| Barozi said: That would be a terrible move if the console keeps selling 3-4m a year. They could've done that with Wii, but instead they cut off the support far too early. |
Yes, but Wii was an SD console, as many like to point out "barely more powerful than the first Xbox". It was, by all measures, the most powerful SD console. But it was still an SD console, in an HD era. It was a great system, with a lot of really good (some even great) games. But why keep a system that "far behind" in tech around that long? PS4 will certainly be on the market for many years to come. Who knows about Xbox....MS is schitzo anyway. But while Wii U is still the "weakest" of this new gen, it IS more on par with it's competition than Wii ever could have been. It's HD, the GPU is decent, and with SM3DW and MK8 as examples, it can provide some very pretty games with it's "meager" hardware.
I still don't advocate it lasting a whole 10 years. But I'm just saying, for the sake of argument, that Wii U is more justified lasting that long, given it's hardware, than Wii was. I can see your point as far as Wii's early sales success, and it's massive install base. But I think Wii U is at least more than powerful enough to justify lasting a good 6 years or so. And I think Nintendo'd be smart to do that, and take their time with their next system. Rushing it out early would the single dumbest move in their history.
And besides, with so many great franchises in their own library, and so many great development studios under their umbrella (Retro, Monolith, Next Level, Inteligent Systems, HAL, Monster Games, Good-Feel, AlphaDream, skip LTD, Platinum Games, etc., that's an AWFUL lot to work with. In a perfect world, we would be getting all manner of great stuff over the next few years, like Animal Crossing, F-Zero, Metroid, Kirby, Star Fox, Paper Mario, Wave Race, not to mention hopefully more new IPs like W101, X, etc.
