Which console launch was handled worse, PS3 or Wii U?

[Alphachris]

I will answer for this question from a European point of view. I have choosen the Wii U.

Ok, the PS3 had a hard time. But I want to point out a few things that have to be taken into consideration.

1) The PS3 offered HD visuals while almost all households did not own a HD TV yet. The Football World CHampionship 2010 in Germany was the first big Event where HD TVs where heavily advertised so that people could enjoy HD entertainment for the first time. Up to this date most TV stations still broadcast in SD although some are braodcasting in SD and HD at the same time.

2) Bluray. Sony invested into Bluray and the market for Bluray was very limited.

So the PS3 tried to adopt technology that was ahead of its time in Europe. So one can say that the PS3 tried to be future proof and that made the console more expensive. It was a decision by Sony, that hurted the launch, but makes the PS3 still viable in 2013. One could say that this was a calculated risk for Sony that ended up well in the end.

So, while the launchwas very bad, there were some points that have partly redeemed the PS3 launch. The Transition to Bluray surely has hurt Sony and the PS3.

The WII U however has some problems that could have been avoided from the start.

1) Nintendo launched it too late in my opinion. The Wii started to drop already in 2010 and if you look at the top 100 sold games of the Wii you will not find many games from 2011 or 2012 there. If you compare that to the HD twins you will see that they have many games from 2011 or 2012 in the top 100 and they will still have some heavy hitters in 2013 and maybe even in 2014. So the Wii has lost steam relatively early and Nintendo waited too long to either keep the WII going or to push the WII U.

The last two years people simply lost interest in the Wii. Ok, there is still the next generation of children getting their first console but aside from the few Wii Evergreens people simply stopped buying new games. The Wii got some heavy media coverage and in Germany some newspapers promoted the Wii as a means of losing weight while playing for overweight kids. It was a media sensation and it caught the interest of former Non-gamers... but it simply failed to keep that interest. I doubt that many of the Wii buyers will buy a new console ever again... simply because they were non-gamers from the start.

The Wii was a success saleswise. But the motion controls alienated many of the core gamers. The novelty wore off very fast and I had several games like Silent Hill where to controls simply limited the game experience. I would have prefered if they were purely optional like the PS Move. I have grown up with a standard controller and I think it is the best solution for dedicated gaming.

So in my opinion Nintendo got lazy. They relied on the Success of the Wii and thought that it would be enough to bring a new gimmick as a controller and have a 2d Mario game from the beginning. But as the 3D in the 3DS did not get the crowd excited from the start, the tablet controller failed to impress the masses.

It was the first tv advertising where I have seen the shuriken mingame with the touch screen where I lost interest in the Wii U. I have had high hopes that the transition to HD and the use of a proper controller would solve my personal problems I had with the Wii. I just don't want touch screen mingames or motion control minigames in my games. The Vita suffers from the same problem. Uncharted and Assassin's Creed Liberations were at the Core great games, but the touch screen minigames simply were immersion breakers for me.

So in my opinion, Nintendos launch is worse than the PS3. Sony has introduced new technology that was simply ahead of its time for the masses and so you had to pay for features that you could not really use at that time. (HD with no HD TV, Bluray Drive, but only a very limited and expensive offering for Blurays). Nintendo however has let the Wii slowly dying and they did not use the time well to find something really impressive. Nintendo even failed to offer a Trophy Service ( I bet there are many hardcore fans out there who would go for things like "I want to Platinum every Zelda game available),

The PS3 could rebound as People started to buy HD TVs and Blurays became more common. Sony could finally cut the Price and the games were coming... The Wii U simply does not contain technology that has yet to shine. Nintendo is already losing games due to the weak sales numbers. If Mario Kart and Smash Brothers are out there and the sales numbers are still not picking up the Wii U will be in troubles and will have a hard time in being relevant to third party developers. The sad thing is that NIntendo easily could have done better... they just did not and for me it felt like being lazy and overconfident.