| Snoorlax said: ... |
Except I do have proof one is the shift in early marketing, two Reggie's comments and a third one is the 2011 E3 Iwata Asks where Iwata himself says the Wii U will focus on deeper experiences than what the Wii offered are you going to say LOL Iwata now as that's now two high ranking people in the company.
Nintendo has never sold hardware at a loss even the ultra cheap GC sold at a tiny profit at its launch price Wii U is the first platform they ever full on sold at a loss with Sony were the ones who came up with that model because they're a bigger company hence the well repeated notion of GC making more money than PS2 the fact you think all companies operate on the same business model is showing the flaws in your thinking Nintendo has always previously taken financially viable tech in their platforms and relied on their software output to sell, Nintendo's business model has always been selling all products at a profit this is why the bare bones Wii U was never going to have much more power as it's a business model that they were never suited for. It cost less than PS3/360 yet still sold at a loss for years also PS4 didn't sell for a profit it sold at a loss:
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/ps4-to-be-sold-at-a-loss-but-launch-day-recoup-expected-from-ps-plus-subs-and-launch-titles-2905846
As you can see PSN subscriptions and their licensing model for games are what makes the profit you know the same things I said offset much of the losses for the 360/PS3 that Nintendo didn't have the PS4 still sells at a loss and thats at a higher price point than what Wii U was, even if Wii U dropped the tablet controller it would go from selling at a loss to just selling at break even they wouldn't be able to magically add more power to challenge the PS4 especially as the platform was developed in 2010 two years before PS4 began development itself in 2012, the costs would have even been higher going this route even with out the tablet due to tech viability. Interestingly enough PS4's loss at being sold were considered small for the company especially compared to PS3 while Wii U's which was said to be comparable to PS4 was a significant loss for Nintendo (going by the figures in 2013 investors report) highlighting how the latter weren't geared for such a strategy.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-08-07-nintendo-still-selling-wii-u-at-a-loss
To top it off year one had the Wii U cause a 387m loss to the whole company over a third of a billion offsetting the profits brought in by the portable dominance they have in gaming now lets compare this to Switch:
https://www.technobuffalo.com/nintendo-switch-sold-at-profit
Day 1 its selling at a profit because they used defunct tech of Nvidia that the said company no longer had any use for so Nintendo were able to work out a deal with them to get it for a good cheap price as well as form a unique partnership where Nvidia creates the tech they need and in return Nvidia once again has a piece of the non PC gaming pie which AMD enjoyed by itself for so long. This is no different to Gunpei Yokoi's instilled philosophy in the company and his handling of the G&W where he took viable tech that no one was really using so the company could execute things more cheaply, Wii did this as well taking viable tech for the execution of their concept the only platform in Nintendo's history that didn't follow this was Wii U because it was trying a different approach.
Essay Pro