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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nikkei: Nintendo ceasing Wii U production at the end of the year

OneKartVita on 27 March 2016
curl-6 said:
OneKartVita said:

PSV and PSP are both consoles that sold less than the PS3. 

It may have lost billions but the worst thing to do was to not keep going with it.  After 3 years the big losses were already made.  Call it quits then and it's just shit all around.  They don't make a profit on the ps3 for the next few years and they don't win back gamers which sets them up to dominate with the ps4. 

Hence why I said Playstation "console", not "system".

And I never said they should have discontinued it. Sticking it out and suffering was their best option in the long run. But making it the way they did in the first place was a mistake that cost them dearly for years.

I agree apart from two things. The PSP and Vita are consoles.  You probably should have said handheld.  

 

Also they didn't stick it out and suffer.  They stuck it out and profited.  First few years was suffering big time but the last few were profitable so far from suffering.  

 

Sorry this is all off topic.  I actually came here to ask what the general consensus on these rumours are.  Do you think the production will really end this year? 



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archbrix on 27 March 2016
ps4tw said:
curl-6 said:

PS3 may have accrued a sizable userbase when all was said and done, but it lost Sony billions of dollars and still couldn't catch up to the Wii.
It's the lowest selling Playstation console, and the only one to lose its generation.

There's a reason Sony made PS4 nothing like PS3.

You make a lot of false assumptions. Firstly, while Sony was selling the PS3 initially at a loss, after the second interation that stopped. Secondly, it allowed Sony to determine the next-gen format, bluray, which their competition now has to use. Thirdly, Sony actually won the marketing segement - the Wii was not in the same market as the 360 or PS3 due to the utterly different audiences they catered for. No one compares Audi sales to Hyundai sales, and the same can be said for the Wii and PS/360 sales - the game lineup and marketing campaigns show that they were not selling to the same audience and therefore comparing their sales makes absolutely no sense at all. 

You're misunderstanding what he's saying.  

You're talking about selling each system at a loss, which took about 4 years before they began breaking even on every console sold.  He's talking about the PS3 not being able to make back the money it lost for Sony, which it didn't.  As Curl correctly stated, Sony lost billions with Playstation 3.



curl-6 on 27 March 2016
OneKartVita said:
curl-6 said:

Hence why I said Playstation "console", not "system".

And I never said they should have discontinued it. Sticking it out and suffering was their best option in the long run. But making it the way they did in the first place was a mistake that cost them dearly for years.

I agree apart from two things. The PSP and Vita are consoles.  You probably should have said handheld.  

Also they didn't stick it out and suffer.  They stuck it out and profited.  First few years was suffering big time but the last few were profitable so far from suffering.  

Sorry this is all off topic.  I actually came here to ask what the general consensus on these rumours are.  Do you think the production will really end this year? 

Lowest selling home console then, if that makes it clearer.

And while Sony did start finally making a profit on each PS3 unit sold in 2010, I don't think they ever made back the $4.7 billion they lost in 2006-2009.

You are right though, we are off topic. And yes, I think Wii U production will end this year.



oniyide on 27 March 2016
curl-6 said:
oniyide said:

whats any of that have to do with the question i asked? if the different market thing is not true then the WII U shouldnt be doing as bad as it has. 

What did pstw seperate? whats there to seperate. Its clear that those systems had different audiences. Notice how none of the best sellers on PS did as well on Wii and vice versa. those are facts. COD for example Just Dance for another.

ps4tw is trying to claim that Wii outselling PS3 doesn't count, basically because he doesn't like the idea of the console he favours not winning.

well he's wrong on that one



oniyide on 27 March 2016
FromDK said:
oniyide said:

were were the WII types games on PS2 how well did they sell? EYEtoy? lol that didnt come out till toward the end of the PS2 cycle and they had long destroyed the other two consoles by then. Singstar didnt do much for PS2. It wasnt like it was doing say, GTA numbers. Ill give you the DVD.

Just saying The PS2 won the kids room that gen (i personally got ps2 for my daughter becourse of singstar.. she wanted a karoke system.. the cheap ones was like 100$.. singstar was much better and then she also got a dvd)

But do you agree in the point.. that PS2 was the "casual" machine of that gen (it was like wii offcourse also for the hardcore and got many games that "serious" gamers loved)

honestly...no not to the extent people want to put on it. Lets look at the whole gen. PS2 160mil GC 20 xbox like 22 thats 220mil consoles sold in total more or less. probably more. Now lets look at next gen. PS3 80mil xbox 80mil wii 100 mil thats of the end of 2013 thats 260mil thats 40mil more that gen than the one prior. Or another way to look at it, blue ocean red ocean. Cant really call PS2 a blue ocean machine as it wasnt really that different than the other two on the market. thing about those games is the WIi like games on PS2, they didnt do well or pushed the system in any real way. the "serious" games did your FFs, Metal Gears, GTAs. So how can one call that a casual machine? what were the casual players playing? Wii was the opposite where the "serious" games werent coming close to the sales of the exercise, dance etc ones. 

Now i wont say "casuals" didnt buy PS2 but not on the level of the Wii as we can look at software. PS2 best sellers wasnt dancing games or exercise they were pretty much the same kinds of games that always did well on the system prior and after that and now. Its not like COD was doing big numbers on Wii despite being the lead console. as for this gen, we know the overall console sales probably arent gonna come close to last one. Wii U tanked. xone isnt going to do 360 numbers probably 50mil maybe 55. PS4 might do PS1 numbers around 100mil. thats less than 200mil for all three consoles. way less than last gen, so i dont think anyone will be a casual machine



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Soundwave on 27 March 2016

Sony's usually pretty good at attracting broader audiences and kids as the generation goes on and their price gets lower in conjunction with the library broadening out.

I think VR could be a casual draw for the PS4 after a price cut or two. VR applications I think are going to be very different from just games, things like VR ocean diving, non-gaming, travel, stories, etc. I think could be popular with casuals and the PS VR is cheaper than things like Occulus and probably will be cheaper than Apple which is also invested big into VR.



ps4tw on 27 March 2016
curl-6 said:
ps4tw said:

You make a lot of false assumptions. Firstly, while Sony was selling the PS3 initially at a loss, after the second interation that stopped. Secondly, it allowed Sony to determine the next-gen format, bluray, which their competition now has to use. Thirdly, Sony actually won the marketing segement - the Wii was not in the same market as the 360 or PS3 due to the utterly different audiences they catered for. No one compares Audi sales to Hyundai sales, and the same can be said for the Wii and PS/360 sales - the game lineup and marketing campaigns show that they were not selling to the same audience and therefore comparing their sales makes absolutely no sense at all. 

The "different markets" argument is just an excuse used by those don't like that fact that Playstation lost a generation. Let me ask you this: do you consider it "different markets" when Sony wins a console race, or do you just make this one special exception to try to discount the time they lost?

And in the first 3 years of the PS3, Sony's Playstation division lost $4.7 billion. Again, there's a good reason nobody, even Sony, is trying to replicate their PS3 strategy. Nobody wants that kind of "success".

You should be thankful really; if you really do love your PS4 that much, as your username suggests, then you owe its mid-range price and accessibility to developers in part to the lessons learned from PS3's failings. 

All you have demonstrated is you have never actuall professionally worked with releasing products into the open market. If you were to make that "different markets" comment in a marketing department, you'd be laughed out of the building. Some basic proof is the sales of games like Battlefield, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty between the PS360 and Wii. Come back to reality and stop living in a bubble world created by zealotus Nintendo fans. As a PC gamer I don't care which console sells the most, so don't try to claim bias.

Don't go off topic and talk about the PS3 strategy - if you want to have that conversation, make a thread about it. 

Actually I like the PS4 because it's a last ditch attempt to bring gaming out of the stinking void that was the last generation, as you said due to it's accessbility, but it's utter lack of power is very disappointing.



ps4tw on 27 March 2016
archbrix said:
ps4tw said:

You make a lot of false assumptions. Firstly, while Sony was selling the PS3 initially at a loss, after the second interation that stopped. Secondly, it allowed Sony to determine the next-gen format, bluray, which their competition now has to use. Thirdly, Sony actually won the marketing segement - the Wii was not in the same market as the 360 or PS3 due to the utterly different audiences they catered for. No one compares Audi sales to Hyundai sales, and the same can be said for the Wii and PS/360 sales - the game lineup and marketing campaigns show that they were not selling to the same audience and therefore comparing their sales makes absolutely no sense at all. 

You're misunderstanding what he's saying.  

You're talking about selling each system at a loss, which took about 4 years before they began breaking even on every console sold.  He's talking about the PS3 not being able to make back the money it lost for Sony, which it didn't.  As Curl correctly stated, Sony lost billions with Playstation 3.

The issue here is people are using a very, very basic business analysis. Can you tell me how much value Sony placed on customer retention to the PSN network? Or the value on investing into bluray? Or the profit margin of each game sold? Nope, didn't think so. A product is so much more than just the manufacturing cost.

 

oniyide said:
curl-6 said:

ps4tw is trying to claim that Wii outselling PS3 doesn't count, basically because he doesn't like the idea of the console he favours not winning.

well he's wrong on that one

No, I'm right and all you're demonstrating is you don't understand how product market placement works. 



ps4tw on 27 March 2016
RolStoppable said:
ps4tw said:

The issue here is people are using a very, very basic business analysis. Can you tell me how much value Sony placed on customer retention to the PSN network? Or the value on investing into bluray? Or the profit margin of each game sold? Nope, didn't think so. A product is so much more than just the manufacturing cost.

Here's my analysis of you:

You think of yourself as a very smart person and you believe that you possess great debating skills. You think that if you throw around business terms, people will be in awe of your knowledge and concede to the points that you are trying to make.

But in reality, all you are offering is fluff in order to dodge the points others are making. When you are making a post like the quote above, you hope that nobody notices the lack or substance. Do you know any of those things you asked for? Of course not, otherwise you would immediately provide something of substance to support your stance instead of focusing on rhethorics.

I guarentee that if they [Nintendo] don't focus on VR, they are doomed. 

The above in conjuction with subsequent posts highlights your personality. It's a bold claim, backed up by nothing. You hope that people will forget about it while you post about other things, but that's not going to happen on my watch. When pressed to provide something substantial to support your claim, you ran your usual strategy of rhetorics while trying to dodge the core of the argument. You have yet to explain how Nintendo could create a VR-focused gaming machine that is affordable and at the same time will be competitive with other VR options.

All you have demonstrated is you have never actuall professionally worked with releasing products into the open market. If you were to make that "different markets" comment in a marketing department, you'd be laughed out of the building. Some basic proof is the sales of games like Battlefield, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty between the PS360 and Wii. Come back to reality and stop living in a bubble world created by zealotus Nintendo fans. As a PC gamer I don't care which console sells the most, so don't try to claim bias.

The above was a response to curl-6. It's the end of the road when your debating skills don't work. If you truly valued basic proof, then you would have never claimed that the PS3 outsold the 360, because both Sony and Microsoft decided to hide their numbers before a winner between the two could be determined. If you were interested in the truth, your stance would have been that you don't know for sure which console sold more between the PS3 and 360. But instead you have crowned the PS3 as the winner of its generation on the basis that the Wii has to be excluded and the belief that the PS3 sold more units than the 360 despite the lack of conclusive proof for it. That is a clear sign of bias.

Another sign of bias is a pitiful denial of bias. Why is it pitiful? Because you said that as a PC gamer you don't care which console sells the most, yet you found yourself right in the middle of a discussion about which console sold the most. A discussion that you joined on your own free will, not one that you got dragged into by someone who responded to one of your posts. Here is curl-6's post, it's standalone. Here is your response. If you didn't care about which console sold the most, you wouldn't have responded to curl-6's post.

Then there's the fact that your username is ps4tw which is another obvious hint for bias. But the biggest indicator for bias would of course be a posting history, and in your case it's a very clear affair: Pro-PlayStation and anti-Nintendo. Playing the unbiased-PC-gamer card isn't going to work. Nobody is going to buy it.

Likewise, nobody is going to buy it that you have an understanding of what you are talking about just because you are using a few business terms. Want to prove me wrong? Here's an easy way to do it:

I guarentee that if they [Nintendo] don't focus on VR, they are doomed. 

Admit that that was a stupid statement to make. This would demonstrate that you have at least some understanding.

Of course, you could also choose to defend your bold claim, but that would only dig your hole deeper.

I have industry experience in pushing products to market, you, and most of the people here, don't, so that does make me experienced on this topic, whereas your points show a lack of knowledge around the complexity of producing and positioning a product. My point about customer retention etc is that there is more to a products value than net profit, and unless you were one of the product managers in Sony around 2004, we are unlikely to ever know the value they placed on such features; the losses Sony made on the PS3 are not as simple as people claim. But hey, it's not fair to expect plumbers to understand dentistry or students & baristas to understand product management. 

My VR claim is not "backed up by nothing" and simply highlights your lack of knowledge about VR. Literally billions of dollars have been invested into it by gaming companies and private industry, with also a massive push into AR (Hololens) which is focused on industry and enterprise features. Universally the positive feedback from V/AR has only been increasing over the past few years, with PS VR being in the top selling lists of Amazon in America, Canada, Germany and the UK. Rift sales are going, according to Palmer Lucky, "much better than [he] could have ever expected", and the Vive sold over 15,000 units in the first 10 minutes. It seems to be that VR is pretty popular and to ignore this trend would be idiotic at best.

The fact you talk about "winners" of a generation shows how infantile your attitude is towards the gaming market. There are no "winners", only products and their performance. Your language betrays your attitude and knowledge of the indsutry and product management in general. As I have said before, the fact that the games sold on the PS360 and Wii are so vastly different proves that the markets for the PS360 and Wii were completely different. Or you can just use the hilariously simplistic thinking of "THEY CONSOLZ" and lump them into the same market space without a shred of thought. I don't care about which console sold the most, but what grinds my gears is people who clearly have no idea about product management or market space making childish claims based on a woeful lack of knowledge of how actual businesses are ran. It's the equivalent of someone denying global warming or claiming the earth is flat; this is not a subjective topic, but an objective one - the Wii did not go for the same customers as the PS360. Fact. If you don't understand why that is, start here.

The only thing I'll admit is that I clearly know a lot more about this than you, and you shouldn't be so patronising when you obviously know very little to do with both VR, product management and market positioning. Of course, you can carry on arguing from a point of absolute ignorance, but you'll just be embarrassing yourself more as I'm going to make the assumption you have no experience in any of what we are talking about, and there's nothing quite like being lectured on a forum by an angry student/barista who is an armchair expert on every topic they touch on. 



ps4tw on 27 March 2016
RolStoppable said:
ps4tw said:

(...)

Make it simple for the people on this board. Lay out a VR-system strategy for Nintendo. You guaranteed us that Nintendo is doomed if they don't focus on VR. Now tell us what such a product would be, who it would be targeted at and how much it would cost.

As long as Nintendo make a console that is VR ready, then they will be able to start clawing back the market that Microsoft and Sony dominate. Unless they find an entirely different market, which is highly unlikely, then we shall see a repeat of the Wii U - a console that will only appeal to the ever dwindling core Nintendo fans. If you want more detail than that, feel free to pay me $70 an hour.