| JEMC said: Now I can agree with you. Yes, Nintendo is in a win/lose situation, but they have almost always been in that situation as consoles and videogames are their business. Sometimes they win (NES, SNES, Wii, all handhelds until now), sometimes they lose (N64) and sometimes they not only lose but they also get hurt (GC). How WiiU will perform is an unknown as there are still many unanswered questions (price, actual support from 3rd parties, the other consoles, etc), but even if they lose, it's unlikely that they will sell less than 30 milion units, which is enough to warrant a profit, from their own games, from 3rd party games and the hardware. And the success of the 3DS (which wiill not sell as well as the DS, but it will do well) really depends on what Sony does with the Vita. Honestly, if Sony doesn't cut the price before Christmas it will be very difficult for them to change the situation, even more now with the larger 3DS (which with its higher price may be sold at a profit from the get go), and that means more software for the 3DS. Oh, and yes, at the end of the next gen things will be different. |
This is actually what I was thinking about with the Gamecube, I don't think 30 million is enough for Nintendo to be profitable, even if the Gamecube broke even for Nintendo, the Gameboy and the DS is what made Nintendo profitable. Nintendo's situation is one where the 3DS's loses can't be absorbed. The Wii and DS haven't been able to make Nintendo break even and a new console is going to bring them even more losses (That loss being the nature of releasing new hardware, even Sony lost money on the PS2's first year). I personally don't think there's much of a market for dedicated gaming devices anymore, which is why I think Sony bought Gaikai, and why Microsoft is delaying their next sucessor. They both know the dedicated game market is a failing market so they're quietly making their exits and evolving their brands into something else to compete with Apple and Google. And in Sony's case, joining Google.
