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Soundwave on 01 September 2012
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SaviorX said:
Soundwave said:

I think Wii U will do well over the holidays (even the GameCube did fairly well during holiday seasons), but like the 3DS will struggle in the non-holiday months (sans Japan).

Pachter is being harsh, but I wouldn't really be surprised if Nintendo's market shrinks to this during this gen:

Wii U: 45-50 million (down from approx 100 million Wii)
3DS: 80 million (down from 150 million DS)

Still a sizable market, but I think they're going to take hits as 3DS/Wii U will not be the same type of hit with casual gamers now that everyone is making casual games (the "new"/"trendy" factor behind it is shrinking). 


I dont understand how you can say that about the 3DS... If it only sells 80m (worse than Gameboy Advance in ~4 years of life) that means 2011 was its peak year! It will nab 95m-100m at least...

Wii U? There is no way it will sell worse than the PS3 did this gen by more than 15m units like that. First off the market has expanded too far to contract like this. By the end of gen there will be around 250m consoles sold; if Nintendo loses 50m the other two manufacturers have to gain at least 75% of that.

Second, Wii's software will see sequels. That means Mario Kart and Smash will return, in addition to NSMBU and all the other games yet to be seen. The first 3 I mentioned have the potential for at least 40 million pieces of software already.


I think 3DS will have some tough years in 2014 and 2015 (Vita will be wiped out completely) because of cell phones and tablets. I think the handheld market as a whole is shrinking, 3DS does strong numbers for Nov/Dec (holidays) but really shrinks for the rest of the year, DS would sell big for all 12 months (you have to sell 120+ million units of hardware). 

The Wii has been on a downward spiral as a brand since 2009 ended really. I don't think the casual market is going to come back in such strong numbers to be honest. 

I think it's sort of like an Atari 2600 situation brewing where people are going to realize a lot of these casual games are crap and not very high quality and simply bail out. You can get that type of experience on from a $1-$2 app these days. 

Without that, Nintendo is going to have to aim at the hardcore market more, and I just don't think they're prepared to really fight that fight. Mario/Zelda these are almost 25, almost 30 year old franchises now. They don't have a new flagship character that appeals to older players (James Bond was about the closest and they only had him for a short period). Mario can only do so much, Zelda is on a bit of a decline, Metroid isn't a big seller, the rest of the "core" portfolio these days is lucky to crack 500k in any territory (F-Zero, Star Fox, Pikmin, etc.). Which is a shame because I like a lot of those IP as much as Mario. 

Nintendo/Mario fans will buy Wii U, but that only gets you so much. 45-50 would not be that bad though, that's about the same as the Super NES sold.