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Is the Wii U Already Dead?
kube00 writes "The Wii U has been struggling as of late. Even Nintendo has admitted sales haven't been as high as they would like. So what went wrong? Is this just a fluke? Will the Wii U recover and bounce back? Will the PS4 and the next 360 come out the door and leave the Wii U in the dust? GoozerNation takes a look at some of the NPD's and speculates on what it all means."
They've cruised on their name, they've went with gimmicks, they've stubbornly stuck with being the kids console, they've put only a half-hearted effort into online play, they've all-but-resigned themselves to staying in the last gen, etc. And, most woefully of all, they seem to have put little to no thought into WHERE THEY FIT IN NOW.
Methinks they need something they probably haven't had in a long time--a conclave of their board and big-wigs to ask themselves some fundamental questions about what their mission is, how they are going to accomplish it, and how they're going to compete in the modern gaming market.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I've had Nintendo consoles since the original. I've also had XBoxes and the PS3. The Wii U actually confused me when it came out because it seemed more like it was a new handheld/portable. Not the new console and Wii replacement. I don't know if it was my complete lack of caring towards it, or their poor marketing. On the other hand I read all about the PS4 release and have been pondering the new XBox.
I feel like Nintendo just wasn't on the ball with this generation of consoles.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I think actually their primary problem now, in 2013, is that their business is making games consoles. It doesn't matter whether it's cheap, has "gimmicks" (can we lay that one to rest BTW? Innovation isn't gimmickry, the DS killed the PSP, and the introduction of the Wii basically forced Microsoft to go in a new direction), or anything else. The problem is they're making games consoles. And the concept really doesn't have anywhere to go, not usefully anyway.
If I wanted something more powerful than a Wii I'd have already bought am Xbox 360. But in all honesty, what I want has changed in the last five years. We have tablets and smartphones. Our PCs are no longer hooked up to 15-19" CRTs, they have 1080p 25" widescreens. Oh, and the PCs have Steam on them.
Given these entertainment options, the attractiveness of a locked down box you plug into the living room TV, requiring the consent of the entire household to do so, to play games is really going out of the window.
Sony and Microsoft need to take note, because realistically, unless their next game consoles are significantly different from the box-with-controllers-and-some-way-to-insert-a-game-and-a-TV-out model, they'll flop too.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Nintendo doesn't seem to have a good answer for "who is the market for this device?" It's not hardcore gamers. And the casual gamers that made the Wii a success have moved on to iPads and smart phones.
Nintendo needs to go somewhere that their competiors are not. In my opinion, they should be working with the Occulus Rift people to develop a box which can be worn as a backpack, which ties into the goggles. The VR Boy 2... They could concede lower quality graphics, but very, very low latency input and output to make the most of the VR hardware and minimize motion sickness effects. They already know a lot about building appropriate controllers. If this was well done, they could make the XBox and Playstation seem totally out of date. The way games used to be played, where you looked at the virtual world through a glowing rectangle with a plastic strip around it.
and Nintendo is seemingly unaware.
Every kid I know want's either a smartphone or tablet. From my observation the only people playing consoles anymore are teenagers and adults that grew up with consoles many of which are increasingly shifting their attention to mobile. The younger kids have ditched their DSi for iTouches over the last two years and are playing casual and social games. When I visit family I am bombarded by nephews and nieces that want to play my iPad.
Nintendo is trying with a tablet but doing it horribly wrong. Instead of focusing on their hardware they need to focus on their software on established mobile hardware and ecosystems.
Every year more mobile devices activate than all consoles sold combined. Mobile devices also iterate with a much higher frequency. Most modern mobile devices are fully capable of rendering any Nintendo title if adapted for it.
My prediction is none of the new consoles will sell as well as the prior version and all will likely flop. They will fail for the reason that they focus on a living room that has become mostly vacant.
Hi, parent here.
I can buy a Wii for a lower price than the XBox or PS. I'm 8 years from angsty teenagers, so I don't have to deal with the desire for mature rated games for a long time. The Wii games are more fun for the tipsy adults when we have friends over.
The Wii U doesn't appeal to me because it looks more complicated and it costs more than twice as much. Talk to me when it is $150. I'd also prefer it didn't have big easy-to-break-looking, drain-its-batteries-all-the-time controller tv things.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I love consoles. I like the fact that when I buy a game, I know that I'm going to be able to put it in that little box and play it without having to worry about if my box meets the system requirements of the game or if I have a strong enough cell signal to log onto the games servers or if my software version isn't compatible.
I love PCs. I like the fact that it makes it easier to download lots of games and has more function than just a console. I like 25" 1080p widescreens, but I really like hooking my PC up to my 1080p 52" TV in my living room.
I don't want either model to die, and I don't understand why so many people think that there can be only successful model. I think there are a lot of people who, like me, love consoles and don't want to see the box-with-controllers-and-some-way-to-insert-a-game-and-a-TV-out model die. There's a demand for this model, even if you don't fit into it.
YOU can do whatever you want, Valve in the meantime is drowning in a firehose of cash.
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
If I want to access my game library anywhere on the planet, I can just employ external storage. The same goes for any other form of "entertainment". This can last for as long as I like.
The only stumbling block is DRM.
Unfortunately, Steam is still DRM.
It's a really pleasant cage but it's still a cage.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And the kid purchases the game by entering their credit card info... Oh wait, kids don't fucking have credit cards! Get the parent to put in their info for the kid. Problem solved. Or the kid just lies about their age like they probably do for anything else online. There are facebook pages for babies. I think Nintendo would get by ok.