| RolStoppable said:
1) No doubt that the Wii U will see a rebound in sales once the games come out and the hardware gets a price cut. But the point here is that the Wii U has hit lows that the 3DS was never even close to. The Wii U is in bigger trouble than the 3DS ever was. 2) The Wii U does compete directly with the PS4 and X1. And you know what proves this? Nintendo's decision to sell the system at a loss. If Nintendo had created value that differs from the PS4 and X1, then there would be no need to sell at a loss right from the outset. But not even Nintendo really believes in the Gamepad, a fact that is further emphasized by the lack of significant Gamepad features in their upcoming first party games. The Gamepad was a compromise to have a dual analog controller as a standard (to make ports for third parties easier), but still a hook to draw in the Wii audience. The problem is that the Wii audience doesn't bite. 3) and 4) These two points were made to make a distinction between moneyhatting (any form of it) and third party support that materializes without any special incentives from Nintendo's side. I did this, because you had merged them and presented them as the same thing (you lumped Capcom and Atlus games together). RE: Mercenaries was released in June 2011 and RE: Revelations in January 2012. Both games were in the works long before the 3DS launched (shown off at E3 2010) and RE:M was always supposed to release first. And yeah, I already conceded that building an installed base leads to better third party support when it comes to Nintendo handhelds. 5) 70% market share, man. 70%! This is the kind of dominance where we don't talk about multiplatform games, but exclusives. Almost nothing came out of it. If 70% don't cut it to change third parties' minds, then what will? 6) Yes, this is a very different situation. The Wii was the successor of the GC, so one could reasonably argue that the Wii didn't get good third party support initially due to the GC's failure. You could say nobody had any confidence that Nintendo would be able to build an installed base. But the Wii U is the successor to the Wii, a console that sold almost 100m units. Yet there still wasn't any willingness from the side of third parties to give Nintendo at least the benefit of the doubt this time around and get on board with ports of 360/PS3 multiplatform games right from the start. You have seen the list I posted earlier. If third parties weren't willing to invest $2m into individual ports, what makes you think that they will develop exclusive games that cost multiple times more than that? I guess you believe in fairness, but that's not how this business works. This is an industry that had the opportunity to grow tremendously, but they gave up this chance, because developing quality games for these new people (as well as those who didn't like the direction of Sony and Microsoft) was beneath them. People who liked the Wii were declared to be unworthy gamers by company PR. The industry tried its best to pretend that Nintendo doesn't exist in the home console space. And you expect the very same industry to make a U-turn and respect Nintendo all of a sudden? Not going to happen. |
1) I completely agree.
2) They compete but only in the most absurd ways. Here, I'll give you an example. The PS2 obliterated the GC. If Nintendo are unable to foster their own market (the mainstream and families and younger kids, and non-gamers), then Sony or whoever the market leader is will. It also happened with the PSX. It's only in the most unreal cases where Nintendo has to compete. Otherwise, the idea of Nintendo selling the U at a loss is Nintendo competing against itself and hear me out, here is why. If Nintendo doesn't sell their home console within a certain price threshold, their client base doesn't bite. We saw how successful the Wii was at its pricepoint, and this also applies to handhelds, we saw how the market reacted to the 3DS' price cuts and the DSLite's pricepoint (back in the day). Think about this one.
For the Gamepad part where I always agreed with you is that it upped the cost of the console and that was a very debatable decision. However in terms of appeal the gamepad (imho) is a very good design choice because it is familiar (DS/3DS) and it has proven a very appealing input means. Nintendo are not producing much games, and granted their upcoming games are not making much use of the gamepad, but give them a chance. The 3DS isn't making much use of it either to be completely fair, should they have removed the 2nd screen there to make the console more price-friendly? Also, Miiverse currently has a very budding community of artists and Nintendo will soon release Art Academy U, with full support of the gamepad. I'm personally very excited for this and have contributed a few drawings to Miiverse already. As the userbase grows MiiVerse will become even more important so stay tuned on that. Imho the value of the gamepad will come when the userbase grows, and I believe Nintendo knows this.
3) & 4) I think we mostly agree here. I understand that Capcom also enjoys incentives, but I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. If I remember correctly, Revelations was in the works but was not certified for delivery at a certain point in time. But once the sales jumped up with the pricecut, Capcom was back to the drawing board. That's how I remember it happening but I don't have any sources and it's been a while. Ultimately Nintendo really has work to do to convince devs by ensuring a steady flow of market-winning games, and of course incentives don't hurt. 
5) I hear you, I honestly do. The Wii was seen as a fluke a lot of the way through the gen, and most 3rd party devs had no idea how to react to it. With Nintendo's pedigree on both handheld and console fronts this time around, I truly believe this will change this gen, so long as Nintendo delivers on the U by getting it into the hands of as many people as possible. To be completely honest, to aid in this goal I believe Nintendo also needs to lower the price of their U games to match their 3DS games. I really believe in their handheld strategy and I firmly believe they must translate it to the home console space as soon as possible to ensure market dominance, but that's a thought for another time.
6) Yep, I see where you are coming from. It's a real paradigm shift for me this one because I'm so used to Nintendo having to prove itself and being snuffed and I have difficulty fathoming a world where Nintendo's console is supported just cause, like the other two. I think you are on to something, but given the reality of things and the general hostility towards Nintendo, I don't believe that will happen anytime soon. What I do believe can happen though is what happened on the 3DS, and given Nintendo's track record of late, I do believe a minority of 3rd party devs will come on board the U when Nintendo makes it a success, much like what happened for the 3DS. A lot of the companies that do negative PR and other follies towards Nintendo are unimportant. They never helped Nintendo on the handhelds, so I see no reason why they should have a positive effect on their home consoles. I'm really just translating the handheld logic to the home console because, in the end, there really is no difference. Nintendo games are the magic key which, no matter the platform, attract an audience. We saw it with the Wii and DS, we'll be seeing it again with 3DS and U. Point 5 and the other risk (devs not getting the message) are the only thing that make me worry about this. The price and games will be fixed on time, I'm sure. If the sales continue to stagnate, Nintendo will be aggressive again.
