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Wii 2 Delay Is Hurting Nintendo
BanjoTed writes "Michael Pachter's ongoing spat with Nintendo regarding the Wii 2 is well documented. Pachter is sure it's coming, Nintendo says it's not. Now the analyst has gone one further by claiming that the declining sales of the Wii documented in the platform holder's recent financial statements will only get worse unless it speeds up attempts to get its successor to market. He said, 'The reason for this is clear: the software being created is just not interesting enough or compelling enough to drive Wii owners to buy more than two [games] per year, and most of those purchases are first party software. We can blame the third party publishers for making shovelware, or for misjudging the Wii market, but the simple fact is that the publishers have to develop completely separate games for the Wii because its CPU is not powerful.'"
The Wii hardware sucked in 2007, and surprise surprise, it still sucks in 2010.
Who is Michael Pachter and why is anyone supposed to care what he thinks?
Calling Michael Pachter an analyst is akin to calling your local butcher a surgeon. This so called analyst has a long history of ridiculous claims.
FYI, Current Weekly sales of the Wii are almost equal to the combined totals of the ps3 and xbox 360 and they still make money on the hardware. While sure their sales are declining somewhat it probably has more to do with market saturation than anything else. I am sure another version is coming some day but at this point I would think the still rather good sales would be seriously undermined if they released information on a replacement version.
Perhaps it's just the people I know, but nobody that bought a Wii uses it to any great degree. It was a bit of sport to see if you could pick one up when they were in demand, but teh novelty seems to wear off very quickly, both for my gamer friends, and non-gamer relatives, etc. They're fun at the occasional party, but gather dust much of the time.
I think they'll need to come out with another major innovation (not just HD output) to get many to buy into the hype again. Of course, I also think the iPad will go the same way the Wii did, but I've frequently been wrong when it comes to judging consumers.
Done.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
So what if it sucks? it's cheap to produce and sells acceptably well. While Sony and Microsoft lost a fortune with their super-duper-powerful machines, Nintendo is profitable all the way. IT PRINTS MONEY!
Circumcision is child abuse.
And yet it's the best selling console of this generation. Fancy that...
" IT PRINTS MONEY!"
Yes but you can't succeed over the long-term alone. The real issue is that Nintendo should have been bribing or buying out developers left and right to get real gamers games on it's console. The cost of development for games is huge for development houses and Nintendo really should have invested a lot more money once the Wii took off in other (western) developers.
You are thinking of a generation of a console as being a long-term thing. If anything the failure of sony and rise of MS in the industry has proven each generation of consoles will be judged independently of previous generations and hence nintendo is probably 100% correct in their current approach of make as much as they can for as long as they can, in a year or 2 the next generation will start and the markers will be all reset, that is the time to fix developer issues and the power of the platform, now is the time to make money.
Yes. It is more polite. The flack that Hecker faced for his rather infamous statement was not because what he was driving at was unfactual, it was because it was rude (I believe his exact words actually contained at least one expletive). Had he taken the time to choose his words much more carefully, I doubt he would have been later compelled to issue an apology even though the net meaning behind his words would have been approximately the same.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
At the moment Nintendo's problem is a mere reduction in profit.
Pachter's advice is to join the ranks of the PS3/Xbox360 but the makers of those consoles have struggled to turn any profit in the relevant sections of their company.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I mean his proposed strategy for Nintendo to leave their pretty much uncontested "niche" market to compete in a market that already has been split up between two heavy-weight contestants, who are willing to ultimately lose money just to increase their market share further, is pure genius.
[/sarcasm]
Sells acceptably well? Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if sales of the Wii are declining because everyone has one. I know I would have bought one ages ago if I could figure out how to make it work with one of my computers.
Look - almost one in ten people in Japan own a Wii. One in thirty people in the Americas own one, and this is including South American countries that don't have nearly as much wealth as the United States. I would argue that everyone who wants a Wii has one at this point, and that's why sales are dropping off - not due to lack of interest so much as a lack of people to sell to.
Now Nintendo has basically two options; either drop the price even further, which will probably not do all that much because $200 is an entirely reasonable price point, or ramp up their cloning efforts and create more people to buy Wiis.
I don't know if you've been paying attention for the past few years, but Nintendo has been making money hand over fist since the Wii was released. Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo doesn't use their console as a loss leader, they make a ton of cash with each sale, and make money on the games as well. This 'analyst' hasn't analyzed very well.
Qxe4
I don't know if you've thought about it (clearly you haven't) but Nintendo is screwed now. What trick will they pull out of their hat now? Sony and Microsoft have the (gimmicky, as it was in the Wii) motion control. They have the developers. They have the hardware. Where do you think that leaves Nintendo in 5 years?
But I'm sure you disagree, Nintendo has its fans apparently. I guess the only way we'll know is in 5 years time. I'll come back here to gloat when Nintendo is the Palm of 2015 looking for someone to buy them.
but the simple fact is that the publishers have to develop completely separate games for the Wii because its CPU is not powerful.
When I think of Nintendo, I think of their tier 1 titles. That's not to say there aren't any good 3rd party titles, but Zelda, Mario, Metriod... These games are a driving force which the big-N uses to drive sales. And the strategy has worked for them for the past 25 years. Now, who is Nintendo marketing for? The answer is simple:
Everyone. Let me do a little hypothetical for you:
Think of your favorite game on an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Got that game in your head? Now, imagine you were playing that game at Thanksgiving time in front of your whole family, including your Grandma. 9 games out of 10, I'm thinking that at best your grandma will simply not understand, or at worst be offended.
Now do the same thing with the Wii. 9 times out of 10, it's a game you and everybody you know can at least appreciate, if not be interested in.
That, and the revolutionary easy to use controls (which are now being emulated), make the Wii a killer social platform focused on games and having fun. That's why it's been a big success.
And the idea that "The CPU is too slow" is the reason for the Wii not making yet-another-year-of-record-sales... That doesn't make sense. As we all know, Super Mario Brothers (the original one for the NES) is fun despite having ugly graphics. It's not how the game looks, it's how the game _plays_.
--Pathway
The Wii prints money. As does the DS.
The Wii has nearly outsold both the PS3 and Xbox360 put together, and made a profit on every unit sold (70 m Wii's, 33 m PS3's, 40 M Xbox360's).
The decline in Wii sales can be quite easily explained in by the prolonged global downturn and the fact that there are so many Wii's already in the hands of consumers. Unlike the other consoles they don't RROD or have a "Nintendo" timer so the need for existing customers to replace their Wii is minimal. Eventually a console will reach maximum saturation and at 70 million units shipped I'm not surprised, everyone and their mum has a Wii already and those bought back in 2008 are still working. Nintendo and Wii software makers are reporting that "net profit has fallen" not that they are making a loss.
Nintendo have nothing to lose here, most popular console, cheapest console and according to Patcher, who's spat against Nintendo is well documented their software sales have only declined about 6.5% (205m units per year to 192m units per year). So the Wii is still printing money for Nintendo, they don't need to harm that by revealing another console in 2012, 2013-2014 would be more likely with the battering Japan's economy took in the GFC. I'm sure Nintendo will announce something after Sony and Microsoft do and they aren't going to do anything fast with Sony making a loss on every PS3 and Microsoft barely breaking even on every 360, neither have the money to waste nor can afford off-putting consumers from their current offerings.
Point in short, Nintendo are on top of the console hill, they don't need to do anything. The entire generation of consoles will be around for a while due to the GFC killing funding for R&D, maybe Sony really will get 10 years out of the PS3 although with the way Sony has been haemorrhaging money in the GFC there may not be a PS4.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
the gamecube pretty much showed that damaging developer relations with a previous platform can hurt the next one. The N64 had very little quality 3rd party titles, and this continued on the gamecube, even though hardware wise the cube was very potent for its day and age.
If i were a software developer currently ignoring the wii, i'd have little reasons to think the new nintendo machine would be a serious turn around. It is doubtfull nintendo could make the jump from the wii to a system capable of competing eye to eye with the next xbox/ps.
And the fact that most wii owners have very low attach rates for games also hurts the prospects for the wii2. The joe-sixpack who got a wii for wii-bowling doesnt want the newest/fastest/shiniest, like all the hardcore fanboys. This means that the wii2 would have a lower uptake in the hardcore market because of a lack of serious games (which is what got me to turn my back on nintendo, they just dont care about gamers anymore), and will strugle to compete in the non-traditional gamer market, since that is pretty much saturated with wii (no pun intended).
From a hardware/marketing point of view nintendo's new machine will be very interesting, but the only reason i'll ever buy one is because my girlfriends want to play wii-fit 2 HD or whatever... (and i'll never touch it after the first week)
People, what a bunch of bastards
For nintendo it does, the wii has never been sold at a loss (well what do you expect? take gamecube hardware, do a dieshrink/clockbump and tack on some ram, sell for three times the price... profit!).
Off course the games are also an important factor, but unlike MS/Sony, each wii sold actually means money going into nintendo's pocket. a ps3 sold with only 2 games in its life might mean a nett loss for sony, but for nintendo, they are ahead from day one
People, what a bunch of bastards
The money in gaming consoles is typically in the licensing fees attached to each disc sold. The biggest problem that Nintendo faces is that there is now a great deal of either inexpensive, "oldies but goodies", or used games in the Wii market. Just look at it this way. People are still buying PS2 games like they're the hottest thing out there. Publishers are still producing PS2 games as well. The reason is, market saturation.
Head to your local GameStop, the used game section is incredibly active for PS2, yet the PS3 selection is piss poor in comparison.
Nintendo has managed to achieve tremendous market proliferation and has placed a Wii in more houses than anyone would have ever imagined. A new Wii, which costs a bunch more money may sell well to many people, but in reality, it won't achieve the same levels as Wii. Nintendo knows this. They need to focus on making the current console more attractive. A simple external storage device for downloadable games would be the next real logical step for them.
Downloadable games are really the way to go for them. They already do quite well selling old games (and a few new) through their online store, but there are no new and fancy games for the console out there. The console vendors are desperate for solutions through downloadable content since they can full control over how the game is resold after the fact. If they make the games less expensive by selling them online, they can close the "used game" hole which is hurting them.
With an external harddrive/network adapter combination device (wired network should have been standard to start), they could then run a HUGE marketing campaign to get people to start buying the games online instead of in the stores. It would increase margins across the board for everyone. Additionally, to get past the typical nervous online consumers issue (meaning people not liking using credit cards online), they could sell a package from a game at a store like GameStop with a serial number to allow them to download the game to their Wii.
The important thing they must do though is to lock the store to a user instead of a console. This way if a device breaks down, the consumer would be able to transfer their purchases to the new unit.
So, a Wii 2 would do nothing more than introduce new hardware which they would have to try and get into everyone's homes where there is still so much more to be done with the Wii before it's "old and crappy".
The games on the PS3 and 360 Sucked in 2007 and surprise surprise they still suck in 2010.
You miss the point, the hardware doesn't make a good console, in that respect they are always in 2nd place to the PC. It's the games that make the console, whilst Microsoft and Sony's best games only sold 8 and 5 million respectively Nintendo has 9 games that have outsold them with the top game (Wii Sports) selling 67 million copies. Nintendo is doing well because playing the Wii is fun, this is what Sony and Microsoft forgot when designing their powerhouses. Nintendo came with a console that is not only the weakest and cheapest console but the most fun.
Sony has ignored the fact that console players want simple, fun games. Microsoft has taken note but as always fails to deliver anything useful (Natal), the next Xbox you can expect to be Microsoft's copy of the Wii (the Xii perhaps). With the financial trouble Sony is in, all bets are off on whether there will be a PS4.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Sells acceptably well? Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if sales of the Wii are declining because everyone has one.
Interesting thought, just for comparison I did some research: it seems the PS2 has sold around twice as many as the Wii. I am not sure when the PS2 sales started slowing down, but there is definitely room for more Wii sales.
Qxe4
I know I would have bought one ages ago if I could figure out how to make it work with one of my computers.
Google "Wii vga adapter", there are several. You'll need to have a tv at your disposal somewhere though to be able to switch the Wii to use 480p output. As for otherwise interacting with your computers, I've had tons of fun with cwiid, I'm sure similiar programs exist for Windows as well if you are so inclined.
Nintendo doesn't have to pull anything out of their hat, they just have to keep the ball rolling. Rather than just vying for a share in the existing gamer market they expanded the market. The wii is very family friendly and many non gamers have bought the system (such as my mother in law). The other companies haven't even seriously entered the "alternative" or "light" gamer market. Yes they have caught up in the gimmicky controller department, and are ahead in graphics and have the developers behind them to create great games, but those games are primarily targeted at the classic gamer.
I think at this point Nintendo releasing a new system would be premature. Yes they have traditionally release a new system every 5 years (nes '86, snes '91, 64 '96, GC '01, Wii '06) so if they followed that trend a new system would be out for 2011, but this system has sold better than any previous system to date. Even if sales are waning it is still selling strong compared to historical sales of game systems.
If Nintendo releases something in the next year I predict it will only be an incremental step (HD output, maybe better media support for music and videos) quite similar to DSi or DSi XL. An entirely new console is still a ways off.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Wii sports is sold separately from the console in Japan, which did not prevent it from selling 3.7 million copies. It makes this game the 22nd in the all-time best sales list, which is still a good result.
Sony and Microsoft have the (gimmicky, as it was in the Wii) motion control. They have the developers. They have the hardware. Where do you think that leaves Nintendo in 5 years?
Sony has had motion controls since before the PS3 came out. No one cared about it then. Sony is going to try a little harder this time I guess, we'll see how that works out for them again. I'm going to guess it's going to be another weak attempt to copy what nintendo is doing, and won't work out well. They may have learned their lesson with the sixaxis: if you're going to do motion controls, do them at least as well as nintendo.
I suspect though that the situation with motion control games will be the reverse of what we see for most games though. If someone is going to make a game that uses the wand-style motion controls, they're probably going to make it for the wii, with it's huge user base, and then port it to the PS3 if they can. How many people are going to make a game with the "gimmicky" controls, and then market it exclusively to the much smaller customer base? Sony hasn't exactly been locking down the exclusives for the PS3.
Natal... I don't know. Maybe that could actually steal thunder from the wii. On the other hand, maybe no one will want to do anything besides "eye toy" type gimmicky games for an attachment that not everyone with a 360 is going to have.
I'd guess the price difference will continue to work for the wii, maybe. Those "casual gamers" that everyone says nintendo is catering to aren't all going to say "screw the $200 box I bought, I'm going to buy this $600 one!" Or however much the PS3 or 360 are, I really don't know, but I gather they're still more expensive.
In 5 years that leaves nintendo with plenty of time to make and sell games to the people who have wiis, I don't know. I don't see anything though to indicate nintendo is going to fritter away all the money it's gotten with the wii. And don't forget the handheld market. Nintendo's doing pretty good there too.
Check out the top selling video games each week, for the last three years. Wii software tends to dominate. Having a slightly lower attach rate isn't as big a problem when you have twice as many consoles out there.
You could actually look it up, and you would see that the Wii is still doing better at this point then the PS2 was doing this many weeks after launch.
Spooooon!!!!!
Fanboys of $favorite_company have been predicting the demise of $rival_company for the last $num_years years and have new "theories" about how that downfall will come about, along with mountains of "evidence" and "careful thought" to back up their ideas. They also claim they're not wrong like they were last time.
Seriously, why is this news? A guy is wrong, so he makes more claims, and we're supposed to pay attention to these new claims why?
Having almost twice the number of consoles will do that to you. It makes statistics like these easy to skew. More games per console owner, that simply means that there are fewer consoles then games. Plus the Wii not being a loss leader means that this statistic is irrelevant. Even if the Attach rate is 40% lower, Nintendo are still shipping more games and don't have a deficit per console.
Not like game review sites can be paid off or need to pander to advertisers. Game review sites are made by and for angry little fanboys, not the average person (first rule of journalism is...*).
Your points do not prove anything, liars figure and all of that. The Wii is still the most phenomenally successful console Nintendo have ever produced, it's almost outsold both other consoles. Wii Play, Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii have all sold over 20 Million copies whilst the PS3 has managed 5.7 million and Xbox360 managed 8.01 Million whilst another 3 games sold over 10 million.
Really this doesn't detract from the point that the Wii sold because it was simple, easy and fun. The first two, Xbox and PS fanboys like to drag out in front of PC gamers, now with the Wii they are disadvantages but fun is the important part and why Sony and Microsoft are miles behind Nintendo.
* The old first rule, "give the reader what they want" not the new first rule, "screw the reader in every way possible for cash".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I don't know if you've thought about it (clearly you haven't) but Nintendo is screwed now. What trick will they pull out of their hat now? Sony and Microsoft have the (gimmicky, as it was in the Wii) motion control. They have the developers. They have the hardware. Where do you think that leaves Nintendo in 5 years?
But I'm sure you disagree, Nintendo has its fans apparently. I guess the only way we'll know is in 5 years time. I'll come back here to gloat when Nintendo is the Palm of 2015 looking for someone to buy them.
Every 5 or so years somebody predicts Nintendo's death in 5 or so years.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Even assuming he's right about the numbers - and that's a big ass-u-mtpion - his assertion that it's because new games aren't compelling is just that: an assertion.
He hasn't considered the alternative: that the Wii has so many good pick-up-and-play games with compelling gameplay that owners are actually happy re-playing what they already own, rather than feeling inadequate if they don't upgrade to MurderSportsStealthSim 14.
Since that's the entire raison d'être of the Wii, and the reason why it's destroying the 360 and PS3 in hardware sales, who am I going to believe? Nintendo from their platinum clad fortress inside a moat of liquid gold, or some pissant intertubes nobody who's been wrong about every other Goddamn thing he's ever said?
By the way, do you know what a rhetorical question is?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Nintendo has Shigeru Miyamoto... Everything he touches is guaranteed money. I'm not a fanboy, I'm just stating the facts: The man is extremely competent and reliable at what he does. Sony and Microsoft, on the other hand, have huge losses and hardware defects - which, believe it or not, are much worse for your reputation than the lack of good graphics, as good graphics do not really make a good game, but you can't play if your GPU has melted your console - and the inability to innovate, having resorted to copying what Nintendo already had. Nintendo has the DS, a champion of sales. Nintendo DIDN'T have the third party developers to begin with (in this generation), and many of them regretted it when they saw which side the wind was blowing.
It seems to me that many who call themselves "gamers" overestimate their importance. It's people who matter, salary-earning individuals, and most people are "casual" gamers. Why should NIntendo care about you? They're making money. They're successful. They're happy. They're a business, not a charity for FPS and RPG lovers.
Nintendo once had Square-Enix in its pocket. The whole thing. Enix, Inc. was producing Dragon Quest for NES and SNES; Squaresoft was producing Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger for NES and SNES. At some point, both ditched; the Playstation 2 was bought by all my friends because they wanted Final Fantasy or racing games, while the Nintendo 64 was purchased by Mortal Kombat fans.
I said back then that Nintendo needs a strong RPG market. There is an entire class of gamers that play RPGs, we like the system or the story. Final Fantasy games have amazing graphics-- and I don't mean shiny infinite polygon shit, I mean when the characters walk and talk they're ALIVE-- coupled with innovative game play in the RPG scope (ATB, CTB, junctioning, materia, artifact system, gambit system, they always do something different), rich music, and a deep and engaging storyline. The games are immersive; they tell a story, and they do so in a manner that brings you into the game rather than leading you to point out that the graphics are horrible or the sound is crappy.
And that's what Nintendo needs. It needs Namco, Square-Enix, Camelot (second party-- Golden Sun), everyone. It needs to pick up a significant portion of a single, irreplaceable class of games. To me, that class is the RPG market, because you really can't make a 120 hour movie (cue Xenosaga jokes). Fighting games, puzzle games, racing games... they're interchangeable. RPGs are not fungible, in the same way Lord Foul's Bane and Ringworld are not fungible; Tekken vs Mortal Kombat is rather like comparing Pappa John's vs Dominos, and while you might have a preference, it doesn't really matter.
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And the fact that most wii owners have very low attach rates for games also hurts the prospects for the wii2.
According to Nintendo's own numbers (released yesterday), this is simply not true. The worldwide software to hardware ratio is 7.68 to 1, in the US it's 8.9 to 1. Last I checked that was ahead of the PS3 and only a little bit behind the 360. One might could make an argument that a few of those are 3rd party titles, but as far as general software sales are concerned, Nintendo has no need for concern.
The CPU power has less to do with the Wii's difficulties then you might think. The only affect that the machines power has is that it makes it more difficult to port Xbox or PS3 games over.
The 2 most significant factors are that the marketing position of the Wii, and the unique control system.
The controls are different enough that it makes porting a game directly across that much more difficult. And if your not going to port a game over, then you are going to have to deal with figuring out a control scheme that is suitable to the platform. This has proven to be a non trivial challenge.
The marketing position of the Wii has managed to alienate the core gamers. This is more of a problem for the 3rd party publishers. Nintendo is the only company that has come out with anything that even looks appealing to a core gamer (think Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, Smash Brothers, and Metroid) for the platform. Those games can sell based on the strength of the brand. But for the 3rd party publishers, there is not much incentive to create something like Gears of War, Assassins Creed or Rainbow 6 Vegas for the platform when doing so will require dramatically reworking the interface for the controller (which makes it a non port of a game) and the art assets to fit that platform (those publishers depend on multi platform sales). Because no one managed this in 2006 to 2007, that customer base moved to the Xbox 360 and PS3. And now that those gamers are entrenched on that platform, none of the major publishers are going to bother trying.
The publishers that could have managed to make those games for the Wii spend the last 4 years making craptastic party games trying to emulate what Nintendo did with Wii sports. And because no one was able to do the job better than Nintendo, and because the non core market is a great deal more picky than the core gamers (only buying a few games a year), no one else made money.
A Wii 2 console will only help the situation if everyone who did buy a Wii can be convinced to buy the new system. Otherwise the Wii 2 will only have an install base that can be determined by the number of people who bought any 3 of Smash brothers Brawl, Metroid, Zelda, Mario Galaxy, and Mario Kart.
END COMMUNICATION
The problem with Wii is that it lacks good games. Wii hardware is good enough. Sure, it's not the best, but it's OK. Wii controllers are broken, but you can get a classic controller to fix them. The real problem is that Wii has no games besides a few, for a very narrow market niche. How many people these days want to play Mario? And Zelda? Among RPG fans, Zelda is not a huge hit. It's kind of a boring game. Zelda can in no way compare to Fallout 3 (never mind 2, etc.), Oblivion, and even Final Fantasy 12. Arguably Zelda is better than FF13, but only because 13 was so terrible.
So the problem is that Nintendo games are boring have beens of the past, and their 3rd party support is limited and the games focus on gimmickry and waggliness above all else.
And I don't think Nintendo is going to be fixing their software any time soon. So making Wii 2 will not help them in the least. People already know to avoid buying Wii. Many people's Wii is currently gathering dust.