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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.
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."
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).
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.
Nintendo is also the most profitable company per employee. With only ~5000 employees they can afford a poor selling console easily.
I predict PS4 "wins" this round but no one wins overall (esp the consumer) and Steambox and/or PC will make a resurgence... just not enough to really put it on the map.
I bought the Wii when it came out. I liked the ability to play with up to four other players in certain games. Plus, I used the Wii Fit from time to time to switch up my exercise routine. Beyond the occasional use, it sits there gathering dust. I'm certainly not going to upgrade to the Wii U.
I used to be an avid PC gamer but switched over to the XBox 360 when it came out. I then switched to the PS3 a few years later as my brother-in-law had the PS3 and I wanted to be able to exchange games with him. I've used it for gaming until recently. Skyrim, and the problems with the PS3 DLCs, forced me to switch back to the PC Now, I tend to use the PS3 mostly for Netflix. However, my new Blu-ray player supports Netflix as well, so the PS3 is largely also going unused.
Today, I'm back to PC gaming and loving it. I had forgotten just how great the graphics are, how fast the games load, and how much user generated content is available. I've since purchased the XBox connector and enjoy playing games on my HD TV using my XBox controller.
Personally, I'm not interested in the new consoles....
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."