The Switch is not another Wii U!

[zorg1000]

ps4tw said:

zorg1000 said:

You are changing your argument as the discussion was never about their performance from a business standpoint, earlier you said that there is no market for Nintendo devices and Nintendo games, being able to sell 80 million units of hardware & over 200 million units of 1st party software (over 400m total sw) in a 5 year period is undeniable proof that there is a market for Nintendo products even if it is a decline from previous generations.

Those previous fiscal losses were due to selling hardware at a loss, 3DS was sold at a loss for about a year and Wii U was sold at a loss for essentially it's entire life. There is a big difference between losing money because you make poor financial choices and losing money because your products are not appealing, Nintendo's losses came from the former, not the latter.

A perfect example is Sony last generation, PSP+PS3 sold about 165 million units of hardware and about 1.2 billion units of software. With numbers like that you can't deny that the Playstation market was strong. Despite those high sales Sony's gaming division had huge losses for a good chunk of the generation primarily due to PS3 being sold at a massive loss for a few years. Look at the Playstation division now, overall PS4+Vita hardware/software sales will probably be similar to PS3+PSP but the big difference is that Sony is set to have profits in the billions this generation compared to losing billions in the previous generation.

How can you go from losing billions to making billions with similar level of sales? By making better financial decisions. Theoretically Nintendo can be very profitable with a userbase of 80 million units of hardware and 400 million units of software each generation if they don't make poor decisions such as selling hardware at a loss.

Will the Switch be another WIi U? Yes, because Nintendo have crappy business plans, and have failed to grasp Western gaming.

Proof that they have crappy business plans and strategy? See my post above...

You are just repeating 80 million units of hardware sold on the hilariously childish notion that it sounds like a big number. Clearly it wasn't big enough otherwise Nintendo wouldn't have posted their first ever losses in the last 5 years. If you want more proof, look at the continued adjustments they made to the forecasted Wii U sales...

If your understanding of economics is as basic as "but they sold MILLIONS!", then this conversation can't continue as you don't realise that such a comment is unquestionably valueless.

No, there isn't a difference between poor financial choices and having an unappealing product, other than one results in investing in the other i.e. a poor financial choice is to invest in an unappealing product. Simple stuff this, but you're really bending reality to fit your argument. 

I'm not sure why you are combining handheld sales with console sales considering they are different markets. You don't combine 4x4 sales and supercar sales, so why are you combing these different markets? The PS2 sold over 50% more than the PS3, so the PS3 arguably failed in recapturing it's previous market. If you understand business plans (you clearly don't that much is obvious), you can see that Sony would not have betted on loosing such a large market chunk, hence why it would of been hit with huge loses (that and the failed CELL IBM adventure, but the success in expensive bluray diode manufacturing).

Keep saying Nintendo is fine and quoting arbitrary sales figures with no context, I'll be over here with the grownups talking about business plans, strategy and YoY returns.

That remains to be seen, for all we know Switch will be the next 3DS or Wii or DS. It could be a smash hit or a huge failure or something in between, only time will tell.

Again, im repeating those numbers because you said there is no market for Nintendo products, which cant be true if Nintendo sells alot of hardware & software. Those two things are completely contradictory, you cant say a company is out of touch when it comes to software if they are  the biggest software provider in the industry. The fact that you cant grasp that is embarrassing.

Being appealing to consumers and being profitable are 100% different things.

Im combining handhelds & consoles for 2 reasons

1. The discussion is about Nintendo, you cant have a discussion about the appeal of a company's products and ignore the part of the market that resresents 80% of their hardware/software sales. Like I said earlier, using Wii U as proof that people dont want Nintendo devices/games is the equivalent of using Vita to prove people dont like Playstation.

2. Switch is a hybrid device and will most likely be a replacement not only to Wii U but also 3DS once its sales & software support dry up. If it replaces both than why would we compare it only to the one that sold poorly? Oh right, because it supports your agenda!!!