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Nintendo Ending Wii U Production Later This Year, Says Report (polygon.com)
An anonymous reader cites a Polygon article: Nintendo will end production on its Wii U console sometime in 2016. The console, which has sold poorly compared to its wildly successful predecessor, debuted in 2012. According to Nikkei's report, Nintendo has already stopped manufacturing certain Wii U accessories. The outlet, which has a good record of reporting on Nintendo's unannounced plans, reports that while Wii U hardware is being discontinued, a launch of the company's next platform -- codenamed NX -- is not guaranteed this year. Nintendo plans to unveil its next-generation console sometime in 2016. The company launched its first mobile app, Miitomo, last week.
Why don't they develop apps on mobile devices taking advantage of the gyroscopes in those devices. They can add accesories, like secure cases with wrist straps, and over-the-air connection software to tv's.
Title says it all; seriously, partner with Apple. They can amp up the next AppleTV and make a killer platform for Nintendo signature franchises (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc). Nintendo doesn't have the marketshare that Apple has with iOS development, and another console isn't going to compete against an all-in-one home entertainment device such as the AppleTV. As an old-school NES / SNES gamer, watching Nintendo drag this on in obstinance is agonizing! SEGA did the right thing folding their hardware development, but they faltered really badly on the title delivery side of things thereafter. But such a Apple/Nintendo partnership would be HUGE for both of them.
Life is not for the lazy.
Anyone know what it is they are not producing anymore?
The first Wii was different and innovative enough that it brought non-gamers in. But they lost focus with their core audience, some of whom don't even buy the console until there's enough games to justify the high cost.
I'm a platform gamer, primarily, and don't have time to try out new or innovative games. Starting with N64, they went to one Mario game of each "type" at most per platform. And with 3DS and Wii U they did a total of two types. With Wii, there was Super Mario Galaxy which even got a sequel. I own a total of 3 games for the Wii U and don't feel like there's anything else there for me.
They need to admit that Homebrew made them popular (unfortunately in small part to piracy). And I copied all of my Wii games to a hard drive for convenience - that still works on the vWii side of the Wii U, but the U side hasn't been opened up at all.
Bought one of these for my son and the controller lcd cracked... what a poorly thought out product (both by maker and buyer!) Anyone that has owned consoles know that controllers all die at some point. So lets make a console for children with a controller that costs 180 bucks to replace....
love is just extroverted narcissism
We're post-Moore's law; consoles should be released less frequently, not more frequently. The Wii was massively under-powered compared to its competitors when it came out, but that wasn't supposed to be a problem, because it was powerful enough for designers to make high quality games, right? Then why buy a Wii-U? Other than a new controller gimmick, the only thing it has on the Wii is more power; which we already said we didn't need (and it's still much less powerful than it's competitors!).
So now we're to the Nintendo NX; which is most likely more powerful, but still not in line with its competitors, and has yet another new controller gimmick (judging by the patent applications we've seen.) Just like the Wii-U.
I'll pass. I'm not sure what the best choice would be for casual non-portable gaming, but it seems like it might be a PC now: Dirt cheap games, and no one is going to abandon your entire platform in 3 years.
not necessarily sticking up for the console or denying Nintendo's mistakes, but there are some really fun games on that platform. My kids and I have spent countless hours enjoying the hell out of Super Mario Maker, Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros.
yeah, i know, that's a whole lotta mario, and probably a clue to its failure. but they are great games, what can i say.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Said everyone.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Every other Nintendo console is worth buying. the Wii U fell on it's face because they aimed for the poor people crowd, but missed that the poor now have 60 inch 1080p tv sets.
The NEW Wii Wii U needs to support 4K out of the box, and ditch the stupidity of the $200 controller with a very low res screen in it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In wii
...Oh well, I hope Netflix will keep supporting it, because (and I have ALL the other consoles + pc) it is the BEST, smoothest Netflix experience you'll ever have.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I still enjoy playing mine. I just hope that they continue to support online play for a good, long time, because Mario Maker and Splatoon will be pretty worthless without it.
I mean, I get why they'd discontinue a marginal platform like this, but Nintendo lives and dies by brand loyalty, and it would make me feel WAY less loyal to have several of my favorite games suddenly become mostly unplayable.
To Hit Armor Class 0?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I was too burned by the Wii to even consider the Wii-U.
I have a GameCube. It's a great system and I liked the decent library games that I had. But it grew old getting excited about an upcoming release only for it to end up exclusive to PS2 and XBox. It was the N64 all over again except without the "dur hur cartridges r...loading...loading...loading....bad lol because loading....loading....loading...reasons."
But, there I was, sitting in line on launch day for the Wii. And again I was locked out of many titles. Not because of a shortage this time, no, but because all 3rd parties wanted to do was shovelware. I had over 25 games on the "barren" GameCube and didn't even break 10 on the Wii. The saving grace was the Virtual Console but even that slowed to a trickle by the 3rd year. I think the last game I bought was Mega Man 9...and I was long gone by the time 10 hit.
So enter the Wii-U with a $300 price tag and all I saw was more of the same. If I get one, it'll be for Mario Creator. Just like I bought a Dreamcast on clearance for Crazy Taxi.
"Save versus rods, staves, wands!"
I'm a day, 42 with daughters 13 and 11. I'm one of those casual gamers that everyone despises. My days of tripped out PCs are long behind me and I get a little COD action from time to time. I had an XBOX 360 until it died and then a couple PS3s and a Wii. My girls loved all the games on the Wii along with Mindcraft and Little Big Planet on the PS3. After years of not buying a Wii U because I heard it sucked, I went ahead and picked one up for Christmas. At the same time I retired an older Westinghouse 47" LCD and replaced it with a newer Sharp 60" LCD. I was pleasantly surprised and we've had countless nights of playing Splatoon and Mario Kart 8. I keep an eye out at the used game store and picked up a few more titles. I can see there is little content but for what little price we paid I feel like this was a good, fun purchase. I can't say I've seen much reason to go to a PS4 or Xbox 1 so I guess we'll keep this around for a few more years until something really advance. (4K would be a requirement) comes along.
Nintendo got really lucky with the Wii, they were headed on the way down for a long time before that.
NES - 62 million
SNES - 49 million
N64 - 33 million
GC - 22 million
That is nothing but down...
Wii - 102 million
Yea, that is nice, and they got really, really lucky. All the stars aligned with that one, but the attach rate still sucked. A whole lot of units were sold that played Wii Sports and Mario Kart and little else.
Wii U - 13 million so far...
It has been out for 3.5 years, at this pace it will end up with a lower total sales volume than Game Cube.
The installed base isn't enough to justify spending millions of dollars developing titles for it, other than perhaps a few key 1st party Nintendo titles... Launch support was better than average from EA, Activation, etc. but dropped off REALLY fast when it didn't sell well in the first 3-6 months. The hardware was simply too slow to cross platform games between XB1, PS4, and WiiU. So lots of custom work was required, and titles didn't sell enough.
---
Consider Wii U launched Nov 2012, PS4 launched a year later Nov 2013. PS4 has sold nearly triple the units of Wii U, about 36 million, while costing more the entire time.
---
There simply isn't room for 3 consoles. There never really was. Look back in time at:
Atari 7800 - competing with NES and Sega Master System
TurboGrafx 16 - Competing with SNES and Genesis
Sega Saturn - Competing with N64 and PlayStation
Dreamcast - Competing with XBox and PlayStation 2
The above isn't all the consoles released during each generation, just a sample. Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Neo Geo were all nice, but never had a chance.
XBox and PlayStation have it all wrapped up in the console department, at least when it comes to Nintendo. Even they are facing a lot of threats from iPads, Phones, and other things.
So the Wii-U more or less failed. Not quite as horribly as it seemed that it might at some points. As of right now, it's sold 12.5 million units, which is a few million ahead of the Dreamcast and Saturn, but almost 10 million behind the Gamecube. The PS4 and Xbox One both blew it out of the water. I don't think there's any one reason for this, but there are a lot of factors that all contributed:
1) The name. This was a really bad choice, as it didn't clearly differentiate the console as a sequel to the Wii, rather than an add-on for it. This caused confusion in the market, particularly in the casual/family market that supported the Wii. What's bizarre is that Nintendo had already been stung by this once, with the 3DS.
2) The timing. This was about as badly wrong as could have been imagined. The Wii had been dead in the water since 2010 or so. A successor late-2010 with the Wii-U's capabilities, when the successors to the PS3 and 360 were still years away, might have had a chance. But to launch with dated hardware (more on this later) at a time when Sony and MS were already spinning up their hype-machines for much more powerful consoles was suicidal.
3) Terrible launch marketing. The Wii-U launched in the run up to Christmas, which is an obvious enough choice, but had a near-invisible marketing campaign. It ended up getting buried by games such as Call of Duty in the pre-Christmas rush.
4) The wrong hardware. We know now from reports from ex-Nintendo staff that the company's key priority for the console was low power usage and noise and a small form factor; to make the thing an unobtrusive part of the living room. That's not a bad goal in itself, but it shouldn't have been taken to the extremes it was. A horribly underpowered CPU meant that in some respects, the Wii-U was outgunned by the (already elderly) PS3 and 360. Porting to the platform was also complicated.
5) A poorly designed gamepad with no clear USP. I've owned a Wii-U since launch and I still don't really understand the point of the gamepad. Very few games have made good use of it. It's unergonomic (just google "Wii U gamepad hand pain"), imprecise, cheap-feeling and, most bizarrely of all, virtually irreplaceable without buying a new console. The Wii sold tens of millions of copies on the quick-draw appeal of the Wii-mote, even if the potential of motion controls proved horribly limited in the longer run. The Wii-U, by contrast.
6) Terrible third-party relationships. This has long been a problem for Nintendo. They have a reputation in the industry as being arrogant and high-handed towards third-party developers. They promised this would improve with the Wii-U. It didn't. In fact, they royally pissed off a lot of the big names by failing to support their own launch so badly. Some publishers, particularly Ubisoft, invested heavily in the Wii-U launch, only to have their titles crash and burn because Nintendo didn't seem willing to put the effort into growing the installed base.
7) Underwhelming first-party games. This is the controversial one. The Wii-U does have some good exclusives, developed on a first or second party basis, but by and large, it has an insipid lineup. New Super Mario Brothers U and 3D Mario World were second-rate titles at best. Popular Gamecube and Wii series like Metroid went AWOL. Nintendo has a reputation for being an innovative games developer, but this reputation is largely misplaced. Its Wii-U library was generally composed of inferior retreads of familiar ground. There were one or two more innovative late-cycle games, like the first-party Splatoon and the second-party Xenoblade Chronicles X, but those were too little, too late.
The question is whether Nintendo can really fix all of the above problems with the NX, particularly given that they are, once again, going with a tricky mid-cycle launch (and that third parties have essentially given up on them).
The Wii did very well in the console arena, and both Sony and MS scrambled to copy the motion controls. They just didn't amp the Wii U up enough to continue competing this generation.
I don't think that the motion control was the main selling point (though it did help a bit reach the target market, by distancing itself from hardcore platform, and by lowering the entry barrier using more intuitive gestures instead of complex controllers with more buttons than pimples on their nerdy users' faces).
I think that the main success of the Wii was due to targeting a completely different market, one which wasn't targeted yet (by console manufacturer, at least. That market is Apple's and Android's bread and butter):
the casual players.
Whereas XBox360 and PS3 targetted hardcore players (and people needing HD-DVD and Bluray players), the Wii was targetting people who weren't into games yet, and might be not attracted by the newest iteration of {insert_favorite_platformer}, but who would like casual and party games like Wii Sport and all the new franchises started around the Wii.
That was the main success of the Wii (suddenly all the pops and moms buying consoles), but also its main culprit:
- those casual player aren't that much interested into buying a new console every 24 months just because the new one has more CPU. They're just happy keeping the previous Wii around, and dusting it off and pop-in some party games whenever they have visitors around.
- the motion controls look (and are actually) simpler than a complex multi-game pad gamepad. The Wii-U's pad with its screen looks *much more complex*. That has probably put off a lot of casual gamer who don't very well understand what it is about.
(Nintendo should probably spent more communication effort in helping understand what this new invention brings as features).
In short:
- it's wasn't that difficult for Nintendo to find a way to sell new type of games to people who aren't used to buy them before (Wii success)
- it's much more difficult to get the same people who aren't used to buy a new console regularly and them buy an upgraded device (Wii-U flop)
Hand held arena is still nintendo for the discrete gameplay device. Smartphones may be ubiquitous but you still see people putting a lot of playtime into their 3DS.
There *are* still people putting a lot of time on 3DS. Mainly hardcore players, because nothing beats console's controller interface to play platformers and the like.
BUT
There are even way more people playing on their smartphones.
If you're a hardcore player and want to play {insert_favorite_platformer} while on the go, a 3DS/New 3DS is the platform to go.
But if you're just bored on public transportation and want to kill time, you just get out your smartphone and play a few rounds of whatever latest casual game has come out of PopCap/Zynga/and the likes. Your 5-minute time killer simply doesn't look wort shelling out the money for a portable console, when you already have the perfect platform in you pocket. (Although actually, some we'll end-up shelling out even more money in freemium payment than that).
Nintendo did try some non-hardcore games (all the various brain trainer seem like a direct mirror of Wii Sport) but with much limited success.
In home console, the casual/non-hardcore market was almost completely untapped, so Nintendo had a great success attracting them to the Wii.
While on the go, the casual/non-hardcore market was already been caterred to by the various app stores on smartphones.
The 3DS and New 3DS have completely dominated over the other portable console (like portable playstations). But that is completely dwarfed when compared to smartphone casual game usage.
I've seen people demand nintendo drop out of the hardware business ever since the sega genesis, and it's always a fanboy of the competition who hates "kiddy nintendo" but drools over the games they have.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
i guess from the n64 up thats a pretty much truth. PS was more than n64, xbox and ps2 more than gamecube and so on and so on.
Yup.
That's because they know that at the end, it's the library of games that is the most critical for attracting players to a platform.
Back in the 8bit and 16bit era, doing absolutely anything did require expensive hardware. So the NES and SNES were as expensive as anything else around.
(Except maybe the NeoGeo that was insanely more expensive than anything else, being basically a full-blown arcade platform packaged into a home console plastic shell, running arcade board packaged into cartridge shells. Not a scaled down version making some cost-performance compromise like System16 -> MegaDrive. But even that monster still had a [though smaller scale] cult following, thanks to its good game library due to its arcade nature)
But starting from the N64 generation, any machine was able to do a lot. You didn't need the latest bells and whistles, as long as you had a very good library of games. Which N64, GameCube and Wii managed to have despite being less powerful than their contemporary competitors.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Even with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight what you're actually saying is that Nintendo should have followed some other path and given up a metric fuckton of profits that they made?
Depends on what you're considering:
- yes, by attracting the as-of-yet-untapped market of casual gamer who never played consoles before to the Wii, they made indeed a fuckton of profit.
- yes, if you compare to other handheld consoles, the 3DS has won the portable console market...
BUT
That simply pales in comparison to the insane volume of unit sold and freemium cash earned by casual games in the various smartphone app stores.
Nintendo is very good at making catchy games. If it had already stepped into the app game market it could have made an absolute killing there.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
calling it the wiiu was a terrible idea, everyone still thinks it's an improved controller for the wii
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
steam machines are aiming squarely at the pc-gaming market. they are still too complex for the majority of console-buyers. if i like playstation-games, i'll buy a ps4 and that's it until the ps5 arrives. no need to think about new models and changing hardware specs every other year, they are only produced by one company, accessoires will work with every ps4 (e.g. playstation vr, but no occulus for minimum spec steam machines), i can buy a new controller practically everywhere, get online help that's valid for my hardware in every forum,... it's just less of a fuss to get a console. and that's exactly one of the main selling points of them.
plus, microsoft, sony and nintendo have huge marketing-efforts to reach their target audience - most console players won't even know what a steam machine is - and won't see them on large billboards, on tv-ads, in movies or on banners at their favourite sports event - but every steam-machine gamer knows what a playstation one is.
Wii - 102 million
Yea, that is nice, and they got really, really lucky.
It wasn't that much luck. It was a calculated move.
Instead of being yet another console maker, trying to market a console (with lower spec than the competitors) to hardcore gamers,
they have decided to attack a completely different market: casual player who hadn't played gaming console until then.
All the stars aligned with that one, but the attach rate still sucked. A whole lot of units were sold that played Wii Sports and Mario Kart and little else.
Yup. And that comes to the plan above.
If you restricted only the number of units who were bought by gamers that got a lot of games, you would probably find a number between the GameCube and Wii-U, showing the same decline of player as anything else.
The whole strategy of the Wii was based around reaching all these people who would by buying Wii Sport and Mario Kart, and would not be buying Zelda/Devil May Cry/Halo.
That's indeed where these numbers come from: units sold not to typical gamer, but units sold to people who usually don't play games but who would love to have a fun thing to do when having friends over.
That's Nintendo distancing it self from the other player and trying something new. It did work back at the time of the first console crash (Hey we're not like them, we are selling toys !). It did work with the Wii, too (Hey don't like playing classical console games? We've got you covered too with casual games!)
Wii U - 13 million so far...
It has been out for almost 4 years, at this pace it will end up with a lower total sales volume than Game Cube.
And that was the risk with Nintendo's strategy. The Wii was a one-trick poney.
Tapping the casual player market was a double edged sword.
Yes, they did attract a lot of new buyers who weren't buying consoles before. The Wii did metaphorically print money for them.
But no, casual players aren't used to buy a new console every couple of year, just because the new one has a slightly faster CPU or a few other increased specs. They're still pretty happy with the unit they bought, and from time to time dusting it off and popping mario kart or wii sport in to have fun with guests.
Unless Wii-U has something that is really new and strongly compelling, none of them will replace their previous unit, and Nintendo is back at their dwindling market of hardcore gamers.
The Wii-U pad is new, but mostly confusing for non specialists, they won't understand what it is about.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
... and people are going to feel it. NX or not, Nintendo needs to look at the NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube, and determine what made them so wildly popular. (Hint: They're practically immortal.)
AC because I can't be arsed to retrieve my login information.
I can't think of more than a couple games that would have even justified purchasing it. If Nintendo can't attract serious 3rd party games, I can't see many people getting it as a primary console and most kids want to play with their friends. Sure, it's great for casual gaming but casual gamers don't buy lots of games - especially at $50.
Shit, I've been a long time Zelda fan and couldn't even finish Skyward. That's what pretty much sealed the deal for me. I've had far more fun on Steam sales.
Mod Up Please.
I know the Wii U has been out for several years. I know its sales numbers are poor compared to the original Wii. I know that the price has not come drown dramatically since launch.
However I also know more people who have purchased it in the past 8 months than in the first 2+ years it was out. I also know that I've been seriously considering purchasing one for myself some time after I figure out my taxes for 2015. I also know that my son really wants to play Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8, and Disney Infinity 2 and 3.
I also know that I have zero interest in ever purchasing a console from Microsoft or Sony. I don't want to play Halo 8 or any Sony exclusive title. Microsoft and Sony have too much of my money already, I will do everything I can to keep them from getting any more of it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Uhh, that's the whole point of the Steam Machine. They are easy to use and will just work with games.
Uhh, you have more peripherals available for a Steam Machine than you ever will for a PS4 or Xbone.
Uhh, Valve kind of owns gaming. Sony and Microsoft are small potatoes next to them. Most gamers already use Steam.
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But look at the games that have any success on mobile devices, all free to play and short level durations.
That's due in part to the limits of touch-only input. The only discrete physical controls on the device are system controls: sleep, quit, and volume. This leaves a flat sheet of glass, which works fine for point-and-click games such as those DS games that use only the stylus. It also works well for space shoot-em-ups, where the bottom of the screen acts as a trackpad to move the player's ship. But it isn't conducive to making quick and accurate move, jump, and fire controls for something like Mega Man. Hence platformers have to be simplified to endless runners with aforementioned "short level durations." There exist "Made for iPod" gamepads, but until the manufacturers of those gamepads release sales figures, developers are less likely to see economic sense in porting long-form Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Vita games to iOS.
I just come from reading in MSN how vintage Game Boy consoles go up to 1500 dollars and **on the hundreds**, while languishing for _my_ game boy console, burglarized in a second coming right out of my room, and wondering if I ll ever get back again the SAME Final Fantay cartridge... and I find here Nintendo is DOING IT AGAIN and just bailing out of the market on no reason! AS IF THESE MARKETS HAD EXISTED THOUSANDS OF YEARS. People like me like to have weird hardware, old consoles, different gadgets, special things. THERE IS AN IDEOLOGICAL ATTACK BEHIND. They are actually hurting the public! Why? BECAUSE IT IS TOO MUCH PUBLIC. Nintendo people are destabilized for having so much public and their solution is to... TURN OFF. It is no good to have to wait twenty years to get another Atari when you expect to either have one repaired or go to the store and get a new one IMMEDIATELY. CAN anyone see that MONEY MAKING BUSINESS IS NO LONGER A DRIVING FORCE???? They made all the money they wanted and more and employees can get re employed smashing potatoes and that s it, so who cares about people used to have a console now no longer working? YOU SHOULD BE CALLING THE POLICE OR THE MILITARY TO HANDLE THESE FORCED OBSOLESCENCES. I did not even have time to buy a TV console YET, I am STILL enjoying the portable ones and for each three I buy ONE GETS STOLES AND THE OTHER ONE STOPS WORKING. BUt they are discontinuing production, eh? On purely commercial grounds, OF COURSE.