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Is the Wii U the new Dreamcast?


JimboUK

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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-17-nintendo-wii-u-death-by-apathy

 

 

 

"When you can get to number one in the Wii U charts by selling less than 1000 units it's no longer a tragedy, it's an actual farce"

I watched the Nintendo E3 Direct yesterday and it was shocking, very few new titles coming and most of them delayed until 2014. These new titles were again rehashes of the same games Nintendo have been releasing or years, another Mario Kart, another Mario platformer, another Smash Brothers, another 2D Donkey Kong, another Zelda game, well it's not actually a new Zelda game but a HD rehash of The Wind Waker. By 2014 both Sony and Microsoft will have their new consoles on the market and Nintendo will be forgotten.

 

I'm not sure what Nintendo can do, the casual gamers they targeted with the Wii have gone to Facebook, iOS and Android where the games are cheaper or free, proper gamers are unlikely to be won over by something weaker than the 360 and PS3.

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Against the PS3 and 'Box it's losing. They're both absolutely geriatric, they're completely outdated, and everyone, including the devs know full well they're both now old tech, obsolete, to be replaced. Nintendo's ultra-conservatism will be it's undoing; with the PS3, any problems at all you can blame on the fact the bloody thing's half a decade out of date. The Wii U however, has no excuse, it's fairly new hardware, and rather than being a dated elder statesmen like it's direct rivals, it's marketed as the next-gen Nintendo, despite being even more outdated than both of them.

 

I expect it'll get massacred when the PS4 and Nextbox come out. The PS4's not only the current hot favourite, with a big power advantage over the Wii U, it's also got the added bonus of strong Indy game support. Honestly I expect a slaughter.

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I don't know what they were thinking, towards the end of the Wii's life they couldn't give the things away. It was obvious they had to try and win back proper gamers, by sticking with the casual crowd they've put themselves in competition with Apple and Google, they don't stand a chance.

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I use my cousins and parents as a gauge of the average casual gamer, as they only play cell phone games and Angry Birds.

Using them as a gauge, I have discovered that the Wii U is essentially a $500 etch-a-sketch.

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I personally think that Nintendo's current marketing strategy with the Wii U is the byproduct of a... I won't finish that sentence.

 

My point being is that I think the Wii U's strategy to attract back proper games is simply a knee jerk reaction to the fact that Nintendo knows there's a shotgun pointed at their head.

 

What I wish they had done was a full feature console similiar to the PS4 instead of an update of the Wii, with the marketing focus on hard core gaming. Bring in a digital game store (like Steam) with good support for indies, and also bring your NES, SNES, N64, and Gamecube games available for download. One thing they could had done to make it more attractive for developers was to add native support for majors game engines such as Unreal Engine.

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Yes, and no. The one place where Nintendo has a real market is in the 10-14 age range and parents who don't want to be shelling out $10-$30 a month for a net based console or have to deal with the various sorts of drama surrounding violent videogames. While these aspects probably aren't much concern to most around here, quite frankly, their conservative stance on game content is one of their key selling points. It is simply, a console that has a much more family friendly basis than anything Sony or Microsoft cares to bother with. Nintendo has most of its strength from its mobile end of things... such as hand held gaming. As great as a cellphone might be, it really isn't made for portable gaming. The PS Vita is decent, but again, isn't really designed for younger teenagers and children. Now while this does not scream large market potential, it can however exist pretty well within that niche` demographic while Nintendo regroups for the next generation.

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I'm not sure what demographic they're aiming at, I don't think they know either. They said they wanted to win back core gamers, they then release a toy. There's an interesting interview with Miyamoto in the NYT where he talks about families sitting around the TV and playing games together, do many families do that? I doubt they do, if anything technology is driving families apart. Anyway that idiotic controller makes it harder for people in the same house to play together, only two can be connected, they cost a fortune and connecting more than one drops the game resolution down to 720p. Not that the controller is much use to children, it's too big. The whole thing comes across as an ill thought out mess, they tried to repeat the success the Wii had with a gimmicky controller and failed. Then there's the price, some places are selling the Wii-U for £300, the PS4 is going to be £349, it's no surprise people aren't bothering with it.

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Aye. The PS4's a lot more than fourty-nine quid more powerful, plus in Australia Sony has a very very good reputation; as far as AU is concerned, casual gamers play either on tablets, or PC. Hardcores gravitate to PC, PS, and Xbox, and the "undecided few" who don't really fall into either catergory, mostly play PS. At several points the PS3 outsold the 360 3-to-1 here, and Playstation is literally synonymous with gaming, Sony's reputation here is stellar. The PS4's going to be a MASSIVE hit here. The WII-U has been a massive flop. And that's worrying for Nintendo, because as small as our population is relative to other established 1st-world countries, a recent census marked 56% of Australians as full hobbyist gamers.

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