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Forums - Nintendo - Is Nintendo Giving Up on Wii U?

Deyon said:

Good read!

After the massive success of the original Wii, Nintendo was expected to develop a popular successor. Thus far, the company has failed .

Despite the sales declines, Nintendo execs had vehemently fought against the prospect of developing software for smartphones. PC downloads were also off the table.

Do you see Sony 1st parties doing this, even though PS Vita sales are horrible?  No, and there are reasons to keep things on their own platforms.  I really hope I don't have to explain that to you.

That may be about to change. While Nintendo has not announced that it will develop a game or two for smartphones, it is bringing Miiverse (the company's social network-inspired communication tool) to smartphones and PCs .

That is only logical as it is a social networking application, and it would only benefit Nintendo to integrate them into phones and PC's.  Not the same can be said about their games.

While this may sound like a way to encourage smartphone users to get a Wii U, it is unlikely to have any positive effects. The only kinds of people that care about Miiverse already have a Wii U or will buy one in the near future. If Nintendo is only looking to serve those customers, then it had no reason to take Miiverse to other devices.

That's not even remotely true.

The problem with this decision is that it dilutes the Nintendo brand and diminishes the value of the Miiverse program. Consumers who may have once thought of it as a cool Wii U edition may now see it as an application that is available everywhere.

This is like saying having a mobile youtube app dilutes and diminishes the value of youtube.

No one buys specific devices for ubiquitous apps. They do not buy game consoles for that reason either. Nintendo needs every exclusive feature -- no matter how trivial -- to sell this machine. Without exclusivity, Nintendo is doomed.

You don't seem to know what you're talking about.  Miiverse isn't there to make people buy a Wii U, and isn't coming to phones and PC's to make people go like "I want a Wii U now!"  It's mostly for those who already have one to make it more accessible to the users who already has one.

Unfortunately, this may be a part of the company's view of the entire gaming industry. In the past, Nintendo would have never dreamed of bringing Miiverse to other platforms. Now that smartphones are popular and Wii U is not, Nintendo seems to have changed its tune.

Maybe I'll get banned for this, but that is just a stupid statement.  Just utter stupidity.  "Smart phones are popular and Wii U is not..." Just like any other console you can name, smart phones are more popular.  You bringing that up makes absolutely no sense because it doesn't mean anything in this context, and putting Miiverse on phones and PC's isn't them moving to other platforms.  Do you think Sony having a website means that it has moved to PC's?  No.  

Consumers should not expect to see Mario running around an Apple iPhone anytime soon. Two years ago, diehard gamers would have argued that it would never happen.

What? Is this a grammar error?

If all goes well, it won't. Nintendo will learn from its mistakes, fix Wii U's problems, produce a better marketing campaign and sell a ton of consoles.

Something I agree on is that they need a better marketing campaign.

That would be ideal situation.

In the event that Nintendo fails, the company is likely to release one or two more consoles before it shovels all of its software onto smartphones. Thus, it could be a decade or more before The Legend of Zelda is available on an Android device.

I doubt that.  But who knows what will happen.

One can only hope that day never comes.





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I heard that Sony is giving up on the game industry, because of the poor sales the PS3 had in its first few months, and have thus dememed the entire generation as a loss.

I also heard that Nintendo was no longer going to make any more handheld consoles because of the poor 3DS launch, and feel that they can't survive in the handheld market any longer.

Thread nuked.

 



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Deyon said:

Good read!

The part I most disagreed with.



Yes, Yoshi Yarn, X, Pikmin 3, Smash, Zelda, Mario Kart, 3D Mario, Shin Megami x Fire Emblem, Wind Waker HD, Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2 and Wii Fit U will stop development tomorrow. 



Nintendo and PC gamer

The silence from Nintendo is really odd. You would expect them to advertise the shit out of their new console. But instead, just... nothing at all. I'm sure there is a lot going on at Nintendo headquarters and I think we will see a new president soon. I guess Nintendo has some problems that didn't start with the Wii U but way sooner. Of course they won't be talking about that.

About going 3rd party... I don't think so, but I also wouldn't be surprised at this point. It's just that Nintendo could sell so many more games if they went multiplat, so from a business standpoint, it doesn't make sense anymore to sell consoles, even more since the Wii U is sold at a loss. If Investors think the same, the Wii U may be the last of Nintendos home consoles. But we just don't know yet. Yeah, of course, Nintendo is always doomed, I know. But sometime, be it now or in the far future, that prediction of doom will come true. Not just for Ninty, but also for Sony, Microsoft, Apple and even Google. Coca-Cola will last longer than any of those electronic companies.



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OdinHades said:
The silence from Nintendo is really odd. You would expect them to advertise the shit out of their new console. But instead, just... nothing at all. I'm sure there is a lot going on at Nintendo headquarters and I think we will see a new president soon. I guess Nintendo has some problems that didn't start with the Wii U but way sooner. Of course they won't be talking about that.

About going 3rd party... I don't think so, but I also wouldn't be surprised at this point. It's just that Nintendo could sell so many more games if they went multiplat, so from a business standpoint, it doesn't make sense anymore to sell consoles, even more since the Wii U is sold at a loss. If Investors think the same, the Wii U may be the last of Nintendos home consoles. But we just don't know yet. Yeah, of course, Nintendo is always doomed, I know. But sometime, be it now or in the far future, that prediction of doom will come true. Not just for Ninty, but also for Sony, Microsoft, Apple and even Google. Coca-Cola will last longer than any of those electronic companies.

I feel like the silence is due to the fiscal year coming to an end. Why funnel tons of money into advertising that will only show up as revenue lost for this FY? They have advertised the most recent releases, but why would they advertise  in earlier months when there aren't any games releasing? It's just not a smart business move. Things will kick off soon with another Nintendo Direct now that every game with a hard release date has come out. W101 is listed as "Coming Soon" in the eShop so a release date cannot be too far off, they also have to talk about the April update, VC launch, Pikmin maybe Bayonetta progress and who knows what else. Nintendo was in worse trouble after the Gamecube than they are now....2 insanely popular systems followed by a rocky launch that was turned completely around and a pretty successful launch that saw a drought, but increasing sales as games were released. After the struggles to keep up with the PS1 and PS2, Nintendo NEEDED to do something, and they got rid of Yamauchi. Since then, they have led the market in both handhelds and consoles. Iwata isn't going anywhere unless the Wii U completely tanks which most likely isn't going to happen.

Nintendo MIGHT sell more games as a third party, but it could drive other third parties away from the system that had them, leading to abandonment or buyout propositions from companies.  That's why third parties have such a hard time with being on Nintendo's consoles, the competition is too fierce...they just can't keep up. If Mario went toe to toe with Assassins Creed on a release day, Mario would win. Mario Kart could take out CoD single handedly. The problem is that Nintendo would have to pay royalties and licensing fees to get their games on other systems...which Sony and MS would charge out the ass for. The Wii U is barely sold at a loss, and is profitable after 1 first party sale or 2 third party sales. It's a pretty safe assumption that Nintendo has profitted off of every Wii U sold so far once you add software and they will quite possibly make a profit on each Wii U sold period by the end of the year. Why  pay money to get games on a console when you profit off of pretty much everything you do when you do it yourself?

From a business standpoint, Nintendo is the only one that should be in the console business. Sony and MS lost $8 billion total with their consoles last gen and Sony almost seems to be betting the farm on PS4. Their credit status is "junk", they haven't turned a profit in YEARS (while Nintendo only posted it's first annual loss EVER last year due to R&D on the Wii U.), they sold HQ's and shares in stock in order to fund the PS4. Microsoft has enough avenues of income that are profitable to take the hit, but it still isn't good.

The only way the Wii U will be the last of Nintendo's home consoles is if the definition of home console changes. With the way they are combining their hardware divisions and gameplay styles between console and handheld, it seems like their next hardware will be some sort of hybrid. Connected to the tv, save the game to the handheld device and take it anywhere....not streaming over the internet or between the console and controller, with literally every game. Not just particular "cross-buy" games and there won't be a disparity between handheld and console titles. Especially if graphene in computers is perfected by then and they use it....stuff's crazy. Wireless bandwidth rates of 100tb/s, faster through graphene itself, 1 atom thick, incredibly fast battery recharge times, stupidly cheap (over 100 graphene supercapacitors put onto the surface of a DVD with a consumer grade LightScribe burner in under 30 minutes) and be placed on just about anything.

At the very worst, Nintendo will lose hundreds of millions a year and still be around in 40 years. Before that would happen, they would switch to handheld only and bail themselves out, only to make a comeback into the living room (if the above doesn't come true). Nintendo is the only company making smart business decisions and they came out of the first gaming crash like a Phoenix from the ashes. Expect that to continue.