Console Wars

[Mister Jack]

According to Kotaku (yeah I know) the ps4 wipes the floor with the Xbone when it comes to install times. Assassin's Creed took over 7 minutes to install on the Xbone and just 42 seconds on the PS4.

[Mal]

So, the console war front over here in PXODistan seems pretty overwhelmingly a rout on X1's part. Hell, I don't recall reading of anyone here having a X1... or at least my perceptions are clouded by the Fellowship of the PS4.

[deanb]

http://forum.pressxordie.com/topic/487-what-gaming-systems-do-you-own/

 

Well according to this it's 4 PS4's to 0 Xbox Ones. Should be at least one Xbox One I think, to fit.

[Mister Jack]

Hey the Xbone had its chance to woo me and they fucked it up.

[Mr. GOH!]

Just some downer articles about the Wii U, the loser of the console war. Apparently the PS4 has already outsold the Wii U in the UK. And Super Mario 3D world's sales are disappointing in Japan. 

 

http://bgr.com/2013/11/29/super-mario-3d-world-sales/

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/440925/uk-ps4-sales-surpass-wii-us-lifetime-total/

[TheMightyEthan]

Now I'm sad.

[Mister Jack]

Sooner or later they have to drop the price.  It's the only way it has any chance to survive.

[Mr. GOH!]

It's okay, Ethan; the Wii U isn't really any good anyway. Besides, Nintendo has the 3DS. You can play your endless Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart rehashes on it, as well as a number of other seemingly okay games!

 

Edit: I will be amused when the Wii U costs less than the 3DS. I don't think that would save the Wii U, but rather be its death knell.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

I don't *want* to play on 3DS though.

 

Anyway, I enjoy the Marios and Zeldas.  You may not think they're any good, but I find them fun and that's all I care about.  I can't say I'd be upset about Nintendo becoming a purely software company though.  Stupid 3DS being popular...

[Mr. GOH!]

I have no idea if they're any good, just that they're apparently endless. Not casting aspersions on people who enjoy Nintendo's ceaseless sequels, just that as long as the 3DS is around, Nintendo will keep making them.

 

Now, I will cast aspersions without hesitation on Nintendo for its belief that its "Sequels and Remakes Without End" strategy is enough to support the flagging Wii U.

 

Edit: I do wonder, though, where, exactly, the Wii's massive casual audience has gone. I'm guessing they're playing on smartphones and tablets. I also am increasingly convinces that any core Nintendo game's success on the Wii U may have largely been a knock-on effect from the Wii's popularity and resulting huge install base rather than a driver of that popularity. That is, as at Nintendo's beginning, Mario is a game you get with the Nintendo console but not a game for which you buy a Nintendo console.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm guessing they're wondering why they're supposed to buy another Wii for $300 when the one they have works fine, and hardly gets played with anyway.

[Mr. GOH!]

Ouch. But you're probably correct, more or less. 

[Mister Jack]

http://www.videogamer.com/news/ps4_sells_over_250_000_in_uk_66_more_than_xbox_one.html

 

 

Bear in mind that the PS4 is apparently super hard to find in the UK right now, otherwise this number would probably be higher.  

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, at this point the only real measure of demand we have are preorders, which PS4 was beating Xbone about 4- or 5-to-1 on.  As far as actual sales go, demand for both is high enough right now that they're selling out as fast as they can get on shelves (at least in the US), so sales numbers are really just a measure of manufacturing capacity and not actual demand.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

the real shock there was the previous sales record was for the PSP. Blimey, I'd never have guessed that one.

[Mr. GOH!]

Another article detailing the Wii U's ongoing struggles: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/nintendo-seen-missing-target-as-sony-microsoft-sales-dwarf-wii-u.html

[Mister Jack]

[deanb]

I wonder if they still do Seppuku these days. Could make for a very weird E3.

[Mr. GOH!]

Or an even weirder Nintendo Direct.

[CorgiShinobi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsbeQeiwW9o

 

Saw this tonight on television and it caught my attention when it went into the "We have a Wii" dilemma. Not fond of the "upgrade" term, because a good portion of consumers don't go crazy over "upgrading" their entertainment. On the other hand, you only have so much time and can't go into "it's a new generation of Nintendo hardware with new features" when you could use one word.

[Mr. GOH!]

I'm sure the thinking is that consumers are used to upgrading a lot of their tech, especially smartphones, so using the that term should clarify what the Wii U is. I doubt this strategy will be very effective, though. 

 

Counting SMBU and SLBU as two full games is pretty lame. 

[Vecha]

If the Wii U turns into another gamecube, it won't be the end of the world. I'll probably pick one up as soon as Xenoblade 2(or whatever they call it) shows up.

 

[deanb]

Likely going to find Nintendo getting more and more pressure from investors to push their games out on other platforms (smartphones especially). And being a Gamecube is only not the end of the world if their 9th gen console is another Wii.

[Vecha]

Didn't they do well with the gamecube though? Still made a profit? Or am I mistaken?

Are they doing well money-wise with the Wii U? Or are they losing?


Not sure how I feel about the smartphone thing...

Was the investor thing always such a big deal in the 90s/00s as far as company decisions go?

[deanb]

They sold a grand total of 21million Gamecubes, below the new comer Xbox (24m) and well below the 100million+ of the PS2 (ended at around 140m, but chunk of those quite a bit after Gamecubes time). They did pretty badly, and as we've discussed in the past it was just continuing the trend of sliding further and further in sales with each new generation. Wii is pretty much an anomaly for them, and their continued strengths have lied in the handheld space (though up until smartphones there wasn't really much of a competition their).

 

As many articles have noted recently the Wii U in it's nearly year on the shelf was outsold by Xbox One and PS4 within a few days. They're doing abysmally at the moment and really need to turn the ship around. Still under a month 'til christmas, but at the moment it's looking like Nintendo is going to fail to hit sales and revenue targets.\

 

Nintendo have a massive back catalog of games. They're popular, and the only thing that's holding back from reflogging games of decades past is that they're tied to underperforming hardware. Plenty of developers have shown that these games run quite fine on phones (heck even Dolphin is getting ported to Android now and that's for GC/Wii titles) so all that's stopping Nintendo making money on it is Nintendo.