By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Soundwave on 21 August 2015
Edit Thread
zorg1000 said:
Soundwave said:


Wii and DS show you can have success with low powered consoles if you have a novelty attached to them which is a legitimate game changer to a clear and unchallenged audience base. 

But that doesn't mean that concept works as a blanket strategy either. The Virtual Boy and Wii U were underpowered too and we saw how those two turned out. 

You can't have success with that formula though unless you have something incredibly special as an interface going for you and a completely unchallenged audience (today this is far from the case, as millions of casuals play smartphone/tablet games on a regular basis). 

It's kind of like if you have a female friend and she says "well I don't need to go to school or get a job, I'm just going to be a Victoria Secret model, because that girl on the billboard didn't need to finish college". 

Well yeah, ok great, but you better damn well be incredibly good looking if that's your philosophy. Because that whole thing don't work if you look like an average person. So yeah if they're going to bet the farm on the "we're using hardware 1-2 generations behind what anyone would!" philosophy can work, but they better have one incredible, unbelievable novelty to go with it and even then I don't think they can replicate the Wii/DS because casual gamers today have smartphone games for free in their pocket 24/7, something that didn't exist in 2004-2006. 

I think one problem is that Nintendo felt they needed to "redefine" gaming again when there was no need to. Wii U didn't need a brand new controller, it needed a simple to understand controller that was accessible to everyone, so an upgraded Wii Remote would have done the trick. The Gamepad went right back to the complex control scheme that Nintendo abandoned with the Wii, that's taking a step backwards.

Upgraded Wiimote would not have done the trick. 

It doesn't address anything with regards to casual players and many kids preferring smartphones/tablets. 

The Wii U comes with a Wiimote bundled as standard in Japan for example, and that's the worst selling market for the system. Wiimote was showing signs of feeling old/outdated by around 2010, so that whole gravy train was slowing down years before the Wii U even came out. 

If I'm a casual gamer .. explain to me why I should pay $30-$50 for a game period today. That's your central problem. A controller isn't changing that, because a multitouch screen is as intuitive or even moreso than a wand controller is. So the whole "barrier to entry" issue has been taken away ages ago, no one really cares about that anymore, today anyone can play simple video games if that's what they want. 

Truth be told a touchscreen is probably easier/more intuitive to use than a wand controller is. I have to constantly explain to my 5-year-old niece that she needs to point the Wiimote at the sensor bar for it to register, or she has to re-sync the controller, or that she needs to press B or A or whatever, but with an iPad, she just jumps in and can use it by herself and can play games on her own. 

The Wii was successful with casuals but in a time period where it basically had no competitor to worry about. Once things like the iOS app store and Kinect and the iPad starting arriving, it's sales start to decline (circa 2010). And I don't buy that it's because Nintendo stopped releasing "big games" the Wii sold even during periods with weak releases (ie: holiday 2008 with just Animal Crossing and Wii Music which didn't really even take off), and the Wii was never really dependant on franchises like Metroid or even 3D Mario to sell well in the first place. A "big" game for the Wii was Just Dance, which it was still getting.