Lightknight said:
No, it wasn't successful because it was easy to develop on.
It was very much a factor; but it was a factor from the Production side of things.
While Popularity was a factor stemming from the consumer side.
They're both very very relevant to the Wii's financial success. No doubt about it.
Nintendo gets the same royalty from a quality game sale as a shovelware game sale, and boy did they exploit the shit out of that with the Wii.
Just looking at the sheer amount of quick cash-in garbage that came out on the Wii there is no doubt that being familiar and simple to program for made it appealing, because it enabled STUPIDLY FAST, DIRT CHEAP development schedules that still turned a good profit.
I mean, even Nintendo got their hands dirty doing that with crap like Wii Music.
NINTENDO. The company who is obsessed over their 1st party titles and image.
Nintendo tried to win again on the peripheral front and the gamepad just isn't doing it. The WiiMote gave people a new gaming experience. The gamepad doesn't. Most of us have smart phones and a lot of people grew up with handheld gaming devices. Being able to control a game at the wave of a hand was new back then. Buttons and touchscreens aren't new.
Aye.
Which is bitterly ironic when you consider how a remote touch screen can actually introduce new mechanics into the game, while the Wiimote added a pointer to the screen and absolutely nothing else. Every other function was just remapped buttons from a Gamecube controller, but a casual gamer wouldn't know the difference.
Of course, the greater market isn't really concerned with gameplay mechanics as they were with just enjoying their 2 bit sideshow fad. (yes, I fucking hate my Wii)
Here's a question for you, and you seem objective in this as well. Do you think the Wii would have succeeded with a traditional controller?
Well, it was a rhetorical question given the answer snipped.
I 100% agree that the Wiimote was a major factor in making the Wii successful.
But it's not the only factor because of that.
Yeah, it's clunky and unintuitive. The elderly have more trouble with it than they did with the glorious magic wand that was the wiimote and the casual gamers can't easily get past the price when a little more gets them a ps4. Hardcore gamers have trouble with it because they know it is too weak to get most 3rd party support in the next few years.
I knew the WiiU wasn't going to do anything unless it came running out the gate in its first year.
It had a small window to get its install base, and it failed utterly.
Developers didn't want it because it was complicated and underpowered to develop on.
Consumers didn't want it because the gimmick wasn't fresh (your point), and it didn't have any games.
Hardcore gamers...hah! Nintendo all but gave core gamers the middle finger with the Wii.
There was no fucking way the hardcore crowd was coming back after that.
Removing the gimmick only gets rid of an expensive controller. I've been arguing they do this from day one but at this point it may be too little too late. I do not think they can turn the ship around with the current console.
Given the numbers they've produced for their second year being WORSE than their first (a feat we haven't seen since the Dreamcast), the WiiU is completely sunk barring a miracle.
A very specific miracle at that:
1) It gets a large surge in quality 1st party games (the latest Smash Bros has been in development for at least 3 years now)
2) A price cut to make it more affordable for casuals running on a tighter income, and to also undercut the new Xbone and PS4.
Continuing to sell it could be more costly than producing a new console that can compete with the 8th generation competition that will eventually profit.
It's going to be supremely costly no matter what Nintendo does at this point.
WiiU is a sunk cost, I know.
But how much does a competitive next-gen console like the Xbone or PS4 actually cost to develop?
I don't know; Sony and M$ aren't sharing that info, probably for good reason.
But I have been able to find a snippet here and there for the Xbone budget.
Microsoft and AMD spent "well-over $3 Billion" developing the APU in a joint venture.
Split, 1.5 billion USD for M$ and that's just for the APU.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20130527231722_Microsoft_Xbox_One_APU_Cost_Over_3_Billion_to_Develop.html
If I had to guess blindly, I'd place the total development and initial production at around $4 billion.
(more for advertising, which I'd place at 200 million at Christmas season premiums)
So, the question becomes: Can Nintendo add costs of that magnitude onto their budget after slashing their annual projections so sharpy?
They do have a lot of capital from the Wii nest egg, so they could probably absorb the hit.
But their investors aren't going to be happy at all chasing a major loss with another major loss. That loss of confidence and investor support could cripple Nintendo, since Nintendo is also a 1st party developer.
Nintendo games sell Nintendo systems. They've snubbed and been snubbed by third parties for well over a decade now. The Wii's third party support was overwhelmingly shovelware with maybe 2 dozen original games with ANY real effort put into them over the life of the system (with more domestically, but that's a Japan thing. Lots of smaller RPGs...)
If Nintendo starts development on a new console now, they have to rush or shitcan whatever WiiU titles they have in the works to ready software for the new console; lest they repeat the failure of the WiiU.
As for attracting 3rd parties: A new console might be more appealing on paper to 3rd Parties but if they're already making good bank on the other consoles with a larger install base, the smart money says that they will be very wary of supporting Nintendo's late entry regardless.
AT BEST: It will be the Gamecube all over again.
There is no choice here where Nintendo wins out, not even in the long run.
Which is why I said Nintendo made their bed, now they have to lay in it, one way or another.
I agree, they are acting like a company that is over 100 years old (which they are). They do not think that they need to incentivize major publishers to develop on their console (a quote of their management) and basically believe that developers need to crawl to them. All this while Sony and Microsoft have departments in their gaming divisions whose only job is to court development studios. Sony even has a division to seek out indie developers which is why they're getting a significant number of console exclusives like Transistor and Don't Starve.
Sony's doing the right thing in the long run by courting new talent. PC gaming has undergone a sort of Renaissance while consoles have badly stagnated. Nothing unusual about that; all markets go through that cycle of growth, stagnation, erosion an regrowth.
I'm seeing more buzz for them from indies than the others.
These are out in left field erratic. Why would someone put those numbers together? It's like whoever put them together doesn't understand consoles or cost effectiveness.
That's because most of what goes through R&D gets scrapped. That applies to any industry, ESPECIALLY the electronics industry (I don't presume to guess what you know about the business, but the amount of trial-and-error that goes into developing new chipsets and circuits is mind-boggling.)
I wouldn't doubt it if these figures were based real concept models just to test a grab bag of tech at once, but there is no way these would see ANY sort of mass-production.