Why the Wii U Is Destined to Become the Next Sega Dreamcast

[fillet]

AnthonyW86 said:

fillet said:

AnthonyW86 said:

I saw this article and i found the idea pretty interesting: http://www.explosion.com/30989/why-the-wii-u-is-destined-to-become-the-next-sega-dreamcast/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_57717

I think some important points where missed though. For one Nintendo's first party line-up is much stronger than Sega's was, and so is Nintendo's financial position.

Really? Virtua Fighter 3, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, House of The Dead, Soul Calibur (OK not first party but exclusive)...few others too

However the Dreamcast final blow was piracy

Debateable, there's not evidence to support that claim at all.

and recent rumours suggest that the Wii-U has already been hacked.

It hasn't been hacked, you will need a £100/$150 device to for the device that emulates the optical drive, that's not hacked, that's a middle man attack that it possible on any console.

Also Nintendo barely makes an profit on the Wii-U system itself if any, a situation very different to that of the Wii and other Nintendo home consoles.

Even that's not proven.

Wii-U even if it would fail would not force NIntendo out of the hardware market, but could we be looking back on the Wii-U 5 years from now as we do on the Dreamcast?

It could be even worse than the Dreamcast, or better we don't know. But the reason the Dreamcast failed is purely because potential buyers had lost confidence in Sega after abandoning the 32x and the Saturn and also that most games for the Dreamcast were arcade (mostly perfect because of hardware being based on a cutdown Naomi board) ports.

I don't see any similarity between the Dreamcast situation and the Wii-U situation, except they both sold like shit overall and even the Dreamcast did pretty good numbers to begin with so I'd dispute the article and your comments completely as there being no link whatsoever.

Interested if you have any counter points though?

Actually didn't Nintendo do kind of the same with the Wii in the end? I know alot of people that where kind of pissed of that their Wii has been collecting dust for quite some time now.

And we don't know if Nintendo makes money on the system or not, i think they do now with the more favourable exchange rate. Though the margin sure won't be nearly as big as with the Wii.

And i didn't count exclusives because those will vanish if a system loses developer support. Nintendo's own franchises however are a guarantee even if the system sells terrible.

I'l give you the hacking part though, not sure what the effect will be if any.

However the Wii-U being overshadowed be the attention for the competing systems and it being with it's back against the wall atleast for now are very comparable to what happened to the Dreamcast.

Sorry, I just typed the above reply before reading this. No offense, it's good discussion anyway :)

I'd have to disagree here though, it's not really yet known if people are holding out for the release of the PS4/Nextbox, if they are which they could be that doesn't make it a comparison with the Dreamcast. If I remember correctly, it was more that people just didn't know that the Dreamcast existed, it wasn't supported properly in shops at least here in the UK. Certainly wouldn't find it's whole game catalogue on display anywhere, even at the beginning!(!). Even then it did sell very well initially, but the Wii-U didn't, certainly nowhere near expectations from the Wii - Wheras Sega came from rock bottom public confidence with the failed Saturn. By the time the PS2 released, the Dreamcast was almost dead.

All I'm really seeing is 2 consoles, both needing or needed medical attention. Nothing more.