| Soundwave said: Because the casual market collapsed due to smartphones and tablets and the Wii brand had become a toxic liability as a brand that was out of style for one. A "Wii" system with the "Wii audience" gone to their far more fashionable/trendy iPads and iPhones was always going to crash and burn. If Switch was called "Wii 3" it would be having brand problems also. |
This is among the main reasons; the console market overall hasn't changed all that much, PS4 and Xbox One are doing more or less the exact same thing the PS3 and 360 did and there's still an audience for it when executed decently (and decent is the classification of the combined sales the 8th gen bros deserve, no more). But one large segment, namely the one that was Nintendo's bread and butter, casuals, fringe consumers and entertainment nomads seeking perceived value and convenience above all, more or less disappeared from the more static devices and this was clear for all to see (except for Nintendo, it seems).
The funniest part about this development is that the OP of the infamous UNITY thread claimed that the Wii U would murder Sony and MS' gaming divisions due to a video game crash that would result in mobile/browser/social gaming going bust at the same time as traditional consoles, forcing all developers for some magical reason, over to the Wii U where all would be heaven and glory (it really is an immensely terrible line of reasoning). What makes it funny though is that there really was a crash; the above mentioned demographics completely ditched static devices in favor of smart devices or other, simpler and often cheaper solutions, which caused the Wii U's demise, all the while leading to the mobile/browser/social gaming segments growing and growing each year, and they still are, and the traditional 3rd party developers and their traditional games are doing really well as well, especially now that digital has become even more of a factor on consoles, more people are paying for online subscriptions and the Wii U was just terribly optimized for consumers with even the slightest interest in digital copies, online gaming and matchmaking and basically every other modern contraption and feature on consoles.
In the end; the crash was real, but the effect and afflicted portion of the market was the polar opposite of what our old friend in UNITY claimed, and it is absolutely, spectacularly hilarious in every conceiveable way and I still enjoy going back to read some of the insane shit that was written from time to time and laugh and the ridiculous arguments, theatrics and swollen figures and predictions being tossed around like paint under a bridge.
