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Forums - Gaming Discussion - How did Sony turn the PS3 around but Nintendo couldn't do the same with Wii U?

 

Can Nintendo turn the Wii U around like Sony did with PS3?

Of course. Nintendo will pull off a miracle. 118 25.21%
 
lol lol lol lol lol no. 259 55.34%
 
Yo Mama 90 19.23%
 
Total:467
zippy on 11 January 2015

To be fair to Nintendo, they are supporting the Wii U very well with great first party content, some of which has been their best work in years. They have also been funding exclusive content ie Bayo 2,W101, Devils Third, Lego city, Hyrule Warriors etc. I have also seen a much more positive perception toward Wii U recently from the gaming press, mainly praising its unique library of games. If Nintendo keep rolling out the games, it sends the right messages to gamers that, not only are they capable of making the best games, but also very supportive of their hardware. Things like this could give positive momentum going into the next gen, even if the current gen sales have been underwhelming.



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JWeinCom on 11 January 2015
Ruler said:
JWeinCom said:
Ruler said:
JWeinCom said:

Not since 1984.  In the US at least.   You can still sell stock as a way of loss selling, but that's never going to offset your actually losses.  Any way you try to spin it losing money over an extended period of time is a bad thing.  It's not like loss selling is helping Sony anyway as a quick look at their debt will tell you.  Of course bringing up selling losses is a way for you to complicate things.  Don't bring up a simplistic example, then make it more complicated later.  It's a dishonest bit of rhetorical trickery.

no you dont understand they can sell their devisions that make loses
Uhhh they can, but you're not going to make a profit off of those sales.  Whose going to buy a division that's bleeding money unless they're going to get a great deal?

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say.  But, I'll just respond with this.  Companies can do a lot of things.  None of those things are going to change the fact that making money is objectively better than losing money.  

for who? share holders and bloomberg propaganda channel of them? You should ask why is that these folks always wanting profits in the first place? 

The reality is the bigger you are so better it is. People bought vaio devision from sony which made tons of loses. And it was some obscure company/foundation like Japan Industrial Partners so how you explain that? Sony got money and dont have to make loses anymore, now the only thing that makes loses is the smarthphone devision everything else made and makes profits. Either way they sell it or they keep it while the Playstation devision will make up for it dueto the success of the ps4.

Nintendo cant allow itself to fuck up, what can they sell? What do they own? They only have a gaming devision which is also smaller than sonys. 


Ummmmmm... they want profits because money is used to buy stuff?  Would you rather have money or not have money?  I'm not sure what you're getting at.  Unless you're making a counterculture argument that money is the root of all evil and that all Sony needs is love, I'm legitimately dumbfounded.  

People bought Vaio from Sony because they got it for cheap.  And Sony didn't get money from that.  They actually lost A BILLION DOLLARS http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-14/sony-unexpectedly-forecasts-loss-amid-restructuring-costs-tvs.html on that deal. It's like, if you bought a computer for five thousand dollars and sold it to me for 1000 dollars.  

You know what Nintendo owns?  Cash.  Nintendo has about 5 billion dollars in cash, and another 5 billion or so in other liquid assets.  Because of a history of good financial decisions that made them money, they now have enough to survive when things like the Wii U happen.  



Materia-Blade on 11 January 2015

for starters, it took sony 4 years to "turn ps3 around"



JWeinCom on 11 January 2015
Lawlight said:
RolStoppable said:
Lawlight said:
RolStoppable said:
By burning money.

Despite the huge discrepancy in lifetime sales of hardware and software, the Wii U will have generated more profits for Nintendo than the PS3 for Sony.

We don't know that as Nintendo relies heavily on the 3DS for profits. Not to mention that, before the last quarter, they had several quarters of losses.

It's not hard to extrapolate from here on out. What I said will be correct.

Please extrapolate. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that the WiiU is generating profit for Nintendo.

Unless the 3DS is making about 7 billion dollars in profit that's all gettin offset by the Wii U, than the Wii U is pretty surely generating more profits (or at least less loss) than the PS3 atm.  Barring some sort of disaster, the Wii U will end up more successful (in terms of dollars at least) than the PS3, even on its current trajectory.



PenguinZ on 11 January 2015
Ruler said:

for who? share holders and bloomberg propaganda channel of them? You should ask why is that these folks always wanting profits in the first place? 

The reality is the bigger you are so better it is. People bought vaio devision from sony which made tons of loses. And it was some obscure company/foundation like Japan Industrial Partners so how you explain that? Sony got money and dont have to make loses anymore, now the only thing that makes loses is the smarthphone devision everything else made and makes profits. Either way they sell it or they keep it while the Playstation devision will make up for it dueto the success of the ps4.

Nintendo cant allow itself to fuck up, what can they sell? What do they own? They only have a gaming devision which is also smaller than sonys. 

Reality: Sony is pretty screwed up financially... That's very clear to see. Which is why they've been trimming divisions and buildings to try to gain some sense of stability.

Nintendo doesn't have debt... More importantly, they have money! Nintendo also probably owns a lot of the most valuable IP's in the industry...  Their situation isn't even close to desperate.

I thought the whole point of running a business is to ultimately make money... Something that Sony is trying desperately to do again.



Current gaming platforms - Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, New 3DS, PC

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FentonCrackshell on 11 January 2015

Because most of the Wii audience wasn't really interested in video games in the first place?

/thread



PC GAMING: BEST GAMES. WORST CONTROLS

A mouse & keyboard are made for sending email and typing internet badassery. Not for playing video games!!!

AAA300 on 11 January 2015
Redgrave said:
Nintendo's problem is marketing.

Smart arses can act like it's third party support or the system's power or whatever, but I've always maintained that the Wii U's only problem was marketing.

The Wii sold more than the PS3 and 360 did, despite not supporting HD, having no annoying social apps, laggy online, and nowhere near the power that both the PS3 and 360 had. Thanks to marketing. Unlike the PS3 and 360, that were mainly aimed at young men, the Wii targeted all audiences, every demographic, to the point where there were even oldies in retirement homes playing them. It was everywhere.

First time I saw the Wii U I thought it was a $300 Wii add-on to go with the rest, and I'm sure most casual players and parents thought the same. The gamepad was the only thing shown at times, and the actual console was sat behind it. Like they were milking the Wii's name and success.

This. Nintendo doesn't advertise much ,hell even the Wii was more word of mouth then ads. They don't spend that much on ads out side the holiday season. Ps3 turned around because of heavy ads through out the year, Kevin Butler ads helped out a ton. Unfortunately Wii u will not get advertising like this



bunchanumbers on 11 January 2015
Ruler said:
JWeinCom said:
Ruler said:
JWeinCom said:

Not since 1984.  In the US at least.   You can still sell stock as a way of loss selling, but that's never going to offset your actually losses.  Any way you try to spin it losing money over an extended period of time is a bad thing.  It's not like loss selling is helping Sony anyway as a quick look at their debt will tell you.  Of course bringing up selling losses is a way for you to complicate things.  Don't bring up a simplistic example, then make it more complicated later.  It's a dishonest bit of rhetorical trickery.

no you dont understand they can sell their devisions that make loses

Uhhh they can, but you're not going to make a profit off of those sales.  Whose going to buy a division that's bleeding money unless they're going to get a great deal?

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say.  But, I'll just respond with this.  Companies can do a lot of things.  None of those things are going to change the fact that making money is objectively better than losing money.  

for who? share holders and bloomberg propaganda channel of them? You should ask why is that these folks always wanting profits in the first place? 

The reality is the bigger you are so better it is. People bought vaio devision from sony which made tons of loses. And it was some obscure company/foundation like Japan Industrial Partners so how you explain that? Sony got money and dont have to make loses anymore, now the only thing that makes loses is the smarthphone devision everything else made and makes profits. Either way they sell it or they keep it while the Playstation devision will make up for it dueto the success of the ps4.

Nintendo cant allow itself to fuck up, what can they sell? What do they own? They only have a gaming devision which is also smaller than sonys. 


They own the Seattle Mariners. A MLB team that is part of a multibillion dollar TV deal. They also own multiple IPs and trademarks that are worth tons of money too.

the thing is that all the things that Nintendo can sell off is profitable. Even the supposed failure of the Wii U is generating profit. Sony can't say that about multiple divisions over the last 8 years.



mii-gamer on 11 January 2015
Ruler said:

for who? share holders and bloomberg propaganda channel of them? You should ask why is that these folks always wanting profits in the first place? 

The reality is the bigger you are so better it is. People bought vaio devision from sony which made tons of loses. And it was some obscure company/foundation like Japan Industrial Partners so how you explain that? Sony got money and dont have to make loses anymore, now the only thing that makes loses is the smarthphone devision everything else made and makes profits. Either way they sell it or they keep it while the Playstation devision will make up for it dueto the success of the ps4.

Nintendo cant allow itself to fuck up, what can they sell? What do they own? They only have a gaming devision which is also smaller than sonys. 

Nintendo is expanding into a new division to make more money when times are slow, while Sony is selling buildings and division and racking up debt to make ends meet. That should give you an idea how poorly Sony's financial are compared to Nintendo's.



bonzobanana on 11 January 2015

If the wii u had sold well Nintendo would have made amazing profits as the console is manufactured from such low cost components. It's likely even cheaper to manufacture than a hard drive equipped ps3 or 360. It's an incredibly cheap design.

However it failed to sell in the expected volume Nintendo had hoped for so Nintendo built up a lot of unsold inventory which I think they wrote off financially.

It's hugely likely that the wii u has been very unprofitable and has been subsidised by the 3DS console and cartridge sales. 3DS is quite mature now and manufacturing costs would have reduced and R&D costs paid back.

Of course I don't have the full figures as Nintendo don't release them in that detail but I can't see 8 million console sales being enough to be profitable.