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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - FORTUNE: The game isn't over yet for Nintendo's Wii U

Soundwave said:
Vena said:
Soundwave said:

They have Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, a better main bundle (NSMBU for $299.99), DKC, Rayman, Wii Party U, Zelda: WWHD, etc. this year over last year though ... really they've spent pretty much all their big guns except Smash Brothers, which like Mario Kart 8 will likely be good for a 2 month boost and then they're basically screwed again.

Things like Bayonetta 2 as much I personally would love for it to do well, are not going to do diddly squat for the baseline.

Wii U is just a mediocre selling console, that's all there really is to it.

 


No one should have an illusion of the WiiU doing anything but possibly NGC numbers if that and finishing in a distant third, but what should be obvious is that the system will not have nine month long droughts of gamelessness and baselines to match. It will end up as a system with low sales and a fat library of solid games, probably positive in profits by the end of the generation and with a likely high adoption rate for software. (And it won't single handedly kill the entire Japanese home console market and development ala PS3.)

I think we need to kill this "Wii U is kinda selling like GameCube" fallacy. It's not. It's selling far worse in the US. 

The Wii U's "normal" month equals what would've been considered a terrible month for the GameCube. 

The Wii U has already put up something like 16-17 months of sub-100k sales in North America. It basically only goes over 100k for Nov/Dec each year and for one month with Mario Kart. 

The GameCube had 5 total months under 100k at the same point in its life cycle in North America. But sub-100k is basically the norm for the Wii U even with several of Nintendo's bigger IP (Mario Kart, 2D Mario, 3D Mario, DKC, Wii series, etc.). It will be under 100k again in September even with Hyrule Warriors. 

Not just US, but shipments, WiiU is trailing by like 4m?



 

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Seece said:
Soundwave said:
Vena said:
Soundwave said:

They have Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, a better main bundle (NSMBU for $299.99), DKC, Rayman, Wii Party U, Zelda: WWHD, etc. this year over last year though ... really they've spent pretty much all their big guns except Smash Brothers, which like Mario Kart 8 will likely be good for a 2 month boost and then they're basically screwed again.

Things like Bayonetta 2 as much I personally would love for it to do well, are not going to do diddly squat for the baseline.

Wii U is just a mediocre selling console, that's all there really is to it.

 


No one should have an illusion of the WiiU doing anything but possibly NGC numbers if that and finishing in a distant third, but what should be obvious is that the system will not have nine month long droughts of gamelessness and baselines to match. It will end up as a system with low sales and a fat library of solid games, probably positive in profits by the end of the generation and with a likely high adoption rate for software. (And it won't single handedly kill the entire Japanese home console market and development ala PS3.)

I think we need to kill this "Wii U is kinda selling like GameCube" fallacy. It's not. It's selling far worse in the US. 

The Wii U's "normal" month equals what would've been considered a terrible month for the GameCube. 

The Wii U has already put up something like 16-17 months of sub-100k sales in North America. It basically only goes over 100k for Nov/Dec each year and for one month with Mario Kart. 

The GameCube had 5 total months under 100k at the same point in its life cycle in North America. But sub-100k is basically the norm for the Wii U even with several of Nintendo's bigger IP (Mario Kart, 2D Mario, 3D Mario, DKC, Wii series, etc.). It will be under 100k again in September even with Hyrule Warriors. 

Not just US, but shipments, WiiU is trailing by like 4m?

If it isn't it almost certainly will by the end of this year as the GameCube had a huge holiday 2003, no way the Wii U can match it even with Smash Bros.

The gap is growing not shrinking.  



Soundwave said:

This is a system that can't even maintain a poor level of sales. 100k in a month would be a bad level of sales for most any hardware (even 3rd place consoles), but for Wii U, 100k in a month outside of Nov/Dec would be considered great, lol. 


I said "possibly" as in "optimistically but unlikely" in context of everything else I said, no need to go off on an unnecessary tangent as you did. The Hyrule bump will be small, no doubt, for a number of reasons, not least of which is because its a title for people who likely already have the system since its neither a mainline Zelda nor a bundle nor coming early in the month. (On the flipside, they are actually advertising the damn thing and people may actually learn that WiiUs exist!)

And its not like any of the consoles are exactly "selling well" or that far over "bad" 100k, not that anyone dares to admit it.



Vena said:
Soundwave said:

This is a system that can't even maintain a poor level of sales. 100k in a month would be a bad level of sales for most any hardware (even 3rd place consoles), but for Wii U, 100k in a month outside of Nov/Dec would be considered great, lol. 


I said "possibly" as in "optimistically but unlikely" in context of everything else I said, no need to go off on an unnecessary tangent as you did. The Hyrule bump will be small, no doubt, for a number of reasons, not least of which is because its a title for people who likely already have the system since its neither a mainline Zelda nor a bundle nor coming early in the month. (On the flipside, they are actually advertising the damn thing and people may actually learn that WiiUs exist!)

And its not like any of the consoles are exactly "selling well" or that far over "bad" 100k, not that anyone dares to admit it.

I really honestly have not seen any indication at least in the US that anything over than the really big Mario games cause any type of bump for the Wii U. 

Even franchises like Donkey Kong Country and Pikmin 3 seemed to cause a nominal blip at best. If you looked at monthly Wii U sales and weren't told which games were released in which month, you probably wouldn't know which months had a "big" release and which ones didn't. 

I'm not even sure if you can say the Wii U is a system that sells Nintendo games very well, it basically just sells the main Mario games at an OK attach rate. 

Everything else, even Nintendo is having trouble selling games on this thing or getting any type of even temoprary bump from non-Mario releases. 

While it's a quality machine, from a market POV this is pretty much Nintendo's nightmare console. 



Soundwave said:

I really honestly have not seen any indication at least in the US that anything over than the really big Mario games cause any type of bump for the Wii U. 

Even franchises like Donkey Kong Country and Pikmin 3 seemed to cause a nominal blip at best. 

I'm not even sure if you can say the Wii U is a system that sells Nintendo games very well, it basically just sells the main Mario games at an OK attach rate. 

Everything else, even Nintendo is having trouble selling games on this thing or getting any type of even temoprary bump from non-Mario releases. 

While it's a quality machine, from a market POV this is pretty much Nintendo's nightmare console. 


DK/Pikmin are not even remotely on the same league as Zelda or even, to a lesser extent, Metroid. Neither of which are anywhere in league with Mario anything, but they still make sizable bumps because they are mainstream and known titles which can be marketted heavily if done properly and have established mind share. Pikmin and DK are not very commonly known, Pikmin especially is a niche upon niches. Xenoblade has this odd transient state of being a recently established name in communities for "the JRPG experience" and that can also be worked into more than just niche appeal as the generation as a whole has and will continue to lack titles from this genre until DQXI which will likely come well after Xenoblade X. As recent releases like DBefault or even the original Xenoblade, have shown there is a market for JRPGs in the west and Europe, its just not tapped frequently if at all.

Ultimately, for the WiiU, the system is building a bunch of dots on the map that, little by little, interconnect for people. There are a handful of titles come, coming, and coming next year, that are big blips that get bigger returns/sales than normal. Little things like Bayo2 or other niche titles might push a few tens of thousands of people over the ledge and then open up the whole backlog library. Etc. This won't get it to sell spectacularly but it will chug along and, as I said, it will likely end up with the console as a whole (along with the 3DS) returning to profitability by the end with Nintendo losing little to no money in the long run.

WiiU currently has the highest attach rate as far as I remember, so obviously it sells its titles well enough (and one has to consider that it has more titles and a longer market time, so attach rates should be dropping as not everyone buys everything) and the YoY software sales increase is a sign of it at least selling something.

Nintendo will teeter through the storm well enough, what they do after will be important but at least they got several big hurdles out of the way. If they can build up a strong core-image, that's even better.



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Soundwave said:

If it isn't it almost certainly will by the end of this year as the GameCube had a huge holiday 2003, no way the Wii U can match it even with Smash Bros.

The gap is growing not shrinking.  


yeah it s difficult for wii u to surpass gc,when gc in the same time frame got its second price cut and costed 99$!Gap has shrunk(510k vs 80k because of a previous overshipping),we are waiting to see if in the current quarter wii u shrunk even more the gap or gc widen it.Wii u in order to shrink it,nintendo must ship at least above 810k...fiscal Q1 of 2014 had a 319% increase, regarding previous year fiscal Q1.If the same happens in fiscal Q2, wii u will shrink the gap again...it s possible!



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I agree. It still has a shot at selling 18 million units. Good on it.



Vena said:
Soundwave said:

I really honestly have not seen any indication at least in the US that anything over than the really big Mario games cause any type of bump for the Wii U. 

Even franchises like Donkey Kong Country and Pikmin 3 seemed to cause a nominal blip at best. 

I'm not even sure if you can say the Wii U is a system that sells Nintendo games very well, it basically just sells the main Mario games at an OK attach rate. 

Everything else, even Nintendo is having trouble selling games on this thing or getting any type of even temoprary bump from non-Mario releases. 

While it's a quality machine, from a market POV this is pretty much Nintendo's nightmare console. 


DK/Pikmin are not even remotely on the same league as Zelda or even, to a lesser extent, Metroid. Neither of which are anywhere in league with Mario anything, but they still make sizable bumps because they are mainstream and known titles which can be marketted heavily if done properly and have established mind share. Pikmin and DK are not very commonly known, Pikmin especially is a niche upon niches. Xenoblade has this odd transient state of being a recently established name in communities for "the JRPG experience" and that can also be worked into more than just niche appeal as the generation as a whole has and will continue to lack titles from this genre until DQXI which will likely come well after Xenoblade X. As recent releases like DBefault or even the original Xenoblade, have shown there is a market for JRPGs in the west and Europe, its just not tapped frequently if at all.

Ultimately, for the WiiU, the system is building a bunch of dots on the map that, little by little, interconnect for people. There are a handful of titles come, coming, and coming next year, that are big blips that get bigger returns/sales than normal. Little things like Bayo2 or other niche titles might push a few tens of thousands of people over the ledge and then open up the whole backlog library. Etc. This won't get it to sell spectacularly but it will chug along and, as I said, it will likely end up with the console as a whole (along with the 3DS) returning to profitability by the end with Nintendo losing little to no money in the long run.

WiiU currently has the highest attach rate as far as I remember, so obviously it sells its titles well enough (and one has to consider that it has more titles and a longer market time, so attach rates should be dropping as not everyone buys everything) and the YoY software sales increase is a sign of it at least selling something.

Nintendo will teeter through the storm well enough, what they do after will be important but at least they got several big hurdles out of the way. If they can build up a strong core-image, that's even better.


DKC is very much in Zelda's league, if anything Zelda is overrated as a big seller (Metroid is waaaaay overrated, DKCR outsold all three Metroid Prime games combined). 

I dunno, I'm pretty much calling it on Wii U, I think it's a turkey and nothing is changing that barring Amiibo becoming the next monster toy craze that actual appeals to normal kids who wouldn't buy Nintendo otherwise (not just 30 year old Nintendo fans). And even there, Wii U has to "share" amiibo with 3DS/n3DS (just like Smash and NSMB). If there was to be some big turnaround we would've seen it already with Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8, even the 3DS had an immediate jump to much healthier sales, but the Wii U continues to drop back down to the gutter. 

I think it's going to be their last console, Fusion will be next, but in that scenario the "console" is probably just replaced by something that lets you play the main handheld games on your TV (basically the VitaTV idea, just with actual Nintendo support behind it).

And maybe that's for the best honestly, it really is a shame that many legitimate good games like Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2, Splatoon, DKC: Tropical Freeze, Xenoblade, Pikmin 3, etc. are going to suffer on the Wii U's tiny userbase. If those titles had access to even a 3DS sized userbase they would comfortably enjoy better sales but as is they're likely all victims of a really crappy selling console. It's a damn shame, but you can't make the amount of stupid mistakes Nintendo made and not pay a heavy price for it. 



Soundwave said:

And maybe that's for the best honestly, it really is a shame that many legitimate good games like Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2, Splatoon, DKC: Tropical Freeze, Xenoblade, Pikmin 3, etc. are suffering on the Wii U's tiny userbase. If those titles had access to even a 3DS sized userbase they would comfortably enjoy better sales but as is they're likely all victims of a really crappy selling console. It's a damn shame, but you can't make the amount of stupid mistakes Nintendo made and not pay a heavy price for it. 


They'll sell well enough to justify their existance (mostly) in the long run and their budgets were likely not big and recupable on sales, and Nintendo will/would have accepted it at this point. Like I said, these titles will help rebuild the image of the company for the next itteration where, hopefully, they'll be better prepared both for HD development (obviously) and for the market (as Iwata admitted, he really did misread market trends with the 3DS/WiiU).

Fusion is still a console, its just an approach that would tap both venues of Nintendo's hardware with one channel rather than the two they suffer from having to maintain now. The stronger hardware for the home can help them push neat little side peripherals (VR, magic, muffins, plug in toasters, Ubuntu, whatever) while their software and portable enjoys a strong user base.