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Mummelmann on 20 February 2013
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curl-6 said:
Mummelmann said:

By going back a few months, you'll note that the Wii U's launch line-up was praised and hailed as terrific, it was even dubbed the "best launch line-up ever" and would surely work wonders. Sales plummet, launch line-up was suddenly shit and Wii U has no games and no system sellers (except the second biggest one currently on Nintendo platforms overall). Did the 360, PS3 or even the Wii get a slew of awesome titles in their first months? Hell no, very few consoles do, yet they managed to sell a lot better than the Wii U. Its not a software problem, its the aim of the hardware.

The Wii U is aiming at two markets and missing both, like I've been saying all along. The Vita is in the same position, it is attempting to reach both handheld gamers and home console fans, not a very good blend, the console lacks focus and direction. Besides, multimedia devices such as smartphones and tablets are eating up the market the handhelds used to occupy and own and the room for growth is gone and dedicated handheld devices will likely disappear within a few years.

Bold: 2D Mario is a system seller for the "casual" crowd, who won't flock to a $300-$350 console. The rest of Wii U's quality titles could be found on the PS3/360, often much earlier. The launch lineup was a quality one, but it certainly wasn't a system selling one. Compare it to the Wii, which got a casual killer app in Wii Sports and a core killer app in Twilight Princess. The Wii U has a grand total of ONE big name exclusive so far, which is aimed at an audience out of the console's price range. Software is its problem.

Italic: The 3DS's strong performance contradicts this argument.


Wait a minute, are you saying that 3rd party hits available for other consoles never helped the Wii U while claiming that a Gamecube game that was held back and released on GC and Wii was a massive system seller, bigger than NSMB? 2D Mario is the epitome of nostalgia, it appeals greatly to old gamers like myself, a lot more so than a 3D Mario or a modern Zelda ever will. I also enjoy your theory that "casuals" won't spend 300-350$ on hardware when they're going bananas over phones and tablets that cost around twice that amount, and certainly a lot more than 300-350$. Casuals are still spending a heap of money, a lot more than ever before but they're spending it elsewhere, like I said. You're using the incredibly faulty and well dismantled "economy is bad" argument, like a reverse Wii bingo. The PS3 had a bunch of shared sports games at launch and the biggest exclusive title it had managed a whooping 1.3 million, it was Ridge Racer 7... It had CoD 3, which even sold more on the Wii (about 800k more) as a core carrot to draw sales and the thing cost 600$ at launch, yet it managed a better january and february than the Wii U, even without a presence at all in Europe yet.

The Wii U is designed completely wrong, it has no broad appeal to neither casuals nor core gamers. Games cannot atone for this, the controller will still be a bad idea, storage will be lackluster, services won't beat the competition and 3rd parties still won't care and shower it with support.

The 3DS' strong performance is already headed downwards (and its starting to lag behind the DS, much like the Wii started lagging behind the PS2, only the 3DS has started this decline even sooner) and it is bound to end up way behind the DS, likely somewhere around 60-70% of the DS' total lifetime sales, meanwhile, the Vita will contribute absolutely nothing to the handheld markets sustainability. Let's not forget that the PSP and DS have accounted for over 230 million sales thus far, something Vita/3DS will never get close to (in fact; it will likely end up around half total or even less), there is nothing to suggest that I am wrong in my theory here, a year or so from now it will be even more obvious. Dedicated handheld devices are going away in the near future. If the equation were as simple as; 3DS selling quite well now = handhelds are guaranteed a bright future, doesn't that mean that; Wii was breaking records right and left = it easily outsold the PS2 and has about 150-160 million sales now? Do you believe that the 3DS will sell over 200 million consoles? Perhaps 210-220 million that it would need in order for the handheld market to grow? No, its shrinking and its shrinking fast. Hardware development cycles are being forced into turbo mode, for portable devices in particular and tablets and phones are taking over fast. The dedicated handheld gaming device is soon a thing of the past, just like traditional home consoles are damn near extinct, they're more about media capability, connectivity and multi-functionality than games at this point, all this to remain competitive, the handheld is going the same way and Nintendo and Sony aren't keeping up, not even close. I think it was superchunk, the astute member in here, who said that Vita should have been a phone, even before the thing was released. Guess what? He was completely right.

Its not that simple. One more thing, before the accusation arrives, I'm not an advocate for smartphones and tablets and certainly not their "games" (in fact; I abhorr everything they stand for), but they will inevitably take over the casual market and thus a sizeable chunk of customers who could otherwise be swayed into purchasing other things.