Console Wars

[CorgiShinobi]

Because for all the faults of other Nintendo franchises, Smash Bros is still highly regarded, even for the gamers that didn't think Brawl lived up to the standards of Melee. Whenever there's a conversation about the Wii U, you're bound to see talk about how someone will wait until Smash Bros. We've seen it for other Nintendo games, but personally I see it far more often for Smash Bros, even before the game officially existed.

 

Mom and Pop won't jump on the bandwagon, but for all the dedicated gamers that still fondly think of Smash Bros, it'll be motivation to buckle down and get a Wii U. However, while I ragged on the 3DS version, if that version can hold its own, perhaps we'll see people remain with only their 3DS. I wouldn't be surprised to see a dozen or two make that decision, but I'm doubtful it would be widespread.

[Mr. GOH!]

I think the majority of the Nintendo hardcore fan market has been tapped already. There may be anecdotal evidence of a handful of folks waiting for Smash Bros, but it won't shift too many consoles. Maybe we'll see a temporary sales increase, but I doubt it will be a game changer.

[Chronixal]

I think the unspoken truth is lots, if not most, gamers would like to keep playing Nintendo games. They just don't want to play them on Nintendo hardware.

[deanb]

Folks don't talk about "the gamecube did shit" in relation to the PS2 (well, at least just the PS2) but with Nintendo as a whole;

 

The Wii was an anomaly, the Wii U is par for the course on their slow and steady descent into obscurity over the years by trying to thrive off the same IP for many many generations. The nostalgia effect only works so much, and asking for £200+ and the price of a game to relieve that nostalgia is just asking too much.

[deanb]

So I got bored a bit and decided to make some extra charts:

 

Here's a stacked chart of the consoles performances over the generations

Note for Ethan: the 7th gen figures does not include the Wii U

 

Which I guess goes to show that last gens performance for the Wii was part anomaly, and part Sony fuck-up, leading to a large loss of the PS2 market audience to Nintendo.

 

Then Chart number 2, much the same as the above, this time overlaying Nintendos performance over the total consoles sold;

 

Gets rid of the clutter. And as you can see the total market share Nintendo holds has generally slipped.

 

Pretty much the only reason Nintendo will be able to stay in the game (heck, has managed to stay in the game despite constant decline in sales) is...can someone else do the handheld chart?

[TheMightyEthan]

Note for Ethan: the 7th gen figures does not include the Wii U

It's all about context. I totally agree that when comparing sales/market share Wii goes with Gen 7 and Wii U goes with Gen 8, because that's the time frame of those consoles.  However, in the context of 3rd-party, multiplatform games the Wii U is still really a Gen 7 console due to its hardware limitations.

[CorgiShinobi]

What Ethan said. Time frame, it's still an 8th Gen console, but based on platform it might as well still be in 7th Gen. Of course, we're still in a transitional period where some 7th Gen games are getting ported over into the next generation, and some Wii U versions slightly look/function better than the 360/PS3 version. Highly depends on the ones responsible, and I wouldn't doubt that some PS4/Xbone ports are essentially the Wii U version, sans GamePad functionality.

 

As far as the GameCube's 22 million, I see it more as the success of Xbox's 24 million. In its small time frame, it gained that kind of penetration for the first console of an established company. Others had tried, but were terrible and pushed out by Sega, Nintendo, and eventually Sony too. Sega began to falter, so while technically present, it felt like the 5th and 6th Generation were predominately Sony and Nintendo. Enter Xbox, and it became a strong contender. Didn't hurt that it was prominently featured in a lot of media, and its online functionality was a highly marketable feature.

 

If it weren't for a strong third force, I'd say the GameCube would have been closer to the Nintendo 64 figure. I'd hate to think what consoles would be like though without Xbox's presence because I wonder if the 7th generation would have had any kind of online service out of the box. The PlayStation 2 and GameCube had online, but it was entirely third party and the consoles required adapters for Internet connectivity.

[Mr. GOH!]

More Wii U doom and gloom. Even though the Wii U experienced a 350% surge in sales in November (as compared to October), it's overall numbers are not that well. Wind Waker and Super Mario, combined with the traditional November sales surge, could only move 220k units worldwide, which does not bode well for the Wii U.

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/12/november-sales-data-shows-a-worrying-lack-of-momentum-for-the-wii-u/

 

Edit: Oh yeah, and, from the linked article, "[t]he Wii U's November sales look even worse when you realize that the system is poised to be one of the few systems that actually performs worse in its second holiday season than its first, which has historically been a very bad sign for a system's long-term success." 

 

Edit 2: And some even more fun news! Nintendo must sell 2 million Wii Us a month for December, January, February and March to reach its goal of selling 9 million Wii Us for fiscal year 2014.

 

 http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/12/13/nintendo-has-to-sell-11-million-wii-us-a-month-to-reach-its-goal

Edited December 16, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

I've decided I don't really care.  As long as Wii U is comparable to GameCube I'll be okay, cause there were some awesome GameCube games.  All Nintendo-published, of course.  I don't really care if Nintendo keeps making hardware in the long run, so as long as I get 3 or so more really good Nintendo games on my Wii U I'll be happy with it.

[Mister Jack]

I'm willing to buy a Wii U eventually, I just want Nintendo to hurry up and realize that selling the shit for 300 dollars is not working.  Lower it to 200 or make it 250 and throw in Smash Bros or Mario 3D World and I'll bite.

[Mr. GOH!]

Well, you're 2/3 of the way there with Donkey Kong: Frozen Retread and Mario Kart 47!

 

Edit: Forgot about Smash Bros.! You're golden, TME! The Wii U will have been an unequivocal success for you and a handful of superfans.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm actually not interested in either of those.  I'm hoping Super Smash will be good this time, and for a real new 3D Mario (SM3DW was awesome, but it still played more like oldschool Mario than the 3D era ones) and a new Zelda.

[Mr. GOH!]

I think they'll be able to release another Zelda before the Wii U stalls out. Another real Zelda may be part of their strategy to keep the Wii U afloat. 

[NeoStarr]

Don't forget Monster Hunter. You won't pour as many hours or deaths into any of the PS4 or XBox1 exclusives combined.

[Mr. GOH!]

Monster Hunter 3 was on 3DS. Why buy a Wii U if you can get exactly the same game on a cheaper handheld with a superior library? Monster Hunter 4 is 3DS only. Because it's not worth it to third parties to make games for the Wii U.

[Mr. GOH!]

An interesting analysis of possible lifetime Wii U sales based on historical first-year sales of consoels since 2000. This analysis suggests that the Wii U may only sell 13 million units in its lifetime. And that's the UPPER range.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattMatthews/20131219/207513/Firstyear_Wii_U_sales_suggest_grim_lifetime_sales.php

 

Note: I don't hate the WIi U or wish to see Nintendo fail any more than I wish to see any other company fail. I am just fascinated by Nintendo's blundering this generation.

[TCP]

I don't get this "I'll be happy with the WIi U if it's another Game Cube" sentiment from the Nintendo faithful. The Game Cube wasn't a runaway hit but it never bombed this hard. Nintendo would be VERY lucky if they got that kind of success.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

maybe if they weren't making a loss on the hardware it wouldn't be so bad but with a low install base and not many compelling games I can't see how they'll be making their money back, at least in the shortish term

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Doesn't Nintendo profit like $10 on every Wii U or some shit? I remember them not losing any money at least.

[staySICK]

yeah afaik they've never sold hardware at a loss...it's a bit nintendo fans pride on it seems like. don't know why,..

[TheMightyEthan]

When the Wii U first launched they were selling the Deluxe at a slight launch.  According to Reggie if you only bought the console they took a loss, but if you bought the console and 1 game then they made a net profit on the whole transaction.  So the loss was less than the profit from a single game.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

in other words, I was right

[Mr. GOH!]

Now that it's $50 bucks less, I imagine the loss has grown. I remember reading a report from this fall saying as much. The real question is when the Wii U division as a whole will be finished recouping development costs.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[TheFlyingGerbil]

If they continue to sell at a slow rate would that mean they would never really reduce production costs without a redesign? Do Nintendo even do redesigns on home consoles? Apart from the Wii redesign where they took out the GC backwards compatability and that weird black and red thing they released last year I can only think of them making different colours for their other consoles, though I suppose they could improve the internals without advertising it as a new version of the console. Do you think they're more likely to make a redesign if they sell well or poorly?

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm sure many of the parts, like RAM, flash memory, etc will come down in price regardless of whether they ever do a redesign or not.