Lets face it: 3DS is Wii U's worst enemy

[zorg1000]

KungKras said:

zorg1000 said:

KungKras said:

zorg1000 said:

KungKras said:

curl-6 said:
The problem is that the 3DS offers a cheap alternative to the Wii U.
Their games are too similar, so people get a 3DS to scratch their Nintendo itch and ignore Wii U.

If that is the case, then why isn't the market data supporting it?

Noone can point to any cannibalization between the handhelds and consoles. You people are just applying pseudo-reasoning while ignoring data.

What data proves 3DS isnt affecting Wii U sales?

The 3DS graph is completely unafected by launch of the Wii U. If they were competing, even by a little, you would see the 3DS shrinking when the Wii U was growing.

im pretty sure thats not how things work, its not like there is a predetermined amount of people who will buy Nintendo devices each week and when one goes up, the other drops.

What the op means is that Wii U & 3DS are aimed at the same demographics, some will buy one, some will buy the other and some will buy both. The problem is unlike Wii & DS, which each had many games and features not found on the other, Wii U & 3DS are extremely similar in terms of software and features. 3DS has a huge advantage in price and amount of big games available so more people are choosing it over Wii U.

You're contradicting yourself.

What is contradicting about that? Im sure u can agree that PS3 & 360 appealed to the same demograhpic, did one drop everytime the other had a boost? Perhaps I just didnt explain well enough.

In previous generations Nintendo handhelds and consoles were very different and had key games to differentiate them. SNES had high end graphics for the time along with popular arcade ports, games like Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox, Mario Kart, Street Fighter II werent on the Gameboy which had ancient hardware but excellent pick up and play games perfect for portables like Tetris and later Pokemon during the N64 era which had the first 3D worlds for popular Nintendo ip and the console FPS crowd on lockdown with Goldeneye/Perfect Dark. GBA had beautiful 2D games while Gamecube was continuing with more advanced 3D games.

Now onto DS/Wii, once again the visual gap was large but more importantly they each had different features and huge casual hits that werent on the other, DS had dual/touch screen controls along with games like Nintendogs & Brain Training while Wii had motion controls and games like Wii Sports & Wii Fit.

That brings us to 3DS/Wii U which have similar features and key software. Both have dual/touch screens and motion controls, both can competently produce 3D worlds and most of the big hitters on Wii U already have installments on 3DS.

3D Land vs 3D World, MK7 vs MK8, DKC Returns vs DKC Tropical Freeze, Ocarina of Time 3D vs Wind Waker HD, NSMB2 vs NSMBU, Smash Bros 3DS vs Smash Bros Wii U. On top of that 3DS also already has Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, Kid Icarus, Fire Emblem, Kirby, Yoshi, Mario & Luigi, brand new Zelda along with excellent Japanese 3rd party support like Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Youkai Watch, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil.

Now I would agree that most of those Wii U games are superior to the 3DS installments but with 3DS costing $129-199 and software at $30-40 against Wii U at $299-329 with software costing $50-60 and having a much smaller number of games, is it really worth it for a few superior sequels? For me and some others yes it is but for the majority of people interested in Nintendo products, 3DS gets the job done and they are happy with just it for the time being.