Wii U beaten by the Dreamcast - what now?

[ps4tw]

[e-mail] said:

 

If you don't think there's something here worth talking about a) don't reply and b) look at the facts and figures. The Wii U will have been made on the assuption it would return a certain amount of profit, not just profit. That simply demonstrates a woeful lack of understanding business models. 

So your basically telling someone who studied business and law in university that I have a woeful lack of understand of business models.? Yet you are comparing the Wii U to the dream cast. It's a different century, different company, different target audience, different profit margins, different financial health, etc etc. facts? Dream cast was discontinued, not due to Unprofitability, but due to the Unfeasibility of sega as a company. Nintendo make a hefty profit from software releases on the U. Sega's sw and hw combined equalled a massive loss. Therefore the U will sell a minimum of 20 million units and finish its life cycle with at least a small profit unlike sega who didn't have the capital to take the early losses of the dreamcast which would have eventually made a profit. Therefore, there is no comparison.

In laymen's terms, early in the product life cycle a company must invest massively in R&D and marketing. They then recoup their losses by reaching economies of scale in production and, most obviously, accumulation of sales. Because the dream cast never reached that phase, and the Wii U has and will continue to, it is basically ridiculous to compare them as products.

Now let's ask why you are confusing a product and a business model? I'm going to now make the safe assumption that you don't have an mba at 19.

I would also kindly like to request that you change your title as it is misleading. Beaten is past tense. However, as the Wii U is a current console, and the dream cast has been discontinued, this is misleading and probably not possible for the dream cast to have "beaten" the Wii U. 

Yep, as someone who helps put together product proposistions in a multimillion-pound company, that's exactly what I'm telling you. You're right, it's a different time, a time where the gaming community is larger than ever and thanks to the ever decreasing size of chips, expected product returns should be greater than ever. And yet the Wii U demonstrates that Nintendo are struggling to evolve with the changing market. 

Well considering Nintendo's recent losses, clearly they are not making enough profit from the Wii U. The U will sell a minimum of 20 million units? How so? It's been out for 2 years and hasn't even hit 10 million units. When you combine that with console sales slowing down over time, there's literally no reason to think it'll sell 20 million lifetime. Also the long term damage backing a fading console will do will be catastrophic. If they keep supporting the Wii U for another 2 years, then by the time a successor comes out, Nintendo will not even be known by the majority of gamers. By supporting only the Wii U, they are effectively minimising their potential customer base by 10's of millions of customers. 

The dreamcast has beaten the Wii U in terms of total life time sales launch to end of life.