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Soundwave on 25 November 2014
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RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

I had hope that the Wii U wouldn't tank like it did and could at least settle in like the N64 did. I also admit I underestimated how quickly the Nintendo "fans" would bail on Nintendo. But find me a quote where I said Wii U would be a huge success. I never predicted that. 

The "it has buttons so too complex" doesn't even make sense, how is it that the DS is more successful than the Wii then? It has plenty of pesky buttons. 

I've actually had several of my casual Wii-owning friends over to play the Wii U, and you know what? They don't (gasp!) hate it. In fact they actually like it. Quite a bit. My living was filled with a lot of roaring laughter from my friends playing Mario Chase and other games in Nintendo Land. 

The problem is it's just not that exciting, not enough to *need* one in your life. People aren't impressed anymore by the notion of "hey I can't play video games ... oh wait, yes I can!", they know they can play video games and they know full well there are about 300 of them they can get for free on their phone when ever they want. So the appeal of "hey look! it's a game so simple even my mom can play it!" is nothing new or fresh anymore. Yeah Nintendo, we get it, anyone can play, so what else have you got or were you just planning to ride the novelty of that feeling forever? Grandpa can play on Wii, he can dance on Kinect, he can solve puzzles on iPad ... so what?

Beyond that Apple just does a multitude of things better than Nintendo. That and I think Apple inadvertantly really kicked Nintendo in the balls by introducing the free/$1 concept to casual gaming. Once you let people have things for free, it's very difficult to convince them to go back to paying money for it. 

My friends will not pay for music. Not even on iTunes, doesn't matter how good the album is, or even how much they like the artist. Because they've become accustomed to getting it for free. So the idea of paying even $9 for an album is absurd to a lot people today. 

Eh, you were really angry in the thread I linked to. That alone should be proof enough that you expected far more. Because if you didn't, you wouldn't have had a reason to be so angry to begin with.

The "it has buttons so too complex" doesn't even make sense, how is it that the DS is more successful than the Wii then? It has plenty of pesky buttons. 

It's a good thing that I never said that. A Wii Remote has its fair share of buttons too, so let's not pretend that success requires zero buttons.

What is the Gamepad? It's basically a GC or Classic controller with integrated GBA connectivity. It's an upgrade to the very thing that Nintendo had correctly identified as a problem when they designed the Wii.


Lets not even give out trophies for "I predicted Wii U would fail, I'm a geniuz" ... everyone and their grandma in the industry was crapping on Nintendo when the Wii U was unveiled at its first E3. Most red flags were already going up then. It was a console that wasn't going to win over any audience. 

Most people think of the Wii U controller as "an iPad with buttons", I mean most of the kids today don't even know what Game Boy is, lol, that's their first reaction "oh it's a Nintendo tablet". People understand it just fine, that's not the problem. They just don't want one. They don't need one. 

Conceptually the idea doesn't even make sense, as your eye can only focus on one screen at a time, unless the screens are right next to each other, but this is Nintendo's whole problem -- they are making the gimmick first for the sake of having a gimmick (because it worked last time), not rationalizing whether or not the gimmick even makes sense. It's a problem looking for a solution.

The Wii served a role in 2006, Apple simply cannibalized that market away from Nintendo and changed the rules of that market segment. Nintendo was too slow moving and not able to react quickly enough. 

There's honestly to an extent nothing Nintendo could really do to stop it either. Even if I went back in time and told Iwata what would happen ... what's Nintendo going to do? Get into the smartphone business and compete directly with Apple? Charge $1 for their games? They were going to get destroyed no matter what with casuals. They can't compete under these circumstances.