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kain_kusanagi on 03 March 2012
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archbrix said:

Not exactly.  Grandparents, soccer moms, and Nintendo fans aren’t the only ones who bought Wiis.  There are many of those people who are not platform loyal who did as well, and many of these people were also owners of the PS2.  They may own a 360 or a PS3 as well, which brings up another point.  Just because the PS3 and 360 have a combined 125m+ consoles sold doesn’t mean that 125m individual customers bought quite that many.  Many people have both of the HD twins (possibly a Wii too).  The Wii managed to move 95m+ to individual customers, did so without the majority of games on the market, and was launched a year behind the 360 to boot.  Again, WiiU will have these majority games and will be launching first.  If anything, Nintendo could potentially be pitting Microsoft and Sony against each other all over again, as they are both very similar and will likely both be launching directly against each other…

N64

Mario Kart 64 sold 9.87

Gamecube

Mario Kart DD sold 6.95

Wii

Mario Kart Wii sold 31.62

Look at that these sales numbers. The Wii is an anomaly. The N64 and the Gamecube were primarily owned by Nintendo fans/Core gamers. The Wii on the other hand had a huge non-gamer user base. Mario Kart Wii was heavily bundled and bought by soccer moms who probably just wanted Wii Sports and Wii Fit. No touch screen gimmick is going to trick those soccer moms to upgrade the system they either don't use or think is all they will ever need. The people who had never played a video game before the Wii are not gamers and I don't believe they will ever play another game on any platform. The Wii is a fluke, and it's a fluke I don't think will repeat. At least not untill true virtual reality gets invented, then I can see non-gamers jumping in again.

My point is without soccer moms and their like the Wii U will be like past Nintendo consoles, not the Wii. Meaning it will do fine, but not gangbusters. Nintendo fans will stay where they are and MS/Sony fans will stay where they are. I think those without brand loyalty will stay where they are too and not cause much of a difference. Unfortunately for the Wii U, MS and Sony have people addicted to their gamer scores and trophies. Even if they have no deep seeded loyalty to a company they aren't going to buy a Wii U port of a game they can bolster their achievement points on Xbox 360.

You clearly want to believe Nintendo can do anything. I hope they surprise us all. But I'm not going to hold my breath. The industry has changed and the Mario/Zelda culture of gaming has been overshadowed by the Call of Duty culture that has already firmly chosen the  Xbox as "hardcore" central. It saddens me that Sega and Nintendo are no longer seen as hardcore, but them's the breaks.