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Soundwave on 25 November 2014
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RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

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. 

Don't you realize what it says about you when it was so easy to predict failure for the Wii U?

Anyway, I don't think this discussion is going anywhere.

Well honestly what could they do? 

It's easy to sh*t on them, but I do kinda feel a bit sorry for them because I really don't believe (probably like you do) that they could've just farted out a couple of Wii Sports 3 and some other casual games and it would make all these problems magically dissapear.

Unless they somehow prevented the iPhone from ever being created, the chain of events that happened subsequently was going to happen no matter what and there's not a lot Nintendo could do about it. 

The iPhone is simply a superior mechanism for delivering and enjoying games for a casual player. It's "cool"/fashionable to own one. Because of its utility as a phone a casual carries one around constantly so it's there whenever the "urge" to play a game arises. Pure touch gaming is more intuitive than even wand-controller gaming. Touch is the first thing babies do, we are hardwired as humans to understand it. Multitouch may not be as accurate, but it feels more natural than stylus or capactive screens. So as an interface it trumps Nintendo's best efforts. 

And the games are $1 or free ... and once people got used to that, the idea of paying Nintendo $300 + $40 a game became an absurdity. 

I would bet money the Wii U would still be selling like crap even if the controller from day 1 was a Wiimote. The only reason it may sell slightly better in this scenario is because such a system could be far cheaper (probably about $199.99). I think it would sell more like the GameCube, versus below the GCN like the Wii U is now.