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Sony Overtakes Rival Nintendo In Console Sales
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in eight years, Sony has overtaken Nintendo on the total number of game consoles sold. Sony sold 18.7 million consoles in the last financial year, compared to Nintendo sales of 16.3 million. Sony's PlayStation 4 has emerged as the bestselling 'new-gen' console. But demand for Nintendo's Wii U — with its touchscreen controller — has lagged far behind the original Wii, which was the most popular hardware of the last generation."
It's worth noting that Nintendo's highest selling console is still the 3DS, with more units sold in 2013 than Wiis and Wii Us combined.
But both are gimmick based. The Wii's gimmick was the motion controller. That interested a lot of people, they thought it looked really neat and wanted to try it. Of course you discovered that it wasn't quite as cool as it first seemed, and many games really didn't play that well with it, but it drove console sales pretty well. People liked the gimmick and wanted in, so that sold a lot of consoles at least initially.
However gimmicks are fickle things, and there's no guarantee of what people will be interested in. The Wii U's gimmick is a tablet. That just isn't working out. People aren't that interested. Makes sense, since most people who wish to have a tablet already have one in another form and a game console with a tablet isn't all that interesting.
It also made the price less attractive. That tablet isn't trivial cost wise, so Nintendo couldn't be quite as low priced. That was something else that helped the Wii. It was low cost enough compared to the other two to be interesting to people who didn't want to spend as much, as well as people to get it as an "and a" console in addition to whatever other one they liked. The Wii U wasn't quite as price competitive and so didn't see as much of that.
Basically Nintendo got lucky with the Wii. It was the right gimmick at the right time to catch on and sell a ton. This time around, they missed big time.
Yes, a real failure - 16.3 million, vs. 18.7 million. Definitely a complete flop. Write them off now.
Like you, I think that the Wii U is easily the best of the current generation. Easily. Why? When I get home, my wife and three daughters will be playing Mario Kart, Wii U Party, Nintendo Land, or Just Dance on any other day. Only one of those can be played on another console. On any given day, my youngest daughter will win some of these games (without anyone letting her). There is no first-person shooter, real sports game, or real racing game, that any of them are interested in. And if one of my daughters is playing Wind Waker, and my wife wants to watch TV, then my daughter just switches to the pad, and puts on the headphones. And we bought it because we KNOW there is going to be a Pikmin, a Smash Bros, a Mario, a Mario Kart, a Wario Ware, and hopefully a Zelda and Metroid in the pipeline. And in HD, they will look sensational (as Pikmin, Wind Waker, MK8, 3D World already do).
Every now and then, I would prefer to play some mega-shootin', zombie-killin', big boss fightin' titles. However I'm the only one in the house that would enjoy them. But if I wanted, I can go pick up COD, or Batman. Even Watch Dogs and Bayonetta are on the way. That's options for me too - if I don't feel like playing MK8 or Pikmin (which is rare). That's a bonus.
There are millions of households like this. The other console makers haven't QUITE caught on yet. Bless 'em, I'm sure they will one day! :)
The other consoles are great. Second Son on the PS4, Titanfall on the 'Bone, looking and playing brilliantly. The Wii U is better, in my opinion, and also cheaper.