the Wii U is not getting replaced this year, guys

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Soundwave said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:
As I wrote many times, IMVHO Ninty won't rush anything. Early release didn't pay for XB360, it paid even less for Wii U and it barely paid for 3DS only because PSV did awfully, but 3DS had a horrible launch and it needed a huge price cut with heavy temporary losses to be fixed, and after a roaring "second" launch, it eventually fell under average sales of its unbeatable dad, DS, with its enhanced New 3DS edition not as strong as DSi was for DS, The record is quite bad for early launches, both for Ninty and for other companies, with few exceptions that worked thanks to many other factors helping them, early launch alone wouldn't have worked.
So, 2016 could be the earliest possible year for Portable NX, while 2017 will be for Home NX, but I wouldn't be surprised if no launches at all happen this year.

360 benefitted a lot from an early launch, it basically gave Microsoft a gaurunteed 1st place in the HD race for a couple of years and by then they had tons of momentum. 

Axing the XBox to switch to XBox 360 was 100% the right call. 

Early launches do let you work out kinks in your strategy. 

The DS had a shitty launch too ... yet it had time to iron that out. 

If the XBox One had a year headstart like the 360 did, they'd probably be no.1 right now in the next-gen market. 

360 benefitted partially its early launch: bugs and glitches partially ruined the granted initial lead (so badly that it took Wii less than 40 weeks to outsell it, despite XB360's one year advantage), and what's worse, it cost MS huge initial losses, and Ninty wouldn't like either things.
MS had no choice, because XBox was keeping on losing an awful lot of money due to one of the very few mistakes it ever did, a bad deal with Intel for the CPU and a horrible one with NVidia for the GPU.
OTOH, Ninty isn't losing money on Wii U, just earning less than it would like, and for home consoles, it needs to avoid launching too early if it wants two things to happen, not losing money on HW sales and at the same time making it powerful enough, even if a little less than 9th gen competitors, to offer 3rd parties at least the minimum HW power they need for their biggest games. In particular, RAM must not be significantly smaller than the size equipped on competitors.
DS had a shitty launch, but Ninty not only had all the skills to fix it, but also a rock solid reputation in portable earned with all the generations of Game Boy.
This said, neither Sony nor MS look interested in launching too early, so Ninty could simply keep the one year lead Wii U had and launch Home NX one year earlier than them without rushing it. This actually means a 5-year main role plan for Wii U (and not much more than another year of life after successor launch, given current sales) with Home NX launch in Autumn 2017.
Portable NX OTOH could launch as early as in late Spring of this year without being rushed, but just early. But portable's actual launch date will be carefully planned by Ninty, it cannot afford mistakes in that market, and

Miyamotoo said:

Point is that Nintendo did not rushed Wii U or 3DS, Wii was totally dead for two years before Wii U arrived and they had plenty of time to prepare launch and console itself, and yet they they done terrible job with Wii U and 3DS. They were able to save 3DS, but with Wii U they made to many mistakes and they could save it. Main reasons why they had so many troubles this gen are fact that is Wii U first Nintendo HD console and they have lotsa a trouble with HD development, second was that they also admit they can't effectively support any more two completely different platforms Wii U/3DS, and beacuse of that NX will be unifed platform. Also with Wii U alone Nintendo made so many mistakes that they didn't fix, so its not about rush product it's about bad decisions.

Saying that, Nintendo is talking about new platform from January 2013, and from 2014. they working on NX games, so if they release NX at end of this year it won't be rushed console, they had/have plenty to prepare good launch with good launch game for this years end.

Part of my answer is above, in what I answered to Soundwave. About Wii, Ninty clumsily killed it far too early, due to both decreased support and some clumsy statements in some Wii U announcements that made Wii look suddenly obsolete more than one year before its successor's launch, these two things tarnished the Wii brand itself and contributed to worsen the other problems adding a totally avoidable marketing one.
About NX launching this year and being rushed or not: of course if they don't bring forward production , HW design and development won't be rushed, so HW problems as MS had with XB360 would be avoided, but it would actually be rushed in being launched just four years after Wii U, this would quite piss off the few 3rd parties that believed in it, and most Wii U users too. And it would be at least two years earlier than competitors, this could force them to modify their plans in ways that could hurt Ninty in unpredictable ways (for example delaying their next consoles one more year, so making NX overpowered for multiplat games that must necessarily run on 8th gen consoles too, for lack of other 9th gen ones, while it would be even more underpowered than Wii U compared to its later competitors). To put it simply, launching too early compared both to Wii U and to 9th gen competitors would make Home NX a 8.5 gen console, and competitors could easily make it become far too early for what concerns next gen. Last, but not least, launching this year is too early to include an affordable VR device as standard equipment, should it become a viable and next future for gaming, while competitors launching later could wait and see to decide. Obviously if VR will be already viable but still only as an optional for every 9th console, no harm will come to Ninty from this side.
But as I wrote, a 2016 launch for Portable NX wouldn't be rushed at all, just early, but reasonable. Anyway, 3DS doesn't need a urgent replacement yet, so it depends just on Ninty plans for that part.