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Well... if people don't want the controller and it plays at best a minor part in some games, why not make it optional? You dismissed all of the examples of games where the pad is not used extensively but those were compelling to me. Some games require the pad - so what? Just say so on the box. Nobody is buying them anyways so what is there to lose?
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Dec 5, 2013 17:14
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ImpAtom posted:So at this point the argument has flat-out changed from "The Wii U doesn't have games" to "I don't care if it doesn't have games and the games it does have are crippled or reference features I can't use as long as it is $100 cheaper." So... why not put the suggestion that Nintendo eats the loss, keeps the gamepad, and drops the price down anyway? Because eating that big of a loss is suicidal. Nintendo was losing enough money that they needed >1 game sales to recoup when they were selling Deluxe systems at $350. They already cut the price $50, and I doubt that the price cut stems from reduced manufacturing costs, so that price cut probably represents them eating an even bigger loss, and now you want them to eat an additional $100 per unit in losses. At that level, you're probably beginning to approach where the loss per console and the retail price aren't very far away.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:18
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Mozi posted:Well... if people don't want the controller and it plays at best a minor part in some games, why not make it optional? You dismissed all of the examples of games where the pad is not used extensively but those were compelling to me. Some games require the pad - so what? Just say so on the box. Nobody is buying them anyways so what is there to lose? What there is to lose is further increasing the frustration and confusion around the Wii U while removing features from existing games and rendering some entirely unplayable. Considering one of the Wii U's biggest marketing problems so far is brand confusion it would only be worse if they did. thefncrow posted:Because eating that big of a loss is suicidal. Nintendo was losing enough money that they needed >1 game sales to recoup when they were selling Deluxe systems at $350. They already cut the price $50, and I doubt that the price cut stems from reduced manufacturing costs, so that price cut probably represents them eating an even bigger loss, and now you want them to eat an additional $100 per unit in losses. I don't disagree, which is why this isn't an easy problem to solve. Even as far as "best of bad decisions go" however, dropping the Wii U's gamepad doesn't make sense unless it doesn't have a serious negative impact on the available games. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:19
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thefncrow posted:Because eating that big of a loss is suicidal. Nintendo was losing enough money that they needed >1 game sales to recoup when they were selling Deluxe systems at $350. They already cut the price $50, and I doubt that the price cut stems from reduced manufacturing costs, so that price cut probably represents them eating an even bigger loss, and now you want them to eat an additional $100 per unit in losses. Not doing it is suicidal. Even if it only requires one game purchase at the current price for Nintendo to make one unit profitable, they still need to sell much, much more if they want to stay in business.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:21
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There's a feedback loop here. It won't get third parties without more console sales, it won't get more console sales at the current price without third party games. It might get more sales at a lower price, and that would also recalibrate how many games it would need to be "worth it" while waiting for third parties. Nintendo could just eat the loss but that seems like a terrible business decision since it would be so easy for them to just ship WiiUs without it, and they could get away with it and save themselves loads of money. You are overblowing the necessity of the tablet, Wonderful 101 isn't exactly driving sales, good game or not. Yeah you could just start printing "gamepad required" before you start shipping the padless sku, the in-store copies aren't a big deal if they are slowly phased out. Nintendo could even let stores trade them in! That seems like a much more reasonable loss to take than giving away a free pad with every WiiU purchase. I'm not sure why "the games already in people's homes" were mentioned, there are also pads in those homes. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:24
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And again, I'm not seeing how increasing the level of brand confusion and reducing the number of available games while removing features from existing games is going to suddenly massively boost Nintendo's sales and bring back the third party developers. It would unarguably see an increase in sales at $200 but would it see a significant enough increase in sales that EA or Activision would devote resources to the Wii U when they're now phasing into One/PS4 development?Jeffrey posted:You are overblowing the necessity of the tablet, Wonderful 101 isn't exactly driving sales, good game or not. No, I think you're underestimating it. Even if it isn't literally necessary to play, a lot of games are designed with it in mind and are poorer without it. Games like Pikmin and Mario would be missing features entirely. If we're talking about people who post on message boards then, yeah, it wouldn't be a big deal but Nintendo's biggest problem is with people who only know what they know from in-store stuff. All it takes is Wal-Mart leaving G&W without the sticker or whatever and suddenly you've got angry customers who shelled out $200 for a Wii U that can't play a game clearly marked as a Wii U game or who can't figure out how to get the Wii U to do the stuff the game says it can. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:27
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Jeffrey posted:It won't get third parties without more console sales. It's not going to get third parties regardless considering it's a generation behind in hardware, and even when it gets PS3/360 ports they're gimped versions.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:32
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ImpAtom posted:So at this point the argument has flat-out changed from "The Wii U doesn't have games" to "I don't care if it doesn't have games and the games it does have are crippled or reference features I can't use as long as it is $100 cheaper." So... why not put the suggestion that Nintendo eats the loss, keeps the gamepad, and drops the price down anyway? I actually own the WiiU (bought it on launch day) and I'm sincere in my belief the gamepad doesn't add much and if Nintendo wanted to radically change things up, which they pretty much need to do to save the console, jettisoning the gamepad is the easiest thing they have in front of them. The gamepad costs, if I remember correctly, around $100-$150 to make and if they cut the price down to $150 without getting rid of the gamepad the losses would be terrible. They have said they need to sell more than one game to make a profit, and that was before the price cut we just saw. If they do another price cut, it won't matter if they sell their entire drat catalog to someone since they'll be starting out so deep in the red. The system isn't selling, the games aren't selling. The Wal-Mart scenario is, I think, a major edge case. The gamepad-specific games are not selling along with all the gamepad-agnostic games. If they are really concerned, they can buy-back the old games, and re-issue with a new box that says gamepad required. Losing the gamepad isn't a good thing but Nintendo is going to have to make an unpleasant choice of some sort. Either they ditch the WiiU, continue selling the WiiU as-is and bleed money, or do some sort of price cut/SKU revision. None of those are good, it's just about picking the least bad one. I assume Nintendo wants to stay in the console market so option 1 is out. Option 2 hurts their bottom line and leaves them utterly hosed if the 3DS has any bumps. This leaves option 3. The question then becomes: how do you change the SKU to make it more appealing? I think the best choice there is to make it cheaper, and the easiest option is to ditch the gamepad, even though that's going to cause problems. These problems are not as serious as "giving up on consoles" or "bleeding money for 4 years." They also could start working on a new console, but that's a long-term solution and I'm not sure the costs make sense. Even if they got one developed for Holiday 2015 that leaves 2 years of the WiiU they have to figure out. edit: Out of curiosity, what do you think Nintendo should do to fix the situation? axeil fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:32
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Probably not, Nintendo is probably just hosed. I just see the status quo as even worse. Maybe they could have done it effectively six months ago. I don't think "doing nothing differently" can be on the table for Nintendo though, and I suspect dropping the pad is an improvement.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:33
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Nintendo's thinking process seemed to be: - Wii was popular so our next console will continue the brand - Instead of motion control we will focus on touch control - Sell Gamepad on control feature and off TV play - Third parties have already been experimenting with second screen play - DS was successful, two screen console should work - Console will be stronger, people will appreciate HD Mario What happened: - Wii was not so much a brand but a name, caused market confusion - Touch controls not selling point for consumers like Motion control was - Gamepad seemed like a tablet, not something that amused the curiosity of basic media - Third parties were only experimenting, still wanted things status quo - DS was successful but the reasons for it weren't because the market preferred dual screen. The market really doesn't know what it wants. The games were what really pushed the market fire for DS. - Console wasn't strong enough, people appreciate HD Mario but see little difference in it and PS3/360 Focusing on the third party was a mistake in itself. The third party market is gone. You have a new market. Focus on that new market. You ain't gonna sell Rockstar Games on releasing GTAV for your GPU focused console. Even if you made a console that Rockstar wanted to make games for, who is to say you're going to even take away Sony/Microsoft gamers from their PS3/360 and eventual PS4/XBone to play it? It's unlikely. As Kohler said, there's a lot Nintendo could have done that had little to do with hindsight or roadblocks.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:35
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The gamepad really does not add much and its heaviest game dependence is in the pack-in title. None of Nintendo's future titles require it so I have a feeling they're already going in this direction but not planning on making an announcement on it until Mario Kart is about to be released. If the concern is about selling software, what we're really talking about here is launch software, which with every console generation is the least relevant software to sell. The games that actually drive sales don't require the gamepad, and the games that will drive sales in 2014 don't require the gamepad. There are only three titles that require the gamepad for gameplay, Nintendoland, Game & Wario, and Wii Party U, and two of these are not even high effort high budget games. It's not a big deal. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:38
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axeil posted:Losing the gamepad isn't a good thing but Nintendo is going to have to make an unpleasant choice of some sort. They do, but losing the Gamepad is not going to be a viable one until they at least have a few major games on the market which have no gamepad features at all. Not just "limited gamepad features" but if it's more than a horn button it's going to cause additional brand confusion and upset customers and no amount of "needs a gamepad" stickers are going to alter that. I don't think there's a solution, to be honest. I think the Gamepad is a problem but it was a problem that was written when the system was created. I'm sure Nintendo wishes they could get rid of it too, but for good or ill, they're stuck with it at least until they have a larger library where they can afford to tell Game & Wario or Zombi U to gently caress off.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:39
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Paper Jam Dipper posted:Nintendo's thinking process seemed to be: One of the most interesting things I've read about games is the various postmortems from Sega people on the 32X/Sega CD, Sega Saturn and finally the Dreamcast. There were so many mistakes made and things that sounded like good ideas really weren't. Sega probably could've stayed in the console game if they only made a few of the mistakes, or corrected them, instead of making all of them. I am really, really curious if we'll ever get behind-the-scenes info about the WiiU and how badly it got botched. ImpAtom posted:They do, but losing the Gamepad is not going to be a viable one until they at least have a few major games on the market which have no gamepad features at all. Not just "limited gamepad features" but if it's more than a horn button it's going to cause additional brand confusion and upset customers and no amount of "needs a gamepad" stickers are going to alter that. I wonder if Mario Kart is an attempt to see if they can get away with having no gamepad support. If it works then we might see a no-gamepad SKU for Holiday 2014. At that point the launch games that really need it are 2 years old and probably aren't going to drive sales as much as Smash Bros/Mario Kart/whatever else comes out next year. edit: Following up on the Sega comment, it's eerie how similar the WiiU is to the Saturn. Came out very early, follow-up to a very strong console, weird architecture (WiiU is still PowerPC while everyone else is x86), lack of games, issues with third-parties, etc. axeil fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:40
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I'm also not sure if any third party software really requires the gamepad either. I mean I know that Rayman Legends has the helper character, but that game is on other systems where they came up with a workaround. 95-98% of the current Wii U library doesn't require the Gamepad. The games I listed and like, one level of Mario 3D World that they made sure was optional to complete.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:42
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Nintendo thought they had a new crop of loyal customers when really all they had was 2006's furby. I bet no one who had a furby bought the furbyU either.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:43
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Quest For Glory II posted:I'm also not sure if any third party software really requires the gamepad either. I mean I know that Rayman Legends has the helper character, but that game is on other systems where they came up with a workaround. 95-98% of the current Wii U library doesn't require the Gamepad. Again "doesn't require" and "doesn't use" are different things. Pikmin doesn't require it but you lose the ability to micromanage your three dudes which makes a good chunk of the game way more aggravating. (The actual game itself plays better with the Wiimote so the unfortunate best way to play the game is with a pad on your lap for micromanaging and the Wiimote for direct control.)
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Dec 5, 2013 17:45
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Jeffrey posted:People aren't talking about it not having good games, they are talking about it not having good games, and not believing good games will come out in the future either, or at least not before a price-drop/something radical. This is me. It's not just the games that are out now but the potential for the thing in the future. I think the Wii-U has a few good games that I'd like to play, but they're not worth dropping $300 on. Eventually I'll be able to find one used for dirt-cheap, or the whole Wii-U thing will go belly-up and be dirt-cheap that way. Then I'll grab one and catch up on the few titles I missed. By the time the PS4 has its first price drop, the situation will be way different. It'll have a bunch of people making games for it. It's a much easier sell because it's guaranteed to have so many games coming out in the future, and third-party devs are unlikely to just give up on it like they have with the Wii-U. Whereas the Wii-U feels to me like the Dreamcast situation, where I'll be able to just grab one and catch up on those titles at end-of-life. Plus, I've already replayed Wind Waker, New Super Mario Bros Wii, and Donkey Kong Country Returns last year. I can (and did) get the Wii-U experience NOW with the games I already own. So I can definitely stand to wait. fake edit: and Mario Kart and Smash Bros. Spiffo fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:45
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TaurusOxford posted:It's not going to get third parties regardless considering it's a generation behind in hardware, and even when it gets PS3/360 ports they're gimped versions.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:50
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PrBacterio posted:I don't get why people keep saying that, from what I understand the WiiU has actually fairly beefy hardware, in console terms. I mean, obviously not nearly on a level to compete with the newly launched nextgen consoles, but still far in advance of the previous generation's standard. If anything, it's therefore quite solidly in-between generations, which also matches it's release date and price point. The Wii U is both weaker than and a stranger architecture than the current-gen consoles. This makes porting anything from the PS4/One to it in unfeasible at best. The Wii had an easier time because people could port PS2 games to it and the PS2 was such a smash hit that it was still getting games late into the next generation. (It is, in fact, still getting games now.)
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Dec 5, 2013 17:52
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ImpAtom posted:Again "doesn't require" and "doesn't use" are different things. If the gamepad had not been designed with the traditional button configuration of a regular game controller, I think Nintendo would have been a lot more screwed. They gave themselves an exit strategy by making sure games recognized conventional game controller input. Although, they also made it difficult for any developer to really want to be motivated to use the second screen for anything when all the buttons are right there. It's like, hey guys, do you want to jump through hoops or just do what you always do? Everyone picks the latter. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:52
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PrBacterio posted:I don't get why people keep saying that, from what I understand the WiiU has actually fairly beefy hardware, in console terms. I mean, obviously not nearly on a level to compete with the newly launched nextgen consoles, but still far in advance of the previous generation's standard. If anything, it's therefore quite solidly in-between generations, which also matches it's release date and price point. The issue is the hardware architecture. It would be one thing if the WiiU was x86 like the XBone and PS4. Then you could make a port by lowering the resolution, turning off AA/AF or other tricks. It's not though. WiiU is using the same basic framework as the Wii, which used PowerPC architecture. If you want to make a port, you'll need to recode things to run on PowerPC which is not a trivial task. So it only makes sens to port if you sell enough to make up for the non-trivial porting cost. Given how third parties have done on the WiiU, the porting cost isn't getting covered, thus no port, thus no games. WiiU sticking with PowerPC is probably the greatest blunder, even more so than the tablet. If it was x86 with the Wii architecture thrown in for backward compatibility things wouldn't be as bad right now.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:53
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Boiled Water posted:Not doing it is suicidal. Even if it only requires one game purchase at the current price for Nintendo to make one unit profitable, they still need to sell much, much more if they want to stay in business. It's more than 1 game purchase, and that was true when they were selling Deluxe units at $350. The price cut to $300 probably just added ~$50 to that loss, and then cutting the system with gamepad would probably add $100 to that. If you use a $50 loss as an estimate for their loss at $350, selling WiiUs for $200 would mean taking around a $200 loss per unit. And you can't necessarily count on production costs going down hugely, since Nintendo is using custom chips and touchscreen technology that's fallen out of favor. PrBacterio posted:I don't get why people keep saying that, from what I understand the WiiU has actually fairly beefy hardware, in console terms. I mean, obviously not nearly on a level to compete with the newly launched nextgen consoles, but still far in advance of the previous generation's standard. If anything, it's therefore quite solidly in-between generations, which also matches it's release date and price point. Not really. The WiiU has slightly more power than 360/PS3 but not by much. Certainly not enough to take a straight port of PS4/XONE versions. Without a large user base, it won't be worth it to 3rd parties to make a custom port for WiiU, which means it'll get conversions from existing 360/PS3 ports or it will not get the game at all. The system could be a true half step between PS3-era and PS4-era and it wouldn't matter, because the only way to get people to take advantage of that power is to have a huge username that cannot be ignored. Otherwise, what you'll get amounts to PS3/360 versions in the best case. thefncrow fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 17:55
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Jeffrey posted:Nintendo thought they had a new crop of loyal customers when really all they had was 2006's furby. I bet no one who had a furby bought the furbyU either. thefncrow posted:If you use a $50 loss as an estimate for their loss at $350, selling WiiUs for $200 would mean taking around a $200 loss per unit. And you can't necessarily count on production costs going down hugely, since Nintendo is using custom chips and touchscreen technology that's fallen out of favor.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:03
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ImpAtom posted:So basically the argument you have for making the Wii U succeed is reducing the amount of available games it has. That's like saying the Xbox One could never get rid of the Kinect, because there are some games that require it, like that horribly racist fighting game. Just take it out, make it optional, mark the games that require it, and learn why including an expensive accessory is not a good idea.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:04
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That loving Sned posted:That's like saying the Xbox One could never get rid of the Kinect, because there are some games that require it, like that horribly racist fighting game. Just take it out, make it optional, mark the games that require it, and learn why including an expensive accessory is not a good idea. Microsoft is also stuck with the Kinect for the foreseeable future but will have a larger variety of third party games available which don't even use the Kinect in an oblique way by the time they put out their inevitable Kinectless SKU. Even so they're stuck with a $100 price increase over the PS4 because of it. PrBacterio posted:
The touchscreens in modern devices function differently. It's not as simple as just changing the touch screen you use. (And Nintendo sticking with the old model is really inexplicable.) it's also probably a case where it would be cheaper in the long term but not the short term.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:07
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PrBacterio posted:I didn't know that. Couldn't they switch production of the gamepad to whatever touchscreen technology is now more popular (and therefore, presumably, cheaper)? Not to cut costs in the short term. The resistive technology they're using is cheaper than capacitive now, but since capacitive is more popular, production will likely increase enough to cause prices to drop faster. Meanwhile, production of resistive screens will likely stagnate or reduce, meaning that your costs probably won't drop much, if at all, from where they are today. If you mean switching when if the inversion happens, yes, that would be possible, though they'd either have to drop the stylus or take a hit on a stylus that works with a capacitive screen (significantly costlier than what they use now). thefncrow fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 18:08
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You guys are hilarious, the Game Pad is here to stay for the entire system's lifespan. Nintendo would much rather take a loss and cut the price of the system to $200 than admit that the Game Pad was a failure. Oh who am I kidding, consumers would much rather buy a system for $150 and pick up a $150 game pad separately than buy them as a bundle for $300. Just look at what happened with TJ Maxx when the mom's couldn't use coupons and were too stupid to realize they were getting better deals without them. Quest For Glory II posted:The gamepad really does not add much and its heaviest game dependence is in the pack-in title. None of Nintendo's future titles require it so I have a feeling they're already going in this direction but not planning on making an announcement on it until Mario Kart is about to be released. Too many games have it integrated in some weird way that they would almost all need to be patched. While this is something I could trust Sony to do if need be, I have zero faith that Nintendo could pull something off. It took them 8 months to add Pro Controller support to NSMBU after all. I can see Boost Mode in NSMB simply being unavailable in a similar way that you can't play the Metroid game in Nintendoland without Wii Motion Plus. But I think we are all underestimating the pride of the Japanese people, and the stupidity of consumers
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Dec 5, 2013 18:09
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Astro7x posted:Nintendo would much rather take a loss and cut the price of the system to $200 than admit that the Game Pad was a failure. Why? It's not like they were shy about admitting 3D was a failure.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:11
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TaurusOxford posted:Why? It's not like they were shy about admitting 3D was a failure. The 2DS didn't replace the 3DS. It was specifically marketed to young children (who the 3D is supposedly bad for) and Nintendo has been putting out 3DS bundles of all of their major releases. It also was a feature that could be turned off even on the original 3DS.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:14
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Astro7x posted:Too many games have it integrated in some weird way that they would almost all need to be patched. Also in terms of manufacturing costs, the Gamepad costs $80 to manufacture. You know how Nintendo said they needed to sell more than 1 game to break even? Well that cost is more than one game.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:15
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Quest For Glory II posted:They are not integrated in any important way that matters. So it doesn't matter. Just take the gamepad out. If the games get patched or not, it's not important because the integration is not required to progress through the game. It would be an (abnormally) wise decision for Nintendo at this point to bite the bullet and patch out the game pad in favor of the classic controller to make the system cheaper and more marketable. Getting the price closer to 150 usd would really help things. But so would unified accounts across systems. I refuse to buy a wii u until they sort that out.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:20
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Quest For Glory II posted:They are not integrated in any important way that matters. So it doesn't matter. Just take the gamepad out. If the games get patched or not, it's not important because the integration is not required to progress through the game. I've only played about a half dozen Wii U games, so I am not sure what is happening in the 200 other games out there... but doesn't Zombie U require the gamepad to play the game? If all games were required to have off screen play this wouldn't even be an issue and I would buy dropping the Game Pad as a practical solution. Even if they drop the Game Pad, they still have to put a controller in the system. Pro Controller can't be that much to make even though they are selling them at $50
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Dec 5, 2013 18:30
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That loving Sned posted:but the limit break mechanic is much better. I didn't even realize FF6 had limit breaks until the GBA version came out and they were fixed up a bit. I don't remember ever even seeing them, and since you had to stay in critical to get the 1/16 chance of doing them it's not too much of a wonder why. And like many people, I played FF6 through more times than I'd like to admit to. That loving Sned posted:I enjoy both of them a lot, although VI has definitely stood the test of time in regards to its graphics and music. It has a better translation too, but I still enjoy VII's pre-rendered backgrounds and 3D battle graphics despite playing it over a decade after it came out, and the clunky character models do have some charm to them. Both games play so similarly that I don't think there's as much of a gap between the 2D and 3D games as Zelda or Metal Gear. I will agree that Zelda and MG have a huge chasm of difference 2D -> 3D. However, there's a well known gap in the fans who started with 7 who just think of the 2D era FFs as lame. I remember once a  moment where a FF7 fan said that FF6 ripped off poo poo from FF7. I guess they played anthology and were under some delusion that FF6 came later.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:31
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ImpAtom posted:Microsoft is also stuck with the Kinect for the foreseeable future but will have a larger variety of third party games available which don't even use the Kinect in an oblique way by the time they put out their inevitable Kinectless SKU. Even so they're stuck with a $100 price increase over the PS4 because of it. I don't see how the Xbox One is stuck with Kinect, since the console works just fine without one even plugged in, and already they're trailing behind the PS4. Besides, removing the GamePad from the Wii U doesn't mean that they'll all disappear from existence, nor that they can't be sold separately. Sure, The Wonderful 101 might work better with it, but the 3DS also needs an optional accessory, the Circle Pad Pro, to make games like MGS3D and Monster Hunter play somewhat decently. Also, the GamePad mode in New SMBU is stupid, since I'd much rather use the GamePad to actually play as one of the characters. Only three Wii Remotes, but four people? Too bad.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:31
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Nintendo will never drop the gamepad and anybody thinking that they will is full of poo poo and doesn't bother to look at Nintendo's past operations. At this point, they'd be admitting defeat, which won't happen; that, and it would segment the (small) userbase similar to how including a second analogue stick on the XL would have. They've already segmented their userbase by releasing the basic and deluxe models and are already trying to fix that, so removing the pad will just make that harder. As always, and something that's been happening since the N64 days, Nintendo lacks any compelling, consistent software releases. To pull the Armchair Analyst card, they should've: -Gone with 1 console on launch with a hefty hard-drive to advocate for consumers to go digital. -Included Nintendoland as a digital offering, or delayed the console until Wii Sports Club was ready. -Included a demo disc of E3 offerings so people could get an idea of what's to come for the future. ..and potentially reduced the price a bit and sold the system at a loss.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:32
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JetsGuy posted:I remember once a Never take RPG advice from someone who can't even count to ten properly.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:41
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I don't see how anyone who lived through the release of the N64 and Gamecube can pretend that the WiiU starting weak will kill Nintendo. Also the price is really not the critical issue (despite what the Wired article claims): the critical issue is games. 3DS sales didn't skyrocket once they dropped the price - they responded once games came out. The price drop was necessary because the games weren't there for a LONG time. People also claimed that it'd never be succesful because phones/tablets, but most phone games are garbage anyways so people are willing to play good "real" games on the 3DS. Once there is a critical mass of games people want to play, people will buy the system, as they did with the Gamecube. Not in Wii numbers, but those people weren't buying the console for the same reason that people usually buy consoles. Gamers may not be willing to drop 300$ on a system just for Mario, but when there is a Smash Bros., a Mario Kart, and some neat 3rd party japanese releases people will buy the system. Rather than thinking of Nintendo as the Wii company, it's probably more realistic to look at the Wii as a fluke and remember that they've been comfortable as the 3rd place TV-based hardware manufacturer for many years. djkillingspree fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 18:43
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djkillingspree posted:I don't see how anyone who lived through the release of the N64 and Gamecube can pretend that the WiiU starting weak will kill Nintendo. Cause even the Gamecube sold better in its first year than the WiiU has, and it had Smash Bros., Mario Kart, AND third party support that right now the WiiU could only dream of having. Not to mention that at least the Gamecube has hardware that could hold its own against the PS2. The WiiU doesn't even have THAT going for it cause it's only on par with last-gen hardware and the architecture makes it too much of a hassle for third parties to even bother trying to down-port future PS4/Xbone games.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:48
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djkillingspree posted:Rather than thinking of Nintendo as the Wii company, it's probably more realistic to look at the Wii as a fluke and remember that they've been comfortable as the 3rd place TV-based hardware manufacturer for many years. The problem was Nintendo did look at the Wii as a fluke, which is why the Wii U was originally advertised to appeal to the core gamer. But at the same time, Nintendo was trying to sell people on the Gamepad through casual markets, hence releasing NSMB U and Nintendoland as launch titles instead of say putting more focus on getting MK8 and SM3DWorld done for the launch instead. It was very scatterbrained. Nintendo had zero focus when it came to this unlike the Wii. I remember when the Wii came out, it felt like Nintendo knew exactly how they wanted to market it and exactly how they planned to sell it. Nobody agreed with them but there was conviction in their decisions. Not really here, and it's disconcerting. TaurusOxford posted:Cause even the Gamecube sold better in its first year than the WiiU has, and it had Smash Bros., Mario Kart, AND third party support that right now the WiiU could only dream of having. Not to mention that at least the Gamecube has hardware that could hold its own against the PS2. The WiiU doesn't even have THAT going for it cause it's only on par with last-gen hardware and the architecture makes it too much of a hassle for third parties to even bother trying to down-port future PS4/Xbone games. But a bad console is still not going to kill Nintendo. Don't know why that's so difficult to get through to people.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:50
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| # ? May 31, 2024 06:35 |
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djkillingspree posted:I don't see how anyone who lived through the release of the N64 and Gamecube can pretend that the WiiU starting weak will kill Nintendo. Also the price is really not the critical issue (despite what the Wired article claims): the critical issue is games. 3DS sales didn't skyrocket once they dropped the price - they responded once games came out. The price drop was necessary because the games weren't there for a LONG time. People also claimed that it'd never be succesful because phones/tablets, but most phone games are garbage anyways so people are willing to play good "real" games on the 3DS. Yep, no matter what they do right now I don't think it will make much of a difference until they build up a decent library of games. Like, at least a few that everyone wants to play. I'll admit that I bought one, but what's out right now that's going to make people buy the console en masse? Wind Waker HD? Wonderful 101? Super Mario 3D World? Pikmin 3? NSMBU? It's kind of a rare person that will look at that list of games and think "Yeah, it's totally worth it to drop 300 bucks for those games." And I mean poo poo, the console has been out for a year and those are the only games of any real note. The launch was a joke so I'm not surprised it's been doing so poorly. Add in Nintendo being suddenly tight-lipped about what games are coming in the future and when and it makes things look kinda uncertain. drat I'd say check back in 6 months to a year and see how it's doing then.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:53
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