| kitler53 said: i doubt this year start will be as helpful as you think. excluding first party, the games coming to wii U are ps360 ports. unless nintendo can convince loads of publishers to develop nintendo exclusives (ala zombieU) it's not the wii U that has a head start, it's the ps360. and so far, any support from activision and EA (let alone exclusive support) have been luke warm at best. so to answer your question of will gamers be able to wait for sony and MS to announce their hardware? A) we'll have the announcement by E3 next year at the latest. B) until nintendo actually starts getting some exclusives that really demand my attention the wii U is absolutely easy to ignore. i already have 2 systems that play batman AC, Mass effect 3, Assasins Creed III, CoD blops2, GTA5, bioshock infinite,.. i (and around 100M other households) really don't need another machines that plays those games. ..and do you honestly think the likes of wii fit 2, just dance, lego city stories, or pikmin are really going to sway the ps360 core? first off, just dance is multiplat. and lol at wii fit 2, pikmin, or even the like of NSMB wii U or any other nintendo property swaying the core. if the core were interested in those the ps360 wouldn't have outlived the wii in the end. those systems thrived despite nintendo's success specifically because nintendo doesn't giving the core what it wants...and they still aren't. zombieU is the only thing i see on wii U of interest so far and one game just isn't enough. No, no. The real question is will wii U actually get the ps4/nextBox multiplats the article assumes it will get. last i heard epic said wii U is a unreal engine 3 machine and will not support it with unreal engine 4. if wii U doesn't get MSony's next gen multiplats, the wii U is DoA to me. nintendo had better hope it can strike another cord with the casuals again. the one thing the article said that i can absolutely agree with - "it’s actually quite difficult to create something that resonates with the masses.." nintendo's past success is no guarantee of future performance. |
The main flaw I see in your argument is that you put far too much importance on the core gamer. The core gamer is only a segment of the market, and a small one at that. This is the same mistake made 6 years ago when virtually everyone and their grandmother predicted doom for the Wii, and utter dominance of the PS3. They didn't realize there was a market for gaming beyond the 15-28 year old males.
So you think Sony and MS are going to be able to catch up to the sales of a console that has:
A. Probably at least a year head start on the market
B. The so called "casual" market on board, when MS, and especially Sony, has proven they do not really understand how to sell to this market
C. Established Nintendo franchises, including major hits like NSMB, Wii Fit, and Dragon Quest in Japan at or near launch, and Smash Brothers, Zelda, Metroid, and so on further down the pipleline. This isn't like the Gamecube where Nintendo had no 2D Mario game and relied on primarily niche titles. They now have franchises with established fanbases of countless millions to draw upon.
D. Almost guarenteed lower pricepoint.
Sony and MS will undoubtedly have the horsepower advantage, but that's really the only advantage I can see at this point. I think history has shown that that means nothing in terms of success. In fact, if anything, the least powerful console almost always becomes the most successful. You could argue the third party support will be superior on Sony and MS's consoles, but again, Wii showed that that doesn't really matter. Nintendo is enough of a presence in the industry, and their games are of enough quality that they can surive on their own. Besides, I don't see the power gap being as big as Wii-PS360, so I think it's likely Nintendo gets far more third party support this time around, as cross porting should be easier. I don't know much about Unreal Engine 4, but what I have heard is that the software will be very scalable, so that tells me there shouldn't be any issue porting to Wii U. If there is, than big deal, it's not like it's the only engine out there.
And what are all of these games that will sway gamers to wait for and pick up Sony and MS's $400-$500 machines? Especially after the news that Nintendo's console will likely get the next Call of Duty. I also would wager that they will snag at least some of the other big franchises as well that were once non-Nintendo exclusives like Resident Evil, GTA, etc.
I think it's a longshot that Sony and MS's machines will reach Wii U's success with all these factors in mind.. But I guess all we can do at this point is speculate. At the end of the day no one really knows what will go down. I mean hell, 99% of analysts got this gen totally wrong, and this is their freakin job. How can we hope to predict anything close to the correct outcome? I think the Wii proved that even the most unexpected outcome can come to fruition. It will all boil down to the games, and outside the Wii U launch window games, we simply know nothing about what future games will be like.
