What would it take to save the Wii U?

[Reprise]

I believe nothing will save the Wii U. Nothing at all. In my opinion, it was doomed before it was even released. Nintendo had no clue what direction to go in with the console and it kind of showed. I think Nintendo were also a bit complacent, due to the success of the predecessor, despite the fact most people have viewed the Wii as a gimmick and fad for a long time now.

I don't know what to say, either. I have no ideas to help Nintendo. They could have made it a "powerhouse" like the PS4 and Xbox One, but so what? I already have the choice of those two consoles. Do I really need another clone of those, but with Mario and Zelda thrown in? Eh, I don't know. The Gamecube was pretty damn powerful in its generation, but that didn't help it against the PS2.

[Hazerd]

I believe nothing will save the Wii U. Nothing at all. In my opinion, it was doomed before it was even released. Nintendo had no clue what direction to go in with the console and it kind of showed. I think Nintendo were also a bit complacent, due to the success of the predecessor, despite the fact most people have viewed the Wii as a gimmick and fad for a long time now.

I don't know what to say, either. I have no ideas to help Nintendo. They could have made it a "powerhouse" like the PS4 and Xbox One, but so what? I already have the choice of those two consoles. Do I really need another clone of those, but with Mario and Zelda thrown in? Eh, I don't know. The Gamecube was pretty damn powerful in its generation, but that didn't help it against the PS2.

Ill agree with the Wii U being Doomed from the start, if you agree the DC was Doomed from the start too! (which is really was honestly, Sega screwed the pooch)

But yeah the GCN/Xbox/PS2 Generation was weird, the PS2 being the weakest of the 3.

[IrishNinja]

$150 bundle w/ Metroid Dread, Mother 4 & Shenmue 3 should do it, i think

for real though, they need to just set themselves up a secondary system & get the first party stuff moving out, cause the 3rd party well looks more dried up at the moment than even the GC had. fun little system but the release schedule is looking kinda dire at the moment for me.

[Cronozilla]

This is a long post. Proceed at your own risk.

This is somewhat of a side note, but it's something people mention a lot, so I have to be honest, I find it extremely inaccurate to include mobile space when talking handhelds currently

, but not including all the tiger electronics and tamagotchi stuff from the 90s when talking about handheld gaming then. It just makes it sound like a weighted argument otherwise.

There's a bit of a fallacy with lumping in smartphone sales or even game sales on smartphones into the dedicated gaming competition argument, and that is you're assuming those individuals would even consider a dedicated gaming device at all. You're assuming, they chose between a 3DS and an iPhone, and that they are not playing games on their phone because the phone happens to play games but they got their phone to also play games. Which are extremely different motives and would result in different behaviors.

There's certainly a segment of people whom give up dedicated devices because they have some smart device, but I'm not really confident that it's a large portion of the user-base of either space.

From what I can tell, mobile-games and console-games are two mostly separate markets. Neither seems to have any real money-correlation with the other at a rudimentary level.

It seems like a lot of games media really pushes this idea and everyone has jumped on board because, hey they look similar and they have similar sounding content, so they must not be able to coexist, right? No, I think that sentiment is incorrect and the logic behind it is extremely flawed.

I think Nintendo's largest problem (and main problem) with Wii U is the marketing. I don't think it's the system, it makes sense when you've used it a bit, and it's been well designed overall. There are a lot of good games on it and the price is reasonable.

Nintendo, I think, made the mistake that their audience would seek out the knowledge about the device themselves. It's the line of thought they've taken the last few years with putting out things like Nintendo Direct and even how they've presented themselves at trade shows. They seem to have operated on the premise that people are smart and they can talk directly to them. That's a mistake.

It is true that you can do an under-the-radar approach for most game releases ... you can't take that approach with hardware. And the Wii U, frankly, isn't plastered everywhere. Furthermore, it seems like retailers don't even want to carry it.

It takes a lot of exposure to get people on board with something. There are still people whom are confused by the Xbox One and PS4, even though those ads are everywhere and are very explicit about them being new systems.

The main problem is: People don't pay attention. Nintendo seemed to assume people would.

How can they fix it? They can fix it the same way Sony fixed the PS3. They can come out with a killer ad campaign once they have the library to really back it up ... which is about there. Will they? I have no idea. I hope so.

The thing that really gets me is most of the game specific ads coming from Nintendo right now ... are actually really good. They're extremely 90s style ads, and for someone who loves SNES and Genesis era, they're pretty awesome. The problem is you never see these ads.

The Link Between Worlds, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze ads are all absolute 90s game selling ads. And the only one I've even seen on TV was the Donkey Kong one and it was only once.

I think, ultimately, they have a marketing problem. I don't think the price needs to go down, they don't need to remove hardware from the box, they need to be 100% clear on what the box is, what's on it, and why you should want it. They're not doing that right now.

It's important to realize there's a lot of factors working against them, besides themselves. We're at a point in time where there is no balanced view anywhere. Nintendo has taken the hint and said .. OK, the games can speak for themselves. And it's not a bad call ... but the environment around video games is to the point where people won't listen because it's not popular and they'll never listen, not until the system is long dead. (Look at people's reactions in the Rare Wii thread now. They're just now looking at the games released on the system that are of merit ... you'd hope that people would learn from those mistakes. While you could get those games cheap by ignoring it for so long ... it helps ensure we never see anything like them again at the same time)

They've already addressed a lot of the issues, they've publicly stated merging areas together as well as pushing more funding into various studios. The fact that people are in here talking about them needing to do that without being aware they already have is somewhat disappointing.

[Ivo]

Agree with Cronozilla in that the Wii U can be "saved" even in terms of number of units sold. The PS3 showed us that you can really mess up a launch and even come out on top at the very end. It can be done, even if I don't know exactly how, it does seem to rely strongly on having great exclusive games (which is almost guaranteed / getting there due to Nintendo 1st party) - and possibly strongly marketing that aspect coupled with a price drop.
Now that the 3 consoles are out there there won't be new hardware on the console side for a while. People with a Xbox / PS4 who haven't yet considered a Wii U are a potential market for it. Who knows what the numbers will be at the end of the generation. Strong exclusives, particularly if they manage to put the tablet controller to good use, will probably be the key.

My aside on smartphones / tablets, which is directly contrary to Cronozilla, below.

Cronozilla, I disagree with what you say about smartphone / tablets. I think the media are correct in saying it is competing - and not just with handheld gaming, but also with actual consoles. If you said that tablets were also not competing with desktop PCs and laptops I would similarly think you are wrong. It is true that there are different markets for each (in gaming and other uses) but they do overlap, and despite several differences each person only has so much time each day. And it isn't even just the gaming in smartphones / tablets that competes with the dedicated gaming devices, but also how the smartphones / tablets enable other activities like browsing and watching videos - so I think it would be competing even if gaming on smartphones sucked (which it doesn't, even though you still can't get some of the experiences you can on dedicated devices).

[casterofdreams]

The Wii U don't ain't need no savin'!

In any event I was looking for a game yesterday and went to two separate Gamestops located in two states and the front windows were plastered with Wii U ads. Two were the same about Mario Kart 8 and one was an ad for the Wii U bundle with New Super Mario Bros and Luigi.

Where else can they throw up ads other than a store that specializes in games? TV ads during kids shows? I see those too (I have a nephew relax).

[BogusMeatFactory]

My aside on smartphones / tablets, which is directly contrary to Cronozilla, below.

Cronozilla, I disagree with what you say about smartphone / tablets. I think the media are correct in saying it is competing - and not just with handheld gaming, but also with actual consoles. If you said that tablets were also not competing with desktop PCs and laptops I would similarly think you are wrong. It is true that there are different markets for each (in gaming and other uses) but they do overlap, and despite several differences each person only has so much time each day. And it isn't even just the gaming in smartphones / tablets that competes with the dedicated gaming devices, but also how the smartphones / tablets enable other activities like browsing and watching videos - so I think it would be competing even if gaming on smartphones sucked (which it doesn't, even though you still can't get some of the experiences you can on dedicated devices).

Here is the thing, we are talking about competing on a gaming market. You mention that you feel that tablets are competing against PCs, but as gaming devices? I have always felt that the experiences found in handheld gaming vs. console gaming/PC gaming vs. phone/tablet gaming as an apples and oranges argument.

When the rise of cell phone games came out, do you feel that people put down their dedicated gaming devices in lieu of social games? Numbers gathered for cell phone gaming are based on downloads. If you were to look at the numbers of downloaded games, you will see downloads in the billions of free games like Angry Birds and in the hundreds of millions for games like Candy Crush. If you were to take those numbers into context of the modern dedicated gaming environment, then every single handheld gaming console has been a complete and utter failure.

So where do you draw the parallels between handheld gaming and mobile gaming? Mobile gaming brought in a market of people untapped, much like the Wii had accomplished. Bringing in a new audience that would never game before does not correlate to taking people away from other platforms. Sure a handful of people may do so in a crippling economic state pass on a dedicated system and rely on a phone or tablet (the fact that people can havephones or tablets in this type of economy says a lot....), but if mobile gaming was truly a competition, then they have already one based on the numbers.....but...we see that they haven't.

[Ivo]

Here is the thing, we are talking about competing on a gaming market. You mention that you feel that tablets are competing against PCs, but as gaming devices? I have always felt that the experiences found in handheld gaming vs. console gaming/PC gaming vs. phone/tablet gaming as an apples and oranges argument.

That is the issue, if you restrict to talking about competing on gaming market you are missing part of the picture, and an important part. Apples and oranges they may be, but both are still fruit. I prefer oranges, but if apples are much cheaper/better value, given that I am limited on the amount of food I eat it is still going to impact on the amount of oranges I buy.

The experiences are different, but people are limited in their free cash and, perhaps more importantly, in their free time.

When the rise of cell phone games came out, do you feel that people put down their dedicated gaming devices in lieu of social games?

Yes I do, not necessarily social games but games on their smartphones and tablets. I think I recall Nintendo themselves believing smartphones/tablets are their main competitors in that segment.

By many metrics you can choose, smartphone/tablet games HAVE already "won" (and with a large margin) against games on dedicated gaming devices. This doesn't mean the dedicated gaming devices will stop selling entirely, but I would be extremely surprised if the DS wasn't the absolute peak.

I think there is an impact from smartphones and tablets on both dedicated desktop and laptop PCs (for browsing, gaming, whatever) and on dedicated gaming consoles and handhelds. I think this is fairly obvious even.
Of course there is a market for the other devices, due to dedicated keyboards/larger screens and whatever... But I'm pretty sure the existence and ubiquitousness of smartphones and tables already had a significant negative impact in terms of new units sold and in the time that people spend with the other devices they already own.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Yes, a $200 iPhone is much cheaper and provides a better gaming experience than a $150 3DS XL. Yes, a $400 iPad Air is much cheaper and more efficient for gaming than a $400 PC or gaming console. Candy Crush and Farmville and Angry Birds will indeed destroy modern gaming.

The only real problem that I have with this argument is that now my web browser has this insane concept that I am interesting in buying new phones and tablets with every ad now reflecting that

If you feel that there has been an impact on sales of systems, then please tell me some numbers here.

From what I have seen, Nintendo has not faltered much in its handheld sales.

Gameboy - 119.69 million units sold

GameBoy Advance - 81.51 million units sold

Nintendo DS - 153.98 million units sold

3DS - 42.74 million units sold and still growing.

Let's talk PSP sales

PSP - 80 Million units sold

PSP Vita - 4 Million as of January 2013. I could not seem to find up to date sales figures for the system sadly. If anyone does have better sales figures, please share.

Please...please tell me the exact sales figures of phones used as dedicated gaming devices. Please tell me the exact sales figures of tablets being used as dedicated gaming devices. Please show me how Candy Crush is killing the Call of Duties, the Grand Theft Autos and the Marios. You can say that they are all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that these games have not stopped selling mind-bogglingly well.

[Ivo]

Yes, a $200 iPhone is much cheaper and provides a better gaming experience than a $150 3DS XL. Yes, a $400 iPad Air is much cheaper and more efficient for gaming than a $400 PC or gaming console. Candy Crush and Farmville and Angry Birds will indeed destroy modern gaming.

I didn't say anything about destroying modern gaming. If anything it will change it (already has), and I also don't think it will "kill" traditional gaming. But you can see for example what consoles did to the arcades, and yet you could argue that there it is also apples and oranges as arcades have pinball machines and steering wheels and the experience is different... And yet... You know what happened.

If you feel that there has been an impact on sales of systems, then please tell me some numbers here.

You were nice enough to bring in some numbers yourself. I see pretty significant drops in handheld sales, granted it "isn't over" yet, and you can always blame it on e.g. the 3D aspect flopping. Sony in particular I think is hit harder as at least Nintendo is more differentiated from the real competition - they have heavy hitting exclusives and 2 screens, with precision touch screen.

Please...please tell me the exact sales figures of phones used as dedicated gaming devices. Please tell me the exact sales figures of tablets being used as dedicated gaming devices. Please show me how Candy Crush is killing the Call of Duties, the Grand Theft Autos and the Marios. You can say that they are all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that these games have not stopped selling mind-bogglingly well.

Exact numbers wouldn't convince you anyway, but the point is not that phones are being used as dedicated gaming devices. They aren't. They are competing for time.

A hand-selected article because my opinion matches the title, on the tablets versus PC aspect:
http://www.zdnet.com/what-a-surprise-20 ... 000025002/
I didn't even read the article so it may be crap, but I really think the point is obvious.

This is from 2010:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfi ... dent-says/
I highlight this quote:

“It’s all about time,” Fils-Aime said during a stop by Forbes’ San Francisco offices Thursday. “I compete with Zynga, I compete with surfing the net, I compete with the newspaper.”

He gets it. Even if you refuse to.

Candy Crush isn't killing CoD, GTA or Mario, which were obviously cherry picked examples. Several "traditional" game companies went down last gen due to some factors (granted I think that was mostly due to the bloated budgets of so-called AAA games).