| superchunk said: Too early for me to do any WiiU predicting beyond I think it'll be around 10m by end of this year.
For Vita we have some more time. I've been pretty clear on my distaste for Sony's approach to Vita and I've said many times it should have been a phone. I stated then that it won't last longer than a few years but I was really waiting for this last holiday to pass before passing final judgement. Vita launched Japan in December 2011 and pretty much everywhere else in February 2012.
Basically 4.5m in 15.5 months. That's a pretty weak start by any definition. Which is exactly in line with my reasoning on attacking Vita early last year for Sony's approach to portable gaming. There is some hope in its purported usage with PS4,however, how many people will buy a $200 accessory for a $400 home console? For that approach to work, Vita would need to be sub-$100 and I don't think Vita will be anywhere near $100 in 2014. Limited streaming of your console game over various crappy free wifi networks will not push consumers to buy Vita at any price really. So, my opinion is that Vita will still have a very short life. I think I originally said it wouldn't last past 2014 and I am actually going to put that to 2015 due to Sony's push for it as a strong accessory to PS4. However, by the end of this year there will be MANY portable devices well ahead of Vita in power and gaming content for similar or less prices that also have A LOT more portable functionality. People will choose those over a Vita. Vita will hit 10m by end of this year with strong push by Sony and PS4 launch. Vita ending life around 20m. |
I quoted Superchunk because I was pretty much going to write the same thing.
For Vita, I don't think it has much hope as it stands. It's too powerful for its own good and doesn't offer any truly compelling games for the mass market. Sony doesn't have the 1st party games to move it and 3rd parties don't want to put their games on it because it doesn't have a big enough user base. The price drop will help, but there is still little reason to buy it. Smart phones are better options for the non-game uses of Vita, and that will only become more pronounced.
I will say 20 million for Vita, unless/until an experiaVita is released, which could do quite well.
For Wii U I also think it is too early to make a valid prediction. We don't know:
-Nintendo's big games.
-Significant third party support beyond watch_dogs, AC4 and RE: Revelations.
-The price difference between Wii U and NextBox/PS4.
So, in the best case (for Nintendo) scenario, Mario 3D, Zelda HD, X and the Retro project will look outstanding and appeal to the core market, WiiFitU and other new titles will capture some casual customers and some other AAA third party titles such as GTA and Destiny will appear on the system. PS4 and Nextbox will be at least $450. Quickplay iOS apps will become popular on WiiU and it will capture some of the would-be tablet market. Lifetime sales: 100++ million.
In the bad scenario PS4 and X720 will be $299, Nintendo will release Mario Rainy Day instead of Mario Universe, WiiFitU totally bombs, no apps are ported to the Gamepad, and Watch_Dogs is the last AAA 3rd party game we see. Lifetime sales: 30 million.
In the realistic world I think the sales range for Wii U is 50-100 million since I think the core Nintendo titles will do well. I also think the Wii U will be significantly less expensive than other systems... at least $100. The Nintendo brand is still very significant as well, with last week Wii +Wii U sales exceeding the total for X360. That means a significant portion of console gamers are buying Nintendo products, even at a point where most of us would say this is a low point for Nintendo. When you factor in portables, Nintendo has about 50% of the hardware market. Consumers like the brand, and will most likely buy its product.
For the time being I'm going to say 100 million lifetime for Wii U. I'm assuming strong 1st party titles, moderately high pricing for competitors, the porting of iOS apps for gamepad, moderate 3rd party support from Ubisoft, Activision, Capcom and others, and some carry-over brand value from Wii as evidenced by the high end-gen sales of Just Dance, Wii Sports and others. I might cut this prediction by as much as 50% after e3 or whenever we know more about future product and pricing throughout the industry, but for now it's where I optimistically see it.
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