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AsGryffynn on 08 December 2015
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Soundwave said:
AsGryffynn said:


Err, they have... if one console flops, it's because it was released mid gen and had mid gen specs that made it into an oddball that is too much of a hassle to support...

As for the Xbox brand, it literally has the opposite problem of Nintendo. They are deeply rooted in the Anglosphere, whereas Nintendo spreads themselves too thin and wind up as a minority everywhere. Sony is the only company that has mastered the "take over key markets and the rest will follow suit" approach and that's why they are outselling everyone else.

Since MS doesn't has to collapse for Nintendo to succeed, all Nintendo has to do is take the market that is still disputed ground and they will easily square up against MS... once they realize that they are both in a battle where they can't win, they will join forces to override Sony and then divide the markets between them. For a picture of how it would look if the Wii U had been as powerful as the XONE and PS4, we would literally have three consoles hovering at the 20M mark together with fluctuations throughout the year (the XONE hikes to 23M during the holidays, the PS4 catches up steadily throughout the year, the Wii U+ then builds momentum during Summer) and the three companies would be giving it their all to finish first.

The market can deal with three (though four is way too much) if they are close enough spec and price wise. In fact, one of the reasons for the huge gap in sales with the PS4 for the XONE was that the console was $100 more and had inferior hardware. If it had been released as an standalone and been cheaper, it would have been a much smaller gap since the price would justify the performance.

If I was Nintendo, I'd start by taking a look at that continent I call home and Americans and Japanese call "Europe" since that's terra nullius as far as consoles go...


If Wii U was successful, the XBox One would likely be nowhere close to 20M right now. It would be third place. 

Nintendo needs to adopt the attitude that third place isn't good enough. And it isn't. They can't survive like that as a hardware maker with the luxury of a massive portable market eroding away from them. 

They need to take a stand in the console space and say enough is enough and fight. Waiting for controller miracles is nice and all, and if one falls into your lap by fluke, well ok then, but you need to have some kind of philisophy beyond just banking on controllers. It was always kind of a dumb strategy anyway because a controller is easy to copy, Sony/MS were just painfully slow in copy the Wiimote for whatever reason but there was nothing hard about it.

I wouldn't advocate Nintendo fighting MS if MS really had their shit together and looked unbeatable and had started making big gains in Europe and even some in Japan. Too much money. But they don't have it all together, and with Halo showing signs of fading as a console mover, I think MS is ripe for the taking. Nintendo needs to zero in on that and attack, just like Sony went at them hard when they looked at what MS was doing and pinpointed weakness/mistakes to take advantage of. 

Odds are that it would also take a large chunk out of the PS4 audience since it has it's fair share of JP games and would have the same JP support as Sony (or even more if current Wii U numbers are anything to go by). I genuinely doubt this would hurt the XONE any more than it would the PS4 since a successful Wii U is more likely to target the PS4's demographic than that of Microsoft. The demographic of MS is on it for the exclusives. The third party games are a unifying force, but they are not what drives the sales.

Nintendo attacking MS is no different than attempting to drive a plane into an aircraft carrier. It wouldn't dent it because they are literally not even targeting them. Market size won't change, but market share will, and the Wii U only pulls from Sony. The NX will be no different. As it stands, the XONE is currently powered by it's own brand loyalty, and that's something no company can change. Partnering with them is an easy way to shoot Sony down, but shooting MS down can only happen if Nintendo somehow takes Sony's place (and Sony will either match MS or lag behind).

In a way, the MS name alone warrants them a second place at the very least. It's a safety net that can only be disposed of by MS themselves. If Nintendo wants to catch up, they have to pull from the competitor that has a surplus, rather than the one that isn't really competing and only has the numbers it does because of what it is.