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Soundwave on 25 June 2015
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UncleScrooge said:
Soundwave said:

Yeah agreed. Wii did have that type of appeal ... 4-5 years ago. Today the "hot girl" is more apt to say "oh yeah I had one of those four years ago". 

And if they loved Wii Fit so much, there is a Wii Fit on the Wii U. And Nintendo Land. And 2D Mario. And Just Dance. And Wii Sports. And Mario & Sonic Olympics. It's not like Bayonetta is the only game on the system and most of the games I listed can be played with just the Wiimote. 

People thought Gangam Style was cool and funny when it first came out too. Now if you're driving down the street blasting that, people will think you're an idiot. And that's only what? 3 or 4 years old? The Wii is coming up on being a decade old. That's *ancient* in tech trends. The Motorola Razr was the coolest phone in the world when the Wii came out, if you carry one of those around today people will look at you like you crawled out of a cave. 

Of course I was talking about the time when the Wii was Nintendo's current gen system. Nintendo needs another Wii: a console that is mass market friendly, cool and easy to understand and that invites people to play. Mass market gamers have high quality standards (gasp!) so it's obvious Nintendo has to invent something new. But the point stands: A Wii is still way cooler than a Wii U. In fact four girls I know played Just Dance on a Wii just a few weeks ago and three of them are pretty ;) That's what people don't get: Most consumers have very high standards and they are not going to buy the same thing (or something totally different) all over again just because it has the same name on the box. 

Again: It's like you guys live in an alternative universe! I'd really like to adress these points but I have no idea where to start. The paragraph I bolded alone is weird on so many levels it would take half an hour to respond to. 

I'm not trying to bash anyone: I'm a core gamer myself and I enjoy these discussions. But outside of gaming forums people think so differently about videogames it really feels like this is another universe I enter when I log in on vgchartz. And judging from past events, what hardcore gamers think Nintendo "needs" to do is always what gets them into trouble. My girlfriend is 10x better at analysing the gaming market than most people here: I just need to show her a gaming system or a game and I instantly see if it's a hit or not. Hardcore gamers have page long discussions about totally irrelevant things or make up myths ("casual gamers! The Wii was a fad! Console are successful because...!"). I can't count the times someone talked about "cartridges" on a gaming forums as one of Nintendo's biggest mistakes or "the casual gamers not being loyal" to Nintendo. It is somewhat grotesque. And I really don't want to offend anyone, I enjoy these discussions and love videogames. I'll be in line on launch day when Nintendo's next console launches. 


And you can play Just Dance on the Wii U, XBox 360, XBox One, PS3, PS4 today too. That's kind of a difference. 

The other problem with this whole premise is women do play video games -- the just play a ton today on smartphones. There have been many studies that show women play more smartphone games than men even and are the driving force behind huge hits like Candy Crush. 

The Wii did not really have to contend with this for most of its main lifecycle now that casuals get their "I like to play 2-3 hours a week" fill of gaming in from their phone, there isn't really a need for an entire console in their life dedicated to play games. They just don't need it. 

Wii U has Wii Sports and Wii Fit and Wii Party and Just Dance too ... so why is that not cool anymore? Because the whole "Wii" concept is old hat. To engage casuals you constantly need new fads to keep their interest. Nintendo is not very good at providing that. They understand how to make a hit and then sequelize it for like 20-30 years, they did not understand that they continually needed to make new fads though. That was beyond them. 

Smartphones solve this challenge by simply having hundreds of a casualware titles ... when you have such a flood of games eventually something like Flappy Bird will break out. 

The casual market is just different, it's much more fad driven, like the pop music industry is. Nintendo is just not well suited to that rat race because what's hot today is not what's hot 2-3 years down the line which makes it a much more chaotic market.