Yeah it is hard, but that's your job if you're the president of the company -- you have to make hard decisions. 

For me, looking at things I would it is almost always more imperative to make the transition the no.1 priority even if it comes at the expense of the preceding system. 

The N64-GameCube transition is one example that sticks out to me. Nintendo damn well should have taken Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark, and Conker off the N64 and given those titles to the GCN. The GameCube needed those games a heckuva lot more in its 1st year than the N64 did, the N64 was what it was by 1999-2000, it wasn't going to be magically more or less successful by that point. 

Imagine a home that has one 18 year old kid from a previous marriage but also a newborn baby from the current marriage. 

At some point you have to let your 18-20 year old grown ass adult of a kid out of the house and focus more on your newborn, the newborn needs more attention/care and if your 18 year old is a fuck up, welp tough shit. You can't treat both the same way, sorry but it's impossible. If the 18 year old by that age is still a dumb ass that needs their hand held for every decision, constant attention and you have a newborn in the house you can't manage those two things without going insane. The newborn has to be the priority.

If maintaining user confidence is based upon your late gen software support though it does not match up with the reality of the sales trends we see. 

We clearly see the GBA, GCN, XBox (original), Wii U not get 5 years of consistent software support, yet there is no impact whatsoever on the successor system, if anything it looks like the successor system to a modern console actually does better, lol.

To me this is one of those things that gets drilled into game enthusiasts heads because of the "legend of Sega". It's like adults who make up all kinds of falsehoods to scare kids (like you'll lose your eyes if you sit too close to a TV).

In all honesty the truth is the Sega situation was unique and singular and is not really relevant to Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony. 

A MS/Sony/Nintendo system having an extra year of support or a year less, does not really make a large impact on the company in the big picture. 

Continued success in the market is predicated on high level of execution during console transitions. A company that can do that will have continued success by and large. 

Pertaining specifically to Nintendo, none of their company ups/downs are really related to how long any platform was supported for. Their problems pretty much all stem from bad decision making during console transitions which then manifest into problems the company has to deal with for the next 4-5 years. 

Not using CDs for N64, making a Wily Wonka purple lunchbox design for 5-year-olds for a console, betting the farm on a 3D gimmick and Nintendogs to be worth $250 to people, betting on a tablet controller that didn't do anything really for game play, not seeing the writing on the wall for the casual market when smartphones started to take over the industry, etc. etc. are Nintendo's chief mistakes. Not "well they supported this particular system 1 year less than otherwise". 

You can say that for every successful system ever. Could Nintendo have sold 10 million copies of Super Mario World on the NES? Yes. Could Sony have sold 10 million copies of Uncharted on the PS2? Yes. Would those games have been better off in that situation? No. 

WiiU should have been abandoned.

They should have released a DSTV add-on for Wii that allows GBA, DS and 3DS to be played on the big screen for $99. 4P splitscreen for GBA/DS enabled by emulating 4 systems. Of all the add-ons/accessories released for Wii, this one would receive tons of new games because of 3DS and have a massive back catalog.

Release a DSU alongside it for $99. A DS that can also receive Wii/GC/3DS streams from the DSTV and enables the assy gameplay/second screen/play on the toilet gimmick.

Release a 3DSU 6 months later for $199 so the AR and 3D gimmick can be tried out.

Revise it later for a 2DSU @ $149.


Nintendo can continue to support the Wii.
Wii would finally get some good 3rd party games via 3DS/DS.
Cheaper hybrid solution than WiiU that still allows all the bad gimmicks to be tested and dropped without crippling a new system.
DS/3DS software gets a boost.
Special Edition DSTVs could be made that look like mini NES/SNES and accept real DS/3DS cartridges.
Everyone will complain about the lack of HD and it being too cumbersome/complicated and then Switch will arrive to streamline everything.

No. The interest in Wii died quickly after 2010 and sales completely plummeted. Not even dropping the price to $149, packaged with its most popular title, saved it from continuing its plunge. Having a couple extra titles on it wasn't going to change that.

Yeah, the sales dried up because the supply of strong software stopped. As has previously been pointed out, the Wii got a 10 million plus selling third party game in 2011, with Just Dance 3, showing that interest in the platform had not died at all and there was still an active audience on Wii. Nintendo had simply clocked out at this point, not just in terms of the quantity of their support but also the type; Skyward Sword for example, while a great game, made a lot of design choices that rubbed the fans the wrong way, while the expanded audience was all but abandoned.

Realistically though I don't think this is really what happened. I mean is the type of consumer that's shopping for a game system in YEAR 5/6 really looking at a system and saying

"You know the 1500 available games are OK I guess, but I really don't like the looks of this May/June/July release schedule coming up and their E3 wasn't great"

Like I know in gaming enthusiast circles people believe real human beings think this way, but really, lol that isn't reality. 

By year 5 of any hardware your existing library of several hundred game titles should be the selling point not the immediate month to month release schedule. 

And people also go back and forth on this, like Just Dance selling so big in 2011 proves the Wii could sell software, but then doesn't that also show the Wii did in fact have a massive blockbuster ever green seller? You can't have it both ways. 

The fact is too Wii sales didn't plummet really at any one particular point. The drop in sales from 2009 to 2010 was about 6 million less. Then the drop the next year was another 5-6 million. And then another 5 million. It was a pretty consistent downward trajectory after 2008 onwards even with games like Wii Sports Resort, NSMB Wii, Mario Galaxy 2, the sales were consistently declining. 

Pokemon isn't really a great example because it's a massive outlier, a once in a 50 year type phenomenon that came out of nowhere. You can't really say "well see Wii, Pokemon boosted Game Boy 8 years after launch, why can't you do the same", like that's not a realistic ask for a software library. 

The fact is even when the Wii had major releases like NSMB Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2, the system still was on a sales decline. 

I think XBox 360 getting Kinect also hurt the Wii, because really it stripped the Wii of being a unique system which the only go to place to play Wii Sports type games. All of the sudden you gave consumers a choice between one console that can play Wii (well Kinect) Sports + Call of Duty for the teenager in the house versus the Wii which had Wii Sports and didn't have the "real" Call of Duty. 

For a mom trying to make her kids happy and wanting to have some bowling fun when the grandparents came over, by 2010, honestly the XBox 360 was the better option and also quite affordable. Instead of having to buy the Wii for Wii Sports/Fit and then get a 360 for your 13 year old, you could just buy one that basically did both things. For a lot of families I think once that option was presented to them it became more attractive than the Wii. Why buy two different systems spending several hundred dollars more when you don't have to. 

I mean IIRC the XBox 360 very rarely beat the Wii in NPD sales prior to Kinect releasing, but after Kinect released they were no.1 on the NPD chart for the majority of the time. This is also the danger of banking so heavily on simplistic games ... that can copied eventually by other companies (Brain Training, Wii Sports, etc.). It's not so easy to copy Mario or Zelda or even Pokemon. 

To be honest the Sony Wii Sports ripoff (can't even remember the name) was the best one from what I played. The controller was really accurate and felt like your movements were really accurately reflected on screen. 

Exactly. Not only did Wii have Just Dance in 2011, it also dropped to $149, with Mario Kart Wii bundled with it, as well as had a $99 Black Friday bundle. Oh yea, and a little something called TLoZ: Skyward Sword dropped that year, too. It also got Kirby: Return to Dreamland.

Nintendo could see the writing was on the wall. Wii's peak was in 2008. As you stated, it continued to drop, regardless of the game's launching and eventual cut to $199. I think after 2011, with a new Zelda and Kirby, a new $149 bundle ($99 on BF), and it still dropped ~6M to 11.5M, Nintendo knew it was time to move on.

Go look at 360 vs Wii NPD pre-Kinect and post-Kinect. MS starts to win almost every month. What a magical coincidence don't you think? 

There is no king of motion gaming because it's an idea that can be copied. It's like saying Nintendo was the king of brain training ... this is an idea now that has been copied in so many shovelware apps on smartphones and online websites that it's really not special. 

Switch won't have this problem though because you can't copy a portable console with a full blown software ecosystem (no half assing it like Vita) as a concept very easily. 

Anyone can make a brain training/brain teaser game or a sports compilation with bowling. The Sony bowling one was pretty much as good as the Wii Sports one from what I remember, the tennis was better. 

So Nintendo should have made an EyeToy instead of the WiiU? Makes sense.