| RolStoppable said:
That's revisionist history. What actually happened is that the Wii U went through a long software drought before the PS4 and Xbox One launched because third parties didn't want to port their 360/PS3 games to it. This means you can scratch horsepower off the list of things that matter. So based on the historic precedence, if Nintendo launched a system more powerful than the PS4, then it wouldn't get many of the PS4/X1 games. Third parties simply aren't interested in porting their games to Nintendo, so it would be a suicidal move for Nintendo to try appeasing third parties. Ultimately, in such a case Nintendo would be stuck with an expensive me-too console that misses over half of the games. The market isn't interested in such a system. |
I'd say this is a tad ignorant to a lot of the context.
1stly, the Wii U sales dropped dead immediately after its lauch Holiday, selling only 46k on January 12th whilst PS3/360 sold tripple its numbers and the PSP selling over double in that week. Now that date is far too early to start talking about software drought and demonstrates a clear lack of interest in the hardware to begin with.
Secondly third party games were released on the Wii U at launch in 2012 and all flopped except maybe Zombie U which done "ok" as a much hyped exclusive. Clearly failure was in the Wii U's conception in that it didn't appeal to the audience whom buy 90% of console games in the current gaming climate. Wii U Offered the exact same performance of the console people had at home and simply added a map to the controller, which to be honest isn't that convincing. Although Its clear graphics isn't the only factor (Brand/marketing are biggies) but graphics was 100% one of the main factors so lets not scratch that off the list if we're applying some congnitive thinking to the situation.
It wasn't just the masses whom that turned off, it was also third parties too. Why throw support behind a "next-gen" system which is not build to run the next generation of games both from power perspective and architecture? Sure there was a year where PS3/360 ports were viable, but they were tricky due to the Wii U's weaker CPU meaning many performanced worse without extensive optimisation. When your audience care about blockbuster experiences they certainly aren't going to settle for a Wii U as their next gen system, so the lack of third party support comes down to power, developers aren't bias against Nintendo, many just had to foresight to avoid failure on the Wii U.
In regard to Nintendo offering a "me-too" system, essentially what they've found success with for the first 4 systems, I'd agree that such a system wouldn't work in 2016 but only because that'd be midway through a generation which is indeed suicide. If they're launching in 2016, a cheap alt system is the way to go. After 2016 though, introducing an affordable next gen system to succeed the PS4/X1 (not compete), would also be a very safe option if they arrive before the competition. Appeasing thrid parties isn't much of a risks at all, I'd even say its arguably more safer then the alt route which has you appealing to an unknown audience. We know from the gamecube that simply being a cheap nintendo console isn't going to going to grow interest in their home console by much, it also showed that you can sell a powerful machine at profit. I guess its best though that they do go the alternative route, so we have more diversification in the industry and they may just pull off another Wii type success.
