By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
DarkD on 04 March 2014
Edit Thread
Max King of the Wild said:
DarkD said:
Yes the Wii did harm to the Nintendo brand, however it was a risk worth taking. I think what we're going to see this generation is that the graphics everyone is so hell bent on chasing are going to kill more developers.

The lack of third party games hardly did any damage really. Most people who cared bought both the Wii and a second console. The low cost of the Wii was one of the key selling points of the console. Nintendo might have actually done better to give the Wii U lower level graphics so they could also price it at 250 dollars.

However, now that a new generation has come, everyone has spent the last 6 years hearing "see, I told you not to buy that thing." so now they aren't buying it again. It's more that negative word of mouth has hurt it than anything. Nintendo has the best console this generation but nobody cares anymore.

Nintendo was profiting from Wii at 250 from the get go. They could have easily upped the specs and still profit/broke even. And you know in the long run it would have probably been more profitable. Imagine Wii sales with GTA game last year. It could have rivaled the Ps2 sales


Its a nice theory, but where's the evidence to back it up.  Third parties sold almost nothing on Nintendo consoles.  The few games they released across all platforms bombed hard on the Wii because everyone who were interested in those games, had the other consoles and bought them there.  Then the few developers who did make serious triple A games developed exclusively on the Wii didn't do so great either.  

Mad World was a great game but got mediocre sales.  No More Heroes, Manhunt 2 and many others tried bringing mature titles to the system but people just weren't interested in them.  Even if they did bring more of those games, would you have bought the system?  Would YOU have played Grand Theft Auto on the Wii rather than the PS3 or 360?  Do you know anyone who said, "I would have bought the Wii if it had GTA, but I bought a 360 instead."

So many people are claiming that third parties excluded the Wii because it lacked graphics, but they were already excluding it even in the Gamecube era.  Don't kid yourself.  They simply knew that competing with Nintendo games on its platform was suicide.  Even now on the 3DS, outside of a few select titles, I'm good just picking Nintendo games.  Why would I pick up a bad Third Person Shooter game that I would rather play on the PC when I can buy Mario or Zelda both of which are legendary series.