As of now, most multiplatform games are being released only for X1 and PS4 and this is unlikely to change for the rest of the generation, many say that the Wii U is "doomed" because it lacks such essential third party support, unsurprisingly Nintendo is having a hard time meeting their own expected sales for their console. It was obviously a risky move to release first without being certain of the hardware that would eventually become standard for next gen, but it was also necessary because the Wii U had lost its momentum long before. But what could have happened if Nintendo had moved their cards differently?

I think that Nintendo could have made the Wii U successful if they had designed and marketed it as being upgradable and futureproof (I'm not a fan of upgradable consoles, but at this time Nintendo was in a special position because of releasing early). They could have achieved this in two phases: the "first phase" would be focused in making a competitor to the PS3/X360 and a successor to the Wii, this Wii U would have an empty hard drive bay, a replaceable RAM dimm or an empty RAM socket in addition to soldered RAM, which could be as low as 1GB or even 512MB of RAM in trade for a faster processor. This way the system has barely enough RAM to match the system features of the PS3/X360, in the games department it would be able to outperform them both because of the much faster processor and/or graphics processor (while still being limited by RAM).

The "second phase" would come as early as when the X1/PS4 specs were finalized or shortly after their release, the objective of this phase would be matching specs with X1/PS4 to unleash the true potential of the Wii U and guarantee multiplatform compatibility while enabling new system features. For this, Nintendo just had to release a module of RAM and a hard drive as an addon for existing users. From this point, the console would only be manufactured in its "second phase" with a soldered RAM module of 8GB and a built-in hard drive while being marketed in this final phase as a next gen console. They would avoid segmentation of their install base by making the "second phase" the standard version which would encourage early adopters to upgrade.

Guess what was upgradable... The Sega Consoles... Guess what Sega is doing now... Not making Consoles...

PS: Nice sig btw!! Loved that south park ep!!!

Edit: Did you change ur title? Anyway, All I can say about the 8GB of ram is... The X1 and PS4 Also has a Stronger GPU/CPU so idk if upgrading the RAM only would help... I guess if Nintendo had thunderbolt on their wiiU, they can make it "upgradable" to match the ps4/x1's power but that would have increased to cost of the wiiU by $200 more at least just to have the support of thunderbolt

Nintendo still made the right choice. I know everyone has been arguing PS4 vs. X1 alot but from someone who does'nt have a preference either way, they are pretty much the same thing. Wii U may have less memory but the CPU is better plus it comes with a freaking controller that plays my games on it. Wii U + either PS4 or X1 seems to be the popular decision on the internet these days anyways.

If power actually mattered then the Gamecube would have outsold the PS2.   Shoot the weakest console graphically has won pretty much every generation.  SNES,PS1,PS2,Wii.  All the weakest in graphics, all the best in games and sales. 

The problem is splitting an already low install base would make game sales even worse.

What if the sky were generally a more purplish color, would that have saved the sky from pollution?

When the Wii U would came out in this alternate timeline, the haters would have said something like "Nintendo is a joke. 8 gigs of ram is nothing. The PS4 and the next Xbox will have way more ram.". Then next thing you know the PS4 and Xbox One have 8 gigs of ram, making the haters eat some yummy crow.

By the way, it wouldn't have saved the Wii U for two reasons. One, the software drought caused the sales drop. There was nothing to market until Pikmin 3 came out, but even then there was practically none until this month. Two, because Wii U isn't dead. The Wii U can still be saved, since It's still on the market. Writing "Would this have saved the Wii U?" is implying that Wii U is off the market and is 100% impossible to save. Right now, that isn't the case. We don't know if 3D World, Wii Fit U, Donkey Kong, X, Bayonetta 2, Yoshi, Mario Kart, and Smash Bros. will significantly boost Wii U's sales, making it a success.

No. The Wii U is balanced. Bumping up the ram by 300% is not going to make that much of a difference unless other parts of the system were also bumped up. Really a ram upgrade would only be useful for adding more non gaming features to the menu.


Plus the Wii U is more than strong enough to run lowered ports from 4BONE. If a publisher wanted these games on Wii U, they'd make it work. Heck they'll even be getting these games onto the PS360 for a few more years.

Exactly.  On top of that the gap between the Wii and 360/PS3 was way bigger then the gap between Wii U and X1/PS4.     They all run at 1080p / 60 fps max and the only big difference I have seen are the lighting effects which look really cool on the new consoles.  Ghosts run really well on the Wii U, even though it's only me and about 10 8 year olds playing it at one time.

Performance is a function of many interoperating parts - increasing RAM will by itself not make much difference, as the performance bottleneck would then shift elsewhere. The trick console design (which Nintendo got right, I believe) is to make sure that all components are balanced to achieve an overall target performance against cost.

As for your premise that multi-platform titles are not coming to the WiiU - except for EA, is that even true? COD, AC, Watchdogs - all coming (or already available) on the WiiU. OK, so they're not always selling spectacularly, but that is because of non-technical reasons.

And upgradeable consoles do not seem like a good idea either. Consoles are successful exactly because they give game developers a standard to work towards - once you introduce upgrades, then developers will either target the lowest common denominator (making the upgrades useless), or the enhanced versions, which reduces their market. A good example of this is the WiiMotion Plus accessory - even though it greatly improved the quality of the motion control device, very few games targetted it, and those that did sold relatively poorly (the only exception I can think of is perhaps Skyward Sword and Tiger Woods Golf, I discount Wii Sports because it was packaged with the hardware).