My point wasn't that Nintendo should do the same thing as the other consoles at all.
Nintendo is on a clear path, though; it's not the Wii-U that is the failure--it's the path that Nintendo is on. The Wii was successful because it was the Tickle-Me-Elmo/Firby/Whatever for a while and because it had a price point of only $200. It brought in a mass of people who otherwise weren't playing games, and that was successful--however, those same people have now moved onto whatever the current fad is. Nintendo seemed to think that those people were going to hang around and buy the next system. They didn't. They went to Skylanders or that Doggie Poo board game or whatever the craze is right now. While gamers got the Wii because of its motion controls, this crowd of non-gamers that made the Wii the best-selling system of the last generation bought them because it was the "in" thing. One of my clients is a 50 year old man. He and his wife own a Nintendo Wii. They have 3 games for it: New Super Mario Bros., one of the Call of Duty games, and Wii Sports. There was never any chance that people like him were going to buy a Wii-U--they weren't gamers who were intrigued by the motion controls. They were non-gamers brought in by the ease of motion controls, the family friendly nature of the system, the casual-ness of the system, and its low price. When I was last at that client's, he had me change the batteries in his Wiimotes (Yeah, he's that kind of client), and the batteries had totally rotted away, leaving that white powdery stuff everywhere. He reported that he hadn't played his Wii in at least 4 years.
They are not alone in that. The Wii brought gaming into living rooms that were otherwise devoid of gaming, and that was undoubtedly a good thing. However, it was never going to last, just like Tickle-Me-Elmo and Firby didn't last. Nintendo owes the Wii's success to those who wanted to use Wii Fit and maybe play one or two other games, once they had the system, but who would never have sought a gaming console otherwise.
Gamers still bought the Wii, yes, but very rare is the gamer who bought a Wii unless he/she already had a 360, PS3, or gaming PC. If the Wii hadn't been a mere $200, gamers would not have purchased as many, and the non-gamers probably wouldn't have either. Then comes the Wii-U, with a number of failures:
- As you rightly point out, it wasn't different enough. But I don't think we mean that in the same way. A lot of people had no idea what the Wii-U even was, and to this day I know three people who still think the Wii-U is the gamepad and that it is an attachment for the Wii.
- The price of $400 meant that even those non-gamers who had entered the gaming world were not likely to buy the Wii-U. $200 on something that was "nice to have but not a critical entertainment staple" was one thing; $400 is quite another. Those clients I mentioned earlier would never shell out $400 for the Wii-U (and they are loaded, owning the most successful liquor store in the state), especially after they saw how the Wii turned out (they purchased 2-3 games, used it for a week/month, and then never touched it again unless they used Wii Fit).
- The hardware is laughable, and was even when the Wii-U was released. This is where Nintendo is screwed the most. Trying to compete with the hardware of the One and PS4 drives the Wii-U's pricetag to $600-700 (one of the other two prices, plus the added cost of the gamepad). Such a price just shoots Nintendo in the foot.
- Without having hardware that competes, though, Nintendo is already being left out of the loop again. The third-party library for the Wii-U consists largely of last gen titles, and we're undoubtedly going to see games continue to be for "PS4/One/PC" without Nintendo being listed because modifying the games enough and lowering their graphics isn't something that developers were interested in last gen--they won't be interested this gen, either. Nintendo should have known this.
Many classic games function just fine on mobile phones with touch controls. Square-Enix has released pretty much their entire lineup. Grand Theft Auto III, Mega Man X, GTA: San Andreas, Minecraft, Terraria, the Final Fantasy games--these are all available on mobile. The only one I know of that really has problems with the controls is San Andreas. The legality of it is questionable, but emulators exist for Android phones that, if rumors are to be believed, render
most NES games playable; I imagine it's platformers that are most difficult. Any, releasing games on Google Play is obviously quite lucrative, as well: Square-Enix wouldn't keep releasing their games on mobile if they weren't making money from it. 70 cents per dollar is better than zero cents. Their main issue with this would actually be that they think their games are more valuable than they really are. $5.00 for NES titles in the Nintendo e-Shop?
I think Nintendo's biggest hurdle is that they're control freaks. There's no reason they shouldn't release their games onto other consoles except to try to push people to buy their own. This really gets into an argument involving numbers I doubt anyone has compiled, but I don't think it's more lucrative to release first-party games only on Nintendo consoles and hope that players buy the consoles to play the games. I wanted to play Skyward Sword, but nowhere near badly enough to buy a Wii. So I didn't play Skyward Sword*. If it had been released on 360 or PC, that's money in Nintendo's pocket. I can't say whether x number of people would buy the console to play this game or that game versus how many people would buy this game or that game if it was on a console they already have.
But no doubt: Nintendo has money. As I said, the DS line of handhelds basically prints cash, and so did the Wii. They are not profitable because of the Wii-U or any of its games at the present time, though, and it's unlikely that the Wii-U is going to prove a profitable endeavor when it's all said and done. And I don't think their next one will be profitable, either, because I don't think they have a valid angle for it. Can they pull out another gimmick and appeal to the non-gamers again? Or will they attempt to emulate the One and PS4? I don't see either avenue being successful. The non-gamers have moved on, and $400 is a big chunk of cash for people who just want to play a few games.
Nintendo just kinda exists off to the side now, away from the "console wars." Nintendo is just doing their own thing. But the Playstation 2 destroyed the Gamecube. The Wii did great, but not with gamers, though it did "good" with gamers--and this only because of its low price tag. The Wii-U is doing abysmally. The Wii did exceptionally well; I don't deny that. But it's also an anomaly because it broke into the mainstream and brought in huge numbers of non-gamers. Note, however, that even costing 1/3 of what the other two consoles did, the Wii didn't outperform them by that much of a margin. $200 v $500 v $600, and the end result was a victory by 130%--when the console cost 33% as much. When price is factored in, as a huge motivation for buying a Wii in the first place, then the Wii didn't perform nearly as well as the units sold would indicate. Being 1/3 the price, we could expect it, if it was truly an equal console (meaning: if the motion controls made up for the hardware's shortcomings), to sell 300% as many units. It didn't come close to that.
Using entry prices, we find:
Wii - 101,230,000 x $200 = $20,246,000,000
PS3 - 84,600,000 x $600 = $50,760,000,000
360 - 84,400,000 x $500 = $42,200,000,000
My point isn't about who made the most money or who "really" won the console war last generation or anything like that. My point is that people spent a lot more money on the PS3 and the 360 than they did the Wii. And it's looking pretty bad for the Wii-U. The upcoming Zelda might sell some more Wii-U consoles, but the Zelda fans who would buy a new console just to play a Zelda game probably did that with Hyrule Warriors. We've got Mario Kart, Mario Party, Smash Bros., Hyrule Warriors, Wind Waker, two new Mario games, and a Zelda on the way... Nintendo has already brought out their big guns. But we all know the Wii-U is selling terribly. There's no need to harp on that.
But the next console will do exactly the same thing, because Nintendo has no options. They can continue with the gimmicks, which failed with the Wii-U. If they can come up with some new gimmick and keep the price of their consoles around $200, that might work, but Nintendo will never again be the primary console for mainstream players if they do that. And it might not work anyway. For that matter, why continue investing so much money in that (because those non-gamers are not coming back) when they can just focus on their handheld lines and transition their games to other consoles, using tie-ins with their handhelds to boost the sales for their handhelds? That's certainly the more profitable route. Or they can jump into the game with Microsoft and Sony, but that would end very, very badly. Although it was necessary in the mid 80s for Nintendo to stay on top of developers and interfere constantly, it's not necessary today, and developers aren't liking that. But they'll go where the money is--if more people are buying Nintendo's consoles, then they'll develop for Nintendo's consoles. But people aren't buying NIntendo's consoles because there are only first-party games for it; this lack of third-party games is a vicious cycle. They need players to entice third-party developers, and they need third-party developers to entice players. Eventually, someone's going to have to lose a lot of money bringing in a ton of players or third-party developers. That's going to have to be Nintendo. They're either going to have to drop the Wii-U enough to get one in the hands of every gamer, or they're going to have to pay third-party developers personally to make Nintendo games.
* I actually did eventually play SS. I beat the Forest Temple and then quit, disgusted and disheartened. I'd had the game for one day before I traded it in at Gamestop. To me, it looked and felt just like ALTTP/OOT/TP. I don't know how many people felt the same, but it did not at all feel like playing a new game for me. I know other people have that complaint with the Mario games. I honestly do not see a difference between New Super Mario Bros. Wii and New Super Mario Bros. Wii-U. I mean, one has better graphics, sure. But... they're the same game. Mario Kart 8 boasted 50% old tracks, 25% of the characters being Bowser's kids, and blatantly cheating AI. These... are not the kinds of things that are going to entice people. I couldn't recommend purchasing the Wii-U to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii-U if the person had already played New Super Mario Bros. Wii, nor could I recommend it for Wind Waker if they'd played it on GB, and nor could I recommend it for Mario Kart if they had MKWii or MK7.
I would definitely recommend it for the new Smash Bros., though...
I can't say what percentage of gamers feels like Nintendo is just doing the same stuff over and over and riding on past successes, rose-tinted glasses, and nostalgia, but that percentage, whatever it is, exists and Nintendo needs to take that into consideration before they release New Super Mario Bros. Wii-U 3D Galaxy 2. They do release some games that are fun and fresh: Super Smash Bros. (though I wouldn't call it fresh), A Link Between Worlds, and I really enjoyed Super Mario 3D World, to the extent that I have 3 more worlds to beat with Toad before I'll have 100%'d the game.
I'm also really looking forward to the next Zelda, but I'm absolutely TERRIFIED that they're going to go what *I* would call the lazy route (but no one else seems to mind it) by implementing a Quest System a la Kingdoms of Amalur, Skyrim, or Dragon Age. That's a different rant, and this wall of text already crits for over 9000 so I won't say much about that, but something just tells me that it's going to be a lot like Skyrim or Dragon Age: Inquisition, but with Link.
( Edited 07.06.2015 04:36 by Anema86 )
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