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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U sales trend may be just as expected if we look at Nintendo's home console sales.

 

Did you expect Wii U's current sales trend?

Yes 127 45.85%
 
No 95 34.30%
 
Yo Mama 49 17.69%
 
Total:271
oniyide on 27 April 2014
RolStoppable said:
oniyide said:
superchunk said:

 Anyone arguing against this is wrong. I used to argue with rol on this at the beginning, but facts of sales and Nintendo focus all point to this conclusion.

Nintendo needs another game console that focuses on new players. Not core.

That is MUCH easier said than done

Only if you believe that it is all gimmick-driven.

given the fact that NES and Wii were their only home consoles to do better than the competition. NES didnt have any. What other reasons are there? Maybe not totally gimmick driven, but it sure contributed alot.



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Lonely_Dolphin on 27 April 2014

Wow, we got a lot of liars here! xD



Max King of the Wild on 27 April 2014
curl-6 said:

Manufacturing costs reduce with time. PS3 was once a gargantuan money sink.


not when your producing as little as wii u is. they rise. especially when using old tech like wiiu. It either falls slowly or rises because its special parts late in the gen. Ps3 had new tech going for it allowijg costs to drop significantly 



oniyide on 28 April 2014
RolStoppable said:
oniyide said:

given the fact that NES and Wii were their only home consoles to do better than the competition. NES didnt have any. What other reasons are there? Maybe not totally gimmick driven, but it sure contributed alot.

If a company wants to create new gamers, it has to ask why the people who aren't playing aren't playing.


fair enough, but sometimes even the people wouldnt know the answer to that question



curl-6 on 28 April 2014
Max King of the Wild said:
curl-6 said:

Manufacturing costs reduce with time. PS3 was once a gargantuan money sink.


not when your producing as little as wii u is. they rise. especially when using old tech like wiiu. It either falls slowly or rises because its special parts late in the gen. Ps3 had new tech going for it allowijg costs to drop significantly 

Parts get cheaper as they get older, not more expensive. Hence the Wii, which was old tech even at its launch, selling for $99 now.

It's frankly quite absurd how people treat the Wii U like it's this magical one-of-a-kind console where the rules of the industry don't apply to it. How it's magically the only console where costs rise over time instead of dropping. How it's magically the only console where the graphics won't improve over time. Etc.



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ICStats on 28 April 2014

RolStoppable said:
It's simple, really. Everytime Nintendo decides to fight over the existing market, their sales decline. That's because they turn off a good chunk of their audience in the process. The Wii only looks like the only anomaly, because the NES is the starting point. If the NES were in the middle, it would be an anomaly too. Both the NES and Wii were about making gaming more popular, so the hardware and software was designed accordingly. With the other four systems Nintendo didn't bother to ask how they can get more people to play video games. The most recent one, the Wii U, was all about winning third parties and the hardcore gamer back, i.e. the existing market (see E3 2011 reveal).

You can apply the same thing to the handheld market. Nintendo's sales kept rising as long as they didn't get into a fight with other companies and let them dictate how things are done. The GBA sold only 80m, but it did it in six years as opposed to the 120m of the GB/GBC in twelve years; and the DS did 150m in seven years. But then came the 3DS and Nintendo was all about going after the PSP market; suddenly it wasn't about making video games more popular, but getting a bigger chunk of the teenager demographic which was Nintendo's weakest point (and Sony's strongest). The irony is that while Nintendo succeeded at taking notable chunks of Sony's market (Monster Hunter exclusivity being an important piece of the puzzle), they are losing out everywhere else, hence the decline. That should make you realize how important the DS was. Sony was readying the PSP, yet Nintendo decided that they won't go to war. They didn't fall into that trap, even though the threat was immense.

Ok, I can buy that Nintendo has had more success when they worked on making gaming more popular instead of competing head-to-head.

The issue though is it's not that easy to replicate it.  To have success like DS & Wii it's not just about not making mistakes, and having the right mindset.  It took right ideas at the right time, and a bit of luck.

Nintendo achieved what seems like once in a lifetime success on TWO devices at the same time (DS & Wii) so I think Nintendo (and the world) thought that they had the magic touch.  They have the infalliable talent to keep doing that again and again.  They would just play to their own beat, make another low power (~35 Watt) console with a new way to play (2nd screen) and repeat the Wii's success.  Only they can't, it's not going to be easy to find that unique feature (aka gimmick) again.  Seems obvious in hindsight that relying on something new without having a competitive fallback is a super risky strategy.

Contrast to the PS4 which Sony played as safe as possible in terms of innovation.  Instead they worked on checking all the boxes, making game developers happy and focusing on what core gamers are asking for as #1 priority, while new things, PS Now Cloud & VR are not day 1 core things forced on users.




My 8th gen collection

Yakuzaice on 28 April 2014
curl-6 said:

Parts get cheaper as they get older, not more expensive. Hence the Wii, which was old tech even at its launch, selling for $99 now.

It's frankly quite absurd how people treat the Wii U like it's this magical one-of-a-kind console where the rules of the industry don't apply to it. How it's magically the only console where costs rise over time instead of dropping. How it's magically the only console where the graphics won't improve over time. Etc.

Pretty sure the only Wii selling for $99 is the Wii mini.  The system where they removed component output, SD slots, wi-fi, Gamecube ports/support.  So that kind of supports his point.  Those are likely items that haven't seen their prices fall much since 2006.  The PS3 is also an example.  HDDs have gotten bigger, but the price hasn't gone down substantially.  Even low capacity or old tech drives can be fairly expensive, sometimes even more than a drive with many times the capacity.  That's why their budget model ditched the HDD and put in a manual top loading disc drive.  Forgot the Wii Mini also changed disc drives.

I'm also not sure why you think economies of scale is magical.  Nintendo very likely would have had a lower cost per unit if they had produced 9 million Wii U's rather than the 2.8m they are projecting.



curl-6 on 28 April 2014
Yakuzaice said:
curl-6 said:

Parts get cheaper as they get older, not more expensive. Hence the Wii, which was old tech even at its launch, selling for $99 now.

It's frankly quite absurd how people treat the Wii U like it's this magical one-of-a-kind console where the rules of the industry don't apply to it. How it's magically the only console where costs rise over time instead of dropping. How it's magically the only console where the graphics won't improve over time. Etc.

Pretty sure the only Wii selling for $99 is the Wii mini.  The system where they removed component output, SD slots, wi-fi, Gamecube ports/support.  So that kind of supports his point.  Those are likely items that haven't seen their prices fall much since 2006.  The PS3 is also an example.  HDDs have gotten bigger, but the price hasn't gone down substantially.  Even low capacity or old tech drives can be fairly expensive, sometimes even more than a drive with many times the capacity.  That's why their budget model ditched the HDD and put in a manual top loading disc drive.  Forgot the Wii Mini also changed disc drives.

I'm also not sure why you think economies of scale is magical.  Nintendo very likely would have had a lower cost per unit if they had produced 9 million Wii U's rather than the 2.8m they are projecting.

The standard Wii has dropped drastically in price since launch. So have PS3, 360, and before that Gamecube, PS2...

Hell, Premium Wii U itself has already dropped by $50.



AnthonyW86 on 28 April 2014

Indeed this trend is clear to see. More importantly if Wii-U sales really end up at around 15 million, keeping some of the biggest gaming franchises like Mario exclusive to such a small install base is nothing short of insanity.



curl-6 on 28 April 2014
AnthonyW86 said:
Indeed this trend is clear to see. More importantly if Wii-U sales really end up at around 15 million, keeping some of the biggest gaming franchises like Mario exclusive to such a small install base is nothing short of insanity.

Mario's on 3DS too, and that's already sold over 44 million.