Price Drop Won't Help Ailing Wii U, Claims Analyst

[Adon Cabre]

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Nintendo sold more softwae than PS3? Where have you seen that? Here says otherwise. http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/

edit: forget it, that's PS2 not 3. Wow, then it's really true? Since when? I really though all this time the Wii had sold less software.
Oh yeah, it's the tie ratio which is worse, but even then it's not as bad as lots of people say, it's pretty close to PS3

That's just the problem for the Wii U. Each Wii sold at a profit; the Wii U on the other hand, and like the other consoles, is selling at a loss, and which is why it greatly depends upon software and 3rd party developers.

The Wii had amazing sales, but was nothing at all consistent beyond it's three year golden period. So while Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 sold millions upon millions in the three year period of each other, there was no yearly release like COD/Battlefield to generation 5-6 million sales so consistently. This is why the Wii was in steep decline last year, and the year before. Because no one was buying software/games for it.

And now, Nintendo seems to have stepped on the gas in their spiral downward -- releasing a console without an exclusive Mario or Zelda game is just business suicide! And there is still no release date for either!

A lot of people don't realize just how bad it is; Nintendo would gladly embrace the Playstation 3's problems. See my other post right above this one.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Well the Dreamcast itself had a great opening week on it's release and decent software to go with it and yet flopped. By this point most consumers had lost faith in Sega because of previous bad decision making, anyway the point I'm trying to make with this is that a console's first year is hardly indicative of it's future success or failure.

Exactly, the Dreamcast was also following up on three REALLY bad hardware releases by Sega with the CD, 32x, and Saturn. The Wii U is coming off Nintendo's strongest generation EVER. And that's before you get into the bigger picture of the fact that the 3DS is curb-stomping the Vita so bad it's a wonder as to why Sony hasn't just given up on the handheld market. It just baffles me at how people basically sulk over Nintendo doing ANYTHING.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I'm thinking of getting a Wii U... in quite some time. I need to save up, so it'll take like 4 months.

I always hate when people try to predict the future, they'll either get lucky or they'll be wrong and we'll have their statement left for everyone to look at when the time comes.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Maybe I'll buy a WiiU second hand when the sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles gets released.

Maybe.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Soo...is Michael Pachter literally the *only* games industry analyst?

Not the only, but the only one that both speaks to the public and (mostly) speaks sense.

On Nintendo he's said for a few years that their software development is great, but Nintendo's ability to make money from it is held back by their hardware strategy. More specifically they rely on their first party games (Mario/Zelda in main) to sell the hardware, but as the Gamecube proved first party software alone doesn't always shift consoles, so Nintendo are limiting their own sales by hoping customers buy the hardware for the four or five fantastic pieces of software available on it.

For the Wii it didn't really matter as the Wii caught onto a fashion trend, but it counts doubly for the Wii U, since it doesn't even have those first party games yet, it's effectively a non-product as far as most gamers are concerned.

He reckons Nintendo would make more money abandoning home consoles and selling their games on other platforms. I can't say I agree with abandoning hardware, but I can't deny I would totally re-buy Metroid Prime and Twilight Princess if they ever hit the PC.

I don't agree with him all the time, but there's usually logic behind his ramblings, it's better than a lot of analysts who seem to just repeat the press releases. Also, his advice on pre-orders is good (why would you pay in advance for anything?), more people should listen to it.

Isn't it nice when other forum users take the words out of your mouth?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Isn't it nice when other forum users take the words out of your mouth?

Not really, I find it really unpleasant and have to find some mouthwash to get rid of the fingery taste.