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HappySqurriel on 14 June 2011
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mrstickball said:
archbrix said:
mrstickball said:

Developers do choose the console generation winners. We've seen time and time again that as major IPs are established, developed, promoted and so on, they establish winners and losers among the consoles - each generation, we see the winner based on the games that are produced for a console's library.

Developer backing is of crucial importance, no doubt.  But that's certainly not a foolproof mantra; how do you explain the Wii?  It didn't have squat for third party support or cross-platform hit games, yet has handily outsold both of its competitors this generation... not to mention allowed Nintendo to profit far beyond what Sony or Microsoft will accomplish this gen.

Look at the releases for the console in the first 2-3 years vs. that of the GameCube or other lesser-selling consoles that Nintendo has had. Furthermore, look at the Wii for the past two years of significant declines. I would attribute its initial success due to the internal developers that devoted significant resources (and success) to the system, and the crash due to the lack of resources of 3rd party developers.

Now, the next question is "Why can't Nintendo carry the WiiU like they did the Wii and make 3rd parties irrelevant?" - I think the Wii was in a much more unique position than the WiiU is poised to be in, much like the DSi-3DS transition we're seeing now. The Wii was a revolutionary piece of hardware and attracted huge consumer interest due to motion controls. The key question for the WiiU is if the tablet can translate into huge consumer buzz or not, and if Nintendo can capitalize on the tablet to develop significant new IPs. In the case of the Wii, we saw arguably Nintendo's most innovative and creative period in over a decade with titles like Wii Sports/Play, Wii Fit, and so on, which sold tens of millions of copies, or were packed-in and contributed to the incredible value proposition of the hardware.

Therefore, my belief about the market concerning WiiU is as follows:

  1. Nintendo will see a regression in terms of innovative new IPs on the WiiU (some successes, but no massive new IPs like Fit, Sports or Play)
  2. 3rd Parties will not embrace the console with major multi-plats well into the WiiU lifespan (very detrimental to the Wii's success over the past 2 years)
  3. System specs will make developers fall prey to the higher-specced PS4/X720 which will make said consoles their primary development platforms after launch (likely around 2014)
  4. If rumors of a 8GB onboard HDD are true, then points #2 and #3 will accellerate significantly, as publishers will see poor tie ratios of DLC on major tentpole IPs which will be arguably the #1 or #2 concern of next-gen revenue consers
  5. The tablet will be under-utilized by 3rd parties, and be a potential boondoggle in terms of cost to pack in with the WiiU which may hurt the console (e.g. WiiU won't be at the $249 Wii price tag, which was huge for its success against far more expensive consoles)
  6. WiiU will sell very well for the first 2 years (better than comparables for the X360 and PS3, but worse than the Wii), then see significant declines in 2015 as the PS4/X720 iterations soak up market share from consumers
  7. Will lead to 35m to 50m LTD sales - highly dependant on what MS/Sony do for deployment, and HDD space of WiiU.

1) Is an assumption that can't be supported with any facts. While we haven't seen any "real" games for the Wii U yet, Nintendo has used the tablet in many unexpected ways and it is possible that they could surprise us. On top of that, the success of Wii Fit and Kinect has demonstrated that add-ons can be used to increase interest in a platform for a unique gameplay experience, and I would expect Nintendo to have at least 1 major add-on in the life of the Wii U.

2) Third party publishers seem fairly willing to support any platform that will play their games without needing massive modifications. Expect (pretty much) every game that is being released for both of the HD consoles to have a Wii U port.

3) Realistically, we don't really know what the capabilities of the Wii U or next generation systems from Sony/Microsoft are ... It is entirely possible that the Wii U is more powerful than you give it credit for, Sony and Microsoft's consoles will be less powerful than you anticipate, and the difference between processing power in the next generation isn't as meaningful as you predict.

4) First off, this is entirely speculative on the capabilites of the system and beyond that I thought tie-in ratios for downloadable content were bad for all systems?

5) Third party developers seem amazingly positive on the tablet because it is an enhancement they immediately know how to use to improve the games they're working on. See John Carmack's interview to see what I mean.

6) This might happen, but it could also play out that the Wii U is successful for the first few years and after Sony and Microsoft release new consoles that don't have meaningful improvements over the Wii U and cost significantly more the sales of the Wii U accelerate. That was not a prediction, but I'm just pointing out that you're making an assumption that the next systems from Sony and Microsoft will be dramatically better than the Wii U; and we know far too little about any of these systems to support that argument.

7) Who knows how it will sell? Many people were predicting the Wii would sell 10 Million systems for similar reasons and it will (likely) sell more than 10 times that many by the time it is done.