Wii U sales trend may be just as expected if we look at Nintendo's home console sales.

[ICStats]

RolStoppable said:

ICStats said:

Ok, I can buy that Nintendo has had more success when they worked on making gaming more popular instead of competing head-to-head.

The issue though is it's not that easy to replicate it.  To have success like DS & Wii it's not just about not making mistakes, and having the right mindset.  It took right ideas at the right time, and a bit of luck.

Nintendo achieved what seems like once in a lifetime success on TWO devices at the same time (DS & Wii) so I think Nintendo (and the world) thought that they had the magic touch.  They have the infalliable talent to keep doing that again and again.  They would just play to their own beat, make another low power (~35 Watt) console with a new way to play (2nd screen) and repeat the Wii's success.  Only they can't, it's not going to be easy to find that unique feature (aka gimmick) again.  Seems obvious in hindsight that relying on something new without having a competitive fallback is a super risky strategy.

Contrast to the PS4 which Sony played as safe as possible in terms of innovation.  Instead they worked on checking all the boxes, making game developers happy and focusing on what core gamers are asking for as #1 priority, while new things, PS Now Cloud & VR are not day 1 core things forced on users.

The NES and Gameboy were once in a lifetime successes too, so Nintendo pulled it off four times already. Too often to write it off as coincidence or non-repeatable. The GBA isn't as clearcut (it had absolutely no viable competition at the time), so its strong sales may have just come from Nintendo commanding a true monopoly over the handheld market at the time.

You're making the mistake that Nintendo success is gimmick-driven when it's not; the fact that old ways of play could succeed at the same level as new ways on both the Wii and DS should make that clear. Your other mistake is the assumption that the Wii U followed the same strategy as the Wii; it only did if you make a very shallow analysis, but if you dig deeper, then the Wii and Wii U are like night and day.

It's kind of reaching to say NES succeeded for the same reasons as the Wii.  NES was a solid console people loved for years; the Wii to put it nicely, was not.  But even if we entertain the idea that they were successful for the same reasons - 25 years is a long time to call it repeatable.  Also failing (to certain degree) immediately after DS & Wii is a reason to not call it repeatable.

Nintendo's problem has been competition.  Their success with the traditional formula (including NES) shrunk due to competition with Sega, Sony & MS, and then they switched to the gimmick-driven strategy.

Yes I don't mind making the mistake that Nintendo's success last gen was gimmick-driven.  Gotta stand up for what you believe in :P