Pachter: Nintendo should go third party until they can make a good console

[binary solo]

oniyide said:

binary solo said:

oniyide said:

binary solo said:
Why wouldn't they just call Wii U a gen 7.5 console and make it a very short cycle releasing Wii 2 in 2015, with better specs than PS4 at a lower price? Why would you go third party only temporarily?

Even though I don't by Nintendo home consoles I would hate for them to go out of the home console hardware business, just like I thought it was a sad day that Sega went out of hardware but I never bought a Sega console.

I'll always want Playstation to have a strong generation. And I might uncharitably snigger at Nintendo (or MS) if it's are struggling. But really Nintendo being in the hardware game is much better than them not being in the hardware game.

I actually can't understand why some people salivate at the prospect of a console maker going out of business. Even with Microsoft I'm ambivalent about them staying in consoles, rather than hoping for Xbox's total demise. I don't say prayers to the console gods for Xbox to crumble and disappear. Actually what I'd prefer is for MS to sell Xbox to a third party. That way I could actually see myself possibly buying Xbox in a future generation; though not if they sold it to Apple.

do people want a console with that short of a life cycle? im thinking no

I'm thinking people mostly don't want Wii U, so the length of the Wii U console cycles is irrelevant to most people. If people keep not buying Wii U then it's gonna be a short generation anyway. Nintendo could hide thier home console losses because their handhelds carried them. But it seems 3DS isn;t carrying them at the moment.

thats fair, but im thinking it might be bad, because Sega did something similar with Saturn and 32x. I dont know about Japan and Europe but those two got cut short in the US and IMHO that is one of the main reasons that DC was never really able to take off. People will be reluctant to buy a system from a company that is known to cut support short, i know i am.

That's a good point. I don't know the Saturn / 32x story, but I think perhaps Nintendo could get away with a short cycle for WiiU partly on the basis that Wii2 would be more powerful than PS4bone and thus be seen to have better potential longevity than WiiU - not that Wii U's raw power necessarily spelt doom for it, but being less powerful than PS4bone hasn't helped, or rather being seen (rightly or wrongly) as not much more powerful than PS360 didn't help - and the fact that Nintendo has been around for a long time so people shouldn't see it as a likely pattern.

But if Nintendo merely releases a more powerful console but does nothing else different I think they will get Wii U like sales again. They basically need to convince those whose first ever console was a Wii to buy Wii 2 (or Wii U). I personally know 3 perhaps 4 families who bought Wii and had never bought a console before (probably were rather anti-video game before Wii, and in a general sense probably still are). They have absolutely no reason to want to buy a Wii U and so they won't. All the next iterations of the various Mario games isn't going to be a draw for them, they are not at all invested in the LoZ world, they don't have cherished childhood / adolescent memories of playing the heck out of Donkey Kong, they've never heard of Metroid, they think Pokemon is a TV cartoon.

It is unfortunate for Nintendo that their biggest failure with Wii was not converting vast numbers of first time game players into gamers. And I don't think they recognised this as even being something they needed to address. I think they assumed these first timers would behave exactly the same as long time gamers. Put out a new console, with upgraded versions of the things they liked on Wii and they will turn out in droves to buy the new console. They misread the situation terribly. And Nintendo should have been very worried by the fast drop off in Wii sales from 2009-2011 instead of just seeing the LTD rising far above any of the past home console, at the same time as PS3360 were getting a second wind.