| Mazty said: Not from gamers, it's from the perspective of customers. Ferrari could claim te Enzo is for your everyday working man, but that would just show incredible stupidty on Ferrari's part. A company can claim something, but that doesn't mean they are correct. Just look at how the EA CEO states the Wii U is not next-gen. Where did I mention hardcore gamers? And yes I do understand what a "target audience is" whereas you are just using strawmen arguments. The target of the Wii U is "everyone"? That is the most absurd marketting speil I've heard in a long time: http://www.wiisworld.com/wii-news/wii-u-core-audience.html If you really think the business meetings at Nintendo went along the lines of "who do we want?" "EVERYONE!" and that was that, you clearly don't understand business . I'm saying that the Wii U doesn't currently have a target audience, and therefore very few people will buy it. Oh my, look, the sales are showing this. Core gamers will stick with their existing console until a successor is released, and casual gamers don't care about upgrading, therefore the Wii U is left in limbo as it doesn't have a particular reason to exist. Want to play 7th gen games? Stick with the cheaper 360/PS3 which you probably already own. Want 8th gen games? Get the PS4/nextbox (awaiting specs). Why get the Wii U? For a handful of exclusives that seems to be getting thinner as time moves on? |
You use links to "prove" that Nintendo isn't targetting everyone. And yet, when you pay attention to the very first of the links you posted, you'll realise something. It doesn't say "Wii U targeting core audience", it says "Wii U targeting core audience more" - Indeed, the article's source is an Iwata Asks, where this is said: "In that sense, I do wish all kinds of games would be released, regardless of the debate over core or casual." - they don't just want core gamers. They don't just want casual games on the system. They want everything.
Your second link has Reggie saying that the core consumer already has a Wii, so the Wii isn't going to be selling to them - the Wii U, on the other hand, they do want to sell to them. Meanwhile, those who didn't buy a Wii because it was too expensive aren't going to be buying a Wii U now, when the Wii is becoming more affordable. It's pretty explicit if you understand English well enough.
Your third link is a comment by SONY. Does it really make sense to listen to what Sony says Nintendo's target audience is? But even if you did accept what they said, they're talking about early adopters, not the target audience for the system.
After that comes a link with a comment from an analyst - here's a tip for you, any analyst that releases a statement for free is releasing information that is worthless to any of their customers. Otherwise, they'd be selling it to the customers, and not giving it away for free. Some "analysts" are actually PR people, like Pachter. In short, anything that an analyst says publicly isn't worth listening to.
The final link is a Crysis guy who says that the problem is he wouldn't give the Wii U controller to his 3 year old. Has nothing to do with core vs casual, and everything to do with age. Kind of like how the 3DS, Nintendo says shouldn't be used by those under 8 years old or something. Doesn't mean that they're targetting some mythical "core gamer demographics".
Of course Nintendo doesn't have boardroom meetings where they go "who are our target audience?" "EVERYONE!" Because it's self-evident. Iwata established on becoming CEO that he wanted Nintendo to appeal to everyone, that he didn't want a restricted "target audience" at all. And it's been Nintendo's primary MO since then. They've said it pretty much every time that they've spoken to investors, and at pretty much every single E3. They say it consistently in their public comments, too.
The Wii didn't have a target audience. Nintendo made it a point to have games for a variety of different consumers available for the system, from very early on. They had Wii Sports, and they had Twilight Princess. They brought out Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 in 2007, but they also brought out Big Brain Academy. 2008 saw Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, and Wii Fit. The Wii U is taking exactly the same approach - their launch titles were one 2D Mario and NintendoLand. Their next one is set to be Pikmin 3, a very much "core" game. Also expected is Wii Fit U.
Meanwhile, as I've pointed out, the Wii U's weakness is simple: GAMES. It doesn't have the games necessary to drive sales at the current price in sufficient numbers to compare with the Wii. This isn't surprising, as the Wii had a true killer app - Wii Sports. That game sold so many consoles, to consumers of all stripes including hardcore gamers, it's not funny. The Wii U doesn't have such a killer app, so it has to depend on accumulation of notable titles. And late ports won't cut it - that's part of the problem, that so many of the launch titles were late ports, rather than exclusives. Most launches have a heap of exclusives... but the industry has become multiplatform-obsessed, resulting in a dilution of apparent value in individual consoles. Why buy a Wii U when most of the games for it, you can already get for half the price on the other consoles?
But perceived value increases with time. Right now, there's about 4 exclusives. Give it 6 months, and there'll be a heap of them, including games like Bayonetta 2 that help to attract gamers who owned the PS3 or 360. Exclusives aren't the only thing that raise perceived value, but non-exclusives will never be system-sellers.
Of course, what I find hilarious is that people like you point to PS4 and the Xbox Successor and go "This is why the Wii U isn't selling", despite knowing nothing. And then you point to the Wii U's current game lineup and say "and this is why Wii U isn't selling, too". So what you're saying is that lack of knowledge about Wii U game lineup and lack of knowledge of what the PS4 and Xbox Successor will look like are harming Wii U sales, and that means that the Wii U is headed for death? How the HELL does that make sense, when neither of those will remain true?
Oh, right - just like certain analysts, and about half the online community, you assume that NINTENDO IS DOOMED! And let's be honest - that's precisely the thought process you go through - you start with the assumption that Nintendo is doomed, and then find evidence to support your assumption, ignoring anything and anyone that contradicts it with stronger evidence.
Meanwhile, I can't help but notice that you completely ignore the actual topic in favour of attacking the Wii U. I've seen this pattern in many threads, by you and by a number of others. It leads me to wonder about your purpose in posting.
