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jetforcejiminy on 30 November 2014
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KingdomHeartsFan said:
jetforcejiminy said:

i don't understand the 'chances are it won't happen again' line. i mean, chances to begin with were that the wii would never happen/succeed and, guess what, it did. and it happened just as the ds set the record for best-selling handheld. so that one-two punch was even more unlikely. i know this is vgchartz but let's not slip into the console sales equivalent of astrology here.

in any case, what i was trying to say, and what iwata was saying in your quote, is that nintendo at this point in its life as a company values originality over everything else. the wii u didn't work out for them as they hoped, that much is clear. but do i think originality will be rewarded in the long run? yes i do. they're already in the black and will be for the forseeable future with new 3ds and the wii u's 2015 line-up plus the legs of smash and mario kart. more importantly, the wii u is not superfluous at this point. it's distinctive, if nothing else. and that's not something that can be said about xbox one/ps4.

It won't happen again cause that market has moved on.  Nintendo knew that when they designed the Wii U so they continued to try to chase them by building a tablet like controller to attract mobile gamers and it failed.  Nintendo has only ever had one console where they attracted that audience.  One out of six, especially when the last console was built around attracting that audience does signify that it won't happen again.  

Their handhelds on the other hand are a different subject and not what this is about, this thread is about home consoles.  

Their obsession over originality is hurting them more than its helping them.  Now that they see they can't get that market back they are desperately trying to get their old fans back, a task that would have been much easier with a traditional console.  


simply not true. the nes/snes were the mainstream consoles of their respective cycles. the nes in particular sold 60m in vastly smaller industry than today's; that kind of success, if it happened today, would probably exceed the wii's. so 3 out 6 home consoles were unquestionable hits that won their respective generations. it's a better record than microsoft (0-3 or 1-2) or sega's (0-3), though admittedly not as good as sony (3-1 or 4-0). and in handhelds, nintendo's 4-0 (gb, gba, ds, 3ds).

as for the casual audience you say is gone to tablets/phones, that audience is now going for the ps4 in droves. and tablet sales are down, while many big mobile game makers like rovio and the mattrick-led zynga are doing horrendously atm, making nintendo's situation look downright rosy by comparison. trends are just that, trends. they're temporary. companies that have staying power figure out ways to work around them.