Did Nintendo miss a huge opportunity with the year headstart they have on MS / Sony?

[Scisca]

Soundwave said:

Scisca said:
When I look at Wii U I always get the feeling that this console came a year too late.

Nintendo should have released this exact console for Christmas 2011. It's not like they wouldn't be able to put this hardware on the market a year earlier or they didn't have cash after Wii and DS. If they had 2 years on the market, they would be able to develop enough heavy hitters (X, Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc.) to convince many people to invest in the console. 3rd parties would also be interested in getting to know the hardware and giving the ports a bit more love (at least better textures) and knowing that PS4 and X-box 8 weren't right around the corner, they would be more willing to actually take a closer look at the console and do something with it.
With just a single year, Nintendo may not have enough time to achieve anything they planned. As it stands, I can't see a single Wii U game that I want to buy and I doubt it's going to change till the end of the year.
So for me this first year is a complete bust, it's nowhere near as good as Vita's first year, which gave us a couple of must-have games.

It hindsight yeah a fall 2011 launch would've been a better idea, but they were too busy trying to resucitate the drowning 3DS ... that's also put them behind the 8 ball, Iwata has handled both transitions horribly and put Nintendo in a bad spot.

With the Wii U now, probably they are going to have to regroup after the summer to release bigger titles.

 

C'mon man. If they wanted to hit the 2011 lauch window, they would have to start working on the console way before 3DS was released and entered it's slump. Plus the 3DS was saved by software and price-cut, I really can't see how this could influence the hardware development of the Wii U. The problems with 3DS couldn't have impacted the Wii U's development. Nintendo messed up because they waited far too long. Wii has been dead for a long time before we got the announcement of a Wii U and the console was released a year after that. It really beats me how they could have predicted that this console would stay alive for that long. A miscalculation that will cost them dearly in the next gen.

 

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

Scisca said:
When I look at Wii U I always get the feeling that this console came a year too late.

Nintendo should have released this exact console for Christmas 2011. It's not like they wouldn't be able to put this hardware on the market a year earlier or they didn't have cash after Wii and DS. If they had 2 years on the market, they would be able to develop enough heavy hitters (X, Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc.) to convince many people to invest in the console. 3rd parties would also be interested in getting to know the hardware and giving the ports a bit more love (at least better textures) and knowing that PS4 and X-box 8 weren't right around the corner, they would be more willing to actually take a closer look at the console and do something with it.
With just a single year, Nintendo may not have enough time to achieve anything they planned. As it stands, I can't see a single Wii U game that I want to buy and I doubt it's going to change till the end of the year.
So for me this first year is a complete bust, it's nowhere near as good as Vita's first year, which gave us a couple of must-have games.

Except they have been working on the Wii U since 2010. There is a reason why 2011 didn't have many notable releases besides Skyward Sword (which was probably delayed because of this game drought.) Releasing the Wii U earlier would mean taking an even lesser advantage of the Wii's high sales than what Nintendo ended up doing.

For that reason, I think the current situation is better than all alternatives.

Are you suggesting Nintendo took their game developers to work on the Wii U's hardware? And Wii has been dead for a very long time, but it's still selling better than Wii U. This shows that even an earlier release wouldn't change a thing for the Wii. Not at this point in its lifecycle. People who buy Wii U for $350 are not the same people who buy Wii for $120.

 

 

You say Wii U has a year head-start. I say it's a year too late.

Wii U is struggling to sell more than the Vita for Christ's sake! It loses to Vita in Europe! And Vita is currently in between a fairly successful Christmas sale and a new wave of games which will hit the market fairly soon, while Wii U is still in it's launch window. It won't hit its groove until Sony and MS release their next gen consoles, which will take all the hype away from the N console. Wii U will get good games for Christmas this year, but we all know that PS4 will get Uncharted 4 from Naughty Dog and we know what that means. X-box will get its share of exclusives that gamers are interested in as well, 3rd parties will embrace these two consoles and Wii U will struggle to survive with no casuals to save the day.

This wouldn't have happened, had they released the console in 2011. The impact Wii U makes is too small to make Sony and MS pull the trigger on next gen earlier than they plan to as it stands, but it would allow Nintendo to establish the console on the market, 3rd parties would been more keen on developing for the console. Nintendo messed up, Wii U will become a console that people only play 2-3 time a year to play a 1st party game. GCN 2 - I preach that ever since they announced the console.

It will be profitable for Nintendo, but will sell the least of all 3 consoles. I plan to pick it up when it reaches the price of $150 and might I add, Wii was my first current gen system.