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Forums - Nintendo - 3DS is cannibalizing Wii U

Lonely_Dolphin on 26 March 2014
Soundwave said:
RolStoppable said:
Einsam_Delphin said:

Anyone can clearly see the 3DS and Wii U's librarys are very similar. No amount of history is gonna disprove that. As to how much of an effect it's having on Wii U, no one can say for certain, but it's definitely safe to assume it's probably having some effect considering how bad Wii U sales are.

Are they really that similar? Besides, I already pointed out that similar games weren't detrimental to the success of the Wii and DS.


Because Wii had the miracle of being the first mover to the motion gaming fad. That instantly made it completely different, and really honestly a lot of Nintendo's main IP were not on the DS. Mario Kart, yes, but no 3D Mario (other than the Mario 64 port), no Metroid, no 3D Zelda, no Smash Brothers, etc. 

3DS is closing that gap though, it has pretty much all the staple Nintendo IP one would buy a console for in the past except for Metroid (which may be in development) and a proper 3D Zelda. 

Nintendo's sales pitch has effectively become "please pay us $170 to play Mario and Mario Kart and Animal Crossing and Smash Brothers. Now pay us $300 again to play those same franchises on your TV" 



This! The DS and Wii were very different! DS had a second screen being a touch screen with games like Nintendogs and Brain Training, whereas Wii had motion controls with games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The Mario Karts and Zeldas simply piggybacked off their success, they weren't the main reason for it. Unfortunately, all that innovation has run it's course, so Nintendo is once again only left with their traditional IPs to sell their systems.

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Lonely_Dolphin on 26 March 2014
RolStoppable said:
Einsam_Delphin said:

This! The DS and Wii were very different! DS had a second screen being a touch screen with games like Nintendogs and Brain Training, whereas Wii had motion controls with games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The Mario Karts and Zeldas simply piggybacked off their success, they weren't the main reason for it. Unfortunately, all that innovation has run it's course, so Nintendo is once again only left with their traditional IPs to sell their systems.

Oh really? So lack of innovation is what's killing the Wii U, i.e. repackaging the GC.



Now you're really stretching what I said there! I guess casual junk would of been a better word choice, but regardless I was obviously talking about the motion control stuff and non gamer games losing their appeal, not that Nintendo in general isn't innovative. Wii U may be selling like the GC, but game wise it's a completely different beast, so I would not call it a repackaging.

Mensrea on 26 March 2014

I agree completely. This generation is a bizarre one for Nintendo. It seems as if all their console games are inspired directly by handheld versions, or past generation variants. This wasn't true of the gamecube or wii at all, as Nintendo tried hard to push their franchises in entirely new directions on consoles. Now their console games look quite derivative in my opinion. Super Mario 3D World was an amazing 3D plat and one of the best in the series, but it looked similar to 3D Land, and thus lost a bit of it's luster. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze was an amazing 2D plat that busted quality at every seam, but it looked similar to Returns so the market ignored it as well. NSMB was pretty much the same thing we've seen on handhelds and previous consoles, and it also failed to do anything. Aside from Pikmin 3(Which is one of my favorite Nintendo games of the last 10 years) and the Wonderful 101(Pretty solid game) the Wii U seems to have very derivative games. Hope they try some new stuff in the future.




curl-6 on 26 March 2014
RolStoppable said:
curl-6 said:

1) Many would have you believe that people "just don't want Nintendo games any more" because of the Wii U, but sales of 9.36m for Mario Kart 7, 9.35m for Super Mario 3D Land, 7.37m for New Super Mario Bros 2 show this is blatantly untrue. 3DS's 43m sales also show that "people don't want Nintendo hardware" is false as well.

2) The real problem is, people won't spend $300 USD to get their Nintendo fix when they can get it on 3DS for half the price.

3) Their libraries are too similar; why get a Wii U for 3D World or NSMBU when you can play 3D Land and NSMB2 for less? To the audience for these games, HD is simply not a big enough lure to jusify spending an extra $150.

4) Wii U software needs to differentiate itself from 3DS, to do things impossible on 3DS and be notably different in approach to 3DS's offerings in the same series or genre. For example, make Zelda Wii U nothing like Link Between Worlds.

Let me dissect your post.

1) Good job here. Although you are merely disproving the statements of trolls and idiots, so the bar to succeed was so low that it laid on the floor.

2) Now this is where video game history needs to be taken into account. If your reasoning doesn't hold up through different generations, then it's wrong. Last generation people spent $250 on the Wii (including a game) while the DS was $130, so roughly half the price (yes, this is stretching it a bit); both systems sold really well, so price wasn't an issue. The generation before the GC didn't sell well even after it dropped to $99, making it effectively about as expensive as the successful GBA; once again price wasn't the issue. Therefore the price argument is debunked.

3) But you bring more to the table than just price, so let's look at the libraries. Last generation people bought Wiis to play Mario Kart Wii and NSMB Wii despite Mario Kart DS and NSMB being available on the DS. You also mention graphics as a reason, but the gap between Wii and DS resolution and graphics is similar to the gap between Wii U and 3DS. Similar games didn't lead to a reduction in sales for either system or for individual games, so your hypothesis is incorrect.

4) If we go back to the sixth generation in order to look at another duo of Nintendo systems, the GC had very different games compared to the GBA. Much of that can be attributed to the lack of horsepower of the GBA that prevented it from realizing 3D games, but the reason is irrelevant; what matters is that the libraries of GC and GBA were clearly different. The GC failed to sell regardless, so you are left with nothing. Therefore we can conclude that the 3DS is not cannibalizing the Wii U, because that assertion is contradicted by video game history.

The Wii had the Wii Remote to differentiate it from the DS. Wii U has no such breakout feature to separate it from 3DS. Wii also had games like Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess, for which DS had no equivalent.



prayformojo on 26 March 2014
curl-6 said:

Many would have you believe that people "just don't want Nintendo games any more" because of the Wii U, but sales of 9.36m for Mario Kart 7, 9.35m for Super Mario 3D Land, 7.37m for New Super Mario Bros 2 show this is blatantly untrue.


How so?

Handhelds and consoles sell to two entirely different demographs. Handhelds are mostly owned and played by kids. Consoles are mostly owned and played by the 16-35 male demopgrah. So you can't simply look at handheld game sales and use it as an indication that people still, by in large, want Nintendo software. Kids still want it, but do grown men? I think the Wii-U answers that for us, sadly.

I don't know what Nintendo can do to change this, but I hope they figure it out. If they can't sell consoles anymore, at least we still have their handhelds which are pretty awesome.



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zorg1000 on 26 March 2014
prayformojo said:
curl-6 said:

Many would have you believe that people "just don't want Nintendo games any more" because of the Wii U, but sales of 9.36m for Mario Kart 7, 9.35m for Super Mario 3D Land, 7.37m for New Super Mario Bros 2 show this is blatantly untrue.


How so?

Handhelds and consoles sell to two entirely different demographs. Handhelds are mostly owned and played by kids. Consoles are mostly owned and played by the 16-35 male demopgrah. So you can't simply look at handheld game sales and use it as an indication that people still, by in large, want Nintendo software. Kids still want it, but do grown men? I think the Wii-U answers that for us, sadly.

I don't know what Nintendo can do to change this, but I hope they figure it out. If they can't sell consoles anymore, at least we still have their handhelds which are pretty awesome.

Where is ur evidence that there isnt a huge crossover between handheld and console fanbases? I have asked u this a few times and u never give an answer then u go on to say this same thing over and over again.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Soundwave on 26 March 2014
RolStoppable said:
Einsam_Delphin said:

This! The DS and Wii were very different! DS had a second screen being a touch screen with games like Nintendogs and Brain Training, whereas Wii had motion controls with games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The Mario Karts and Zeldas simply piggybacked off their success, they weren't the main reason for it. Unfortunately, all that innovation has run it's course, so Nintendo is once again only left with their traditional IPs to sell their systems.

Oh really? So lack of innovation is what's killing the Wii U, i.e. repackaging the GC.


Have you ever thought that innovation isn't as easy as snapping a finger?

It's like saying to a sprinter "just go break the world record, you'll probably win the gold medal" ... well no duh. It's not that easy to pull that off and it's even more difficult to pull that off with regualarity. 

The Wii was a one time phenomenon that had its moment in the sun and kudos to Nintendo for getting to it, but you can't repeat that on cue like a dog doing a backflip for a bone or something.

If Nintendo had the ability to create that type of a phenomenon every 4-5 years without fail they would be the biggest entertainment company in the world by now, they would be were Apple is today or at least the biggest Japanese company.

They aren't though. Honestly the cracks were already apparent in their armor as the Wii generation moved along ... when they couldn't make Wii Music a huge hit, they just fell back on iterating on Wii Sports/Fit and throwing a ton of Mario at the system the rest of the way, but I think it was obvious then they were running out of ideas and other ideas were fizzling out in their R&D (like the Vitality Sensor). 

The Wii U tablet is the best gimmick their R&D could come up with to make the Wii U different that was remotely feasible ... I think people need to accept that. If they had some other killer idea they would've obviously used it. 



ImmortalHelixFossil on 26 March 2014

I would have bought a WiiU if it had more "next generation" specs and more 3th party support.



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Hamister on 26 March 2014

There are two ways to go:

Either merge the 3DS hardware with the Wii U or differentiate the two systems completely.

I believe the only long term future for Nintendo hardware is a total merger of handheld and home console, but that's probably too hard to do with 3DS and Wii U. So for the current systems the only option is to differentiate MORE, but add better connectivity functions between them in software.



curl-6 on 26 March 2014
prayformojo said:
curl-6 said:

Many would have you believe that people "just don't want Nintendo games any more" because of the Wii U, but sales of 9.36m for Mario Kart 7, 9.35m for Super Mario 3D Land, 7.37m for New Super Mario Bros 2 show this is blatantly untrue.


How so?

Handhelds and consoles sell to two entirely different demographs. Handhelds are mostly owned and played by kids. Consoles are mostly owned and played by the 16-35 male demopgrah. So you can't simply look at handheld game sales and use it as an indication that people still, by in large, want Nintendo software. Kids still want it, but do grown men? I think the Wii-U answers that for us, sadly.

I don't know what Nintendo can do to change this, but I hope they figure it out. If they can't sell consoles anymore, at least we still have their handhelds which are pretty awesome.

This isn't the 90s, handhelds aren't primarily owned by children anymore.