Soundwave on 06 April 2013
| Gamerace said: I think what Iwata did with the blue ocean strategy and disturpting the market with DS/Wii was brilliant. However I'm at a complete loss with 3DS/WiiU which do nothing to follow that same line of thinking and are largely retreats away from everything DS/Wii accomplished. Despite what Nintendo fans here preach 3DS is only selling well in Japan, it's sales in Europe and NA are not impressive (Vita is pathetic) even though they took a loss on cutting the price and even with major franchises - Mario Kart 7, Super Mario Land, NSMB2. Iwata must be held responsible. Yes, WiiU launched well but the complete loss of momentum come January speaks HUGE volumes. Yes games will help it sell, but the concept of WiiU is simply not appealing in and of itself and again it's selling at a loss. Iwata is ultimately responsible for this too. I'm left with the impression that Apple/Android distrupted the market on the casual side to an extent Nintendo doesn't know how to respond and Nintendo can't compete on the core side (nor does it want to - it's a money losing strategy) and so they've played it overly safe and will be left with predominately their core base because of it, but people who buy Nintendo systems for Mario/Zelda/Metroid/etc buy little else it seems so it's not appealing to other developers. |
This guy gets it. Spot on.
To be honest, Wii U sales in Europe were bad from day 1, and Wii U's first December in North America also showed troubling red flags (Dec 12 NPD was lower than the first December for the $500/$600 PS3 and lower than the GameCube's 1st December too). It had a solid launch week in North America and an OK start in Japan, but that's about it.
