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Iwata Confirms Nintendo Network, New Wii U Controller Functions
New submitter DeanCubed writes "In a Nintendo investor meeting, CEO Satoru Iwata confirmed a new Nintendo Network for the company's 3DS and upcoming Wii U game systems. This includes multiple user accounts per console (not tied to hardware, a first for Nintendo) and digitally distributed retail software releases for their online store. Iwata also noted that the Wii U's tablet controller will feature NFC (Near Field Communication) functionality, allowing the ability to use figurines and cards to input visual data to the console. They are hoping to use this to make micro-transactions for paid DLC easier."
Having read both TFA and a few other more detailed articles out there (Eurogamer has a good one), the Nintendo Network looks like a good thing, albeit one which is many years overdue. It'll be good to have the it there, but it's hard to see anybody getting excited about it, given that at best it will bring functionality on a par with Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
I think the Wii-U is a cause for greater concern. It's going to be launching in difficult economic times. The 3DS did that last year and its initial sales were poor. They've now recovered a bit (though they're still below forecast), but only at the expense of Nintendo having to sell the system at a loss. Now, selling at a loss isn't exactly a bad strategy (it worked wonders for Sony with the PS2), but it's very much counter to Nintendo's historic strategy. The Vita, also launching in difficult times, has had a poor Japanese launch despite a really quite good launch-games lineup. Having seen what the Vita can do, I very much want to own one - but I'll be surprised if its US and European sales don't fall well short of targets. I get the feeling that 2012 is going to be a really bad time to be launching a console - most people are unlikely to be feeling any kind of real economic recovery during the year. Microsoft and Sony have clearly decided to hold on and wait in the hope of a kinder economy; Nintendo, with Wii sales exhausted and their finances at an all-time low, don't have that option.
But more worrying still is the lack of a real public narrative around the Wii-U. The Wii had one of these. Motion control was easily grasped. You could watch somebody demonstrating one - or try a demo unit yourself - and "get" the concept instantly. If you actually used the thing more extensively, you'd come up against its limitations very quickly; the motion control was imprecise and in many cases placed a barrier between the player and the game that meant it ended up less immersive than traditional controllers. But by then, the sale was made. The Wii-U is a much harder concept to grasp. It's a home console which has some tablet-ish features. But how will it work with a room full of people? What will the tablet actually add to the games? And how is it going to be fun at a party with a room full of people with a few drinks inside them?
There are actually answers to those questions if you look around enough at the material that's been made available. But they're not simple answers and they're not easily communicated. On that basis, I just cannot see the Wii-U replicating the success of the Wii's early years. I'm also unsure that the pitch to the more traditional "gamer" crowd will work. There's a lot of frustration with the current generation's techological limitations. But I don't sense any confidence that Nintendo - who, let's not forget, have spent the time since the Wii's launch neglecting this demographic - are the people to usher in the next generation. I also find it hard to imagine developers doing much with the Wii-U's hardware - which is better than the current generation, but not by a huge margin - putting much resource into developing games for it that actually push it beyond what the 360 and PS3 can do. More likely, it will just get a lot of PS3/360 ports, which present little compelling reason for the "gamer" crowd to jump ship from their existing platforms until those get replaced.
The 3DS also suffered from a mis-managed message at launch. It was launched on the basis of "look 3d!" rather than "look, more powerful DS with better graphics". People weren't interested in 3d. A better DS is a stronger pitch and Nintendo have had more success with the 3DS since they switched to it. But I'm struggling to see what the pitch is with the Wii-U.
I've been wrong on calling "Nintendo are doomed" before. But I'm finding it very hard to see a convincing path to success for the Wii-U. The Wii was the right product at the right time (I admit it took me a while to recognise this). But for Nintendo to capitalise on that success, I think they needed to have a replacement ready by the back end of 2009 or early 2010 at the latest. As it is, they've endured a pretty grim second half of this console cycle and are in a very risky position now.
I feel like the online component is a place where Nintendo had an opportunity to excel and they completely dropped the ball. The Wii had connectivity all along. It's storefront worked fine. But that was all. The Opera browser sucked, and still sucks. First they charged for it, but because it sucked they finally gave it away. You could add friends somehow, but it was some convoluted confusing manner of trading codes with each other and typing them in onscreen. They had downloadable games but no support for downloadable content (I'm looking at you, myriad of trivia games). Why? The Wii could have been a pioneer in living room web browsing and content but had nothing of it. It seems like Niintendo didn't thing this 'Internet' thing was going to take off or something.
And so now, they start to make an attempt at an online component but it's not going to be available to the millions of units already out there. Sigh....
"The 3DS did that last year and its initial sales were poor."
The 3DS may have had sales figures that weren't as good as they were expecting, but having sold 15million units quicker than either that Wii or the DS, I have to wonder just what those forecasters were smoking at the time. The attach rate of the console was pretty poor at first but that was mainly because the hardware launched without any first-party titles alongside it.
"What will the tablet actually add to the games?"
Rephrase that question to what will the Wii-U bring to tablet games, and keep in mind how popular the touch screen has become as a gaming interface in the mobile arena. I think that's a smart angle to go for. Nintendo promised the world with motion controls, disappointed everyone at first, but then lived up to that promise (for a price) with MotionPlus. Considering that Wii-U works with Wiimotes, MotionPlus might get a chance to shine and revitalize enthusiasm for motion control like Kinect did.
"I'm struggling to see what the pitch is with the Wii-U."
That's probably because they haven't pitched it to us yet.
Crashed and burned? They have sold 95 million Wii's http://kotaku.com/5879478/the-wii-will-sell-a-hundred-million-eventually
Nintendo did dominate the Xbox and PS3 to the point where both Sony and Microsoft felt the need to incorporate motion controls. Nintendo also made money on every system and if the Xbox 720 rumours are true, Microsoft appears poised to follow in Nintendo's footsteps with the next console cycle. The Wii did fizzle out toward the end of it's life but it's still a great console that shook up the industry far more than the PS3 or Xbox could ever hope to.
If anything I'd argue the Wii U is the lacklustre console. The Wii is a pretty hard act to follow but this is Nintendo after all and they could easily pull off a SNES here. Only time will tell but as far as the Wii is concerned, I'd hardly call it the flop you imply it is.
I agree with your point about the perception of the Wii's performance as opposed to the reality.
What people don't tend to realise is that there are two broad ways to make money from a console. The "Nintendo" model and the "everybody else" model.
The Nintendo model is to sell the system at a profit - even if not a huge one - and then sell first-party games at it for a profit. This has to be quite an aggressively focussed approach and it generally results in putting out hardware that third party developers aren't interested in. But this doesn't matter, because you're making money off your own efforts. Nintendo didn't do so great with this strategy with the N64 and Gamecube, but it worked perfectly with the Wii, for the first 3 years. If they'd had a successor ready to go and repeat the trick in 2009/10, they could have made life very difficult for Sony and Microsoft. It's a "quick win" strategy - to sell consoles at a profit on day 1 these days, you need either a very high price point (3DS) or very weak hardware (Wii). If you go for the latter option, you will go obsolete quite quickly - so better stack up those early profits.
The "everybody else" strategy with console profits is to sell the hardware at a loss, not worry too much about first-party games development, but let third party games developers make your money for you. Remember, MS and Sony cream a good chunk of cash off every third party game sold for their system. Their only investment in producing those games has been a trivial amount of cash on certification. If the system is successful in attracting third party developers, then it becomes a source of "free money". This is a slower-burn strategy. Third party developers are nervous early in a console cycle, while the installed base is still small. You have to suck up a loss in those years. But then you've got a cash-cow out there and you can just sit back and milk it with minimal effort.
My instinct is that while Nintendo may exit this generation with the largest installed base, in overall terms, they may well be looking at chugging home in third place again, because they waited too long to jump to their next generation hardware (and had to do so in poor circumstances).
Nintendo needs the U _now_ and they need it to be ~25% more powerful than current generation gaming consoles.
They need the Wii U now and they don't need it to be really any more powerful. I mean it'll make sense to make it more powerful, but does it *need* to be more powerful?
They need games. Bad. The problem with the Wii was that everyone's grandma bought one for Wii sports and never picked up another wii title after that.
I think that more powerful hardware will lead to more developers signing up, but, keep focus on what's actually important here.
Games.
Also an HDMI socket would be nice too.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
They better come out with this quick. It's amazing how quickly they crashed and burned with the Wii. This is what I call an "I told you so" post.
It seems like only a year ago (and it probably was) when any time you said the Wii was in trouble someone would come and tell you how wrong you are and that the Wii is "totally pwning Xbox and PS3". I think anyone could see the trouble was heading to within 1 year of the Wii coming out, but nooooooo. "Oh, you don't know how much the Wii is dominating Xbox/PS3!".
Well, no - it wasn't. It was selling at a small profit for Nintendo but nobody was buying very many games. It was old technology, it looks like crap. It was a gimmick that flashed brightly for a while because of the innovative controller, then it died almost as quickly.
Nintendo needs the U _now_ and they need it to be ~25% more powerful than current generation gaming consoles. I wish them well, I think 3 major platforms is perfect and want them to stick around but I was a bit annoyed by the blinders people had regarding the Wii.
Nintendo profited from every Wii made. Sony and MS lost lots of money on every PS3 and 360 sold until recently.
The global attach rate for the Wii is about 7.7, while it's around 8.5 for the PS3. The 360 has an attach rate of about 9.2 in the US, and less globally (I don't know the number).
The Wii has sold about 100 million units and the PS3 and 360 are sitting at around 60 million units.
Nintendo is the developer of most of the top-selling games on the Wii, so they get 100% of the profit.
For the PS3 and 360, the bulk of softare sales are for games developed by 3rd parties - MS and Sony only see the royalties from those sales.
Here's a chart for you (old, but still reflective of the situation):
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/edit/img/images/blog/5615/profit_chart_consoles.jpg
Nintendo hasn't been opposed to public social interaction and sharing. The entire Pokémon franchise is arguably built on that concept. The reason they've stayed away from direct online interactions has mainly been because of fears over how those services will actually be used. ie. They didn't want parents to hear their kids being exposed to bad language or sexual predators over a Nintendo service. Were those fears of Nintendo justified? Given how many FPS gamers seem to behave, they probably did have some legitimate reason to be concerned there.
Having said that however, it's clear from more recent efforts, such as the direct voice communication inbuilt in Pokémon Black & White, and the communication features included in the last 3DS update, that they're starting to open themselves up there. I'm sure it'll continue to go at a glacial pace that will continue to frustrate "hardcore" gamers, but in terms of selling to the "family" market it actually does make some sense.
Considering the comparisons made by journalists between the Wii U and "XBox 720" specs are that there's only about a 20% difference in power between the two (about the same difference between PS2 and the original XBox), I'm calling bullshit on your statement.
A certain segment likes to claim that no one ever played their Wii, but that is clearly not correct. If no one played their Wii, no one would have bought games. The companies making games would have seen that every game after the initial release just sat on store shelves. Game development would have died out withing 12 months. Retail stores would have seen that they never sold any Wii games, and would have stopped using valuable shelf space for them.
That has not happened. Go into any Toys R Us, Target, Costco, Gamestop, K-Mart, WalMart, etc... They all have very large Wii sections. This is even now when the Wii is at the end of it's life, and it's successor has already been announced. Making the claim that all of these stores have been dedicating huge amounts of valuable shelf space to a product line that doesn't sell is a might extraordinary claim, and thus needs more evidence than an anecdote from members of a minority group.
My own anecdote is that I got my household a 360 for Christmas this year. On Christmas day, we spent about 45 minutes enjoying the 360, and appreciating how cool the Kinect is. We then spent about 3 hours playing Fortune Street on the Wii.
The Wii was terrible like the 2600 was terrible.
No, it wasn't. The stores listed about attest to that, and have put huge amounts of money behind their view of the subject.
Yes, I have seen their financials. I think you've confused Nintendo's corporate losses with Wii sales, but the truth is that a combination of currency exchange rates, slow 3DS sales and lower game sales than expected are to blame for that.. Without the Wii sales, their losses would have been much heavier.
The Wii somehow still sold in greater volume than the Xbox and PS3 over this past Christmas season. Nintendo has sold 95 million units to date... just a bit less than twice as many units as either Xbox or PS3 have sold. The question "How long did the Wii last compared to the Xbox or PS3?" makes no sense since the damn thing hasn't stopped selling.