curl-6 said:
Some people are just addicted to Nintendoom, they can't seem to sleep at night unless they read/write a new "Nintendo is dying" piece every day. The doomsayers are going to look just as stupid in 2 years as the people who claimed the PS3 was doomed in 2007 and the 3DS was doomed in 2011 do now. |
I think you're making the same mistake they are by equating the Wii U to the PS3 and 3DS. Just because those two systems found traction after a tough first year doesn't gauruntee the Wii U will.
The PS3 in the long term was always going to be OK, it always had all the third party support in the world and decent marketing/mindshare behind it. They just had to get the price down.
The 3DS comes from the lineage of the Game Boy/DS brands, Nintendo has always had success in the handheld arena for the last 15 years pretty much uninterrupted. Even without blue ocean games like Brain Training/Nintendogs, the DS eventually probably would've captured most of the Game Boy audience and sold 100 million anyway.
The Wii was lightning in a bottle, driven by Wii Sports/Fit. The Wii never really had a better library than the 360 and generally not the PS3 either (once the PS3 got going), but it brought in so many casuals and it was the "gotta have it!" device pre-iPhone/iPad era.
It looks to me like Nintendo is having a very hard time getting these casuals/soccer moms/fitness-centric women, etc. to come back and sequelizing Wii Sports/Fit isn't what gets that audience excited. They want a new "craze" to latch onto, and so far Nintendo has been usurped by things like Angry Birds, Minecraft, etc.
Historically no home hardware platform has ever been a huge success relying on a handful of franchises. Home consoles are not like handhelds, people buy more console games and expect a wide variety of content (1st, 2nd, and 3rd party). That's why I don't believe relying on Mario/Smash/Mario Kart to fix everything will work.
