Originally posted by Bigmac1910 Nintendo launched the Wii U late last year, approx as powerful as the Xbox360 / PS3, and they really screwed up their marketing campaigns, thats why few people have heard of them. Also a lot of people are waiting for the PS4 and Nextbox, so I'm not sure how Nintendo will do this holiday season.
Not approx. but a lot more powerfull than both. I am a console gamer at heart but I really can't fford to get all of them these days and TBH haven't the time to play a lot of games as I play MMO's. Zelda and Mario kart / Golf will help it out. The one I really want and am missing it a lot is a new F-zero now that would make me buy a Wii U.
On a side note nice pic there dave6660 one of my favourite movies ( I have 2 favourites ) of all time. Withnail and I being the other one.
Cheers,
BadOrb.
PSO 4 years , EQOA 4 months , PSU 7 years , SWTOR launch ongoing , PSO2 SEA launch ongoing , Destiny 360 launch ongoing. "SWG was not fun. Let it go buddy." quote from iiNoSkillzii 10/18/13 The original propoganda pixie dust villain :[]
Nintendo just hasn't been releasing great games going far to casual and gimmicky. To their defense, Xbox and PS started to try the same, though it seems sony grew smarter of how dumb an idea it was while Xbox... eh... probably not so much though we won't know until they actually announce the next system if kinnect is required.
Nintendo does release good series such as Mario or Zelda or Metroid... though the latest Zelda game for me fell flat on its face (sucks too they got characters down and then completely failed at everything that makes Zelda great and used the god damn gimmicky motion controls which suck and ruined the game). Anyways, mini-rant asside, nintendo just needs to get their barings straight. A good game doesn't need good graphics, sure, but they can't keep pushing for 'motion control' and other gimmicky stuff that doesn't do all that much to enhance the feel. The Wii U itself is... meh. 3Ds is a gimmick machine that honestly the best feature is having a thumb stick and its worst feature is the 3d the system is named after.
Nintendo just keeps pushing itself to be irrelevant. They seem obsessed with their current direction that its alienating gamers. 3rd party users are much more intimidated by nintendo due to the way they handle games, and considering Nintendo will be behind in graphics each time, they just often will probably avoid it since releasing it cross platform makes more money and designing for their system means that they start off with worst off graphics which can be harder to design up for a PC to run very well.
Originally posted by TheJoda ...Zelda, Metroid, Ghost and Goblins, Mario ....I can go on and on....not forgotten, just like another posted stated until a good NES system comes out they are in the past....
WTF!?!?!?!?!!?!?!? No Final Fantasy? Gawd that was what started RPGs, well at least one of the foremost pioneers.
Originally posted by TheJoda ...Zelda, Metroid, Ghost and Goblins, Mario ....I can go on and on....not forgotten, just like another posted stated until a good NES system comes out they are in the past....
Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console coming after Spring update: Games will cost £3.49 for NES titles and £5.49 for SNES games. Users who have already bought versions of the Wii virtual console games will be able to transfer them across from their Wii for a special price of 99p and £1.49 respectively.....http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/119123-nintendo-wii-u-virtual-console
Originally posted by TheJoda ...Zelda, Metroid, Ghost and Goblins, Mario ....I can go on and on....not forgotten, just like another posted stated until a good NES system comes out they are in the past....
WTF!?!?!?!?!!?!?!? No Final Fantasy? Gawd that was what started RPGs, well at least one of the foremost pioneers.
Yep. I remember FF vs. Dragon Quest being big news when I was a kid.
Nowadays, I just boot up an emulator or something since my NES and Super NES are in storage. I haven't bought a Nintendo system since the Game Boy Advance though, and I don't care for their gimmicky controllers anymore. The company that made shoulder buttons viable and I don't even recognize them now.
Lately for some reason i've been bored and thinking about getting back into nintendo. But lately i havn't heard anything about their games and system for some reason. Noboddy i work with has ever even mentioned nintendo, all they ever talk about in xbox. I never even see comercials advertising their games, ect.
Does nintendo not have that magic they used to have like they had during there snes and n64 days? Or are there games just like the've always been and maybe i've just outgrown um... anyone else feel like nintendo has disapered compared to the way they used to be?
Nope. Nintendo Wii is the 3rd most succesful console in history (not including handhelds).
The Nintendo DS is the most succesful handheld in history.
Hardcore gamers, and the game industry in general, are just addicted to FPS games such as Call of Duty which are generally played on Xbox and PS3.
i suppose this should come to no suprise but when i posted a question on the facebook wall for the game my friend commented on my post about pokemon being a jap made game and why am i playing this stuff when i should be playing stuff like CoD black ops 2 and stuff. this instantly annoyed me because i don't like being critisized about things i enjoy and especially gaming.
my friend is a special kind of stupid lets leave it at that lol maybe i'll tell em if he wants me to play black ops 2 then buy me the game even then i'll probably just play the campaign and then sell it :-P
i'm not into those kind of FPS games i do enjoy borderlands 1 & 2 though lol
and i am a avid RPG whore on my PS3 but not one of those hardcore types.
I really wish Nintendo would go third party. I bought a wii just for Zelda and I will not be doing that again with the wii u. I was tempted to get one but after reading how poor the battery life is on the controller I passed.
The first MMO you loved will always be the best. You will never get that feeling back stop trying.
Originally posted by VastoHorde Xbox is console gaming. Its the system everybody is waiting to see.
I have to agree, reluctantly. It's been quite a while since I purchased a new console, but I know who's on top. The problem is that after Nintendo finally realized more people would play their games if they adopted a more "adult" stance, they almost immediately went back to kiddy games. I honestly think they would have won the console wars if not for that. There are many, many more gamers in their teens and twenties than there are child gamers or families who play games together.
Also, like I mentioned, all the hokey controllers. Most of the gamers I know like to sit down and game, not swing a virtual sword.
And Playstation? Meh, they seem to concentrate more on their next system than their current one half the time.
Nintendo isn't forgotten it's remembered fondly.It jsut needs a shift in management as the current old guard is way out of touch with the current market.
However Nintendo I beleive has vast resources in reserve so isn't in any danger of ceasing to exist.It onyl takes one console generation for things to change drastically.
The problem is that everyone has grown up except for Nintendo. They still think platformers and adventure games sell consoles. Only thing that sells really well is Zelda, everything else is average.
Originally posted by grvmpybear The only Nintendo games I play today are those in the Zelda franchise. With that being said, I wish Zelda would dump Nintendo and realease on multiple consoles. Nintendos systems just aren't up to par, and are holding the series back.
On a related note, the Mustang jumps ship from Ford to Chevy...
Originally posted by Rigur I really wish Nintendo would go third party. I bought a wii just for Zelda and I will not be doing that again with the wii u. I was tempted to get one but after reading how poor the battery life is on the controller I passed.
The "pro" controller or the game pad one?
And my temptation to buy a Wii U despite the tight money constraints I'm currently under went up when I heard they are putting Earthbound out via Virtual Console on it.
The problem with Nintendo is, they had a chance to go all out with the Nintendo Wii U and yet misserably failed to do so.
The new gamepad with second screen is an awesome concept and sertainly revolutionary and ahead of it's time.
But they failed misserably with the hardware specs of the Wii U console itself! Which spec wise just barely catches up with the XBOX360 and PS3.
And that with now both MS and Sony about to release the XBOX720 and PS4 which will blow away the Wii U with superior hardware specs.
So what is going to happen AGAIN, is that developers are going to make impressive games for the new XBOX720 and PS4 and ignore the Wii U, because they would have to sacrafice too much to make it run.
Just like they did with XBOX360 and PS3 and ignoring the WII.
And this is already showing in the extremely poor sales of the Wii U so far. Which isn't going to help Nintendo in convincing developers to make new games for the Wii U, when so little amount of people own one.
People are just waiting what's going to happen with PS4 and XBOX720.
Why would they be forgotten? Nintendo is far from a loser, when you talk about financial success, and all of the major console makers right now are in different kinds of trouble.
To start with, yes, Nintendo has taken a beating during the last year. Nintendo used to brag that they've _always_ been profitable, which is in sharp contrast to the history of xbox or playstation franchises. Then came 2011. And they haven't been doing great since. Not bad either, but not great.
You need to look at Nintendo in the context of the business, though. You need to actually look at their competitors. Lets talk about Microsoft, the perceived King by many NA gamers
To start with, the original xbox was an enormous financial black hole. The losses from those years was tremendous, and the next generation didn't help much at first. Early in the 360's life, MS incurred such enormous costs for hardware replacement that the division containing the 360 wasn't truly profitable until fiscal year 2009. Even 2008 wasn't actually profitable (it only appears so because they shifted hardware costs from that year to the previous one and then relied on Halo 3 to push them over). Now they're making money, but they're still not even close to recouping their overall losses. In fact, they're not even on a steadily uphill trajectory.
MS is still about 2 billion in the hole on its xbox adventure, and they've just enormously ramped up R&D for the next machine, and it's going to cost them a lot. They've acquired all sorts of new companies doing all sorts of things to help them work on the new xbox (this console is likely going to be far more ambitious than people are thinking). So they're not anywhere close to having made money on consoles, nor will they be for a long time.
Sony's adventures are a little more complicated. Both the PS1 and PS2 were enormously profitable, when you look at their whole lifespan. In fact, the PS2's total units sold remains close to the current units sold for the PS3 and 360 combined, and most of those were solid at a large profit. SCE recently has been having a rough time, though. It's not the PS3, though. The PS3 has actually been resurgent lately (while MS leads in NA marketshare, the PS3 has very slightly outsold the 360 on the global marketplace). The bigger flop has been Sony's handhelds. The original DS outsold the original PSP by a factor of 2. The 3DS, itself considered troubled, has outsold the PSP Vita by a factor of 15, though this gap will likely close somewhat now that Vita sales are picking up. Those numbers wouldn't be terrible by themselves, but attach rate was also relatively much lower for the Sony handheld contenders, and hardware costs relatively much higher. The result of those things put together is that while handhelds have been an enormous cash cow for Nintendo, they haven't been so great for Sony.
Don't get me wrong. SCE's fortunes haven't been universally unprofitable in the modern era. Like Microsoft's entertainment division, SCE's recent history has been up and down, with a lot more up as of late than down. While MS turned around in 2009, SCE did so in 2010, and it has had mixed performance since then, largely due to the debacle of its second handheld launch. But still, when examined across its entire history, SCE has actually been a very successful part of the parent company.
Don't worry. I'll give Nintendo its licks, too.
Part of the reason Sony and MS suffered so much during the early part of this console generation was because they were willing to take massive losses on hardware early on, and this was only compounded for MS by hardware failures and subsequent replacement costs. Nintendo, on the other hand, tends to sell hardware for a profit. If they need to, they simply use less powerful hardware. They rely on software and unique design features to distinguish their hardware. This has been their philosophy for most of their history (the N64 was the only console which significantly outdid its contemporaries in horsepower). This has actually served them very well. The PS did get much bigger market share than the N64, and the PS2 soundly trounced the Gamecube. But Nintendo remained in the black because they never actually lost money on those products. And they've always had an ace in their pocket which most core gamers don't remember. The actual best-selling console, for most of the years Nintendo has been in business, has been a Nintendo handheld.
But that's ironically where Nintendo first stumbled. The reason they suddenly dipped into the red is because the 3DS was stumbling. So, for the first time in a long time, they simply decided to sell the hardware at a huge loss and eat the cost. Of course, the reason they had to _do_ a price cut in the first place was because of a bigger problem. In the space of one generation, they let their production costs jump enormously, and people simply didn't want to pay. This is simply a bad time to sell hardware, and an even worse time to sell expensive hardware, as overall demand for gaming hardware has dropped enormously (analysts theorize it's a trailing effect of the recession).
And people don't want to pay for the Wii U either. Wii U sales have been extremely anemic. Nintendo is shrugging off a price cut for now, but they will do it. In fact, I'm certain they'll do it within the next three months. And it will help a lot. It's actually what turned the PS Vita around. The Vita is still short, in terms of total units sold, but it's now doing much better month-to-month against the 3DS in Japan. So a Wii U price cut will help, but it won't be enough.
Nintendo needs software to move machines. In particular, since overall attach rates are lower for Nintendo systems, hardware sales are most often spurred by consumer desires to buy into a specific evergreen title. These are titles that sell consistently over a very long period. For example, while the best-selling 360 titles sold 10-12 million copies, both the Wii and DS had several games which sold in the range of 20-30 million copies.
And they don't have enough of these right now, especially for the Wii U, and this is a huge problem for them. This is a critical time for Nintendo. The Wii U is slated to compete directly with the new xbox and playstation, and right now, it looks like it's getting a _very_ weak foothold in the market. They decided to make a strategic gambit by launching early, and it doesn't look like it's paying off. It may even backfire, if their competitors have enough time left in the product development cycle to outmaneuver Nintendo on a feature level. And Nintendo is undoubtedly terrified of being in that strategic position. After all, their former arch-rival SEGA made the same strategic blunder, and they had to pull out from the hardware business entirely.
And that's what some people think is about to happen. There are a few problems with that line of thinking, though. The first is 15 billion dollars in cash. Nintendo, as a company, is very well off, so it has an enormous cushion which it can use to weather storms in the industry. Second, it remains to be seen how seriously Microsoft and Sony will commit to fighting Nintendo on its own turf, that of family entertainment. Many of the Wii's best-selling titles were not things core gamers buy. That's what drove the success of the Wii, and it looks like the Wii U is intended to reach the same demos. The intent of the other players with their next console is unclear. While microsoft actually did sell quite a few units to non-core gamers based on word-of-mouth regarding the Kinect, that has mostly tapered off, and MS doesn't seem terribly concerned. So if Sony and MS continue to duke it out with each other in a duel for the attention of core gamers, Nintendo will have ample time to recover its footing. The fact that MS is its biggest contender here is heartening to them, no doubt. The next xbox may do well in stealing some of Nintendo's share of the family/casual gamer market in NA, but it certainly won't threaten them at home in Japan.
All Nintendo does is Rehash the same games Over and Over and Over. allways the same. then they try any new fad to try to get ahead. They cator to a nitch crowd of Anime children. Not knocking their thing but as you can see, its a small group of Gamers.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate has helped boost Wii U sales quite a bit. But their library is very limited. Also I saw a comment about controler battery life. The touch pad only lasts for a few hours. The pro controler lasts for days... maybe weeks.... it's got the longest battery life of any wireless controler I've ever seen.
Monster Hunter 3? Maybe a Bit, but Nintendo game sale are dwarfed by others. Borderlands series, Gears of War Series, Halo Series, Assassin's Creed Series, and so on. Nintendo Needs to step it up.
They have decent saturation in their target audience, which is younger. Additionally, they don't sell their systems at much of a loss so they see a profit earlier than Sony or MS.
We have 3 kids in our home and have purchased way more Nintendo products than Sony or MS. If anything my Sony and MS title purchases have gone down as I don't feel comfortable playing them in front of the kids.
It is the developers that need to step it up, not Nintendo. They do not seem to want to create games for the Wii for some reason. Probably because they think people are after Xbox and Playstations
The Wii U has more stuff going for it it atm than the next xbox and PS4, as they have less games atm because they are not out!
With the way Sony was thinking about blocking 2nd hand games, and MS keeping the Xbox "Always On" and both trying to introduce DRM, and neither have backwards compatibility, then it does not make it easy to transition to the next Xbox or PS4 when the the Xbox 360 and PS3 have been around for a very long time. Wii U is BC with Wii, plays 2nd hand games, and has no DRM - This is what the Wii U has in strengh.
Nintendo are all about making fun games first, then making profit. Sony and MS are about profit first, then fun.
I have way too many consoles and games, and still got a tonne of games to play through on my Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii, which will keep me busy for many more years, so I think I will pass on the next Xbox and PS4, and got a Wii U to play Wii games and keep up with the future console releases, along with my PC. I just hope that devs decide to make more games for the Wii U alongside PS4 and next Xbox
Comments
Not approx. but a lot more powerfull than both. I am a console gamer at heart but I really can't fford to get all of them these days and TBH haven't the time to play a lot of games as I play MMO's. Zelda and Mario kart / Golf will help it out. The one I really want and am missing it a lot is a new F-zero now that would make me buy a Wii U.
On a side note nice pic there dave6660 one of my favourite movies ( I have 2 favourites ) of all time. Withnail and I being the other one.
Cheers,
BadOrb.
PSO 4 years , EQOA 4 months , PSU 7 years , SWTOR launch ongoing , PSO2 SEA launch ongoing , Destiny 360 launch ongoing.
"SWG was not fun. Let it go buddy." quote from iiNoSkillzii 10/18/13
The original propoganda pixie dust villain :[]
Nintendo just hasn't been releasing great games going far to casual and gimmicky. To their defense, Xbox and PS started to try the same, though it seems sony grew smarter of how dumb an idea it was while Xbox... eh... probably not so much though we won't know until they actually announce the next system if kinnect is required.
Nintendo does release good series such as Mario or Zelda or Metroid... though the latest Zelda game for me fell flat on its face (sucks too they got characters down and then completely failed at everything that makes Zelda great and used the god damn gimmicky motion controls which suck and ruined the game). Anyways, mini-rant asside, nintendo just needs to get their barings straight. A good game doesn't need good graphics, sure, but they can't keep pushing for 'motion control' and other gimmicky stuff that doesn't do all that much to enhance the feel. The Wii U itself is... meh. 3Ds is a gimmick machine that honestly the best feature is having a thumb stick and its worst feature is the 3d the system is named after.
Nintendo just keeps pushing itself to be irrelevant. They seem obsessed with their current direction that its alienating gamers. 3rd party users are much more intimidated by nintendo due to the way they handle games, and considering Nintendo will be behind in graphics each time, they just often will probably avoid it since releasing it cross platform makes more money and designing for their system means that they start off with worst off graphics which can be harder to design up for a PC to run very well.
WTF!?!?!?!?!!?!?!? No Final Fantasy? Gawd that was what started RPGs, well at least one of the foremost pioneers.
Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console coming after Spring update: Games will cost £3.49 for NES titles and £5.49 for SNES games. Users who have already bought versions of the Wii virtual console games will be able to transfer them across from their Wii for a special price of 99p and £1.49 respectively.....http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/119123-nintendo-wii-u-virtual-console
And....
Nintendo Wants Its Next “Next-Gen System To Turn Heads” http://mynintendonews.com/2013/01/16/nintendo-wants-its-next-next-gen-system-to-turn-heads/.......Nintendo discusses its next-gen strategy beyond Wii U and 3DS: http://www.videogamer.com/news/nintendo_discusses_its_next-gen_strategy_beyond_wii_u_and_3ds.html#
I don't think they are forgotten, I feel they target a different gaming community.
Yep. I remember FF vs. Dragon Quest being big news when I was a kid.
Nowadays, I just boot up an emulator or something since my NES and Super NES are in storage. I haven't bought a Nintendo system since the Game Boy Advance though, and I don't care for their gimmicky controllers anymore. The company that made shoulder buttons viable and I don't even recognize them now.
Nope. Nintendo Wii is the 3rd most succesful console in history (not including handhelds).
The Nintendo DS is the most succesful handheld in history.
Hardcore gamers, and the game industry in general, are just addicted to FPS games such as Call of Duty which are generally played on Xbox and PS3.
Waiting: CU, WildStar, Destiny, Eternal Crusade
Playing: ESO,DCUO
Played: LotRO,RIFT,ToR,Warhammer, Runescape
[mod edit]
i suppose this should come to no suprise but when i posted a question on the facebook wall for the game my friend commented on my post about pokemon being a jap made game and why am i playing this stuff when i should be playing stuff like CoD black ops 2 and stuff. this instantly annoyed me because i don't like being critisized about things i enjoy and especially gaming.
my friend is a special kind of stupid lets leave it at that lol maybe i'll tell em if he wants me to play black ops 2 then buy me the game even then i'll probably just play the campaign and then sell it :-P
i'm not into those kind of FPS games i do enjoy borderlands 1 & 2 though lol
and i am a avid RPG whore on my PS3 but not one of those hardcore types.
The first MMO you loved will always be the best. You will never get that feeling back stop trying.
I thought this was going to be a nostalgia post when I clicked on it. It's not really, but I have decided to proceed as if it was.
Whatever happened to KOEI? Nobunga's Ambition and Aerobiz, good times.
I have to agree, reluctantly. It's been quite a while since I purchased a new console, but I know who's on top. The problem is that after Nintendo finally realized more people would play their games if they adopted a more "adult" stance, they almost immediately went back to kiddy games. I honestly think they would have won the console wars if not for that. There are many, many more gamers in their teens and twenties than there are child gamers or families who play games together.
Also, like I mentioned, all the hokey controllers. Most of the gamers I know like to sit down and game, not swing a virtual sword.
And Playstation? Meh, they seem to concentrate more on their next system than their current one half the time.
Nintendo isn't forgotten it's remembered fondly.It jsut needs a shift in management as the current old guard is way out of touch with the current market.
However Nintendo I beleive has vast resources in reserve so isn't in any danger of ceasing to exist.It onyl takes one console generation for things to change drastically.
They make causal / kids games..... You have just grown out of their target.
Kids dont give a shit how powerful the system is.. As Long as they are entertained by the games..
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
On a related note, the Mustang jumps ship from Ford to Chevy...
The "pro" controller or the game pad one?
And my temptation to buy a Wii U despite the tight money constraints I'm currently under went up when I heard they are putting Earthbound out via Virtual Console on it.
The problem with Nintendo is, they had a chance to go all out with the Nintendo Wii U and yet misserably failed to do so.
The new gamepad with second screen is an awesome concept and sertainly revolutionary and ahead of it's time.
But they failed misserably with the hardware specs of the Wii U console itself! Which spec wise just barely catches up with the XBOX360 and PS3.
And that with now both MS and Sony about to release the XBOX720 and PS4 which will blow away the Wii U with superior hardware specs.
So what is going to happen AGAIN, is that developers are going to make impressive games for the new XBOX720 and PS4 and ignore the Wii U, because they would have to sacrafice too much to make it run.
Just like they did with XBOX360 and PS3 and ignoring the WII.
And this is already showing in the extremely poor sales of the Wii U so far. Which isn't going to help Nintendo in convincing developers to make new games for the Wii U, when so little amount of people own one.
People are just waiting what's going to happen with PS4 and XBOX720.
It's a shame really.
-best selling wii games :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games
-best selling 3ds games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_3DS_video_games
-best selling xbox360 games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_360_video_games
Nintendo is doing great
That is the point of games...
Why would they be forgotten? Nintendo is far from a loser, when you talk about financial success, and all of the major console makers right now are in different kinds of trouble.
To start with, yes, Nintendo has taken a beating during the last year. Nintendo used to brag that they've _always_ been profitable, which is in sharp contrast to the history of xbox or playstation franchises. Then came 2011. And they haven't been doing great since. Not bad either, but not great.
You need to look at Nintendo in the context of the business, though. You need to actually look at their competitors. Lets talk about Microsoft, the perceived King by many NA gamers
To start with, the original xbox was an enormous financial black hole. The losses from those years was tremendous, and the next generation didn't help much at first. Early in the 360's life, MS incurred such enormous costs for hardware replacement that the division containing the 360 wasn't truly profitable until fiscal year 2009. Even 2008 wasn't actually profitable (it only appears so because they shifted hardware costs from that year to the previous one and then relied on Halo 3 to push them over). Now they're making money, but they're still not even close to recouping their overall losses. In fact, they're not even on a steadily uphill trajectory.
MS is still about 2 billion in the hole on its xbox adventure, and they've just enormously ramped up R&D for the next machine, and it's going to cost them a lot. They've acquired all sorts of new companies doing all sorts of things to help them work on the new xbox (this console is likely going to be far more ambitious than people are thinking). So they're not anywhere close to having made money on consoles, nor will they be for a long time.
Sony's adventures are a little more complicated. Both the PS1 and PS2 were enormously profitable, when you look at their whole lifespan. In fact, the PS2's total units sold remains close to the current units sold for the PS3 and 360 combined, and most of those were solid at a large profit. SCE recently has been having a rough time, though. It's not the PS3, though. The PS3 has actually been resurgent lately (while MS leads in NA marketshare, the PS3 has very slightly outsold the 360 on the global marketplace). The bigger flop has been Sony's handhelds. The original DS outsold the original PSP by a factor of 2. The 3DS, itself considered troubled, has outsold the PSP Vita by a factor of 15, though this gap will likely close somewhat now that Vita sales are picking up. Those numbers wouldn't be terrible by themselves, but attach rate was also relatively much lower for the Sony handheld contenders, and hardware costs relatively much higher. The result of those things put together is that while handhelds have been an enormous cash cow for Nintendo, they haven't been so great for Sony.
Don't get me wrong. SCE's fortunes haven't been universally unprofitable in the modern era. Like Microsoft's entertainment division, SCE's recent history has been up and down, with a lot more up as of late than down. While MS turned around in 2009, SCE did so in 2010, and it has had mixed performance since then, largely due to the debacle of its second handheld launch. But still, when examined across its entire history, SCE has actually been a very successful part of the parent company.
Don't worry. I'll give Nintendo its licks, too.
Part of the reason Sony and MS suffered so much during the early part of this console generation was because they were willing to take massive losses on hardware early on, and this was only compounded for MS by hardware failures and subsequent replacement costs. Nintendo, on the other hand, tends to sell hardware for a profit. If they need to, they simply use less powerful hardware. They rely on software and unique design features to distinguish their hardware. This has been their philosophy for most of their history (the N64 was the only console which significantly outdid its contemporaries in horsepower). This has actually served them very well. The PS did get much bigger market share than the N64, and the PS2 soundly trounced the Gamecube. But Nintendo remained in the black because they never actually lost money on those products. And they've always had an ace in their pocket which most core gamers don't remember. The actual best-selling console, for most of the years Nintendo has been in business, has been a Nintendo handheld.
But that's ironically where Nintendo first stumbled. The reason they suddenly dipped into the red is because the 3DS was stumbling. So, for the first time in a long time, they simply decided to sell the hardware at a huge loss and eat the cost. Of course, the reason they had to _do_ a price cut in the first place was because of a bigger problem. In the space of one generation, they let their production costs jump enormously, and people simply didn't want to pay. This is simply a bad time to sell hardware, and an even worse time to sell expensive hardware, as overall demand for gaming hardware has dropped enormously (analysts theorize it's a trailing effect of the recession).
And people don't want to pay for the Wii U either. Wii U sales have been extremely anemic. Nintendo is shrugging off a price cut for now, but they will do it. In fact, I'm certain they'll do it within the next three months. And it will help a lot. It's actually what turned the PS Vita around. The Vita is still short, in terms of total units sold, but it's now doing much better month-to-month against the 3DS in Japan. So a Wii U price cut will help, but it won't be enough.
Nintendo needs software to move machines. In particular, since overall attach rates are lower for Nintendo systems, hardware sales are most often spurred by consumer desires to buy into a specific evergreen title. These are titles that sell consistently over a very long period. For example, while the best-selling 360 titles sold 10-12 million copies, both the Wii and DS had several games which sold in the range of 20-30 million copies.
And they don't have enough of these right now, especially for the Wii U, and this is a huge problem for them. This is a critical time for Nintendo. The Wii U is slated to compete directly with the new xbox and playstation, and right now, it looks like it's getting a _very_ weak foothold in the market. They decided to make a strategic gambit by launching early, and it doesn't look like it's paying off. It may even backfire, if their competitors have enough time left in the product development cycle to outmaneuver Nintendo on a feature level. And Nintendo is undoubtedly terrified of being in that strategic position. After all, their former arch-rival SEGA made the same strategic blunder, and they had to pull out from the hardware business entirely.
And that's what some people think is about to happen. There are a few problems with that line of thinking, though. The first is 15 billion dollars in cash. Nintendo, as a company, is very well off, so it has an enormous cushion which it can use to weather storms in the industry. Second, it remains to be seen how seriously Microsoft and Sony will commit to fighting Nintendo on its own turf, that of family entertainment. Many of the Wii's best-selling titles were not things core gamers buy. That's what drove the success of the Wii, and it looks like the Wii U is intended to reach the same demos. The intent of the other players with their next console is unclear. While microsoft actually did sell quite a few units to non-core gamers based on word-of-mouth regarding the Kinect, that has mostly tapered off, and MS doesn't seem terribly concerned. So if Sony and MS continue to duke it out with each other in a duel for the attention of core gamers, Nintendo will have ample time to recover its footing. The fact that MS is its biggest contender here is heartening to them, no doubt. The next xbox may do well in stealing some of Nintendo's share of the family/casual gamer market in NA, but it certainly won't threaten them at home in Japan.
All Nintendo does is Rehash the same games Over and Over and Over. allways the same. then they try any new fad to try to get ahead. They cator to a nitch crowd of Anime children. Not knocking their thing but as you can see, its a small group of Gamers.
Move forward or get left behind.
My theme song.
Nintendo is doing fine.
They have decent saturation in their target audience, which is younger. Additionally, they don't sell their systems at much of a loss so they see a profit earlier than Sony or MS.
We have 3 kids in our home and have purchased way more Nintendo products than Sony or MS. If anything my Sony and MS title purchases have gone down as I don't feel comfortable playing them in front of the kids.
It is the developers that need to step it up, not Nintendo. They do not seem to want to create games for the Wii for some reason. Probably because they think people are after Xbox and Playstations
The Wii U has more stuff going for it it atm than the next xbox and PS4, as they have less games atm because they are not out!
With the way Sony was thinking about blocking 2nd hand games, and MS keeping the Xbox "Always On" and both trying to introduce DRM, and neither have backwards compatibility, then it does not make it easy to transition to the next Xbox or PS4 when the the Xbox 360 and PS3 have been around for a very long time. Wii U is BC with Wii, plays 2nd hand games, and has no DRM - This is what the Wii U has in strengh.
Nintendo are all about making fun games first, then making profit. Sony and MS are about profit first, then fun.
I have way too many consoles and games, and still got a tonne of games to play through on my Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii, which will keep me busy for many more years, so I think I will pass on the next Xbox and PS4, and got a Wii U to play Wii games and keep up with the future console releases, along with my PC. I just hope that devs decide to make more games for the Wii U alongside PS4 and next Xbox
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