SE seems to have been making a little better decisions now... I don't see them doing anything too stupid at the moment.

The highest selling Animal Crossing game is 11.75 Million (DS) the least selling is 3.15 (NGC.) The best selling Zelda game is 7.60 Million (N64) the least selling is .81 Million (GBA.) Yes, it sells more.

Nope, if counted together I'm sure they would have sold in excess of 10 Million. Still not enough to beat Animal Crossing.

I hope so too...2D Mario is what made the NES a huge success, and by extension, Nintendo as a highly successful videogame company, yet they spent 15 years..yeah, 15 years!..without releasing a single 2D Mario game (Mario World -- 1991...NSMB DS -- 2006..not considering Yoshi´s Island a 'real' 2D Mario game).

So you never know...though the huge sales of both NSMB games must have made Nintendo get their head out of their ass, since we´re getting another 2D Mario for the 3DS, so hope remains high for a Wii U version.

of course...shipping with a wii sport spinoff or sequel included with the console may be nintendo's strategy .I think nintendo's logic would be that a 2d mario could sell (potentially) 25+ million on it's own, without being bundled.

It is about exclusives for Nintendo as it always has been. Clearly though the gamecube and N64 proved exclusives do not win the generation. And so far the Wii U seems to not be doing the things the wii did to succeed which was to market to small time gamers or put something out there that non-gamers could easily pick up and do right away. This time they are not doing that other than the backwards compatibility. They are looking like they want to compete with Sony in MS again on their playing field withs more advanced tech and I say they will lose this time. It does not matter to me if the do well. I just do not think they will gain enough third parties and stay relevant after the MS and Sony comes out with new consoles. why? Because I assume Sony and MS will keep the PS3 and 360 on the market for a long time and the Wii U will be competing with those consoles that already have vast libraries. The Wii U will sell mostly to the people that love their first parties, but I do not think it will be enough to pull in the gamers that have grown used to the many things that are superior for Sony and MS. Mostly talking about online capabilities here, but obviously there are many other areas they do much better than Ninty.

I could care less about portables and of course the 3DS has more games, it is called a won year launch advantage.

I'd go with this as well. 

I think WiiU's bundled software will be something that shows off the controller.  A new 2D Mario will sell incredibly well on its own as a standalone game.

1. Sony and Microsoft are only going as far as holiday 2013 before bringing their successors out. This is becoming more and more clear as time proceeds

2. Exclusives do win generations, and always have, but you need the right exclusives. The relationship between 3D Mario and 2D Mario, as well as some of the other missteps Nintendo took with their own games in the N64 and GC era shows simply that Nintendo lost their way, not that the rules of the game changed. The Wii U will stand or fall by presence or absence of Wii and NES-type titles.

3. Third parties need the Wii U just as much as Wii U needs third parties. Skyrocketing develoment costs mean they need somewhere to put their games. Whether they put them there well or shortchange the machine as they did with the GameCube is what remains to be seen. However, with the likelihood of third party parity increasing, then we have a playing field where the only competition is in exclusives, one in which (see point 2) Nintendo can utterly dominate if it so chooses.

Go ahead!

@ Mr Khan i have hockey to watch and cannot multi-task with that big of a distraction from the game, will respond later. Also explains my pun. XD

1: No, not really, they're both heavily down yoy and will be down even more come fall/winter and this holiday season is bound to be quite a bit worse than the last one saleswise. The PS360 combo has been down around 20-30% thus far in 2012 and this percentage will grow bigger through the year and at this point, a price cut will have much less impact. The incoming announcements of their respective heirs will also damage sales even further, the Wii pretty much died after the official Wii U announcement and keeps falling (been clocking in at over 40% down yoy for 2012).

2: I agree somewhat. The problem with the Wii U as I see and the main reason I don't think it will ever sell as much as the Wii is that they seem to be targeting both, which is practically impossible for a multitude of reasons (feel free to ask and I shall name them).

3: The price might get hiked up by the cost of the controller and one can imagine the cost of extra controllers and peripherals, Nintendo are known for having the most costly accessories in the biz. The price of the console itself; hmm, there is nothing to suggest that the Wii U will be massively powerful and thus require a high production cost, if the PS4 and 720 are able to be priced within some semblance of reason, there's no reason why Wii U shouldn't be able to beat that by a little bit. Will they make a profit? Who knows, we don't know the retail price but we know one thing; price does matter, a high entry price paired with costly peripherals is a bad idea. Expect an introduction price of around 299$-349$.

4: Despite probably lacking the horsepower, the Wii U will be capable of full HD, full shaders and real-time rendering and most filters and effects as the PS4 and 720, all be it at a lower level. Its still a lot better than the Wii which had a very different architecture and was almost impossible to include in cross-platform development. All in all, Nintendo are better of in this area than in the 7th gen. Add the fact that the power leap will likely be smaller from 7th to 8th and that the generation itself is more likely to be cut short than this one and its not so bad.

5: This is a tough one. It seems that Nintendo are hoping and thinking that they'll be able to go toe-to toe with the 720 and PS4 as far as 3rd parties are concerned and that this will magically lure the more dedicated gamers back to their platform. I don't think they can achieve this. What they need to do is focus more on aquiring talent in the form of 1st and 2nd party developers and also show some breadth and depth and produce 1st party fare outside of the standard Nintendo franchises which aren't about waggling about in poorly rendered sports, cooking, quizes, petting dogs or any other trivial activity.

6: Here I pretty much disagree, the console market will remain largely unaffected by the mobile/tablet games market. The whole craze is not sustainable on a global and all-encompassing basis and the only ones who will feel the burn properly here are the handheld consoles, its already beginning. The 7th generation saw a massive expansion of the market as well as the rise of mobile/tablet gaming simultaneously, this is in itself proof that both can and will live together and as seperate entities.


Now, to your main, overarching, point; am I worried about the future of the Wii U?

Yes and no. I think it could be great but also think Nintendo need to focus on one direction and commit fully, they're branching off and trying to do something that could prove costly by trying to build a hybrid platform which will entice equal parts casuals and core gamers, the whole shebang could very well end up alienating both.

I honestly believe that it will do well, I do, but not exceptionally well. It won't move nearly as much software as the Wii, not even 1st party titles and it will end up selling a lot less than the Wii, perhaps a little over half in lifetime total. Furthermore; it will write history by becoming the first direct sequel to a market leader that didn't win it's generation.

History does not repeat itself, this generation should be living proof of that and the gaming market has become a fast-moving rollercoaster that you can't command but simply need to cling on to.

Excellent post.  I couldn't agree more, Mr Khan.