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

[blaisedinsd]

The Wii was a device for the casual audience and this audience now has smartphones - that's all there is to it. Had Nintendo released a proper Next Gen, capable of competing with the PS4 and the XBox One and didn't market it to an audience which doesn't exist no more, the system would have more games by now and it would be just as desirable as the forementioned two. That being said, sticking to the Wii legacy probably wasn't the best of ideas since the Wii was the last thing you'd associate with "Next Gen".

I don't think Nintendo can succeed with that strategy at this point. The Wii U is not struggling because it is not as powerful as the other 2 newer consoles. As far as marketing, well you can make a case that the Wii U doesn't have any, but I think overall the audience going out there and adopting those new consoles would not be buying the Wii U at this point even if it was the most powerful console. See Gamecube....the most powerful (or as powerful as the original Xbox depending on who you talk to or what you mean), the cheapest, and having all those multi-platform games for the most part.....distant third in the "console wars" (yet still profitable). It's an image thing and I don't think Nintendo is even capable of changing its image in a way that would allow them to compete.

This image doesn't matter as far as hand held gaming, its a different market.

3 of 6 Nintendo Home consoles have been market leaders and they have done just fine when the others were not and they are plenty capable of riding this one out just fine too.

...And not because of being a "casual device". Nintendo handhelds have always done well and will continue to do so. Even them I'm not sure the 3DS will reach DS levels of success. It'll still do great but not as great.

I agree. Handheld gaming overall is dominated by a younger audience, that does not mean the same thing as the "casual audience". Parents will buy their kids handheld consoles because they make their lives easier.

This is also a big reason why Sony's home console strategy does not yield the same success in the handheld side.

The hardcore/mature/ whateever you want to call it home console audience overall is not as interested in handheld consoles.

 

[Foxi4]

I don't think Nintendo can succeed with that strategy at this point. The Wii U is not struggling because it is not as powerful as the other 2 newer consoles. As far as marketing, well you can make a case that the Wii U doesn't have any, but I think overall the audience going out there and adopting those new consoles would not be buying the Wii U at this point even if it was the most powerful console. See Gamecube....the most powerful (or as powerful as the original Xbox depending on who you talk to or what you mean), the cheapest, and having all those multi-platform games for the most part.....distant third in the "console wars" (yet still profitable). It's an image thing and I don't think Nintendo is even capable of changing its image in a way that would allow them to compete.

This image doesn't matter as far as hand held gaming, its a different market.

3 of 6 Nintendo Home consoles have been market leaders and they have done just fine when the others were not and they are plenty capable of riding this one out just fine too.

The Gamecube and the XBox came too late to even make a dent - by the time they were released, everybody and their dog had a PS2 - it was no contest. What was worrying then was that even if marginally so, Microsoft, a newcomer, managed to outsell it with their first foray into the console world.

The Wii U is struggling for two reasons - the casual Wii stigma which works on core gamers like garlic on vampires and the fact that it's grossly underpowered and very different structure-wise from the PS4/XBOne, making it difficult to push out multiplatform games for it.

It is indeed to late to flex specs muscles the Wii U doesn't have - what Nintendo can do is start offering favorable licensing terms to third-party developers, secure titles that will push the system forwards - that's the only thing they can realistically do at this point to make the Wii U stay relevant.

 

[Bladexdsl]

they...need...to...get...rid...of...the...fucking...region...locks!!!!!!!!

 

[Foxi4]

they...need...to...get...rid...of...the...fucking...region...locks!!!!!!!!

The average gamer doesn't give two flips about region locking - most games with international appeal are released internationally - it's the narrow weeaboo minority that keeps on complaining. Just to clarify, I too think the lock is stupid, but for completely different reasons. It shouldn't be there because it doesn't make any sense from a technological stand-point.

 

[Bladexdsl]

they might have worked well in the past but this is the digital age now their not needed or wanted. people want the games at the same time and be able to play them whenever they want and not wait 3+ fucking months for them to be released in their reason (if they even get released *cough rf4*)

 

[RowanDDR]

The WiiU will perhaps be remembered as the 64DD of its day.

 

[Foxi4]

they might have worked well in the past but this is the digital age now their not needed or wanted. people want the games at the same time and be able to play them whenever they want and not wait 3+ fucking months for them to be released in their reason (if they even get released *cough rf4*)

Hello, vocal weeaboo minority.

As I said, I'm against region locking systems at this point in time, but mostly because they're all working at fixed international resolutions like 720p or 1080p instead of the traditional PAL/NTSC, making the lock completely pointless, not necessarily due to library differences and whatnot.

 

[DiscostewSM]

They initially projected a 100 billion Yen profit, slashed it to 55 billion Yen profit and now they're projecting a 35 billion Yen loss. The Wii U's performance was so poor that it completely nullified the 3DS's great performance and then drilled a hole through the bottom, is this not flopping territory yet?

That being said, true, they didn't use "those exact words".

If that's how one define a flop, then the PS3 is most definitely a flop.

 

[blaisedinsd]

The Gamecube and the XBox came too late to even make a dent - by the time they were released, everybody and their dog had a PS2 - it was no contest. What was worrying then was that even if marginally so, Microsoft, a newcomer, managed to outsell it with their first foray into the console world.

The Wii U is struggling for two reasons - the casual Wii stigma which works on core gamers like garlic on vampires and the fact that it's grossly underpowered and very different structure-wise from the PS4/XBOne, making it difficult to push out multiplatform games for it.

It is indeed to late to flex specs muscles the Wii U doesn't have - what Nintendo can do is start offering favorable licensing terms to third-party developers, secure titles that will push the system forwards - that's the only thing they can realistically do at this point to make the Wii U stay relevant.

I disagree about the power part. It is not the consoles power that is keeping those third party games away. Heck for the near future almost all the cross platform games will be coming to PS3 and 360 as well. Those games have not sold well on Nintendo Consoles since the N64 and coupled with the tiny Wii U userbase that won't buy those games anyway there is not even really a need to have them.

Gamers will buy those games on the other consoles. Heck BLOPS2 may look better and have more options and features on Wii U (DLC aside) but my son will only want it on Xbox because that's where the online play is at. It is pretty established. As long as Sony doesn't drop the ball this gen I think they scooped up a large segment on that xbox crowd, you know the ones who prefered 360 because of its superior online services.

Even if Nintendo matched online features with these guys it wouldn't matter at this point.

 

[Foxi4]

If that's how one define a flop, then the PS3 is most definitely a flop.

I'm not going to say that it did spectacularly well because it didn't - it's the worst-performing video game system by Sony, at least financially.

It began turning a profit recently, but that's very little very late. However, unlike the Wii U, the PS3 actually managed to build up an audience for itself.

The PS3's problem wasn't the fact that it was an unwanted system - the problem was that it was heavily over-engineered, expensive to manufacture and even more expensive to sell, as originally Sony was losing somewhere around $200 each sold unit, if I recall.

I disagree about the power part. It is not the consoles power that is keeping those third party games away. Heck for the near future almost all the cross platform games will be coming to PS3 and 360 as well. Those games have not sold well on Nintendo Consoles since the N64 and coupled with the tiny Wii U userbase that won't buy those games anyway there is not even really a need to have them.

Disagree all you want, but you have to keep in mind that users are not buying consoles for the next two months - they're buying consoles for the whole generation. All things considered, the Wii U's hardware will become obsolete within 2 years time - this much is a fact. The moment PS3/360/PS4/XBOne multiplatform titles stop being a thing, it won't be able to pull off the same things its stronger counterparts will - we've seen that happening on the Wii... except the Wii had the casual audience in its pocket - the Wii U does not.

Gamers will buy those games on the other consoles. Heck BLOPS2 may look better and have more options and features on Wii U (DLC aside) but my son will only want it on Xbox because that's where the online play is at. It is pretty established. As long as Sony doesn't drop the ball this gen I think they scooped up a large segment on that xbox crowd, you know the ones who prefered 360 because of its superior online services.

Nintendo Network is indeed pretty terribad.

Even if Nintendo matched online features with these guys it wouldn't matter at this point.

Every little helps.

 

[Flame]

what the Wii U needs is third party support and some WOW 1st party games.

/thread

 

[blaisedinsd]

what the Wii U needs is third party support and some WOW 1st party games.

/thread

I could definitely argue it has that, and did for the Holiday season and how would you explain the success of the PS4? It sure as hell aint the games moving that console at this point. ( I personally see plenty of buyers remorse among PS4 owners because of no games to the point where they turnaround and try to sell the thing)

 

[Armadillo]

Meh. Cheap enough (at least here) to justify just for the Nintendo exclusives, with a pc/xbone/ps4 taking care of the rest.

 

[Foxi4]

I could definitely argue it has that, and did for the Holiday season and how would you explain the success of the PS4? It sure as hell aint the games moving that console at this point. ( I personally see plenty of buyers remorse among PS4 owners because of no games to the point where they turnaround and try to sell the thing)

There's such a thing as a "prospect" for games. The PS4, unlike the Wii U, is a big step-up in comparison to the previous generation, it has lots of developers on-board already, it shares many characteristics with PC which guarantees ease of development and it's going to get the games in the nearby future because it's being supported. The Wii U's been out for a while and it continues to be widely ignored by third-party aside from a couple exceptions. In short, it's a more hyped and more future-proof device than the Wii U is.

 

[stomp_442]

If Nintendo were smart they would be working on their next console, now. They do not need to take losses for the next 6 years. It's time for Nintendo to up their game.

 

[Gahars]

I disagree about the power part. It is not the consoles power that is keeping those third party games away. Heck for the near future almost all the cross platform games will be coming to PS3 and 360 as well. Those games have not sold well on Nintendo Consoles since the N64 and coupled with the tiny Wii U userbase that won't buy those games anyway there is not even really a need to have them.

Well, abysmal third party sales is definitely hurting them, but the power gap certainly isn't helping.

Take something like Kingdom Hearts 3, a game coming out for both the PS4 and Xbox One. Why the Xbox One, even though historically the Kingdom Hearts franchise has never appeared on a Microsoft platform? Because the two platforms are both so similar in power and architecture that it's very easy for Square Enix to justify the cost of porting the game over. Even if the Xbox One version doesn't sell as much, they're still probably making money on that version.

Why is it not on the Wii U? Well, because of the Wii U's substantially weaker and different hardware, a port job is going to be much, much more difficult, time consuming, and (this is the big one) expensive. Publishers can't really afford "throw away" multiplatform support, so they're not going to bother at all. This basically happened with the Wii last generation.

Even if Nintendo matched online features with these guys it wouldn't matter at this point.

That's a big problem - "at this point." If Nintendo had taken online integration seriously from the get-go and put some effort into it, they could've stayed competitive in this field while opening new avenues for their games and distribution at a much earlier time. Now it feels like they're trying to run yesterday's race, and while they're finally starting to improve, it's frustrating to see how much time they squandered.

 

[Bladexdsl]

the only thing keeping the wiiu afloat is 1st party games. but they take so long to be released your wiiu just ends up sitting there collecting dust like mine is.

another bad thing is their wiiu-ware are bloody expensive. $20 for dr luigi?!

 

[blaisedinsd]

Meh. Cheap enough (at least here) to justify just for the Nintendo exclusives, with a pc/xbone/ps4 taking care of the rest.

Exactly. Most Nintendo fans are going to also have another system for those types of games.

And those who don't get a Nintendo system are simply missing out on a whole bunch of great games and you can't really say the same thing about microsoft/pc/sony since they play mostly the same games.

 

[Foxi4]

If Nintendo were smart they would be working on their next console, now. They do not need to take losses for the next 6 years. It's time for Nintendo to up their game.

They should be working on one which they are no doubt doing ever since the hardware devision was re-structured, but they definitely should not release any new system anytime soon. If they show their customers that at the first sight of trouble they're going to withdraw support, they will not buy the new system because what stops Nintendo from releasing yet another one and immediately dropping support just to squeeze some money out of people's wallets? This is a bad strategy, bad - they have to support their product until it's time for a next generation system.

(...) you can't really say the same thing about microsoft/pc/sony since they play mostly the same games.

That's a myth continuously maintained by the blind Ninty fanboys. Sony has LittleBigPlanet, inFamous, God of War, KillZone, Jak & Daxter, Sly Cooper, Uncharted and many other titles, Microsoft has Halo, Fable, Forza, Gears of War and more. Nintendo's not the only company with exclusives, guys.

 

[Ray Lewis]

View attachment 5950

Well you might get fired then.
2014 might be so bad, he'll need a miracle to save his job from shareholders.

Whoever either designed or OK'd the gamepad should be fired.
Terrible idea, terrible execution.
The gamepad is the major differentiating factor from the Wii to the Wii U - and it's unpopular. That's a major screw up.

I love the Gamepad. Off tv play is great. It feels great and adds features I like. WWindwaker HD menu routines were easy. Having maps and other tools is invaluable. It is about games. Mario 3d was great. Wife and kids love it. Windwaker was a game over 10 years old. No Mario Kart, not an N64 Mario type of game yet, no new Zelda, no Metroid.

Nintendo should drop price around a major release. Sell one game and make up the difference. Already underwhelming. Bad marketing, few games, no third party support aside from half assed ports, and maybe a few down scaled games like Ghosts. Poor online play also. A rumor is that the next system is already being designed. I love Metroid, Zelda, and Mario so for $110 slim and rgh chip, I did alright in a trade. If it dies, I did not drop a lot on it.