| Tryklon said: Right, so, those 100 million were just a fad and a mistake. Right... |
I wouldn't say they were a fad or a mistake per se. It's just that a LOT of that market for simple/casual (not saying casual as a pejorative here) has moved to tablet/phone. The motion controls thing came and went (Wiimote bowling/tennis kind of stuff, Kinect, move is now only relevant to VR).
Wii had that weird 'lightning in a bottle' effect where the mainstream news was covering it, it was all over the place as a general pop culture phenomenon. It was in retirement centers, soccer mom's bedroom for Wii Fit, etc/infinity.
Even with it's wild success for the first 2-3 years, we did see a couple of things happen :
1- The software support evaporated. With ~100M install base, why do you think EA/Ubisoft/etc stopped bringing over big titles like COD, and never brought out GTA4 and the like? While games kept coming out for a while, they mostly fell into three categories : shovelware (again, not JUST a Wii thing, but non-1st-party stuff usually fit this category sadly), annual sports title updates that mostly were just roster updates to get a cheap profit, and faff like 'Just Dance'.
2- Major retail presence shifted heavily to X360, and even PS3, along with monthly sales totals. People forget that both PS3 and 360 were somewhat of a slow burn. Prices had to come down, and games had to really start rolling, along with devs getting up to speed with the hardware.
It's REALLY important to remember that when Wii launched, PS3 was still $500(20GB)/$600(60GB), and basically so was the 360 for a capable SKU. Neither was heavily established by the time the Wii hit the market. Neither included a game. The 360 'Arcade' variant was $300 I believe, but with no hard drive to speak of it was pretty much useless.
Wii LAUNCHED at $249, with a game to boot. Add in the initial novelty of motion controls and a tie-in to fitness, and it was a flash hit.
Compare that to this launch :
Instead of launching with a pack-in game roughly half the price of competing non-established systems that didn't include games, and showing off a major new tech (motion controls), Switch is launching gameless at a higher price than the heavily established competion which include games, has no major new tech.
I liked my Wii, I still have a Red one I think.
Something else to think about, is the WiiU. WiiU was a better Wii in every way, real HDMI support, a Tablet, superb 1st party games, but it bombed. Poor marketing, poor naming, unfortunate pricing, but fundamentally it should have done better than it did, right? Yet only about 15% of those that bought Wiis came back for the U. Anyone with even a moderate interest in gaming as a hobby would know that it existed despite the terrible marketing. But, it bombed. Cheaper, established competition, and that competition had a stranglehold on the biggest selling games in the industry. A handful of excellent Nintendo titles might sell well, but the totality of the game sales annually is absolutely dominated by 3rd parties. Sony's and MS's 1st party titles also are a pittance compared to that monstrous market. And that's something that has really become more important over the years : the mega AAA blockbuster. Solid AA titles have all but vanished, leaving a stable of massive franchises and indies for the most part. GTA, Red Dead, Minecraft, Madden, COD, Creed (needs a reboot), Mass Effect, yadda/etc. This WASNT the case back in 2006. It was a transitional time, and more heavily reliant on great 1st party efforts to prop things up. Something that MS was slow to get on with the 360, taking Halo 3 and Gears of War to really get things rolling towards success, and Sony having not a whole lot to speak of 1st party wise for years along with awful pricing, which really hurt them in combo with their late launch.
I would be shocked beyond belief if Switch got a sniff of Wii's 100M success. Still, if they can double to triple the WiiU's numbers, that would count for something and should be doable with the right plan.
It's a different market now than it was even 5 years ago, let alone a decade+.
