they felt was necessary. Supporting the Wii U is a gamble.

 

[Bladexdsl]

it's not 3rd parties fault that they can't develop their games on dated hardware and a dated system it's all nintendos for sticking to their archaic ways.

i've said it many times they should have released the most beefiest system possible, got rid of them fucking region codes, made an online system similar to xbl except 100% free (so what if it's copying them m$ do it all the time give them a taste of their own medicine!) and most importantly got rid of them lame motion controls their not needed or wanted anymore! this is what the market wants and demands these days and not meeting it is a huge mistake...

oh what about mk and sb you say that will save the wii-u right? yes it will...for a few months at least than it will be right back where it started! deny it all you want but it's what is going to happen.

 

[JoostinOnline]

it's not 3rd parties fault that they can't develop their games on dated hardware and a dated system it's all nintendos for sticking to their archaic ways.

Well they can, but they have to put all the resources towards the only two things (in terms of raw power) that the Wii U has better than the PS4/X1: Latency and graphics memory. Then you're just rewriting a huge chunk of the engine and going back through the whole thing to make sure it works okay, and that's probably months of extra work. It's not profitable. The easiest thing to do is to just scale the whole thing down to PS3/360 levels and make a few hardware adjustments.

And that's how we end up with games that look mediocre if you have a magnifying glass or a 72" TV. And really, why would you even buy a game if you can see jaggies when you look really really really really really really close?

PS: The answer is Wii U owners.

 

[emigre]

Well I got to say I had a right old giggle at the last few pages of this thread.

I love how stubborn people are about the Wii U.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Well I got to say I had a right old giggle at the last few pages of this thread.

I love how stubborn people are about the Wii U.

It's not being stubborn, it's looking at the good and the bad, instead of just going with whatever you want.

The reality is that the hardware is only a small part of a much bigger problem. It's not that games CAN'T be made for the Wii U, it's just that it's too big of a gamble for most devs to do.

 

[emigre]

It's not being stubborn, it's looking at the good and the bad, instead of just going with whatever you want.

The reality is that the hardware is only a small part of a much bigger problem. It's not that games CAN'T be made for the Wii U, it's just that it's too big of a gamble for most devs to do.

I would completly agree there's a bigger problem with the Wii U. Nintendo seem unable to have any third party relations, look at Tomb Raider for example, it got released for PS3. 360, PS4 and Xbone. Where the Wii U version?

Also whilst talking about good and bad, the system has quite a few negative points to someone like me.

Good
Some good exclusives (Mario, Wonderful 101)
Free online gaeming
flexable storage solutions

Bad
Software library is lacking
Jack shit third party support/ third party gaems lacking features which other versions have
lack of gaems taking advantage of online gaeming
No account system/cross buy
Price
Small system storage
Lack of implementation of the Wii U's features.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I would completly agree there's a bigger problem with the Wii U. Nintendo seem unable to have any third party relations, look at Tomb Raider for example, it got released for PS3. 360, PS4 and Xbone. Where the Wii U version?

Also whilst talking about good and bad, the system has quite a few negative points to someone like me.

Good
Some good exclusives (Mario, Wonderful 101)
Free online gaeming
flexable storage solutions

Bad
Software library is lacking
Jack shit third party support/ third party gaems lacking features which other versions have
lack of gaems taking advantage of online gaeming
No account system/cross buy
Price
Small system storage
Lack of implementation of the Wii U's features.

All true.

When they first explained that they were only putting a max of 32GB of flash in the system to lower the cost, and because storage prices are always going down (while capacities went up), I was okay with it. Then I got an external HDD (500GB for $50) and even though it's a USB powered 2.5" one, I hate having to carry it around. I would have paid extra for an internal (hopefully changeable) HDD.

 

[calmwaters]

All true.

When they first explained that they were only putting a max of 32GB of flash in the system to lower the cost, and because storage prices are always going down (while capacities went up), I was okay with it. Then I got an external HDD (500GB for $50) and even though it's a USB powered 2.5" one, I hate having to carry it around. I would have paid extra for an internal (hopefully changeable) HDD.

Carry it around? The tablet cannot be taken more than 30 feet away from the console and the console sure doesn't travel. Why not just leave it connected?

 

[JoostinOnline]

Carry it around? The tablet cannot be taken more than 30 feet away from the console and the console sure doesn't travel. Why not just leave it connected?

Well I take my Wii U to other people's houses and on vacations. Sometimes I even take it to different rooms because I'm no longer tied down to a TV. The save data and updates (so sick of those day-one 1GB+ updates for games) are quickly filling up my internal storage though, so I've got all but the smallest VC games on my HDD.

I've even considered getting one of those car adapters so I can take it on trips and people can play in the back seat. I used to have one for my PSOne. You can use a power inverter to work with any console of course, but it's pointless if you don't have a built-in TV.

 

[osirisjem]

but what about the core demographic Nintendo promised they'd try to re-attract? What about adult gamers looking for a casual experience?

That ship has sailed ?

Nintendo said the Wii U was going to attract back hard core gamers.
They failed to deliver a product that does that.

What market are you talking about anyway ? Adult (not hard core) gamers that want a casual experience ? Sounds like a small market. It also sounds like the market that has kids ... so market to the kids is probably the better strategy.

The Wii U is not a marketing failure. It's a Failure failure. It will never be successful. (We've discussed already why it sucks).

What games did this audience buy for the Wii ?

the resulting lack of third party support as a result of the failure of the Wii to generate profits for third party game makers

Third Party game makers didn't do well on the Wii ? Why ? Are you sure ? I assumed they did quite well because of number of Wii consoles sold (large market).

The "Casual" gamers they pulled in with the Wii, aren't really dedicated gamers so to speak and thus don't participate in the console/game upgrade cycle like with the main Xbox/Playstation market base. That evaporated with the rise of smartphones and smartphone games and with Facebook games.

Good point. That market got "(Candy) Crushed".

So it's not really surprising the WiiU flopped. What's surprising is that Nintendo didn't see this coming and instead released yet another hardware gimmick (the tablet controller in this case) on what's essentially a higher end upgraded Wii in a vain attempt to bring them back and it failed miserably.

I got the feeling Nintendo needed another hardware gimmick to do well. But I predicted the Wii U would fail when I heard about the Tablet Controller. The day the Tablet Controller was announced, Nintendo's stock dropped 10%. (I know b/c I watched it drop in real time).

When I say Nintendo need another hardware "gimmick" ... I 100% assumed they would include the WiiMotion controller with the Wii U because it was so successful.
But I when I heard the Wii U is sold without a WiiMotion controller ... #/facepalmIwata