RolStoppable said:
Your answer to my question is sufficient. 10-20m extra translates to a clear "no" because that's a bad total both relative to the size of the console market's size at the time and in comparison to its predecessor. If we stick with the NFL analogy, head coach Miyamoto was starting their third string QB despite their first two being healthy. That the high profile receiver Wii Sports didn't play is because it made no sense to start him when the first QB was being benched; it's well-known that there's no good chemistry between QB3 and WR Wii Sports because they are never on the same page. The O-line consists of Nintendo's long-running IPs like Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., 2D Mario, 3D Mario, The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo is using the same O-line for Switch, at times just enhanced ports of them. It's not the O-line that is failing the QB, it's the other way around. Simply put, the Gamepad is the type of QB that makes everyone around him worse. Nintendo found new skill position players in Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, but they figured they would perform even better with a competent QB. The controller is the central piece of a console. It's what people see and figure that is how the games for the console in question are played, it's that self-explanatory even for people who have never bought any consoles. Assigning the QB position to the controller in an NFL analogy makes sense because the QB directs the game. You have freedom to assign the various Nintendo IPs to any other position, so it doesn't have to be like I described it above. In the mid-2010s people wondered if it's even possible for Nintendo to recover, but what they didn't realize is that there wasn't all that much that Nintendo had to change in order to become very successful again. Team owner Nintendo sacked head coach Miyamoto, the QB was sent into the desert and suddenly the whole team performed significantly better again despite not many pieces on the team being changed. If Nintendo made a Wii 2 (so a console with improved motion controllers), then Wii Sports 3 would have been a logical game to make. But the Wii U had the Gamepad (so no motion controller), so it was logical to not make Wii Sports 3. A whole bunch of bad decisions regarding the Wii U can be traced back to the Gamepad. Software lineup, marketing message, target demographics. Here's a suggestion for another analogy: The Gamepad is Donald J. Trump. Maybe he does totally suck, maybe it just so happens that he gets bad advice from this staff all the time. We can't really know. So I say vote for Trump in 2020. |
If you'd consider that a failure, then sure. It would have still failed. I never really argued otherwise, so fine.
You do realize the point of an analogy is to explain a concept via a simple comparison... not to make it hopelessly obtuse?
But whatever, let's compare those players.
Switch gets Breath of the Wild on day one, which is a brand new ambitious take on the franchise heralded by many as one of the greatest games of all time. Wii U gets a remake of Windwaker about a year in, a remake of the worst selling 3D entry in the franchise.
Switch gets Mario Odyssey for its first holiday. Again an ambitious new entry to the franchise. 97 metacritic. Super Mario 3D World is an expansion of the formula on the 3DS, adding little beyond multiplayer. Metacritic 93. And the game is developed by EAD Tokyo's main team rather than the secondary team.
The Wii Fit Team released a slightly modded version of Wii Fit. And released it first digitally for some reason. At least 75% of the content is pulled directly from Wii Fit U. And for some utterly bizarre reason some of the activities from Wii Fit Plus were pulled. For Switch we get Ring Fit which is a fresh concept with new content and is certainly more ambitious than Wii Fit Plus +.
They're pulling from the same franchises, but whereas the Switch is getting new and ambitious entries, the Wii U is getting mildly upgraded ports, remakes, and unambitious entries, Switch is getting new and creative titles. And there's no reason based on the controllers that they couldn't have put these games on the Wii U. Just happened that way due to various factors completely unrelated to the Gamepad.
Then there's also timing. If we want really want to stick to the football analogy, Switch had its star players at the beginning of the season. 1-2 Switch, Breath of the Wild, Odyssey, Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8, ARMS, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Fire Emblem Warriors, Kirby, Mario/Rabbids, Pokken year one.
In contrast Wii U's year one first party output consisted of Nintendo Land, NSMBU, a Karaoke game, Lego City Undercover sort of (also on Switch year one), Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Wind Waker, Pikmin, and Wonderful 101. Clearly, one of these lineups is much stronger than the other.
Year 2? Switch gets Pokemon Let's Go, Mario Tennis, Tropical Freeze, Octopath Traveller, Bayonetta, Hyrule Warriors, Smash, and Mario Party.
Wii U gets, Mario Kart 8, Wii Fit U (digital only I believe), Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors, and Smash.
Whereas the Switch was able to take advantage of players acquired in the last season from day 1, Gamepad didn't get most of these players till halfway through the season or later. By the time they got Splatoon, they were out of the playoffs, Breath of the Wild came on the field for the kneel down. The Gamepad posed no obstacle for these titles being on the Wii U, and the Switch hardware didn't really do much to make them possible, with the exception of 1-2 Switch.
Not to mention the droughts. From the launch of the Wii U, there was not a single major first party release (unless you want to count Lego City, which I wouldn't) until either 6 months later with Game and Wario, or 9 months later with Pikmin. That's insane, and again doesn't seem to have any logical connection to the Gamepad. Any momentum dies off, and press goes from bad to worse.
The Switch was able to plug gaps with Wii U titles, but that's not because of any intrinsic advantage of the Switch's hardware. It's just a result of better planning, and Nintendo just happening to have first party titles that never saw much of an audience lying around. That's a huge benefit to the Switch.
As far as Wii Sports goes, I have no idea what you're on about. Whether or not it made sense (the Wii U has Wii-mote support, and I can easily think of a few sports that could have incorporated the Gamepad) Nintendo did in fact try to launch a Wii Sports product on the Wii U. They chose to do so in an insanely bizarre way, by launching it in piece meal, launch it digitally only, ignoring everything from Resort, charging 10 dollars for a single game, and trying to sell it via 24 hour rentals.
This is kind of the same point all over again. Would Wii Sports Club have failed regardless? Maybe. We can only speculate that point. Would it have had a better chance of success if it was released in a sensible manner? I'm pretty confident that's a yes.
So, back to the actual point. The Gamepad was potentially the issue causing most of Wii U's problems. Another potential issue is that the entries in respective franchises were just better on the Switch. Another possible explanation is massive software droughts caused, at least according to Nintendo, by difficulty in adapting to HD, poor software planning overall, and the need to support the 3DS as well, none of which are the fault of the Gamepad. The console's name and confusing marketing is another potential cause. There are also other potential causes we didn't address.
Of these possible factors, there's no way to say for sure which was the main culprit. When all of these potential fuck ups happen at once, it's hard to isolate any one cause. I've acknowledged that I have my opinion, but that's just based on my intuition and interpretation.
On the other hand, if I understand you correctly, you're claiming you've managed to identify the Gamepad as the main if not sole culprit. How can you have possibly determined this?
Last edited by JWeinCom - on 03 January 2020
