ICStats said:
superhippy420 said:
Iwata's biggest mistake was trying to cater to the hardcore gamer crowd. It doesnt work and it never will. 360 and PS3, were not carried by the hardcore by any means. Call of Duty, FIFA, and GTA has a ton of casual players, and are the only reason either of those consoles sold over 45 - 50 million consoles. Just take a look at past Nintendo consoles and their libraries and it's no wonder the Wii U was a total disaster from February to November. NES - SMB 1,2,3 combined sold 65 million, Duck Hunt sold 28 million...the console moved 62 million. SNES - SMW sold 20.6 million, DKC 1,2,3, combined sold 18 million, Street Fighter II combined sold 12.4 million...the console sold 49 million. Gameboy - All Pokemon combined sold 75 million, Tetris 30 million...console moved 118 million. N64 - Everything shifted from 2D to 3D, Mario 64 sold 10 million, DK64 sold 5 million...console only moved 33m. Gamecube - Totally focused on the hardcore...Pikmin 1+2, 2.8 million, Sunshine, 6.8 million, Luigis Mansion 3 million, Metroid Prime 1+2 4.1 million, total 22 million consoles. Wii - Mostly focused on Casuals. Wii Sports + Resort 110 million, Mario Kart 34 million, Wii Fit + Plus 43 million....101 million consoles. This whole notion that Nintendo needs 3rd parties and to make smartphone games to make a profit if far from the truth. What it needs are a few huge titles that the casuals will eat up like Duck Hunt,SMB,DKC and Wii Sports. Casuals see Pikmin and go WTF is that. They also see Wind Waker (now twice) and go, wtf is with this cartoon Zelda. Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and Smash Bros will help alot, but unless Nintendo finds that one new IP, that resonates with the casuals the console will never take off. Nintendo Land was a good attempt, but it didnt work and they need to go back to the drawing board or the Wii U will be screwed.
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I agree with a lot of your points (other than not needing 3rd party).
It is clear from Wii performance that it's not Nintendo core games that sold best - it's the casual garbage that core gamers would be ashamed to admit.
However now that casual interest seems to have dried up. When Wii Fit was announced in 2007 I thought "wow, that's going to sell a ton" and it did. I think it was a master stroke, just the kind of thing that would appeal to people around that year. Now Wii Fit on Wii U is not even a blip. Those times are gone. People have different interests now like tablets, and streaming music. Android has like 800,000,000 active devices and people are spending an ever increasing time in Apps.
Wii U is a smart device. The remote play is a big hit at my house. It's just lacking any *WOW* feature that would make casuals spontaneously buy it. For Sony & MS, FIFA, Madden, NBA2K are there to hook sports fans with gorgeous graphics and smooth realistic looking animation, and COD, GTA, etc. are there to attract existing gamers.
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