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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo's least successful era

Chrkeller on 17 July 2024

I only home game, so I can't speak to portable, but Wii U by a wide margin. It was a god-awful system with very limited games. I remember having a power cable for the controller, power cable for the system, wire for the sensor bar, wii remote, table controller, pro controller... sweet baby jesus it was terrible. I hated that thing. I am so happy for CEMU, at least until Nintendo ports WWHD and TPHD.



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BasilZero on 17 July 2024

N64 + GBC

WiiU+3DS I would say would have been the closest but the 3DS carried Nintendo in that specific generation far more than what the N64 or Game Boy Color did in their respective generation.

If you put home consoles on its own - WiiU for sure. Worst Nintendo system.



Jpcc86 on 17 July 2024

Say what you will money-wise, but the 3Ds has a killer library. Leaving the switch aside, games-wise its the best portable console Nintendo ever did.

WiiiU, despite being a failer, was ok, it was fine, it was alright. MK8 is peak. Xeno was fine. Bayonetta slaps. Good games.



G2ThaUNiT on 17 July 2024

2013 - Year of Luigi = One of, if not the biggest financial loss in Nintendo's gaming history. So yeah, Wii U/3DS lol.

Despite having a fantastic library of games. Primarily the 3DS. Wii U had some great games as well, but they were too few and far between releases.



Slownenberg on 17 July 2024

I don't get the people who are saying N64 era.

N64 got destroyed in sales by PSX sure, but it was still really popular, sold a lot more than GC or WiiU, and is both historically and at the time considered to have some of the absolute biggest must play games. Despite PSX having multiple times more games than N64, FFVII is the only game on PSX that had the sort of industry defining hype around it that Mario 64, OoT, and Goldeneye all had. It was also THE system for multiplayer gaming at the time. It also introduced numerous permanent hardware changes to the industry like built-in 4 players, rumble, contol stick.

N64 had much larger cultural impact, much more sales, and much better top games than WiiU and GC.
While GC had a much larger library, a lot of the good games were just multiplat games that could be played on xbox and ps2 as well, and GC's top first party games were not nearly as good as N64's for the most part, though MKDD, Prime, and Wind Waker were all fantastic but even Wind Waker had a bad reputation until later gens when people finally got over the fact that it has an cartoon art style and people were able to recognize that was a positive.

And then on the handheld side, GB came out with Pokemon which was the biggest thing ever. It rejuvinated the almost decade old GameBoy as though it was almost a brand new system! There's never been anything like that before or since. In addition the released the GBC which was a nice upgrade revision to make GB even more relevant to go alongside the western release of Pokemon.


So, WiiU/3DS era was by far the least successful from every possible metric. Sales, Games, system design, cultural impact, everything... it was just the weakest.



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curl-6 on 17 July 2024
Salnax said:

In terms of the worst generation overall? Probably the 3DS + Wii U era. Lowest income vs expenditures, lowest hardware sales in decades, lowest software sales since the 90's, etc.

With all of that being said, I'd also like to point out a more ambiguous era during the mid-90's, roughly mid-1993 to late-1998. As late as 1992, the NES, Game Boy, and SNES were all big platforms that were moving millions of units of hardware and software per year. Over the next few years, the NES completely collapsed, the Game Boy didn't have a major refresh/successor for nearly a decade, the SNES started declining much faster than the NES did, the N64 got delayed, Nintendo wasted time on projects like the Virtual Boy and N64DD, etc.

There were major successes during this era, but often with a caveat. Pokemon was a big deal in Japan as early as 1996, but Nintendo took over 2 years to capitalize on it elsewhere. Wario was a breakout character, but as de facto successors to the Super Mario land series, they sold much less. Super Mario All-Stars was big in 1993, but was based on games from the last gen. The SNES did better than the Genesis late in the 4th gen, but software sales were dropping sharply for both platforms by this time. You had big 3rd party support from series like Street Fighter, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and so on, but much of this dried up during the N64 transition. And Super Mario 64 was one of the biggest games of all time, but only sold about half as well as Super Mario Bros 3 and World.

The last third of 1998 and 1999 marked a major transition back to success, Over the course of 16 months, we had the international release of Pokemon Red/Blue, the Game Boy Color launch, the Japanese Pokemon Gold/Silver, two more 5+ million sellers on the GBC (Pokemon Pinball and Super Mario Bros Deluxe), Ocarina of Time, the original Super Smash Bros, the original two Mario party games, more multi-million selling Pokemon games on the N64, strong 3rd party support from THQ, LucasArts, and Acclaim, and continued successes from Rare. That was a huge turnaround.

I'd disagree with 1993-1995 being a weak time; these years saw the release of some of the SNES's biggest hits like Donkey Kong Country 1-2, Yoshi's Island, Killer Instinct, etc. DKC1 in particular was one of the biggest games of the 4th generation.



CourageTCD on 17 July 2024
curl-6 said:
Salnax said:

In terms of the worst generation overall? Probably the 3DS + Wii U era. Lowest income vs expenditures, lowest hardware sales in decades, lowest software sales since the 90's, etc.

With all of that being said, I'd also like to point out a more ambiguous era during the mid-90's, roughly mid-1993 to late-1998. As late as 1992, the NES, Game Boy, and SNES were all big platforms that were moving millions of units of hardware and software per year. Over the next few years, the NES completely collapsed, the Game Boy didn't have a major refresh/successor for nearly a decade, the SNES started declining much faster than the NES did, the N64 got delayed, Nintendo wasted time on projects like the Virtual Boy and N64DD, etc.

There were major successes during this era, but often with a caveat. Pokemon was a big deal in Japan as early as 1996, but Nintendo took over 2 years to capitalize on it elsewhere. Wario was a breakout character, but as de facto successors to the Super Mario land series, they sold much less. Super Mario All-Stars was big in 1993, but was based on games from the last gen. The SNES did better than the Genesis late in the 4th gen, but software sales were dropping sharply for both platforms by this time. You had big 3rd party support from series like Street Fighter, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and so on, but much of this dried up during the N64 transition. And Super Mario 64 was one of the biggest games of all time, but only sold about half as well as Super Mario Bros 3 and World.

The last third of 1998 and 1999 marked a major transition back to success, Over the course of 16 months, we had the international release of Pokemon Red/Blue, the Game Boy Color launch, the Japanese Pokemon Gold/Silver, two more 5+ million sellers on the GBC (Pokemon Pinball and Super Mario Bros Deluxe), Ocarina of Time, the original Super Smash Bros, the original two Mario party games, more multi-million selling Pokemon games on the N64, strong 3rd party support from THQ, LucasArts, and Acclaim, and continued successes from Rare. That was a huge turnaround.

I'd disagree with 1993-1995 being a weak time; these years saw the release of some of the SNES's biggest hits like Donkey Kong Country 1-2, Yoshi's Island, Killer Instinct, etc. DKC1 in particular was one of the biggest games of the 4th generation.

We also had Super Metroid in 1994, which to this day is considered one of the greatest games in history



Salnax on 17 July 2024
curl-6 said:
Salnax said:

In terms of the worst generation overall? Probably the 3DS + Wii U era. Lowest income vs expenditures, lowest hardware sales in decades, lowest software sales since the 90's, etc.

With all of that being said, I'd also like to point out a more ambiguous era during the mid-90's, roughly mid-1993 to late-1998. As late as 1992, the NES, Game Boy, and SNES were all big platforms that were moving millions of units of hardware and software per year. Over the next few years, the NES completely collapsed, the Game Boy didn't have a major refresh/successor for nearly a decade, the SNES started declining much faster than the NES did, the N64 got delayed, Nintendo wasted time on projects like the Virtual Boy and N64DD, etc.

There were major successes during this era, but often with a caveat. Pokemon was a big deal in Japan as early as 1996, but Nintendo took over 2 years to capitalize on it elsewhere. Wario was a breakout character, but as de facto successors to the Super Mario land series, they sold much less. Super Mario All-Stars was big in 1993, but was based on games from the last gen. The SNES did better than the Genesis late in the 4th gen, but software sales were dropping sharply for both platforms by this time. You had big 3rd party support from series like Street Fighter, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and so on, but much of this dried up during the N64 transition. And Super Mario 64 was one of the biggest games of all time, but only sold about half as well as Super Mario Bros 3 and World.

The last third of 1998 and 1999 marked a major transition back to success, Over the course of 16 months, we had the international release of Pokemon Red/Blue, the Game Boy Color launch, the Japanese Pokemon Gold/Silver, two more 5+ million sellers on the GBC (Pokemon Pinball and Super Mario Bros Deluxe), Ocarina of Time, the original Super Smash Bros, the original two Mario party games, more multi-million selling Pokemon games on the N64, strong 3rd party support from THQ, LucasArts, and Acclaim, and continued successes from Rare. That was a huge turnaround.

I'd disagree with 1993-1995 being a weak time; these years saw the release of some of the SNES's biggest hits like Donkey Kong Country 1-2, Yoshi's Island, Killer Instinct, etc. DKC1 in particular was one of the biggest games of the 4th generation.

It's hard for me to give Nintendo too much credit for the games developed by a largely autonomous company that they owned only a minority of. Which is why I only briefly mentioned Rare in the 98/99 period. Otherwise, I'd have given more specific shoutouts to Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64.

This is not meant to belittle Rare. They basically bailed out Nintendo for a few years.



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curl-6 on 17 July 2024
Salnax said:
curl-6 said:

I'd disagree with 1993-1995 being a weak time; these years saw the release of some of the SNES's biggest hits like Donkey Kong Country 1-2, Yoshi's Island, Killer Instinct, etc. DKC1 in particular was one of the biggest games of the 4th generation.

It's hard for me to give Nintendo too much credit for the games developed by a largely autonomous company that they owned only a minority of. Which is why I only briefly mentioned Rare in the 98/99 period. Otherwise, I'd have given more specific shoutouts to Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64.

This is not meant to belittle Rare. They basically bailed out Nintendo for a few years.

I mean Yoshi's Island came out in 1995 from EAD and was the 8th best selling SNES game ever. And regardless of whether Nintendo themselves developed the games in question, they were still major hits on the SNES during this period that kept the console healthy and relevant.

I just don't think it's accurate to call this period their least successful when they were much better off than during the Gamecube or Wii U.



ALinkInTime on 17 July 2024

I have to agree with people saying Wii U and 3DS.

The 3DS had some damn fine games, but it really was a decline in hardware sales compared to the DS and Western third party support also dried up so quickly, which probably explains a part of that sales drop. The 3DS was primarily Nintendo and Japanese third party supported.

The Wii U's awful marketing is well known at this point, but at least its games got a second lease on life on Switch and Nintendo focused on getting indies on the system, a strong relationship that has continued in the Switch era.