EdHieron said:
On what caused the Wii's decline: It was caused by the fact that they've had a dramatic lack of quality software going back to 2008. They've had a few bursts in sales over the years caused by a couple of signature releases (Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Zelda this Christmas season) accounting for its higher than normal sales, but really the lack of software has been atrocious. Especially in the US where they've refused to bring out appealing games for years even when their "fans" have begged them to release certain games (yes, they're bringing out Xenosaga at one store -- I guess to keep Reggie from looking like a total douche bag).
In addition to their software woes, the fact that the competitors have also added motion controls to their games during the last couple of years has been a major factor in the Wii's decline of late especially since Kinect has proven to be very popular in the US (where due to Nintendo's lack of steady quality game releases Wii has been taking quite a hit as of late). Someone said that it was Wii's launch price in comparison to its competitors that caused the Wii's rapid rise along with quality software. Actually, the Wii's rise was all about its launch price, it definitely benefited from Sony's failure to launch the PS3 at under $600.00 as well, the heightened demand for Wii due to holiday shortages of its first few years giving it the Cabbage Patch Dolls effect, and the gimmick of motion controls. When the competitors added motion controls to their games, the Wii lost that advantage, so its been a no-brainer that it's been suffering especially so since the launch of Move and Kinect.
Lastly, the Wii was a good experiment as it showed Nintendo just how many consoles they could sell to the Blue Ocean type of customers, but in the overall scheme of things, that wasn't that much. The casuals just weren't that interested in going over to Nintendo's signature titles and they really weren't that interested in buying games in series that they felt like they already had (eg. Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus not reaching the same level of sales as their predecessors). The Wii has sold 90 million consoles which is nice figure but that's really about as high as it can go in with the type of audience it was marketed for; however, The PS2 a dedicated games console hit 150 million and the PS3 and 360 which are still primarily dedicated gaming machines for core gamers are still going strong (stronger than Wii for sure) in their latter years. And that's why Nintendo appears to be wanting to follow a course more like that of the true dedicated gaming consoles with the Wii-U. Petering out in the 75 to 90 million sales range just isn't as nice as remaining relevant for an entire gen like the 360 and PS3 and hitting 150 million like DS and PS2 by releasing games that appeal to core gamers.
So, the Wii isn't dead yet. And it will have a few bumps in sales over the next couple of years when it has price cuts and when key core games like XenoSaga and hopefully The Last Story are released for it (and maybe a few unannounced Nintendo core titles), but for the most part it's irrelevant.
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This, for the life of me I cannot understand why people thought that the WiiSports crowd would all of a sudden start playing the Metroids, 3d Marios, etc. If they didnt play them before(and they didnt) why would they play them now??
