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Mummelmann on 02 February 2013
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Aielyn said:
Mummelmann said:
comparing the Wii U to the 360, for instance, is worthless, they are two entirely different consoles in entirely different circumstances made by two companies from different worlds. Comparing it to the 3DS is equally futile, again these are entirely different cirumstances, one would think that people would have learned by now that history with vague similarity, fancy graphs and aligned launches are a poor indicator of the future. I guess not.

So what you're saying is that there's no historical basis for judging how the Wii U will go... and therefore, we must conclude that it's failing at the moment?

It just doesn't make sense. If there's no comparable situation, then there's no reference point to judge how things will progress from here.


No, I'm saying that the data you get from such an analysis is inconclusive. But, going by the moment (which is all we have), its not headed for greatness. I imagine people will still be chanting "give it some time to settle" one year from now if sales haven't picked up greatly.

The 360 had quite a few things going for it that the Wii U doesn't; tech, good 3rd party support, lots of leverage with pricing (not only due to the hardware not being terribly expensive but MS can afford losses in the console division like no other since their primary business is still software and extremely profitable at that), incredible strength in the US and UK markets (the 360 sold 1 million in one week in North America alone, a feat not even the Wii pulled off), the Wii U has no such market for now. The 3DS was in a market with no real competition and has also enjoyed a lot better 3rd support than Nintendo's home consoles and it was aimed squarely at the DS crowd while the Wii U is aimed at two groups and missing both, it (3DS) also launched in a time window where Nintendo were able to adjust the price and take a small net loss on the hardware since their home console had forked in massive amounts of cash and secured them record revenue for a few years, the Wii U is coming into life at a time where Nintendo has posted their first ever loss, the Wii died a quick death and stopped moving software abruptly and the 3DS hasn't really made them that much money yet. The 3DS also launched while the DS still had great momentum and not in the twilight of it's existence while the Wii U launched after the Wii had become all but irrelevant.

The Wii U exemplifies the age old Native American saying; If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.

More software will help the Wii U, no doubt, but I can't see it pulling 360 numbers lifetime, let alone Wii numbers. The price simply cannot be cut at this point and with stock being ample and shipments slowing down as sales slow, it turns into a vicious cycle, retailers won't bother having a large section for a console and games that hardly move from the shelves. Nintendo are going to miss their initial forecast by about 40%, perhaps even more, if that isn't a sign of some trouble then I don't know what is.

Both the 360 and PS3 moved slow at first for sure but not this slow, the PS3 was missing its best region and had a poor launch line-up for Americas and Japan, the 360 had a pretty shitty launch line-up as well. The Wii U had a decent launch, certainly better than the PS3 and 360 but has dropped like a stone, such a rapid slowdown is unprecedented in home console history.

When all is said and done, I think Nintendo should be very happy to sell 50-60% of the Wii's lifetime totals with their Wii U's but it could end up lower unless things change dramatically.

To sum up; history cannot tell us that it will fail but it can't be used to prove that it will be a success either. Most logic points more towards a rather grim future though, there are comebacks and then there are comebacks.