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Mummelmann on 11 November 2013
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Nintentacle said:
Mummelmann said:

Hard to say, but I'll make a guess.

Wii U: 18-25 million

3DS: 80-90 million

I'll take the average and say somewhere around 21.5 million Wii U's and 85 million 3DS.

The Wii U was poorly designed and hasted out the gate to counter the incredible and sudden decline of the Wii, it lacks basic appeal, at least that's my theory. Seeing the tiny effects of software and price cut, and the short time window of effect on both accounts, this is looking more and more likely, Q1 and Q2 2014 will be conclusive though, even if it manages a decent holiday, that doesn't mean much, it had a very good holiday season last year and we saw what difference that made for the remainder of the year. Squeezed between the 7th and the 8th gen, it will probably be slaughtered on all points, from profitability, software sales, support and hardware sales from one competitor or another and it will likely be replaced a lot sooner than the Wii was.

The 3DS will fall victim to a collapse in the dedicated handheld market due to tablets/phones devouring marketshare and stealing the entire casual base (this has all but happened already) and the more core gamer will get their fill with home consoles, mirroring on smart devices and more core games arriving for the tablets and phones as the market expands and attracts more serious customers. We're already seeing this development in Europe and Japan, digital distribution will also contribute to this in the long run.
The DS had three consecutive years of over or around 30 million (!!!) consoles sold, the 3DS will never get anywhere near this and has a probable peak around PS3/360 levels right now and is set to track about 12 million below the DS after three years on the market now in february despite initially tracking above, launches aligned, this is is very similar to Wii behavior, only a lot sooner and in spite of reduced price and good support.

Wii U could go either way. If 3D World, Mario Kart, and other exclusives don't help sales much, then Wii U should do about 10 million. If they revive the Wii U, it could get to 50-60 millon if the games come out at a decent speed. 

3DS should get to 100 million. Think about it, phones and tablets are already taking over, yet 3DS has sold 36 million in almost 3 years. If the handheld market is going to die because of smartphones, then It's going to happen when they're powerful enough to play full blown AAA games.

By the way, Wii wasn't replaced early. It was replaced after 6 years. That's pretty normal. PS3 and 360 just had longer lives.

 


The 3DS having sold 36 million in almost three years is still far below the DS, it moved 56 million in three years, the 3DS will be approx 12 million below this on its three year anniversary in February, with an early peak and exponential decline over the next three years, it is completely feasible for my scenario to play out. Or have people already forgotten that the Wii was supposed to gain 50% marketshare and outsell the PS2?

Tablets and phones are already more powerful than any handheld console, this is not the problem, developer efforts and diverse enough userbase is, for now. For the record, I think it's a fairly bad idea to bet on the mobile market, it's just a bubble and will likely cause more trouble than even the 7th, with companies sinking left and right within 4-5 years.

So either the Wii U sells 10 million or 50-60 million? I don't think it's that black & white, 10 million lifetime should happen around the end of 2014/start of 2015, I hardly think it's going to be replaced already then, the last thing Nintendo needs now is another rushed console on the market. It will be replaced sooner than the Wii but not quite that soon.

The lifecycle of the Wii wasn't extremely short but it was incredible irregular for a market leader, it basically went straight into obscurity, basically leaving both 2nd and 3rd places an aopportunity to catch up, this has never happened before and Nintendo were caught with their junk in their hand over this. Paired with an unprofitable 3DS at launch, they rushed the Wii U to the market to try to ressurrect the Wii trademark, so while one can say that the time window for an heir to arrive was not unusual, it was still a rushed and poorly planned project, the slew of hardware and software issues, lack of decent software for a long time, multitude of patches and extreme idiocy of the Basic SKU all but proves this beyond any doubt. I think both Nintendo and their fans assumed that the Wii would enjoy the same curve as the PS3 and 360, this was never going to happen due to a multitude of factors (that is an entirely different discussion though, not relevant to this thread). For a market leader to simply drop off the map and stop selling both software and hardware is not normal, going from outselling two competitors combined to selling less than half of one of them in the span of 2-2.5 years is anything but normal and flew directly in the face of everyone screaming about "historic precedent".