Being unique and innovative is good. If everybody is the same then it gets boring.

Maybe in the internet forum echo chamber, but I don't know anybody in real life that favoured Gamecube, but disliked the Wii.

And for the record, it wasn't Nintendo who abandoned the core gaming crowd, it was third parties. Nintendo made Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Metroid Prime 3, Xenoblade Chronicles, two Zelda titles, Excite Truck, Smash Bros, Punch Out, Sin & Punishment, The Last Story... and others. And most of these incorporated motion controls... and most of them are lauded for being great games.

And in the meantime, it also appealed to others who could be called "lapsed gamers" - the kinds of people who played a lot of games back in the NES and SNES days, but who stopped playing because they weren't interested in modern gaming.

Only on the internet did you find the trolls who insisted that the Wii's motion controls were bad. And only on the internet do you find people who praise the Gamecube while simultaneously trashing the Wii... and most of those do so with an argument along the lines of "cazualz bought the Wiiz, real gamers moved from Gamecube to PS3"... never mind that there was no indication whatsoever of this happening, and most Nintendo fans were highly pleased with what came on the Wii (up until about 2011, where there started to be an end-of-generation drought for the Wii - makes sense, 5 years after the Wii released).

So you judge Nintendo's success by whether other companies are reasonable (by the way, most 3rd party titles skipped Gamecube, too - most of Gamecube's third-party games were either the ones required by agreement to be released on all systems, like Madden, or games Nintendo directly made deals for - and many of those still ended up on other systems, like Resident Evil 4), whether the games were good (and yet, you don't consider Wii's games to be solid? Really? Seriously? I want you to think carefully before answering, after considering the Zeldas, Mario Galaxy, Smash, Metroid Prime 3, and others), and "successful new IPs" (you mean like Wii Sports? And which successful new IP was born on the Gamecube? Pikmin? It's not Animal Crossing, which only became successful on the DS, and it's not Battalion Wars, which is a minor IP at best).

I find it funny that you describe its IPs as "dead". Wii Sports Club is primarily a digital download thing now, as is Wii Fit U, so you really aren't seeing much by way of sales numbers for those. Meanwhile, Xenoblade Chronicles is looking pretty damn big.

But hey, you didn't like the Wii, therefore Nintendo ruined their reputation. Right?

This is one of the dumber things I've read, Wii & DS are Nintendo's most unique handheld and console ever and sold over 250 million units of hardware, nearly 2 billion units of software and make something like $15 billion dollars in profit over 5 years.

These devices didn't hurt their reputation, 3DS & Wii U hurt Nintendo's reputation by having awful strategies that go against what made Wii/DS so successful.

I felt I had to fix it for you. I know many serious gamers who are 16-24 and enjoyed the Wii and the Wii U. What distinguishes them from the ones you're talking about is that they spend much more time gaming.

(and for anyone who's going to suggest that I'm being hypocritical - I don't spend that much time on the forums, I'm mostly active when something's happening, like E3, or an announcement happens that I want to talk about. I'm also 31)

The NES was not successful because it was the same as its peers. Its controller was very different from the joystick-likes contemporaries had. The Master System came out two years after the Famicom. And the NES had very little competition anyway.


The SNES was fairly similar to its competition. But this did not make the SNES a hit. The SNES fell in North America from the NES's 33 million to 23 million.

The GameCube was not a success. It barely broke 20 million and was largely irrelevant for the last third of its life. Despite it being much like its contemporaries.

The Wii was very unique and was the most successful console Nintendo ever made. Ire from gamers mattered little when they hadn't bought the GameCube anyway. If anything, the Wii was the console that placed the most emphasis on games, rather than multimedia compatibility.

The Wii U has a normal controller with a tablet in the middle, the combination of two familiar interfaces.

The GameCube wasn't a success in any way, shape or form, just saying.

I'm going to have to say that their is no opinion to be had here and that your take on the Wii U not being unique is flat out incorrect. The Wii U is unique. No opinions allowed.

Almost every handheld is unique if you don't have competition, except psp which was andere improved GBA and did quite well. In that light considering Vita and ps consoles Handhelds need to ben unique consoles need to be traditional.

The wii didn't hurt Nintendo rep? C'mon are you in denial? If the wii brand is so strong why has the wii u only sold 10mil? Because it's associated with the wii that's why.