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Can the Wii U Survive Against the PS4 and Xbox One?
An anonymous reader writes "Now that both Sony and Microsoft have announced their next-gen consoles, and we've gotten solid information about their hardware, technology, and features, Eurogamer asks whether Nintendo's struggling Wii U will be able to hold its own once the new competition arrives. 'Wii U has tanked — there's no other way to put it — with even the release of traditional big-hitters like Dragon Quest 10 failing to make a dent in the Japanese market. If you believe certain analysts, April saw things getting even worse in the U.S. with the Wii U shifting under 40,000 units, easily outsold by the 360 and PS3 — and, even more embarrassingly, the Wii.' If the Wii U doesn't see a miraculous turnaround, Nintendo may be left with the difficult choice of whether to port its software to competing consoles. It'll also serve as a bellwether to see if the big gamer complaint about the new Sony and Microsoft consoles — that they're only partly about games — is honest. 'At a time when the goal of its competitors is to own the living room, the extent of Nintendo's ambition is simply to be in it — a dedicated games console, and no more.'"
... can the game industry survive expensive AAA games?
THQ recently went bankrupt, EA's stock has taken a huge dump from past highs and activision survives mainly by WoW and Call of duty. At this point the next console generation is the least interesting console generation in a long while. Since games have become some multi-headed hydra of trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none in order to sell games to the lowest common denominator. Most modern games are little more then movies /w over simplified gameplay at this point.
A revolution in tools is needed to scale back team sizes and game development costs and that's decades away. If anything the game industry is probably the most out of touch industry looking for fast $ by releasing games too early with little to no changes.
All those "classic" 8-bit games -- Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Archon -- became classics not because of the awesome graphics they packed into a ROM space too small for a fucking To Do list for your mother these days but because of the gameplay. Compare and contrast with Clickfest Diablo 3.
Tanking? Nintendo are out there not resting on their laurels and working on the one thing that leads to long-term success. Or do you play Minecraft for the incredible graphics experience only achievable with a €3,000 rack of graphics cards?
I will buy into the platform that lets me buy and sell used games openly, without paying a tax to the mothership.
I buy maybe 1 or 2 games a year for my xbox 360 and I buy them all used because I play to relax and to me Halo 3, 4, 5, 6 whatever all look pretty much the same, I run, I shoot I am happy. That said, I will ony buy a next gen console that allows me the freedom to do two key things:
1: Loan games to friends, and play games that I am loaned
2: Buy and Sell used games freely without paying a pimp fee to MS/Sony/Nintendo/Activision/EA/whoever
Simple as this: if I cant walk into game stop 30-45 days after a title is released and buy it for ~1/2 new price, and sell my 2-3 year old game back for like $5 to lower that cost a bit more, then I just wont game at all because its too expencive for what it is. Again, I have plenty of disposable income, so it isn't an affordability thing, its a value issue.
Yes. Yes it will.
Consoles in general are going the way of the dodo. This all-in-one media center thing is pretty stupid, you can get a nettop/boxee/android based player for 50-100 bucks that can do all the advanced interactive media features Microsoft and Sony are so excited about (play netflix and youtube).
I don't know if people are stupid enough to pay 5-6 hundred to Microsoft or Sony for the same functionality.
I don't expect to see record breaking sales from any of the big three consoles. But Nintendo is smart to keep the cost down (oh noes hardcore gamerz, it doesnt have 32 core mega gigablips), and trade off their in house titles.
Nintendo consoles end up in kids bedrooms, not living rooms. Things will pick up for them after a price drop. Nintendo doesn't need to outsell Sony or MS, they play their own game. They just need to sell enough to keep pushing out the Mario and Zelda titles.
Considering that sales of the Wii U have *spiked* since the Xbox One announcement, I think it's pretty clear that Nintendo can survive.
What's different about this generation? That most third-party games are ignoring the Wii U? Guess what - that happened with the Wii and Gamecube (to a lesser extent) as well. No good launch titles? Look at the 3DS - dead on arrival, but it's picking up, and while it's not the runaway success of the DS, it's no failure.
Hell, the only "different" thing about this generation is how badly Nintendo botched the naming (a lot of consumer confusion because "Wii U" sounds more like a new hardware iteration of the Wii than a new console). But fortunately, Microsoft came out with an even worse name for their console.
And Nintendo also has the advantage of having a strong focus on games. Sure, they don't actually have too many actual games right now, but even when talking about the hardware, their message is always "how it makes better games". Compare to Sony's distractions with Youtube uploading or "social gaming", or to Microsoft's "it's a set-top Windows 8 box that also plays Call of Duty" abomination of a conference.
But there's one fundamental reason why Nintendo can survive Sony and Microsoft - they don't care. Most Nintendo console owners buy them to play Nintendo games, which isn't the case for Sony or Microsoft consoles. First-party games might boost the other consoles up, but they always exist as much to play third-party games as first-party.
So the only threat to Nintendo is... Nintendo. Which, admittedly, it a pretty big threat right now - a lot of their recent games have been going downhill (Skyward Sword, Other M), and they haven't yet come up with a good killer app for the Wii U.
I would be extremely happy of being able to play the next Mario on something else than a Nintendo console. I bought the Wii just for Super Mario Wii, I loved the game, but now I have a white piece of plastic doing nothing underneath my TV.
It's not going to happen, but it would be very nice.
My wife and I played the shit out of this level over the weekend trying for hours to get the best score we could and claim a gold trophy. For me it’s a classic platformer with incredibly tight controls and beautiful graphics. For her it’s a touch based game similar to something you might play on the iPad.......
I have been married to my wife for 13 years and I cannot remember a time before this weekend that we un-ironically high fived. When we finally got the gold trophy we leapt up and slapped hands like two dudes at a flag football game. I will say that it took us hours of trying the same level over and over again before we got there though. There was a lot of communication that had to happen. “is it better for you if I leave this platform up or down?” “Should I run through this part or slow down before I jump?” There was were mistakes made by both of us. “Sorry, that was my fault I missed that wall jump.” “Crap I didn’t lower that spike wall in time, my bad.” and there were a couple (joking?) threats of divorce. At the end when we had the gold trophy I tweeted that it was the greatest thing we had ever accomplished as a couple. Someone asked about our kids and I said I was including the kids.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There's simply been no compelling games for the system - and I'm saying that as a fan of most big-hitter Nintendo games, who has purchased all the previous major systems to play those big games, and a large number of the more quirky third party titles and RPGs too.
No Metroid Prime games (haunting and epic), no Mario Galaxy games (wonderful and diverse exploration), no Zelda games (charming and intricate systems to explore), no compelling RPGs over here at least (Dragon Quest, etc.), and nothing interesting like a Kirby game. Even the one captivating game I played at PAX - Pikmin 3 - hasn't even been released yet.
All I've noticed has been lame party games, shameless re-releases, cross-ports, and a freakin' zombie game. Even more for the download titles.
That is precisely a system that should not sell well.
If they wanted to sell this system, there's a risky thing they could do though - open up a downloadable game section devoted to indies, and release a quality free SDK. Only let them be free downloads, but allow an optional (based on developer intention) greenlight-style voting mechanism for them to become sold in the marketplace, with multiple voting questions like "is this game bug-free enough to be a professional product?" THEN, you can charge the indie developer for an in-house testing cycle and you can end up having something more than re-releases to remind people about. This likely wouldn't be acceptable to staunch managers from a software 'piracy' perspective, but if the system is selling so poorly - really, lure the potential pirates in, and let a community of indie developers convert them into paying customers.
Ryan Fenton
The Wii U's biggest competitor is the Wii. I have the Wii, and I really don't see the point in getting a Wii U. The Wii is kind of special, at least I use it to play games together with others, in the living room.
As I understand it, the U makes it possible to continue playing if somebody wants to use the TV... Eh. But if we're playing together, why would one of us suddenly demand to sit down and watch TV? (also, the only "TV" we watch nowadays is Netflix, on the Wii or the PS3).
Nintendo is not Sega. It has plenty of hit first party titles and franchises and knows how to execute them well, Wii U is only selling poorly because such titles have not been released, or even announced, yet.
A few years ago, Nintendo adopted a really bizarre politic of not announcing their own games until a short time before they are ready to launch, so the landscape of the Wii U is completely empty.
The situation will likely change after E3 (or not).
Simply put, the WiiU can survive if they maintain their in-house software. I bought a WiiU, basically, so I could buy the next Zelda game. And Super Metroid for the third time. The problem with the WiiU right now is most of the games available are cross-platform. I could already have those games on the 360. And I do like the 360, and especially enjoy the XBLA, but after seeing the dashboard get more and more cluttered with junk, and reading about Microsoft's noose-tying, shoe-polishing announcement on the XBOX Nao, I'll stay off that sinking ship. And Sony has always been the high-end multimedia platform that Microsoft now wants to copy, which isn't my boat. I don't need the most powerful system if all it plays are Greened out military shooters and Dance Beat 16; I play retro classics and puzzle adventure games. So to sum up, Sony people will buy the PS4. Die-hard Xbox fans will buy, and be disappointed by the Xbox One. And Nintendo owners will make the switch if Nintendo puts out a few more quality games that only play on the WiiU.
And I'm still up in the air about a PS4, and definitely not getting an Xbox One, so it's at least in contention. Ultimately it will come down to the games, like it always does. Nobody thought the DS could compare with the PSP, and then the games came out and everybody realized what was important.
He's saying the Wii U couldn't compete against the 360/PS3 - not the Wii.
Sales for those 2 7th generation systems have outsold Nintendo's 8th generation offering, despite it being first to market.
Yes, the games are less exciting and on a smaller screen, but the devices are nearly ubiquitous right now, and the games are a fraction of the price of a console game. People get used to paying $0.99 for Plants vs. Zombies, then wonder why it costs $20 for the same game on the Xbox? Add the possibility of similar bargains and freedom with the upcoming Ouya (but on a larger screen), and suddenly, these consoles and their respective games seem massively overpriced for what you get. Yes, they offer a richer experience. Is it worth 10 times of the cost of a similar iPad version? That's what consumers are grappling with right now. Add in the fact that the console makers treat their customers like garbage, and many people are saying, forget it. I'll just play games on my phone.
Which one is the one of the three that allows used game sales? (To the point of EA refusing to work with them when they refused to let EA block used game sales on their own?)
Wii U? ... Yeah, ok. Good luck with your XBox One ("Now with less games"(tm) ) and Playstation 4 ("Oh god we forgot the games.") purchases.
It's this article. Again. That I see every single generation, both portable and console. It's this simple. Nintendo knows it's power exists in first-generation titles, and it will never publish its A-list properties on other consoles. And as long as they don't, they will never fail. I'm sure someone will, or already has, argued the VirtualBoy against the idea of Nintendo's continued success, and of course there's some merit there, but lets be honest, they were simply ahead of their time. After all, here we are a decade or two later, and what's the rage? A true 3D portable. I could also argue that they're basically the only company still creating/publishing games that still hold to the old premise of gaming: that games should be fun - but that is admittedly opinion. And yes, I own a PS3 and an X360 - they are entertaining, in their own right. But none of their titles seem to induce that giddy Saturday morning feel of childhood quite like a Zelda game, or Smash Brothers. Add in the fact that Nintendo produces the most polished and least buggy titles on the market, and... yeah. I think I'll buy a Wii U. Sony and their flat out abuse of their user base, and Microsoft and their pouting over 3rd party sales - can take a next gen dive.
The Wii U is failing for one reason only: it is a truly awful product - an unmitigated design fiasco for which Nintendo deserves some special punishment in the market. Why? Let me count the ways. The wifi implementation is a complete disaster (maybe the antenna?) Sitting right next to an old Wii, the U failed to connect to wifi (read the endless online complaints about this) - it took hours just to do the initial OS update (I used to set up networks for a living.) The device itself is painfully slow in the simplest interaction - click a menu option and you can sit and wait for ten seconds or more to get a response - it is like the entire GUI is written in interpreted basic running on some early edition x86 ... The U console is a neat idea, but terribly implemented - if you're playing old Wii games the entire device enters some primitive emulation mode, and the U console becomes inactive. Conversely, if you're using the U, the Wii motes become inactive. Unlike on the old Wii that plays DVDs or the PS3 that plays Blu-Ray, the Wii U has no such utility. Wii Motion Plus is still not standard, etc.etc. Fortunately the market for game systems is pretty efficient, and customers are clearly voting with their wallets against this turkey.
Really? I've been looking and what I was able to find over the past 15 minutes is that both have what is likely the same AMD x86 8 core 1.6GHz processor, same generation AMD GPU, the same amount of memory (XBoxOne DDR3, PS4 DDR5), same 500GB disk space, same BluRay optical disk format, same 802.11n WiFi, similar cloud-based execution off-loading strategies (Azure vs Gaikai)...
Even in terms of MIPS, these new console CPUs are a fraction slower than the previous generation, even though their GPUs are orders of magnitude better than the previous generation.
Specs wise, they appear identical to each other aside from the Xbox being Windows 8 at it's core and Sony *likely* continuing down their Linux-ish roots.
The only differences appear to be in the form of the User Interface and Peripherals.
I am being completely honest here and would like to hear what would make the PS4 significantly more powerful than the XBoxOne as to help impact my purchasing decisions.
Thirty four characters live here.
Thanks for the usual puppeting insight Lord Mike. Crazy how most people who buy consoles aren't in fact interested in playing casual time wasters like the mobile crowd.
Except, of course, the usage statistics on them show the exact opposite. The "hardcore" gamer market isn't big enough for any of the three big console makers to give them much attention. When you've got 10 or 50 casual players for every "hardcore", the investment just isn't warranted. What you do is try to making something good enough for everyone. You'll lose the low end to the tablets and the high end, perhaps, to PC gaming. But you'll make an order of magnitude more revenue.
It'll also serve as a bellwether to see if the big gamer complaint about the new Sony and Microsoft consoles — that they're only partly about games — is honest. 'At a time when the goal of its competitors is to own the living room, the extent of Nintendo's ambition is simply to be in it — a dedicated games console, and no more.'"
This implies (or assumes?) that people who want a gaming-specific system will outright reject anything that does have extra things they don't need, instead buying whatever the latest gaming-focused system is, regardless of quality... And that if they don't, their complaints were false.
That doesn't fit at all. People don't just decide on a choice based on one factor, they find the best fit between several... And, imo, will probably be more inclined to budge on "isn't weighed down with useless functionality" than "doesn't have a cripplingly limited range of mostly gimmicky games". That doesn't make a complaint about the lack of gaming focus valid, it just means its the best of a bad situation. Personally, I've already decided not to bother with any of the next gen systems.
Actually if Valve pulls off their Steambox you'll have the best of both worlds, machines designed to be ready to go out of the box but with multiple vendors competing to lower costs and give you choice. That said its been reported that the PS4 and Xbox Stupid (Sorry I'm not calling it Xbox One, Xbox one was a Celeron 733MHz big green and black box that was easy to hack and make into a media tank, this thing is a corporate DRM wet dream) are both gonna be north of $400 at launch which means frankly you could build or buy a decent PC that can game for roughly the same price only again thanks to competition you can buy the games from multiple vendors which keeps the prices down.
I do wanna know WTF is going on at MSFT though, because frankly if I didn't know any better I'd swear somebody was trying to torpedo the company from within. I mean you take a console, which the whole reason people buy a console over a PC is because all you really need is the console and a TV, hassle free and simple to use, and you then tie a fucking boat anchor of phone home DRM that makes the system into a useless hunk of plastic if it can't call home every 24 hours (Fuck even Steam gives you 30 days between connections with offline mode) but that isn't enough so just to make absolutely sure the system goes down about as well as finding a flaming bag of shit on your doorstep you put a bullshit mechanism that locks every game after a single install behind a paywall? So the only other advantage, the ability to rent games, trade games, and buy used, is completely destroyed in a move so nasty that an antitrust investigation really needs to happen? I'm sorry but if I was told the facts without anything else I'd swear a mole was sabotaging the company.
So I'm just glad I switched my boys over to Steam and PC gaming, because between this and Sony with their "Oh we have the same paywall thing but its up to the publishers whether or not they want to use it" which means spoiler alert! EA and Activision and probably Ubisoft will ALL use this bullshit it has made one thing perfectly clear which Angry Joe in that video points out....there is no longer ANY advantages to owning a console over a PC, and a hell of a lot more downsides. Now you will be forced to install everything to the hard drive (which with the Xbox S is a lousy 500GB like that won't run out damned quickly) and it will ALL be tied to a single account thanks to the DRM...huh...doesn't that sound familiar? Kinda like...ohhh I don't know...Steam only without the MUCH lower prices that make it worth using? Basically they've turned the new consoles into nothing but a PC but expect you to pay console prices for games but with none of the upsides to having a console!
So as for TFA from what I understand the Wii U is the only one that is actually still a console in that you can rent games, trade games, buy and sell used games, the other two are just overpriced PCs. If the Wii U can hit the right price point I can see those fed up with the wallet raping the other two are planning buying the Wii U if they aren't ready to switch back to the PC. Personally I think we are gonna see a new PC golden age as a gaming device, I really do. Never before has it been so simple to hook a PC into a TV thanks to HDMI being everywhere, you can get a much better variety of design in controllers that will work with the PC, and thanks to Valve and the Steambox you'll be able to walk into any Worst Buy or Wally World (as well as any mom & pop shop like mine) and just look for the Steam sticker and know it'll game right OOTB. And most importantly thanks to competition you'll have plenty of choices when it comes to where you buy your game, hell if you never wanted to spend a dime you have an endless amount of FTP games to choose from. Being on a PC has never been better and these companies are shooting themselves in the head by focusing on how they can wring every penny instead of making a compelling product, PCs are gonna be THE way to game IMHO.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
How is a Steambox any less of a "corporate wet dream" than the Xbox One? Just like with the One, you can't sell games or let other people borrow them. At least the Xbox One will let other people in your house play; the Steambox won't even do that.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Sure it will, they just have to play under your account.
The Steambox will have an operating system + Steam, and as far as I know the operating system won't be locked down. So you can install any third party software you want on it.
I don't consider playing under my account a viable option. That means that their save files, preferences, and achievements become intermingled with mine.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Sony has no fee for developing on the PSN last I checked, and has a large number of fantastic 'indie' titles from fl0w back near launch to the Cave.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Because the games will be so cheap you won't care and will just gift them the game? I have 2 boys as well as myself on Steam and that is what I do, I mean when they are having a daily of all the Deus Ex games for $12 or all the Crysis games for $16 why should I care and not just gift them the game? Hell when they were having the Pre-order for Torchlight II for just $10 and they threw in Torchlight 1 I ended up gifting it to some friends just because Diablo 3 pissed me off with the always online crap and I wanted some buds to play MP with to try to score the really rare loot. I mean when I have nearly nothing but triple A games in my library and the average cost was $6 why should i care? Hell you can't even rent the games for cheaper and its as easy as "push button, choose friend you wanna gift to, push gift" so it really makes it beyond easy.
That is why I won't buy any game that isn't Steam or GOG, its just so damned cheap and easy it is really not worth dealing with anybody else. Sure the new releases are the same price as everywhere else but who gives a crap, there is something like 150,000 games on Steam and new sales every. single. day. which means I could game 16 hours a day and still not play everything so why should i care? Have you even looked at the under $10 section (over 5,000 games last i checked) or under $5 section (over 7,000 last I checked) on Steam?
Hell I have bought so many cheap bundles i still haven't gotten around to playing all the games from the fall sale i got, much less the big Xmas sale. Since my family and friends are on Steam they can easily see what I got so they can go "Happy BDay buddy, enjoy!" and suddenly I have even more games, we can all game together as easily as "hey bro, wanna play?" its just too damned easy and cheap for me to care about things being tied to my account, I can just hit the gift button and there ya go, lets play.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.