Destructoid Blog: "Is Wii U's Touch Screen Controller a Red Herring Hiding a Deeper Strategy?"

[DaRev]

RolStoppable said:

Nem said:

ichardhutnik said:

DaRev said:

 

1) I can say this, because Nintendo has fallen short of their own expectations. They thought what they had was sufficient, but it clearly wasn't. They had to revise their forecasts down substantially. On a sidenote, "embrassing" is a nice combination of the words "embracing" and "embarrassing", especially in this context.  I don’t know much about financial stability of a company and all that, but I assume that if a company like Nintendo forecast figures that they eventually don’t make, it doesn’t mean the end of the world or that the company or the product is doomed.

2) Forecasts revised down from 5.5m to 4m. There's no way you can claim that the system isn't underperforming. The system isn’t underperforming, as I look at it as a result of Nintendo’s own forecast being too high. So move on, and make more forecasts, and if they fail, adjust it and make even more forecasts, it’s what companies do.

3) The Wii wasn't focused on casual gaming. It was focused on fixing what is wrong with video games. That's why the response from the market was so strong. Like I said, had the Wii been a wrong analysis of the market, then Nintendo could have dropped the price of the system with no problems; the Wii was selling at a healthy profit margin. The same doesn't apply the Wii U. If Nintendo analysed the market wrongly (and by now it's clear that they did), then there is no room for a price cut without hurting the company's bottom line greatly. I believe Nintendo can cut the price of the WiiU today if they need to, that’s why they got two SKUs on the market, so that they can have some movement in the price point. However, Nintendo (like Sony and Vita) has already made the decision not to cut the price of the WiiU regardless of how it performs early on, as they’ve said they would release the console at a price where they wouldn’t need to drop the price for some time to come. That leads me to believe that while they can drop the price they have taken the hard decision not to.

In other words, a safe strategy gives a company room to maneuver, in case things don't go as well as planned. On the other hand, a gamble poses a threat to a company's future. Turning the Wii U around will force Nintendo to operate their business at a loss yet again. This isn't something that a company like Nintendo can afford all the time. I agree with you to a certain extent, but I don’t think the WiiU needs to be ‘turned around’, as if it is heading in the wrong direction. What Nintendo needs to do is make games, mainly its 1^st party hits and some 3^rd party ones as well, not change its strategy for WiiU. With the successful 2012 launch numbers of the WiiU it is clear that people are interested in the console, Nintendo simply has to keep would be purchasers interested by making games, unique Gamepad ones, that will show off the console, and not change its strategy for WiiU.