Can anything save us from the "can anything save the Wii U" debates?

[Giggs_11]

Ka-pi96 said:

Giggs_11 said:

Sorry but your wrong. Truly, a business is successful when it meets the goals it was set out to achieve (if you were expecting 500b profit and only get 10b, you might consider it unsucessful). But even more than that, a business is worth it when you meet your break-even. Why? Because it was enough to feed every worker (and that's the ultimate objective of every firm, to feed its members), to pay ur suplliers, taxes, social security, etc. Of course a big profit is better cuz you have more to invest next time, but ultimately I'd start a business if at least i could pay my bills with it, and if I make a profit, better.

The brand awareness, although undoubtly important, it's secondary when conceiving a console. Brand awareness in a worldwide business with only 3 main competitors, such as videogaming, is a given. Every hardcore gamer (as people like to call it nowadays) knows about gaming and about the consoles out there. And hardcore gamers are what really feeds the console videogame market, not the casuals (ok they helped for Wii console sales, and at lesser degree they tend to help every console, but only partially). Brand awareness is already there, it's how you place yourself to the market (marketing) that may help you or not. And that is independent from previous console sales - Gamecube (20M) to Wii (100M) and PS2 (155M) to PS3 (80M) say hello. Marketing helps a lot and in this particular case, Sony excels at it, Nintendo sucks.

The amount of consoles you sell in previous generation doesn't influence how many you sell now all that much. Ok granted it can earn you a legion of fans, but if you present them with a bigger, better product many will shift. Many other things do, such as the price, the quality,  the way consumers look at it (example: Nintendo being seen as kiddy hurts them), marketing (yes, the hype), the games, etc.

Your idea of what a company is is very wrong. They couldn't give a shit about paying the employees, why do you think so many different kinds of workers have to go on strike to get pay rises and such. They also couldn't care less about paying taxes, all companies do everything possible to minimise taxes and some even try to avoid them completely.

The amount of consoles you sell in previous gens has a very big impact on the future. Brand awareness and consumer goodwill are hugely important. The Wii is an exception, other than that all Nintendo home consoles have sold similar amounts. Same with the PS3, that is an abberation on Sony's side. They screwed up the PS3 launch, but since their previous consoles were so wildly succesful and well known they were still able to get to 80 million sales. We are seeing the same now with Microsoft, they screwed up the Xbox One launch but are selling way better than they would be if the Xbox 360 hadn't done so well.

Dude, your arguments in 1st paragraph make no sense for This discussion. Im not saying they give a rats ass about their workers (dont know the administration personally) nor am i saying they like to pay them or the taxes, im saying they have to. At the end of the day every bill has to be paid, and after that ir you have extra money left, thats good. Now if you think u can earn more money with the same amount invested elsewhere, you do it. Ir not, you keep doing what ur doing cuz, u know, it puts food on ur table and even turns you a profit, as small as it might Be.

As for brand awareness, i think ir confusing the concept. It means to make people aware of the brand, i.e., that it exists and whats good/service it provides. People already know ir exists, It's the way the brands positions itself in the consumers minds that has great impact on buying decision (and i think It's what you mean when you say brand awareness, though It's not the same thing). 

Nintendo caters to gamers any age but with "goofy" aproach, sony does it too but they sell themselves as adult and hardcore. This 2nd approach is more appealing to the average man and kid.

for last, the amount consoles sold the generation before only affects a few, less rational consumers (and i dont mean it in bad way) aka the fanboys or the brand loyals, as you wanna call it. Snes had near 70m units sold, then despite all that brand awareness the next generation ppl shifted to ps1 which entered the market as the adult videogame console and swept people off their feet. Ps2 had 155m market share, then x360 came along with a cheaper, better, more easy-to-develop-for machine, and beginning was anihilating ps3 (but got sloppy and sony was able to regain market share), till the point both got about 80m, pretty much half of what ps2 sold to each, so i believe It's safe to assume x360 stole a big chunk of sony's market share. As for wii, well it presented a fresh new take on the videogame business at the time which also swept ppl off their feet. with xone microsoft drop the ball once again, and are now getting their asses kicked.

Companies can't rely on their past successes in this market, se already had many examples of how that ente wrong.