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Soundwave on 10 August 2020
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curl-6 said:
Soundwave said:

The GBA, GCN, Wii U had far worse late life cycle support than the Wii did. 

And all the successor systems to those machines sold great. 

So really probably what that tells you is late cycle support doesn't mean much really and cutting off support for an older system to ensure better early generation support for the next system has if anything worked well for Nintendo. 

To be honest maybe Microsoft would've been better off doing this too. I think they maybe should have considered ditching the XBox One in 2019 and getting a year headstart over the PS5. 

Sega really, is actually the outlier here and they did extreme things. 

I mean Sony too could've supported the PS2 into 2007 really if they wanted to and pushed PS3 into 2007 ... I don't think it would have helped the PS3 any bit though. 360 would've simply cemented itself a larger lead.

Better support in Wii's late life would've meant more revenue off both hardware and software in 2011-2012 though. Plus it's better for us as consumers to get more support for the hardware we spend good money on.

Yeah but marginally so unless you're saying Nintendo should have released like a new Mario Kart game for the Wii in 2011/2012.

You did get that game, it's called Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ... it just was on Wii U instead of Wii. And it's better for the gamer that it was on Wii U instead of Wii regardless of whether you liked the design choices of the Wii U hardware. The better Wii U hardware meant that game you got was better.

People need to stop looking at things like they're "robbed" of games ... no you do get the games, maybe they spill over onto the next console instead, but that's not a "loss" for you as a player, odds are that means you end up with the better game in the end. 

Like Nintendo easily could have delayed the Super Nintendo into 1992 say and put Super Mario Bros. 4 (Mario World) and Zelda III on the NES instead too. And yes they would have sold a lot of copies. But those games sold a lot of copies on the SNES too. But if they had done that it would've led to a host of market problems, like the Genesis would've been a lot harder to hold off, in fact I would say probably the Genesis flat out beats the Super NES with that generous of an open window. And as a gamer, those games wouldn't have been as good flat out, because of the lesser hardware, the experience would have been worse. 

So really that's lose/lose in that scenario, Nintendo ultimately loses and so does the gamer, the only winner there would've been Sega because would've given them a key large window to grab market share and also a weaker SNES because likely the SNES versions of Mario and Zelda likely would've be ready until 1993 maybe at best? Is that really a great situation?

For Nintendo especially, I think devoting heavy resources to a platform late in the product cycle is dangerous because it can mean the next system does not have adequate software help. Even the Switch, where would they have been without being able to lean heavy on Wii U projects like BOTW and Splatoon and Mario Kart 8. Wii U bombing helped the Switch tremendously because it got access to basically 3 "free" killer apps that not many people had played in the first 6 months. That can completely change a platform's fortunes.