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Soundwave on 11 August 2020
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Pyro as Bill said:
Soundwave said:

No they did the correct thing. The reality just is that pre-2010 the Wii was unique and special but after Kinect and Move came out it really wasn't. Just like Brain Training isn't really special anymore because there's like 20 apps on your phone you can get for free that approximate the same thing. 

Kinect Sports was relatively fun and polished, so was the Sony one, you can't really say "well only Wii Sports was fun". 

I think that had an impact on Wii sales for sure. Why buy two systems if you really don't have to. 

You can't really stop other companies from copying such ideas eventually though and having their own polished product, it's simply a matter of spending money. 

So even with 20:20 hindsight, you still think WiiU was the right move. Fair enough.

Also, it isn't just Brain Training that can be done on other ecosystems. Minecraft, PUBG, CoD, Pokemon, FIFA and Fortnite are all on smartphones too.

No I think making any kind of Wii successor was likely going to end in disaster for Nintendo because the uniqueness around the concept has burst and while there was still a sizable chunk of people wanting to play Just Dance ... a lot of people had lost interest in the whole "wave your arms around the TV for 30 minutes".

It gets boring after a while. 

But once you've committed to a hardware design, you can't back out of it or sit there and cry like a baby about it. Once it's greenlit, you have to give it all you got. Even if the headwinds were turning against Nintendo, they had to by 2011 simply suck it up and get to work. 

If anyone could make a Minecraft equivalent that attracted a large audience I'd say why are you on this forum. Make the game and go make a billion dollars. Character/brand driven traditional games like Minecraft, COD, Pokemon, FIFA, etc. can't be copied the same way because there is more depth and nuance to those games and the players are very specific about what they want. 

But a Brain Training game? Some small studio in Hong Kong can crap out 10 Brain Training games with multiplication, word puzzles, etc. and the audience base can be largely satisfied with that. The design level needed to make one is not equivalent to the other. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 11 August 2020