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Gamerace on 12 October 2012
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Stefan.De.Machtige said:
Gamerace said:
Mummelmann said:
Gamerace said:
I can't believe that I'm essencially in agreement with the Pachter here. Which is the most convincing argument that I'm wrong that I've seen yet.

But yeah...
1- not powerful enough to pull the core from their existing consoles
2- not novel enough to pull casuals from their ipads


Falling between two chairs, so to speak. I've been saying the same thing for quite some time.

That said, I'm surprisingly excited for the Wii U and will probably end up buying one myself. It will probably offer a lot more unique gaming experiences than the PS4 and 720 anyway.

Unique experiences are what I love about my Wii.   I'm not convinced WiiU will be unique though.  With Vita, Smart glass and dual analog Android systems coming out, if WiiU proves sufficiently popular it's games could be (potentially) ported across all systems, even dual screen Android would be within the realm of possibility (iOS too), minus the Nintendo exclusives of course.   Plus we don't know what MS/Sony are doing yet.  Their next systems might be more novel than WiiU.

I'd love to be excited enough to get a WiiU myself but so far, nothing on it has inspired me.

1- not powerful enough to pull the core from their existing consoles
2- not novel enough to pull casuals from their ipads

1. was tried with the GC -> a rather big fail -> small profit and a big collapse in market size. 

2. was tried with the Wii -> a mixed bag -> great sales, but It proved to be too unique for most developers.

 

Both didn't work out great.  So, Nintendo is now trying 1.5 - a mixture of both. The fact that you can't pin the WiiU down on both points, might be its biggest strengh. Nintendo is clearly aiming for some middle ground here.


I get that.  But I don't believe there's a significant market for it.   Wii was perfect, but even Nintendo themselves said they needed to keep surprising the casual market with new gameplay to keep them involved.  They did that successfully with Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, stumbled with Wii Music, recovered slightly with Wii Sports Resort (which wasn't really new, more of a sequel to what came before) and then... no innovation.  NSMBW sold great and was great because it allowed four to play but even that wasn't really innovative.  After that.... All standard Nintendo fair and weak attempts - Kirby, DCKR, MoM, Kirby, Z:SS, Kirby, Wii Party (which sold great in Japan and well in Europe but lousy in party-game super saturated NA) Wii Motion Plus (lame).   Really the only innovation in the last few years was Just Dance which sold amazing.

If Nintendo had stayed true to the vision, beyond Wii Music instead of rehashing their old library, Wii would have continued to sell well.  3rd parties would have continued to support and while it would have progressively been a very different system - family/party/casual oriented - it would have stayed a powerful seller.

By 'playing it safe' and trying to please both camps simultaneously while offer nothing really new to either (touch screen is common and dual screen has been done for many years-by Nintendo), Nintendo risks alienating both groups and being left with just the Nintendo core.

At least, that's how I see it.   They've lost me (so far) and I was a huge Wii fan.