I wouldn't say they were a fad or a mistake per se. It's just that a LOT of that market for simple/casual (not saying casual as a pejorative here) has moved to tablet/phone. The motion controls thing came and went (Wiimote bowling/tennis kind of stuff, Kinect, move is now only relevant to VR).

Wii had that weird 'lightning in a bottle' effect where the mainstream news was covering it, it was all over the place as a general pop culture phenomenon. It was in retirement centers, soccer mom's bedroom for Wii Fit, etc/infinity.

Even with it's wild success for the first 2-3 years, we did see a couple of things happen :

1- The software support evaporated. With ~100M install base, why do you think EA/Ubisoft/etc stopped bringing over big titles like COD, and never brought out GTA4 and the like? While games kept coming out for a while, they mostly fell into three categories : shovelware (again, not JUST a Wii thing, but non-1st-party stuff usually fit this category sadly), annual sports title updates that mostly were just roster updates to get a cheap profit, and faff like 'Just Dance'.

2- Major retail presence shifted heavily to X360, and even PS3, along with monthly sales totals. People forget that both PS3 and 360 were somewhat of a slow burn. Prices had to come down, and games had to really start rolling, along with devs getting up to speed with the hardware.

It's REALLY important to remember that when Wii launched, PS3 was still $500(20GB)/$600(60GB), and basically so was the 360 for a capable SKU. Neither was heavily established by the time the Wii hit the market. Neither included a game. The 360 'Arcade' variant was $300 I believe, but with no hard drive to speak of it was pretty much useless.

Wii LAUNCHED at $249, with a game to boot. Add in the initial novelty of motion controls and a tie-in to fitness, and it was a flash hit.

Compare that to this launch :

Instead of launching with a pack-in game roughly half the price of competing non-established systems that didn't include games, and showing off a major new tech (motion controls), Switch is launching gameless at a higher price than the heavily established competion which include games, has no major new tech.

I liked my Wii, I still have a Red one I think.

Something else to think about, is the WiiU. WiiU was a better Wii in every way, real HDMI support, a Tablet, superb 1st party games, but it bombed. Poor marketing, poor naming, unfortunate pricing, but fundamentally it should have done better than it did, right? Yet only about 15% of those that bought Wiis came back for the U. Anyone with even a moderate interest in gaming as a hobby would know that it existed despite the terrible marketing. But, it bombed. Cheaper, established competition, and that competition had a stranglehold on the biggest selling games in the industry. A handful of excellent Nintendo titles might sell well, but the totality of the game sales annually is absolutely dominated by 3rd parties. Sony's and MS's 1st party titles also are a pittance compared to that monstrous market. And that's something that has really become more important over the years : the mega AAA blockbuster. Solid AA titles have all but vanished, leaving a stable of massive franchises and indies for the most part. GTA, Red Dead, Minecraft, Madden, COD, Creed (needs a reboot), Mass Effect, yadda/etc. This WASNT the case back in 2006. It was a transitional time, and more heavily reliant on great 1st party efforts to prop things up. Something that MS was slow to get on with the 360, taking Halo 3 and Gears of War to really get things rolling towards success, and Sony having not a whole lot to speak of 1st party wise for years along with awful pricing, which really hurt them in combo with their late launch.

I would be shocked beyond belief if Switch got a sniff of Wii's 100M success. Still, if they can double to triple the WiiU's numbers, that would count for something and should be doable with the right plan.

It's a different market now than it was even 5 years ago, let alone a decade+.

I guess only time will tell, but im pretty sure that by next christmas we will have a clearer idea of Switchs success or failure.

Agreed. :)

I want it to do well, and for it to be an affordable device that can get out there more. It's a shame the WiiU sold so poorly. There were a lot of great exclusives on there, but it really needed to hit $199 or so to really stand a chance.

Luckily for Nintendo, without the sizable BoM cost that they dealt with on the U, I bet they can pretty much dial in whatever price they want to on the Switch as they go (and like I said, hopefully eventually new models to account for different users, a la 3DS/XL. I want a cheaper console variant, I don't need a screen/battery/dock/etc. Just a box with the basic hardware that has HDMI out and a pro controller and I'm golden.

I think you are taking the March vs November comments out of context, they are only talking about launch window sales. Obviously the time of year that a device releases has nothing to do with how well a device sells years later.

Which sold like 1/10 the amount they did on PS3/360 so they clearly had little impact on Wii sales.

I guess a better question would be, what 3rd party AAA multiplats were system sellers on Wii?

Ok, what about DS or 3DS? How much did 3rd party AAA multiplats contribute to their sales?

3 out of 4 of Nintendos most recent gaming devices sold good-great with limited AAA support, ironically the only one that sold extremely poorly had the best AAA support.

I think we should be able to agree that 3rd party AAA multiplats have little impact on Nintendo sales.

 Especially the DS had INSANE 3rd party support. Those were games tailored for the (obviously weaker) handheld hardware. But they had incredibly well selling third party games. 3DS had monster hunter for crying out loud :/ Admittedly it is mainly a japanese franchise but the sales ratio clearly show that. Of course those were not with the same budget as 3rd party AAA games for home consoles but the price tag of both the games and the handheld itself reflected that.

Fact is - every Nintendo handheld has had all the 3rd party support you can dream of. If the switch doesn't manage that then it'll be a problem.

But he never disuputed that the Switch was ahead of the Wii U. Just stated that people were making it bigger than what it is using the holiday vs non holiday argument. Heck one could argue as well that the Switch had the advantage of lauching right at tax time when most people got their taxes back, it was the only new system on the market, was one of if not the most hyped Nin console ever AND released with one of the best Nin games ever created.

When I saw most of the posts twintails made they seemed perfectly reasonable. But the replies he got were as if he was attacking the Switch or even saying the sales were bad when he was not. He was making valid points, never disputed that the Switch launch was better than that of the Wii U. Just showed another way of looking at it....all in context.

i dont think anyone considers Just Dance AAA.

As for Monster Hunter, im not even sure that would be considered AAA either, the size/scope/visuals have remained pretty much the same since the franchise began over a decade ago on PS2.

Either way, when people talk about 3rd party AAA titles they are mostly talking about the big multiplatform titles that appear on PS/XB/PC, these types of games have a very limited impact on the success/failure of Nintendo devices.

Switch will live or die on Nintendo games and small-medium sized Japanese, indie & kid/family 3rd party titles.

GBA, DS, Wii & 3DS all had good-great 3rd party support but very few of those titles would be considered AAA while GC & Wii U had a much higher emphasis on AAA multiplats and did poorly which proves that AAA 3rd party games are not required for Nintendo hardware to be successful.