teigaga said:
PerturbedKitty said:
| Soundwave said:
This is kind of like saying an morbidly obese man is doing ok because he managed to match the 3 sit ups he did last year.
The Wii U is doing ok relative to the Wii U ... but lets not get it twisted, the "Wii U average" is crap, it far and away the worst selling Nintendo home console ever and selling 3 million-ish a year is not enough to sustain an HD ecosystem in the modern business sense. Shit, I don't think that would be viable even in the SNES days.
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The Wii u average is crap, but they are still profiting off of it. When you actually go ahead and spend the research and development that necessitates making a console, you want to make as much back from that as you possibly can. Replacing it now would be stupid.
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Its all dependant on opportunity cost though
If sacrificing the Wii U's longevity meant providing their next console with higher potential to profit, compete and be a much bigger success, then its worth cutting of its life early. The GBA was cut off early by the DS, but it was certainly worth it. The Xbox OG by the 360, but again it was worth it. Had Microsoft waited another year, they may have faired far worse.
None of us are sure of what Nintendo's plans are with the next system and that'll obviously affect when best to launch.
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The funny thing is of the four historical big hardware makers in the post-Atari era, Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft (3 out of 4, with Sony being the other) have all had their most successful game platforms "cut off" their previous systems prematurely.
The XBox 360 (2005) cut off the XBox (2001) early. This is the best selling MS system.
The DS (2004) cut off the Game Boy Advance (2001) early. DS is the best selling Nintendo system.
The Genesis (1989) cut off the Sega Master System (1986) early. Genesis is Sega's best selling system.
The "ohmygod! you can't not support a system for 5 years! Consumers will punish you!" is really honestly one of those old wives tales that doesn't actually hold up to real scrutiny.
