Wii U is by far the worst selling Nintendo console of all time

KingpinSlim · May 2, 2016

@KSP: I get what you are saying and you are not wrong there, but Nintendo isn't like Sony or Microsoft at all. People nowadays think that Nintendo has only been "Gimicky" in the recent past, but that is not the case. Nintendo has always been doing things that were strange and completely off-course when compared to other manufacturers, but these things haven't SEEMED Gimicky because they were instantly successfull and became the industry-norm. Savegames, Shoulder buttons, the Dpad, the use of ergonomic controller designs, 3D glasses (pre-3DS), 2+ player multiplayer, 4+ player multiplayer... and so forth.
The NES was an EXTREMELY gimicky console. It HAD to be. Before the NES was released no one cared about video games anymore (Video-Game Crash) and so they didn't actually sell the NES as a videogame-console, but as a toy that came with a robot and a console that didn't look like a console at all, but much more like a VCR.
Anyway... Nintendo seems Gimicky nowadays, not because thats a recent change, but because the gimicks they are trying to sell aren't as successful as the ones that earlier on became industry-standard.

@The Real Jdbye: Thats because you look at the consoles the way they are NOW. Of course nowadays the portfolio of the 3DS is far more enticing than the one you find on the Vita, because it has already won and the third-party developers went to the 3DS, but at launch the situation was completely reversed. Please remember how it USED to be. People were constantly talking about how their 3DS was just a paperweight and had absolutely no good games, because neither Nintendo nor third-party developers were coming out with games. Back then people had already declared the 3DS dead and the Vita the unchallenged Victor. But those were the words of Enthusiasts and the Gaming Press and just one year later they would all eat those words, because Nintendo lowered the price and suddenly people started buying the 3DS like crazy. Those weren't the enthusiasts, they already owned one. Those were the casuals and they made the 3DS the Juggernaut it is today.

We might call ourselves the "Core"-demographic, but we aren't actually at the core of the video-gaming industry. Casuals are. WE are the niche-consumers.
How else do you explain that EA-titles are constantly among the best-selling titles when we all know that EA is horrible and that the games are overpriced garbage?

nintendarium · May 2, 2016

gbatemp lost member because community is childish
id jokes ...

nickwhit · May 2, 2016

nintendarium said:
PS:
I'm glad to see people now use more civil words and try to make arguments and not stupid jokes ...

If you were truly glad.. Youd have not mentioned it and let it die. Like this whole thread should have.
Like someone else said.. This is purely flamebait. As is you obsessing over the words people choose to use.
You have nothing better to do but start problems here? Chilllllllll

Deleted User · May 2, 2016

for me wii u is ok console. I can play gamecube games, wii games, games on pretty decent emulators, and there are games like mario maker, mario kart 8, yoshi's woolly world, tropical freeze, etc... and it's ton of fun. I'm satisfied.

KSP · May 2, 2016

KingpinSlim said:
@KSP: I get what you are saying and you are not wrong there, but Nintendo isn't like Sony or Microsoft at all. People nowadays think that Nintendo has only been "Gimicky" in the recent past, but that is not the case. Nintendo has always been doing things that were strange and completely off-course when compared to other manufacturers, but these things haven't SEEMED Gimicky because they were instantly successfull and became the industry-norm. Savegames, Shoulder buttons, the Dpad, the use of ergonomic controller designs, 3D glasses (pre-3DS), 2+ player multiplayer, 4+ player multiplayer... and so forth.
The NES was an EXTREMELY gimicky console. It HAD to be. Before the NES was released no one cared about video games anymore (Video-Game Crash) and so they didn't actually sell the NES as a videogame-console, but as a toy that came with a robot and a console that didn't look like a console at all, but much more like a VCR.
Anyway... Nintendo seems Gimicky nowadays, not because thats a recent change, but because the gimicks they are trying to sell aren't as successful as the ones that earlier on became industry-standard.
?

Well the 3DS gimmick worked for me. I bought one for 3D alone.

What I think is Nintendo is forgetting that behind any gimmick requires a rock solid console that is on par with the competition.

Regardless of NES coming with a Robot or not, it was its rock solid hardware that made it a house hold name. SNES followed suit with another rock solid hardware.

This is why Nintendo continued to gain massive third party support, and its really the third party support that made Nintendo the king of the hill in its heyday. Square almost single handily won the console war for Nintendo during the SNES era.

Nintendo forgot about that, and since continuing to value gimmicks over hardware, they've managed to dwindle their third party support down to zero.

Nintendo went downhill a long time ago, when they lost Square cause they insisted on not using disc based gaming, then when they finally did go to disc based systems, they already lost their biggest third party partner. And then they nailed themselves in the foot, when they decided to re-release the same console twice in the Wii which was essentially the same as a GameCube. This made it impossible for any third party devs to make their biggest games on the console.

Then Wii U being 1 generation behind the PS4 was just the nail in the coffin.

I hope Nintendo learned that no man is an island, Nintendo IP alone cannot sustain them.

funnystory · May 2, 2016

Saiyan Lusitano said:
Twitter

By the looks of it if things don't improve then there'll hardly be an audience for Nintendo home consoles due to being in a constant decline. It goes in the following order, NES > SNES > N64 > NGC > Wii U and I'm just not including Wii because that was a console that literally everyone bought although only to then either pawn it, store in their closet or have it as a dust collector.

This'll make things interesting if the NX will change anything at all.

What about the virtual boy wasnt that a flop aswell?

KingpinSlim · May 2, 2016

KSP said:
Well the 3DS gimmick worked for me. I bought one for 3D alone.

What I think is Nintendo is forgetting that behind any gimmick requires a rock solid console that is on par with the competition.

Regardless of NES coming with a Robot or not, it was its rock solid hardware that made it a house hold name. SNES followed suit with another rock solid hardware.

This is why Nintendo continued to gain massive third party support, and its really the third party support that made Nintendo the king of the hill in its heyday. Square almost single handily won the console war for Nintendo during the SNES era.

Nintendo forgot about that, and since continuing to value gimmicks over hardware, they've managed to dwindle their third party support down to zero.

Nintendo went downhill a long time ago, when they lost Square cause they insisted on not using disc based gaming, then when they finally did go to disc based systems, they already lost their biggest third party partner. And then they nailed themselves in the foot, when they decided to re-release the same console twice in the Wii which was essentially the same as a GameCube. This made it impossible for any third party devs to make their biggest games on the console.

Then Wii U being 1 generation behind the PS4 was just the nail in the coffin.

I hope Nintendo learned that no man is an island, Nintendo IP alone cannot sustain them.

But HOW did Nintendo achieve market domination? The NES was not, hardware-wise, the superior console of its generation. The Master System was. They only won that generation because of illegal, by todays standards, contracts and gimmicks.
The SNES wasn't the best system of its time either, because it was sold long after most other companies have already begun selling fifth generation consoles which were vastly superior in its capabilities, but the SNES had games that later-on added Chips inside the cartridge that multiplied the SNES's performance considerably.
The same thing goes for the game-boy. It was by FAR the most inferior handheld of its entire generation and for all intents and purposes it should have failed miserably. If you were to hold an original Game Boy and a Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx in your hand today you couldn't possibly imagine how Nintendo could have won this generation at all.

Nintendo was never a hardcore-console maker, even though this may seem like the case today. It is understandable to see it that way today, but thats not how it was back then.

KSP · May 3, 2016

KingpinSlim said:
But HOW did Nintendo achieve market domination? The NES was not, hardware-wise, the superior console of its generation. The Master System was. They only won that generation because of illegal, by todays standards, contracts and gimmicks.
The SNES wasn't the best system of its time either, because it was sold long after most other companies have already begun selling fifth generation consoles which were vastly superior in its capabilities, but the SNES had games that later-on added Chips inside the cartridge that multiplied the SNES's performance considerably.
The same thing goes for the game-boy. It was by FAR the most inferior handheld of its entire generation and for all intents and purposes it should have failed miserably. If you were to hold an original Game Boy and a Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx in your hand today you couldn't possibly imagine how Nintendo could have won this generation at all.

Nintendo was never a hardcore-console maker, even though this may seem like the case today. It is understandable to see it that way today, but thats not how it was back then.

Times have changed. Nintendo needs to adapt or die.

They can't just say the word "fun" and expect to win the war anymore. Gaming is mainstream now, and games like Call of Duty dominate the current market. So power is gonna be the key to winning the home console market. Even back then when Nintendo wasn't busting down the powerhouse consoles, they were on par with everyone else, at least NES and Master System games were mostly cross plats, and Genesis and SNES were all cross plats, and even GameCube was cross plat with PS2 and Xbox.

Nintendo is no longer even capable of keeping up with hardware that can perform on a cross plat basis. It's like Nintendo is trying to win the console war with a SNES vs a Sega Saturn nowadays. They are so far behind the curve that the software aren't even in the same gen anymore.

They need to at the very least get back into the same league as their competition to even compete.

And Nintendo has it right with handheld console, the weaker the console the more likely you'll win. Its mainly due to the fact that handheld devs wanna spend as little money as humanly possible to develop games for, because the userbase is smaller and the games sell for cheaper. So Nintendo made the right move every gen, by making cheaper and weaker systems that allows devs to spend pennies on game development, which boosted the consoles third party support.

Gameboy games could be made for pennies, were as Game Gear and Lynx all required console level development costs to create games for. Nintendo 3DS beat Vita using the same method. It costs too much money to develop on Vita cause Vita is literally like a PS3, so dev costs are PS3 level, but 3DS games costs pennies to produce compared to Vita. So the handheld market is an odd one, where the weaker the console, the more you are likely to win. Odd.

KingpinSlim · May 3, 2016

KSP said:
Times have changed. Nintendo needs to adapt or die.

They can't just say the word "fun" and expect to win the war anymore. Gaming is mainstream now, and games like Call of Duty dominate the current market. So power is gonna be the key to winning the home console market. Even back then when Nintendo wasn't busting down the powerhouse consoles, they were on par with everyone else, at least NES and Master System games were mostly cross plats, and Genesis and SNES were all cross plats, and even GameCube was cross plat with PS2 and Xbox.

Nintendo is no longer even capable of keeping up with hardware that can perform on a cross plat basis. It's like Nintendo is trying to win the console war with a SNES vs a Sega Saturn nowadays. They are so far behind the curve that the software aren't even in the same gen anymore.

They need to at the very least get back into the same league as their competition to even compete.

And Nintendo has it right with handheld console, the weaker the console the more likely you'll win. Its mainly due to the fact that handheld devs wanna spend as little money as humanly possible to develop games for, because the userbase is smaller and the games sell for cheaper. So Nintendo made the right move every gen, by making cheaper and weaker systems that allows devs to spend pennies on game development, which boosted the consoles third party support.

Gameboy games could be made for pennies, were as Game Gear and Lynx all required console level development costs to create games for. Nintendo 3DS beat Vita using the same method. It costs too much money to develop on Vita cause Vita is literally like a PS3, so dev costs are PS3 level, but 3DS games costs pennies to produce compared to Vita. So the handheld market is an odd one, where the weaker the console, the more you are likely to win. Odd.

The same thing that happened to Konami will eventually happen to Nintendo, because they are both on the same course, so yes. I agree with you, but the movement down this slippery slope might be obvious, the reason behind it may not be.
The actual core-demographic of gamers are to blame here. The people who, as a whole, spend the most money on video-games.
The move from proper video-games to more casual experiences didn't happen over night. This has been happening since the early 2000s when Video-Gaming (once again) started becoming a mainstream phenomenon and a lot of companies began hitting a brick wall with sales numbers. Enthusiasts buy a lot of video-games, but there aren't a lot of enthusiasts around, so to expand their markets a lot of companies went mainstream. This happened with the Wii for Nintendo and Konami began releasing games that were easier to get into, easier to beat, more narrative-driven and had a lot shorter development time.
For Konami this went so far that they are burning all bridges behind them now and they are no longer interrested in producing high-quality hardcore video-games anymore at all. Because even though a big portion of the enthusiast market were extremely excited for "Silent Hills", the core casual crowd wasn't. It didn't matter at all that a lot of us would have purchased it, because even if we ALL did, that still wouldn't have been enough, because enthusiasts are no longer a mass-market. Their IPs have either gone dormant since then or a long time ago and their main creative talent is leaving the company. This is not happening because they are losing control, but because they are doing this on PURPOSE. They are leaving this part of the gaming market to focus entirely on casual games on casual plattforms like mobile phones, because THATS where the real money is. Konami was an extremely valuble developer for Nintendo and now its gone.
This isnt just happening for Konami either. Look at Rareware. Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie etc. Rareware ws a Juggernaut in its time, but they sold to Microsoft and now produce gimmicky Kinnect titles.
Nintendo might be the worst offender here, but the entire industry is going down-hill BECAUSE it is going mainstream.
We are fast approaching the event horizon and at some point in time we might actually experience another industry-wide crash when the casuals begin forsaking the (now) mediocre companies they once changed so much.

KSP · May 3, 2016

Alright all debates end with the mention of Event Horizon. LOL

Great chat. You seem to know your shit, and as do I, so I think we've both gained from this chat.

Now I'm gonna go play some Mad Max on PS4.

I hope the best for Nintendo.

KingpinSlim · May 3, 2016

KSP said:
Alright all debates end with the mention of Event Horizon. LOL

Great chat. You seem to know your shit, and as do I, so I think we've both gained from this chat.

Now I'm gonna go play some Mad Max on PS4.

I hope the best for Nintendo.

have fun!

PS: "Event Horizon" as in "Point of no return", not as in the space-time phenomenon

Thomas83Lin · May 3, 2016

Wow Nintendo has been on the decline since the NES not counting the Wii going by that graph. Hopefully they can get back on track with their consoles. Hate to see the NX do worse then the WiiU.

teegeeack · May 3, 2016

to be fair, most of nintendo's competitors from its heyday aren't even in the console manufacturing business anymore. one way of looking at it is "decline." another way of looking at it is "survival." nintendo survived, while many other companies did not.

RedDragonEmperor · May 3, 2016

Not related about the consoles but if Nintendo decides NOT TO BE SO DAMN PARANOID on localizing by CENSORING THE SHIT out of JP games that would be a good start to up that SHAMEFUL sales.

nickwhit · May 3, 2016

RedDragonEmperor said:
Not related about the consoles but if Nintendo decides NOT TO BE SO DAMN PARANOID on localizing by CENSORING THE SHIT out of JP games that would be a good start to up that SHAMEFUL sales.

This really wouldnt affect sales much at all.. especially for home consoles, which usually recieve less JRPG translations than handhelds do. JRPG fans buy the localizations, regardless of censorship. And if they dont, Nintendo is relying on their own IPs to bring in their money.. not third party games. Which is the problem, at the bottom line.

lexarvn · May 3, 2016

That chart is a bit misleading. It is showing life time sales. If it was only first 4-years of sales for each, it isn't as dramatic. Still a downward trend, but not quite as bad.

SLiV3R · May 3, 2016

dimmidice said:
he said nintendo consoles though. and not handhelds.

@Veho changed the topic title. So it is rather correct now (besides that the Virtual Boy sold less. Virtual Boy is DEFINITIVELY NOT a handheld

nxwing · May 3, 2016

Here, we see another thread being derailed again. We bes not disturb them or we might end up being fucked up by them.

In all seriousness though, I blame the marketing. I'm willing to be most people probably thought that the Wii U was just a tablet add-on to the original Wii due to the somewhat similar looks of the consoles themselves.

dimmidice · May 3, 2016

SLiV3R said:
@Veho changed the topic title. So it is rather correct now (besides that the Virtual Boy sold less. Virtual Boy is DEFINITIVELY NOT a handheld

eh

The Virtual Boy(Japanese: バーチャルボーイ Hepburn: Bācharu Bōi?) is a 32-bit table-top 3D video game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was marketed as the first "portable" video game console capable of displaying "true 3D graphics" out of the box.

I wouldn't call it a console.

Saiyan Lusitano · May 3, 2016

nintendarium said:
sure i do you , thanks you are a nice troll

Once a upon a time the term "troll", "sexist" and "racist" had an actual meaning but nowadays people throw them out like candy. Don't be one of those, Darium.

Wii U is by far the worst selling Nintendo console of all time

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