Interesting how you like to talk about facts and you seemed to have mentioned "were done here" several times. Great attitude.

Brain training games for nds sold extremely well for more than 3 years and now they sell nowhere near what they used to. Were those games fads? How can they be if the sold well for more than 3 years? Is it possible that just like the term "gimmick", "fad" is also subjective? Thought so. Nice try though. We're done here.

The problem with metacritic here is that it doesn't represent every gaming audience or the market for that matter. Why is it that each masterpiece that comes out have such a significant difference in market share ? Why is there such a discrepency between the last of us or GTA V in terms of sales ? You see sales paint a very different picture when a crowd is trying to identify quality. Crowds aren't going to use metacritic but rather their intuition for choosing a game. That is where metacritic becomes worthless in attempting to be a scale for game quality. The majority of gamers all around do not use metacritic as a scale for game quality and the majority of the reviewers do not represent the gaming audience. 

One does not simply ask for an advice or an opinion of a so called "more experienced gamer". The same situation applies for metacritic. The so called "more experienced gamer" has obvious biases in comparison to the market. 

@Bold Ok now that example is just overexaggerated and not relatable to the differences at hand. Your comparing something as sensitive as money to an opinion on the quality of the game. False equivalence principle on your part. 

Why is Nintendo not one of these japanese game companies ? Nintendo obviously didn't have faith in the WII U succeeding because they knew damn well that the audiences are incompatible. Nintendo knew that third party support was not the way to go because they knew the gamecube had flopped epically hard. Financials don't lie. Marketing means very little in the end if the WII U could not supply quality software. I tired of having to say this again but hear I go "software sells hardware". All it ultimately comes down to purchasing a console is the software. It is not the masses job to simply support the console early on in a blind manner. Why exactly would it be unwise to not try a system ? See your problem is thinking that the so called "experienced gamer" should be the only one to hold the definition of quality is that the market responds very inconsistently from it. The reason why masses don't try other consoles is because the majority of them can only have one console per generation for other reasons. I'm not saying it would be unwise to not try out low sale consoles per se but if we go back to the mantra "software sells hardware" then it's obvious that the masses don't see alot of quality to purchase the system. The ones who are buying super mario 3D world are the fans so ofcourse you'll see a bias in their analysis so I wouldn't take the fans word for a measure of quality. 

Oh, so because the article isn't proclaiming that the Wii U is doomed, it's now "a flamebait article"? Funny, I'd say that this is one of the few articles out there that goes out of its way to AVOID flamebait, by pointing out that the Wii U is currently winning, but that the future is uncertain. You know, a BALANCED article, that says "hey, people are getting a bit ahead of themselves with all of this Wii U is doomed stuff".

Congratz to the wii u but that doesn't change the fact that it is selling poorly. Considering the xbox one and ps4 is one month old,it gonna catch up extremely quickly against wii u sales

The Wii U isn't actually doing that badly at all, outside of Europe. And the Xbox One and PS4 are selling well because it's launch, and sales are always fast at launch. Neither system is actually selling dramatically faster than Wii U did at its launch - what is different is distribution (Wii U launched in all major regions, neither XBO nor PS4 have launched in Japan).

It is worth noting that the Xbox 360 also had a rather slow first year (not quite as slow as Wii U, but not that much faster), but it sold a lot better once the Wii and PS3 had released. The Wii U is under exactly the same effects, right now - once the PS4 and XBO released, the Wii U sales rate increased significantly - indeed, between the start and end of November, the weekly sales rate increased by more than 200%. And the Wii U was up 145% in that week. In other words, between the week ending the 26th of October and the week ending the 30th of November, the Wii U saw its weekly sales increase by about 660%.

For comparison, the PS Vita, which was outselling the Wii U by a factor of about 2 to 1 in the week ending the 26th of October, saw an increase of 115% in the same period, and is now being outsold by the Wii U by a factor of about 2 to 1. The 3DS saw an increase in that period of 117%.

The Wii U is selling very well in Japan. It's selling respectably well in America, now - certainly not massively well, but in the range where one cannot really say it is doing poorly.

But then, I suspect that the Wii U could sell 3 million units in the next month, and people like you would still say it was selling poorly. Because, just as the "kiddy" image of the Gamecube and the "casuals" image of the Wii stuck irrespective of actual facts, I'm betting that the hardcore will continue to call the Wii U a flop even if it sells 100 million in its lifetime, because it had a weak first year.

Balanced? Hardly.

The problem isn't that it's not saying the WiiU is doomed. Hell, I could even buy the argument that it's a better system than the other two right now--there isn't anything big enough for the Xone or PS4 coming out until March I'd actually buy one for, while the WiiU has several games out now and lined-up in the next few months that are more intriguing. 

No, the problem is that he goes even further than that, sayingthat the WiiU is just a better system overall because of...what? The natural advantages of releasing a year early, like a bigger install base and more games. And while the article talks plenty about the WiiU's sales, it conveniently avoids any mention of how the other two consoles are selling faster, or how the WiiU has been tracking under the Gamecube for over a year, or how it hasn't come anywhere near meeting Nintendo's own projections. You know, stuff that an actual balanced article would point out so people would have a full and proper sense of how the system is doing.

Instead, he just cites that the WiiU's sales are up, essentially regurgitating the PR release Nintendo did without any extra context. Kinda like how Major Nelson tried to spin the Xone selling less than the PS4 in the States by focusing on how it sold more per day instead. But in his case, he actually works for the company he's spinning for so it at least makes sense.

But then again, CinemaBlend does have a habit of screwing up articles even when they're right. Like how they took a legitimately critical view of how journalists dismissed the hardware advantage the PS4 has over the Xone...and then still managed to screw it up by turning it into a screed against the "Doritocracy", dealing in the same facepalm-inducing nonsense you see on forums like this or in Youtube comments all the time.

Look, I get it. Hearing someone not doomsaying is a nice change of pace. But that doesn't justify this cruddy piece.  Jim Sterling did a Jimquisition episode making the same argument that runs circles around this, with cogent points and analysis instead of cherry-picking and flamebaiting bullshit; Polygon actually made a different (and equally valid) argument, speaking of the general advantages of not buying a new console right away. It's impossible for me to take Cinemablend's take seriously when I've already seen several other superior viewpoints.

OH NO one positive Nintendo articles vs the waves of negative black PR article based on speculation and cherry picking stats.

Wow you people are the worst, you can dish it out but cant hack it.

Then congrats. You're part of the problem. :P

You do not know that for a fact. Your just making assumptions that the majority (maybe it's based on opinions of this site) do not take sites like metacritic seriously. Interestingly enough,I have seen numerous threads on many different gaming forums stating the opposite. I've also seen people "flip flop" so to speak as to whether metacritic is a credible site or not, depending on whether their game of choice scored highly or poorly. The website is within the top 2000 globally so it obviously is receiving a considerable amount of traffic therefore influencing quite a few people. You cannot deny the effect that sites such as metacritic have on the sales of a game. Hell, people bitch about IGN probably more than any other site out there but I can guarentee you and I'd be willing to bet the bank account that a good majority of their users factor in the ratings when making a purchase. Now, the formula does not work for every single game (ie Call Of Duty Ghosts)  as it seems established franchises with heavy marketing behind it will always sell quite well. Lets go back several years ago when Haze and Lair were hyped prior to release and you cannot tell me that reviewes did not directly affect the sale of these two games!

So your telling me that as a gamer you have never had someone ask you for advice when making a game purchase whether it be a family member or friend? I have people ask me all the time my opinion on making purchases. There does not have to be any biases when recommending games. If you know the person well and their interests then you can factor that in when advising on what game they would have the best experience with. While my statement was somewhat of an exaggeration it also does apply to purchasing a game. When one is making a purchase, they are using their hard earn money to invest in an entertainment exprience that we call video games. Now, for some, $60 every few months is a considerable amount when you factor in everyday life expenses. Considering most people purchase 10-20 games over the lifetime of a console (and some more than that), it ends up being a significant amount of money for some people. Therefore, my analogy was not so far fetched.

That my friend is where you are wrong. Nintendo simply made bad decisions when it came to releasing the console ( should have been released a year later after they fixed the bugs) as well as marketing (especially the name). There are a significant amount of people who still do not know what the Wii U is. The name of the console itself has confused the masses as a considerable amount of people still beleive it is an add on and not an official new console.  Nintendo also has put out quality software but the issue lies with the fact that there was a considerable amount time that was between major first party releases which may have hurt them beyond repair.PS4 did not have a considerably strong lineup when it came to exclusives yet Sony's marketing was brilliant this time around and evryone and their uncle wants a PS4. M$ is also going for the same strategy as Nintendo ( however they marketed the One significantly better). Do you really think the 30 million Kinects sold were strictly core gamers? The two audiences can be compatible if the marketing and features are put together properly. As for not trying out a game because fans will be biased, well, then your stating that every single reviewer out there is biased as well, along with numerous medias outlets that have praised SMW3D. I mean, I'm not quite understanding your logic on this one. How would you then justify purchasing/trying a game that you would consider to be good? If your going by sales then I will refer back to "carnival games". If you go by sales then you should not own a single game in your list of PC games and should rush out the door to purchase a console! SM3DW has great sales. For a console that has @ 4.5 million sold, it will be between 800-900k (not including digital) in sales which is nearly 20% attach rate. You called NSMBU a crappy game yet it's sales are higher than your PC game list therefore you should purchase it based on sales  

Because of this weird thing called personal preference