Dusk said:
Huh? Affordability is contextual to the purchaser. Since the PS4 has been selling so well, it would fit into that affordable sector. The Wii U is and always has been a very affordable console. As with everything, consoles have slowly crept up in price (inflation), it doesn't mean that the same prices set twenty, or even ten years ago are what they need to be to be considered "affordable". When taking in account of inflation, even the cheaper consoles that came to market 20 years ago would be released at a similar price to any of the three that were released this generation. I'm not sure where this $249 price tag is coming from lately. I have seen it pop up all over this forum, but if the PS4 weren't affordable it wouldn't be selling as well as it is. If price were the only factor for a console then the Wii U should be selling like crazy since it's the cheapest console on the market right now. Everything secondary you mentioned about the Wii U likely has lead to it's predicament as opposed to your initial point. As far as a gimmick is concerned, there likely will be one, but likely more cost effective than the last try. |
Wii U arrived on market with $300/350 price while PS3/Xbox360 price was around $200 and they had similar graphic, in fact multiplatform game worked and play better on PS3/Xbox360 than on Wii U and in that time they got some of the best looking exclusive in whole generation. Gamepad was only difference, but expect off tv play nobody saw what is so special about gamepad, it didn't have nearly same apeling like Wii Remote. Not only Wii U were around $100 more expensive but games looked and performed worse than PS3/Xbox 360.
Miyamoto recently said that Wii U had higher price than they wanted and he said that is one of reasons why Wii U failed. Also, Wii U is first Nintendo hardware on that they were losing money on launch (it was profitable with one sold game).
Also he said this:
"What we are always striving to do is to find a way to take novel technology that we can take and offer it to people at a price that everybody can afford. And in addition to that, rather than going after the high-end tech spec race and trying to create the most powerful console, really what we want to do is try to find a console that has the best balance of features with the best interface that anyone can use.
But really what's most important to us is, how do we create a system that is both unique and affordable so that everyone can afford it and everyone can enjoy it."
At end of next year PS4/XboxOne will probably have price around $300 (XboxOne now is $350 and holiday promotions go near $300) and NX will probably be weaker than PS4/XboxOne.
If you look all that facts, they clearly want again something like Wii not Wii U, like i wrote: again affordable console (around $249) with good gimmick (Wii motion controls were very strong, while gamepad completely failed) maybe that hybrid device or something similar.
