padib said:
Nobody ever said the opposite. The success of the successor is almost always up to the successor. The question in OP is how the overall brand can be hurt if the current console is killed shortly, and more importantly, lost revenue. We know that Nintendo stocks plummeted after the Wii at around 2010. It's really easy to see how Nintendo, had they taken a different approach, in hindsight of course, would have been the right way to go to support the Wii much more effectively. Add to that the now known ability to support multiple consoles at once with a proper framework, and all this becomes super obvious as to what was the right thing to do. The right thing to do was to make games for Wii that could also be played on 3DS and WiiU, and to smoothly transition to the new capabilities of the U as it got more popular. You even said so yourself that the transition is #1, now you're just changing your mind. |
How is the U going to get "popular" if you can play much of its library on the older system? There's not as much incentive to upgrade.
It's better to cannibalize your previous system to benefit your next one. It's better for your company, because a botched console transition is something that is going to badly damage the company for years. Just like Nintendo went from top of the world to being embarrassed to announce several years of losses because within a blink of an eye.
High profile late gen N64 titles should have been moved to the GameCube.
Late cycle DS projects like Pokemon Black 2 White 2 should have been moved to the 3DS launch window (the system was DRYING for help and lol the DS is getting a Pokemon game, that's terrible, terrible software management).
Pulling Zelda TP and BOTW as GCN and Wii U exclusives was 100% the right move even if they did get a quiet, low print release on those systems.
You absolutely do need to prioritize the new system way more than the old one once the old system reaches a matured age.
Like I said, if a 16-year-old kid can't understand that their mom/dad needs to give most of their attention to a newborn baby, the problem isn't the baby, it's the kid who is being an idiot. New consoles are like new borns, they need constant attention and constant focus until they are grown enough to stand on their own two feet. If you don't give them the care they need at that stage of life it can lead to serious issues later on in their life.
No one in this business ever said "geez you have too many good games for the your launch window, would you stop with all this software". You should always err on the side of having more than what you need for a new product cycle, it's the most vital thing in the business in my opinion. That's really what separates good management from mediocre management, how they deal with console transition.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 11 August 2020
