spurgeonryan said:
Are you saying that they were trying to high-end with the Wii. Nintendo was fine until the Wii U. That is when they started to go down. They created and launched the 3DS early to beat its rivals and then started on the Wii U. All the R&D slammed them all at once. They were not able to keep up properly with games. Hopefully now that both new systems are out they can support us properly. Slowing down to a trickle these past few years has hurt them. They probably could have held off a price cut on the 3DS if the little system just had more games for it the first year. Games, games, games! Nintendo gives us the games and their systems will sell. The Wii did not die because people just got bored with it. |
Nintendo consoles were always visually a high-end product until the launch of the Wii. It was essentially an overclocked Gamecube. Wii marked the beginning of Nintendo's new marketing path. The actual reason for the low-end visual fidelity on Wii wasn't a creative decision. It was because they wanted to keep using the same manufacturing facilities they had been using with the failed Gamecube. It was their way of cutting corners and it worked. It's also important to remember that the Wiimote was originally designed to work with the Gamecube.
The last 3 years of Wii saw incredible sales drops every year. The reason wasn't for a lack of games, it was because of the limitations of both the Wiimote and console power. After all, Mario Galaxy 2, Skyward Sword, among other big games, didn't launch until late in the life cycle. The promise of what the Wiimote could deliver to AAA games never came to fruition. It ended up being a party game and mini game machine, which not many people are going to keep playing for more than a few years.
3DS is a completely different issue, though it launched a good 6 months too early and $50 too much. Even with more software available at launch (or within the launch window), people weren't willing to pay $250 for a handheld gaming device. And as we're also seeing with the Vita, that price point is still too much for a handheld even with better internal hardware and launch lineup.