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Forums - Sales Discussion - Wii U beaten by the Dreamcast - what now?

Ryudo on 13 December 2014

Wii U makes profit. Nintendo is in fantastic shape financially. SEGA was losing money and nearly went out of business.

So what now? Nintendo sells Wii U as planned and keeps making profit. Even tho Wii U is selling less than XBO and PS4 it's in better shape. Sony posted it's 6th huge loss in 7 years. MS continues to dumb billions with little return. Funny thing is it's starting to look like PS and Xbox will become less of consoles and a brand of gaming services on devices. It's already starting with PSnow and Windows 10.



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KLAMarine on 13 December 2014
ps4tw said:
vivster said:
How can it be beaten by the Dreamcast if it's still selling and some of its biggest games are yet to come out?


Dreamcast sold quicker and yet was still seen as a failure. Begs the question why Nintendo are still flogging a dead horse. 

I love it when gamers don't understand business: Nintendo released the WiiU for the sake of turning a profit and their biggest money maker is through software sales. The WiiU was not released to outsell a console that suffered from piracy.

Asriel said:

Because if they cut and run now, they can't recoup any of the losses they incurred in the last few years of 3DS/Wii U. If they keep Wii U on the market and act to maximise profitability rather than marketshare, they can rescue some kind of financial positive from what is otherwise a poor generation for them. Launching a new console will be expensive, as would going third party. Better to make what money they can before they have to sink even more money into a change of direction. 

What's better for Nintendo launching their next home console? 15 million Wii U owners who received a lot of quality Nintendo software, and who were happy that Nintendo continued supporting the system? Or 7 to 11 million (assuming they cut and run sometime in the next 12 months) unhappy consumers who spent several hundred pounds/dollars on a system Nintendo weren't willing to stick with?

What looks better to a consumer buying the next home console from Nintendo? Nintendo, the platform holder who couldn't make Wii U succeed so they dropped support within three years of launch (and who cut the 3DS price massively after launch)?Or, Nintendo the platform holder that continued to bring their biggest, best titles to Wii U despite a small userbase?

What's a better bet for publishers and consumers? A platform holder who stands by their hardware, or a platform holder who runs at the first signs of trouble? If publishers and consumers are going to invest in new Nintendo hardware, Nintendo's decision to stick by or drop Wii U prematurely will play a major part in how well their next system does, at least initially. There are a lot of other factors Nintendo will need to nail, but sticking by Wii U and grinding out profit is far more sensible than dropping the system prematurely.

Cutting and running will be a disaster for Nintendo. It's what Sega tried when they saw Genesis sales declining, quick-fix solutions to eroding marketshare rather than making long-term decisions based around the future profitability and health of their platform business. Nintendo won't be happy with Wii U's peformance, and Iwata did say at the beginning of this year that so far Wii U and Nintendo have failed. But they won't be panicking about marketshare the way Sega did. Change is a-coming, it just isn't going to come while Nintendo have a niche of Wii U owners they need to keep happy and stockholders who need to see profits posted.



S.Peelman on 13 December 2014

Contrary to popular belief it wasn't the Dreamcast itself that was the main reason for SEGA leaving the hardware business. But I'm not the first here to say that it seems.

Dreamcast was selling decently actually, because it got to those 9m in under two years. Similarly, Gamecube was also selling well at first, but was atrocious in the later half of it's life. WiiU being behind both means little, it's the legs that count. There are and were many systems selling behind both, some indeed ended up failures, some didn't. The difference is, Nintendo makes money compared to SEGA at the time in this case, so they can survive a mediocre generation here and there. It isn't exactly ideal of course, but it is what it is and all we can do is wait to see how this generation ends.



setsunatenshi on 13 December 2014
WolfpackN64 said:
ps4tw said:

Looking at the sales figures, the Dreamcast, a console widely seen as a failure and the downfall of Sega, sold better than the Wii U to date. As Nintendo has the cash assest to survive a failed console, where will they go from here? It seems that they do not want to adapt to the demands of the modern gamer, and their core user base is smaller than ever. This being said, will this force Nintendo's hand out of the console business just as the Dreamcast did to Sega? How can Nintendo repair the publicity damage the Wii U has done to them in the eyes of gamers? 


The Nintendo core base is MUCH larger than Sony and Microsoft's. The Wii U will outsell the Dreamcast no problem and Nintendo's stifness is paying off, profits tripeling this quarter. Carry on.


Excuse me...

 

 

Care to elaborate what would give you such idea?



platformmaster918 on 13 December 2014
RolStoppable said:
Nintendo will still be alive and kicking. Despite an atrocious eighth gen showing, they've mostly eliminated Sony from the handheld space already.

Additionally, their financials are on the rise again, so it isn't even up for consideration to bow out of the home console space. And due to the unique characteristics of the video game business (new system means a reset of perception), the Wii U's failure doesn't dent Nintendo's image all that much.

overall profits doesn't mean WiiU was successful financially.  3DS is undoubtedly making the money for Nintendo.  This coming from one of the few that has supported Nintendo's home console showing this gen and really thinks it deserves higher sales than Xbox right now.




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Mikmster on 13 December 2014
Voltaris said:
Nah they'll be fine, at the end of the day they are making money from this all in all so its not to much to be concerned about


How is it not concerning, their consoles are no longer viable sellers.  What do they do next given wiiu abysmal sales ?  The next one if there is one will follow the lowset selling Nintendo consoel ever, any business plan following it will be hard to justify especially the 3rd parties are truely done with supporting then consoles.



zippy on 13 December 2014

Going by the numbers on VG chartz Wii U will have passed the Dreamcast in sales by Christmas, numbers that it took the Dreamcast 4 years to do?



WolfpackN64 on 13 December 2014
setsunatenshi said:
WolfpackN64 said:
ps4tw said:

Looking at the sales figures, the Dreamcast, a console widely seen as a failure and the downfall of Sega, sold better than the Wii U to date. As Nintendo has the cash assest to survive a failed console, where will they go from here? It seems that they do not want to adapt to the demands of the modern gamer, and their core user base is smaller than ever. This being said, will this force Nintendo's hand out of the console business just as the Dreamcast did to Sega? How can Nintendo repair the publicity damage the Wii U has done to them in the eyes of gamers? 


The Nintendo core base is MUCH larger than Sony and Microsoft's. The Wii U will outsell the Dreamcast no problem and Nintendo's stifness is paying off, profits tripeling this quarter. Carry on.


Excuse me...

 

 

Care to elaborate what would give you such idea?

I'm talking anout real core gamers, not people who trade in their PS3 and all their FIFA games just to buy a PS4 and the new FIFA. Nintendo's games have a high attach rate, higher than some Sony and Microsoft exclusives. Their own software makes them quite a lot of money.

To be clear, I was NOT talking about pure console sales. Nintendo is clearly not in the best position. But it's also not doing bad anymore.



Mikmster on 13 December 2014
RolStoppable said:
Mikmster said:
Voltaris said:
Nah they'll be fine, at the end of the day they are making money from this all in all so its not to much to be concerned about

How is it not concerning, their consoles are no longer viable sellers.  What do they do next given wiiu abysmal sales ?  The next one if there is one will follow the lowset selling Nintendo consoel ever, any business plan following it will be hard to justify especially the 3rd parties are truely done with supporting then consoles.

Nintendo came back from the GC, so yeah... there isn't much to be concerned about.

With a fluke fad ? not strenght of their own merits proven by their incapability to replacate the success agian.    I dont doubt they will find success agian, neither would i doubt ill be as a 3rd party.



KLXVER on 13 December 2014

I really don't know what Nintendo will do next tbh. The casual gamers are gone, so another Wii like system probably isn't a good idea. The core gamers will always choose a PlayStation or a Xbox over a Nintendo system, so another GC like system probably isn't a good idea. Handhelds are on the decline, so the hybrid thing probably isn't a good idea. I really don't know...