Yes, as much as it will deepen their losses, they need to sell hardware before they can sell software. I never understood why Nintendo (the company that said that a dedicated console will only sell if it is priced low enough to attract people who want to experience its software) built the Wii U to be so expensive. This system does not have the software to attract the male teen-to-young adult audience that Sony and MS are going after and it does not have the price to attract more casual gamers to get its software.
At this point I feel Nintendo should call the system Wii 2 (a redesign of the console and Gamepad would also; on the console side they should redesign it so that it does not resemble Wii so much, on the Gamepad side they should shrink it so that it does not cost so much), bundle a Wii Remote Plus + Nunchuck as well as Gamepad, bundle Wii Sports Club and Game & Wario (on one disk) or Mario Kart 8 (on a disk), and sell it for $250, and sell the existing stock of Wind Waker HD systems and NSMB & NSLU at $200. That is the only way I see the system building a respectable install base. Also, in order to appease current customers, they should do another Ambassador Program like they did on 3DS.
A Redesign should have the following goal:
- Cut out the gloss case, it attracts dust and finger prints, and a glossy finish is more expesive than matte.
-The two most costly components of Wii U are its MCM and the Gamepad's screen. Hence, they should try to shrink the MCM (combining it into a SOC should reduce prices and consumption like it Xbox 360 and PS3); sharing the Gamepad screen with another product (2DS with its single screen) should help reduce costs.
-Evaluate things like the price of the disk drive, flash memory, ports (on both the console and Gamepad), and see if cutting or changing some of these compoenets will help reduce costs.
