Is the home console business viable for Nintendo?

[tstorm823]

Yes.

It's a short answer, but it's a yes/no question.

In retrospect, I apologize for setting you up for the awkwardly short post.

But, I mean I guess that's really that. I think you're completely wrong. These products don't do the same thing except for plug into a tv, and the idea of consoles being an insulated 3 horse race that don't compete with computer gaming or any other form of entertainment is a misguided view of things.

But if you really think a wiiu a ps4 are trying to be the same thing, I can see how you might regard one as a failure.

 

[Mangod]

Yes.

It's a short answer, but it's a yes/no question.

In retrospect, I apologize for setting you up for the awkwardly short post.

But, I mean I guess that's really that. I think you're completely wrong. These products don't do the same thing except for plug into a tv, and the idea of consoles being an insulated 3 horse race that don't compete with computer gaming or any other form of entertainment is a misguided view of things.

But if you really think a wiiu a ps4 are trying to be the same thing, I can see how you might regard one as a failure.

Too be fair, comparing "Do you want to eat Subway or McD's today?" to "Which $400 games console do you want to buy?" is rather wonky. How many consoles are there? 3. Each of which will cost you several hundred dollars, without factoring in the games. And these are all long-term investments, not to forget.

By contrast, there's how many fastfood joints in the world? McD, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's just to name a few. And that's not including any local fastfood restaurants there might be. And a meal at most of these won't run you up to $399 for a burger with fries.

Sorry if this seems confrontational or unimportant, I just felt that the analogy you gave earlier fell apart a bit after I thought about it...

 

[tstorm823]

Too be fair, comparing "Do you want to eat Subway or McD's today?" to "Which $400 games console do you want to buy?" is rather wonky. How many consoles are there? 3. Each of which will cost you several hundred dollars, without factoring in the games. And these are all long-term investments, not to forget.

By contrast, there's how many fastfood joints in the world? McD, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's just to name a few. And that's not including any local fastfood restaurants there might be. And a meal at most of these won't run you up to $399 for a burger with fries.

Sorry if this seems confrontational or unimportant, I just felt that the analogy you gave earlier fell apart a bit after I thought about it...

It does seem unimportant because I'm trying to explain that a business doesn't need to have bigger sales numbers than every competitor to be successful, and you're imagining my analogy falling apart because a game console is a bigger decision than fast food which is pretty unrelated to the topic at hand. And if the weight of the decision being made by a consumer is a relevant factor, you can go back up to right before I mentioned fast food and see that I mentioned cars right before and phones right after.

 

[Mangod]

Too be fair, comparing "Do you want to eat Subway or McD's today?" to "Which $400 games console do you want to buy?" is rather wonky. How many consoles are there? 3. Each of which will cost you several hundred dollars, without factoring in the games. And these are all long-term investments, not to forget.

By contrast, there's how many fastfood joints in the world? McD, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's just to name a few. And that's not including any local fastfood restaurants there might be. And a meal at most of these won't run you up to $399 for a burger with fries.

Sorry if this seems confrontational or unimportant, I just felt that the analogy you gave earlier fell apart a bit after I thought about it...

It does seem unimportant because I'm trying to explain that a business doesn't need to have bigger sales numbers than every competitor to be successful, and you're imagining my analogy falling apart because a game console is a bigger decision than fast food which is pretty unrelated to the topic at hand. And if the weight of the decision being made by a consumer is a relevant factor, you can go back up to right before I mentioned fast food and see that I mentioned cars right before and phones right after.

True, I find the very idea of the console wars kind of silly, and it's true that a business doesn't need to have bigger sales numbers than the competition in order to be successful, but I can also understand some peoples... worries about Nintendo going forward, since even when compared to its own previous products, the Wii U isn't enjoying the same sales as people expected; certainly not the sales its predecessor did.

It doesn't mean that the Wii U isn't successful, it's just not as successful as many people expected it to be, both considering and compared to the Wii's sales, and especially when compared to the PS4's sales, which are double the Wii U's despite Nintendo's console having had an entire years head start compared to Sony's.

Still, I can agree that comparing the Wii U to the PS4 falls apart a bit as well, since from what I've understood as a PC gamer who's fairly removed from this debate, if you buy a Nintendo console, you do it for the Nintendo 1st party games. The PS4, Xbox One and PC to a certain extent have much more overlap in number of games.

 

[xaszatm]

Caught up between all the Xbox vs PS console war people tend to forget the the "war" for the previous gen consoles was won by Nintendo.

I don't doubt for a second that Nintendo will continue on business (if not because it "wins" this generation, then because it has a fucking ton of money to lose yet). And for the record, the GameCube didn't just "flop compared to the PS2": it flopped compared to anything in that generation. And now the Wii U is selling even slower than that. On the bright side, it's still selling better than the Xbone. To keep tabs on sales (NOT "units shipped") so far:

PS4 - 18.5 million
Wii U - 9.2 million
Xbone - 3.0 million

Didn't it beat the Dreamcast? (yes, yes, damning by faint praise, etc.)

OT: Yes, Nintendo still is viable in the current console market. A key to understanding Nintendo's philosophy is remembering that Nintendo has gone headlong into the "Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology" Yokoi did back when the Game Boy was a thing. Starting with the Wii, Nintendo has become more focused on having a better run engine than a more powerful engine. This has resulted in Nintendo games being very beautiful despite its lower hardware but it also pushes 3rd parties away because of how unique it is compared to the more modular PS4 and Xbox One. As for what exactly the next Nintendo console will do? Hell if I know.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Caught up between all the Xbox vs PS console war people tend to forget the the "war" for the previous gen consoles was won by Nintendo.

I don't doubt for a second that Nintendo will continue on business (if not because it "wins" this generation, then because it has a fucking ton of money to lose yet). And for the record, the GameCube didn't just "flop compared to the PS2": it flopped compared to anything in that generation. And now the Wii U is selling even slower than that. On the bright side, it's still selling better than the Xbone. To keep tabs on sales (NOT "units shipped") so far:

PS4 - 18.5 million
Wii U - 9.2 million
Xbone - 3.0 million

Didn't it beat the Dreamcast? (yes, yes, damning by faint praise, etc.)

Not just yet, the Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units. This was from November 1998 to March 2001 (3 years, 3 months). The Wii U has sold 9.20 million units in 2 years. On the other hand, the Dreamcast was launched only in Japan in 1998, and it took another year (Novemeber 1999) to launch in North America, Europe and Australia... whereas the Wii U has been globally available from the get-go. I don't doubt the Wii U will outsell the Dreamcast later this year, if not by 2016. Though as far as unsuccessful consoles go, they've had similar rocky launches.

Also the Xbone info I posted is inaccurate, it should be about 10 million units sold (Microsoft reports sells are "shy of 10 million"). So the Xbone has sold more or less as well, if not better, than the Wii U. Though it's hard to say. MS is being deliberately vague about sales figures.

 

[xaszatm]

Caught up between all the Xbox vs PS console war people tend to forget the the "war" for the previous gen consoles was won by Nintendo.

I don't doubt for a second that Nintendo will continue on business (if not because it "wins" this generation, then because it has a fucking ton of money to lose yet). And for the record, the GameCube didn't just "flop compared to the PS2": it flopped compared to anything in that generation. And now the Wii U is selling even slower than that. On the bright side, it's still selling better than the Xbone. To keep tabs on sales (NOT "units shipped") so far:

PS4 - 18.5 million
Wii U - 9.2 million
Xbone - 3.0 million

Didn't it beat the Dreamcast? (yes, yes, damning by faint praise, etc.)

Not just yet, the Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units. This was from November 1998 to March 2001 (3 years, 3 months). The Wii U has sold 9.20 million units in 2 years. On the other hand, the Dreamcast was launched only in Japan in 1998, and it took another year (Novemeber 1999) to launch in North America, Europe and Australia... whereas the Wii U has been globally available from the get-go. I don't doubt the Wii U will outsell the Dreamcast later this year, if not by 2016. Though as far as unsuccessful consoles go, they've had similar rocky launches.

Also the Xbone info I posted is inaccurate, it should be about 10 million units sold (Microsoft reports sells are "shy of 10 million"). So the Xbone has sold more or less as well, if not better, than the Wii U. Though it's hard to say. MS is being deliberately vague about sales figures.

Oh, I was talking about the Gamecube because you said that it sold the least out of the entire generation, not the Wii U. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Caught up between all the Xbox vs PS console war people tend to forget the the "war" for the previous gen consoles was won by Nintendo.

I don't doubt for a second that Nintendo will continue on business (if not because it "wins" this generation, then because it has a fucking ton of money to lose yet). And for the record, the GameCube didn't just "flop compared to the PS2": it flopped compared to anything in that generation. And now the Wii U is selling even slower than that. On the bright side, it's still selling better than the Xbone. To keep tabs on sales (NOT "units shipped") so far:

PS4 - 18.5 million
Wii U - 9.2 million
Xbone - 3.0 million

Didn't it beat the Dreamcast? (yes, yes, damning by faint praise, etc.)

Not just yet, the Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units. This was from November 1998 to March 2001 (3 years, 3 months). The Wii U has sold 9.20 million units in 2 years. On the other hand, the Dreamcast was launched only in Japan in 1998, and it took another year (Novemeber 1999) to launch in North America, Europe and Australia... whereas the Wii U has been globally available from the get-go. I don't doubt the Wii U will outsell the Dreamcast later this year, if not by 2016. Though as far as unsuccessful consoles go, they've had similar rocky launches.

Also the Xbone info I posted is inaccurate, it should be about 10 million units sold (Microsoft reports sells are "shy of 10 million"). So the Xbone has sold more or less as well, if not better, than the Wii U. Though it's hard to say. MS is being deliberately vague about sales figures.

Oh, I was talking about the Gamecube because you said that it sold the least out of the entire generation, not the Wii U. Sorry for the confusion.

In that case, no, the Wii U hasn't beaten the GameCube. By all estimates it sold about 50% worse than the GameCube at launch. I'm thinking if they stop production for a bit and bring down the price at some point then they might outsell the GameCube, but there's no knowing.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/386207/wii-u-game-sales-far-behind-launch-levels-for-gamecube-and-wii/

 

[xaszatm]

Caught up between all the Xbox vs PS console war people tend to forget the the "war" for the previous gen consoles was won by Nintendo.

I don't doubt for a second that Nintendo will continue on business (if not because it "wins" this generation, then because it has a fucking ton of money to lose yet). And for the record, the GameCube didn't just "flop compared to the PS2": it flopped compared to anything in that generation. And now the Wii U is selling even slower than that. On the bright side, it's still selling better than the Xbone. To keep tabs on sales (NOT "units shipped") so far:

PS4 - 18.5 million
Wii U - 9.2 million
Xbone - 3.0 million

Didn't it beat the Dreamcast? (yes, yes, damning by faint praise, etc.)

Not just yet, the Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units. This was from November 1998 to March 2001 (3 years, 3 months). The Wii U has sold 9.20 million units in 2 years. On the other hand, the Dreamcast was launched only in Japan in 1998, and it took another year (Novemeber 1999) to launch in North America, Europe and Australia... whereas the Wii U has been globally available from the get-go. I don't doubt the Wii U will outsell the Dreamcast later this year, if not by 2016. Though as far as unsuccessful consoles go, they've had similar rocky launches.

Also the Xbone info I posted is inaccurate, it should be about 10 million units sold (Microsoft reports sells are "shy of 10 million"). So the Xbone has sold more or less as well, if not better, than the Wii U. Though it's hard to say. MS is being deliberately vague about sales figures.

Oh, I was talking about the Gamecube because you said that it sold the least out of the entire generation, not the Wii U. Sorry for the confusion.

In that case, no, the Wii U hasn't beaten the GameCube. By all estimates it sold about 50% worse than the GameCube at launch. I'm thinking if they stop production for a bit and bring down the price at some point then they might outsell the GameCube, but there's no knowing.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/386207/wii-u-game-sales-far-behind-launch-levels-for-gamecube-and-wii/

OK, it's clear I need to be as clear as possible because I'm just confusing you at this point. I was commenting on how the Gamecube should have outsold the Dreamcast. I was being kind of pedantic. Sorry for the confusion. I know the Wii U numbers well enough to know its doing very poorly.