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Mummelmann on 21 February 2014
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DolPhanTendo said:
Mummelmann said:
DolPhanTendo said:
I don't understand how you can call the WiiU a flop? Its only been out a year and 2 months. The PS3 did miserable the first year. Would you call it a flop now? Vita has been out 2 years so they are closer to be called a flop. 3 years os what you need to know that question.


The PS3 was at 10.3 million lifetime in the same time frame as the Wii U now, and people did call that a flop daily on these very forums, it was also up about 40-50% yoy in Q1 of the second year, despite Q1 the year before seeing the relatively large European launch, this lack of natural growth for the Wii U is worrying and suggests that there quite simply isn't a very large audience for it. In February 2015, some users will point out that; "its been out only two years and three months, it's way too soon to call anything." Everyone seems to agree that the Vita is a massive failure, for reference; it was at about 4.65 million in a similar time frame in its life, about one million behind the Wii U. If someone throws the word "flop" around a bit, it's kind of hard not to agree that it is warranted at this point, especially seeing the sales being more or less flat yoy, the mandatory second year rise appears to be elusive as of yet, and even with a resurgence in spring and near the holidays, it will take quite some time to catch the flop by consensus: the PS Vita, and that tells us something. Besides; as people rightfully did with the PS3 vs PS2, when you view these numbers in context with the predecessor (Wii), it's kind of hard not to resort to the word "flop".

If there's something that is hard to understand on vgchartz, it has to be one month old users managing posts like this (and it happens all the time);

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=6070613

You appear to have a highly personal stake in the console wars, don't take it so seriously, it won't affect you in any kind of way at any rate.

I guess you dont follow economics. During the last gen we had the great boom for 2 reasons. Economies were doing well here in the U.S. and my genreration who grew up from the start of home consoles (NES) were in their mid to late 20's. That means families not yet started and money to spend. Where would that money go? Hmmmmm... To sit there and try to rebuttal an arguement with a comparison of 7-8 years ago is prettty much a swing a miss. I only compared the PS3 in the time frame and what people were saying about that console at the same time. To call a console a flop in the 1st year of sales in a bad economic haze is wrong. We are supposed to learn from history not disregard it. 


I seem to have a better grasp on the market than you do, you seem not to realize what the Wii U's main problem is. And how can you pull the economics card when the the 7th gen started right before the greatest global economic collapse since the depression? And seeing the industry growing into a 65 billion $ global market today, 2011 and 2012 marked the real kick-off in growth and the industry has grown by about 70% from 2007 till 2012, 2012 saw the sales of 930 million tablets and smartphones and record breaking revenue across the board. The Wii U launched in this year, it launched in a far bigger industry than the PS3 and 360 and Wii did, yet has failed to make any sort of impact.

These tablets and phones I mentioned are the very reason the Wii U is crashing; Nintendo attempted forced market convergence with their Gamepad to draw in these customers, but ended up with a bipolar concept that alienated both the casual and core gaming crowd; going directly against their strategy. The gaming industry is vastly bigger now than when the PS3 launched, and let's not forget that it sold considerably more with mostly poor software and at a ridiculous price point, nor did it have a whole year alone as the only generation contender on the market.

There is no two ways about; the Wii U has failed to tap into any market constants and the sales clearly show this, and their issues cannot simply be resolved by cutting prices and releasing software; it runs deeper and is very closely tied to the one thing that was supposed to be the strength of the Wii U: the Gamepad. I don't think I'm the one who needs to "follow economics" here, you claim that the the US economy was healthy and growing (?!) during the previous generation? It collapsed completely on almost all fronts.

I have learned from history; you obviously have not. Like I said; this "economic haze" (is the economy good or bad? You suggest both, the truth is that it is really and has been for some years, certainly long before the Wii U launched) is in actuality a gaming industry set to double its revenue over the span of a decade (2005-2015) and has not hindered unprecedented sales of smart devices and two record console launches last year. It's all about perceived value, the Wii U simply has really poor perceived value and anyone with an ounce of insight in economics and markets and consumer electronics would know as much.