Nintendo to meet UK retailers after unofficial Wii U price cuts fail

I feel like Nintendo is understaffed or something. They just can't seem to get the games out quickly enough. They should really take some of that pile of money and buy some more developers...like Sega.
 
I don't think they need to be drastically different, but I also don't think Nintendo can just sit back and do what they did with NSMBU, i.e. release a game that looks and plays pretty much like the previous iterations. They should be true next-gen games of the franchise, not (sorta) upscaled Wii versions.

I think a shake up is in order, but perhaps not a drastic one. I do agree that they can't rest on their laurels like they did with NSMBU, it was a terrible decision to launch the console with what was essentially a scaled up Wii title.
 
I feel like Nintendo is understaffed or something. They just can't seem to get the games out quickly enough. They should really take some of that pile of money and buy some more developers...like Sega.

Nintendo has always released like 1 game a month (average) at max.
 
well this is my first post, and would like to say I am done with Nintendo hardware! Same Nintendo different system four generations in a row.
 
It just honestly astounds me someone could have thought the series of events leading into the wii u launch and after were good ideas. Even if they manage a turnaround I wouldnt want top Nintendo management around i i were a shareholder.
I think the moment of truth came at its second E3. One of the worst showings I've ever seen for a console. There was no doubt afterwards that there simply was no 3rd party support and there were no games, even more baffling that they didn't show W101 off at their conference but instead went with 20 minutes Nintendoland.

What a fucking meltdown that was.

The 2nd moment of truth was their bs about focusing on 3ds last semester when they were launching a freaking console
 
This is such a fucked up situation, I don't even know what to expect anymore. Nintendo really managed to play every wrong card at every moment leading up to this. I can't imagine what the fiscal year end call is going to be like with all of this frozen momentum.
 
Christ Smoky, what happened? Even though I could see you personally cradling your Vita in many of your posts, they always followed a smart logic that led to an apt defense of the console. This is just garbage, for someone who constantly defended the Vita's library based on "personal preference" it's extremely poor of you to bash someone else's personal preference by saying the Wii U doesn't have good games: especially since it's future line up is not even poor by sales standards.
As I have learned, there is no room for personal preference in sales topics. All that matters is the cold, hard numbers. I think it's a shame but I understand why it has to be that way. When it comes to UK software sales, the Wii-U is dire and therefore the library is dire. It sells less software than the Vita for crying out loud.

I understand why you'd feel that the future (unannounced) library has potential, but that's neither here nor there at this point. Retailers aren't stocking the future library, they're stocking the present library.
 
I think the moment of truth came at its second E3. One of the worst showings I've ever seen for a console. There was no doubt afterwards that there simply was no 3rd party support and there were no games, even more baffling that they didn't show W101 off at their conference but instead went with 20 minutes Nintendoland.

What a fucking meltdown that was.

That second E3 was the dagger and here's why... they had a full year, 12 months, before the next E3 to 'fix' the super obvious flaws with the console (the marketing, the name, making sure to have good game footage ready) and they did nothing. E3 2012 should have been a re-reveal of sorts, but instead Nintendo delivered a re-disaster. That's not a word but you get my point.
 
Streaming PS4 games will probably be of more worth in that glorious era than a 3 year long stillborn console but with Google Street View :D

You know certain NeoGAF subsets are getting rattled when they feel obliged to mention Ignore lists. Tumbling down, tumbling down...

I own both consoles, I'm just messing. Stream PS4 games is a dumb as hell argument however. Yeah let's buy a £150 controller on top of the PS4 :@

Komm, süßer Tod indeed.
 
Saturn comparison is brutal. Perhaps on target, but still brutal. :(

And referring to my dear Saturn as "confused, rushed, and forgotten" really makes me tear up. I loved that system. I wish I still had an easy way to play Virtua Cop 1 & 2, House of the Dead, Necronomicon Pinball, Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition, and many others. :(

saturn could have been a pretty big force. i mean, it did really well in japan- and even outsold the n64 despite dying much earlier. it's a shame sega rushed the system, and didn't focus enough on 3d capabilities when that was obviously the way things were going.

wii u is the same thing. give it a different name, better marketing, some games like pikmin 3 and rayman legends, and have all the features like tvii ironed out and available at launch, and things might look different right now. not great, but more comparisons to early xbox 360 and less to failed systems.
 
That second E3 was the dagger and here's why... they had a full year, 12 months, before the next E3 to 'fix' the super obvious flaws with the console (the marketing, the name, making sure to have good game footage ready) and they did nothing. E3 2012 should have been a re-reveal of sorts, but instead Nintendo delivered a re-disaster. That's not a word but you get my point.

I've made this point before, but as far as drumming up excitement for a new console, I think E3 2011's tech demos did a better job than E3 2012. So bizarre.
 
I still remember all the "Just wait until the NDAs run out" talk, all the "They've shown nothing for Wii U" and "They've had all sorts of stuff for Wii". And then nothing. That's the moment I knew Wii U would be utterly fucked. Little did we know the OS and its other features would suck equally hard.

What did they do these past three years ?

Fail in launching the 3ds and end up diverting resources to save that while simultaneously failing in western 3rd party relations

I've made this point before, but as far as drumming up excitement for a new console, I think E3 2011's tech demos did a better job than E3 2012. So bizarre.

E3 2011 was criticized but it was good enough. Committment to 3rd parties, interesting tech, promises.
 
I think it'll be healthy for Nintendo to hear from the horses mouth the current state of the UK market and hopefully these retails can advise them in what they need to do.


















to which Nintendo will completely ignore.
 
well this is my first post, and would like to say I am done with Nintendo hardware! Same Nintendo different system four generations in a row.

This whole "same Nintendo" argument is kind of funny to me considering what Nintendo did with the Wii was perhaps the least traditional and most drastic direction a console had taken in recent history. Come on, there's a billion better arguments than this as to why Nintendo fucked up with the Wii U, and I don't see what anyone but them has to lose by having them stay in the console race.
 
Nintendo needs games released on the Wii U, better marketing, making sure third party games look very attractive on Wii U (as in content, paying for exclusives, etc).

I think it's way to early to say what the Wii U will be next year or what the PS4/720 will be next year.

The gaming world can be a crazy place, so who knows what Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft will be like at the end of the generation.
 
The pricetag is one thing, but what matters the most is the value proposition. It depends a lot on how people in general sees what they get for their money.

The big question with that is whether consumers look at the new consoles as toys or electronics. Handhelds are clearly still looked at as toys and consoles used to be, but lately they have moved to the electronics category. The difference is low price is king for toys while a high price can help with electronics (under the assumption that 50% higher price = four times the value). That's within reason of course, $250 vs $600 is a bit of an extreme example. Of course we still don't know how close to reason Sony is at the moment.

Yeah, why be massively successful and have ambition to be number one when you can settle for just being barely profitable...

Not every company needs to be "massively successful", or engaged in an endless king of the hill battle. Nintendo is not a company that has the size, brand, or philosophy to sustain such a battle for long anymore, but they have a niche and a fairly profitable one at that should they exploit it correctly. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. The worst thing for Nintendo right now would be to try to go whole hog and be #1 next gen while sinking the company in the process.

Basically. People say they remember droughts like this during the Gamecube era... I don't. I played Melee during those droughts. I have nothing to play on my Wii U right now.

I remembered them, I don't care for Smash Bros. or fighting games in general, so there were long periods with nothing much to play. Well, except my 20 min or so a day of Animal Crossing.
 
The whole point of business is to offer something better then your competitors and Nintendo cant even do that with the current generation.

After 720 and PS4 release the only way I can see the WiiU be a success is to be 50% cheaper,have the majority of 3rd party releases and have amazing unique games that the 720 and PS4 cant do.

If they dont do that I dont see why anyone apart from the Nintendo die hard would even bother!

I think Nintendo are going to pay the price for not being competitive in an industry they are clearly in.
 
E3 2011 was criticized but it was good enough. Committment to 3rd parties, interesting tech, promises.

the e3 2011 trailer was more interesting and attention-grabbing than anything they've shown then. wasn't like the wii reveal, but there felt like there was some idea behind it. then we got people in glass cubes with loud dubstep.
 
Seems like a combination of consumers waiting for PS4/Nextbox and the fact that much of their market has moved on to the iPad is hurting them big time. I was thinking maybe they need to do something drastic, like unbundle the Wii GamePad from the System and sell the system for less ($179.99?).
 
I know this might sound silly but if PS4 is a giant success then the old PSX commercial of crash bandicoot quote included in the Ps4 opening intro ( Hey mustacheman,your worst nightmare has arrived.) might actually end up true for Nintendo.
 
Seems like a combination of consumers waiting for PS4/Nextbox and the fact that much of their market has moved on to the iPad is hurting them big time. I was thinking maybe they need to do something drastic, like unbundle the Wii GamePad from the System and sell the system for less ($179.99?).

Let's get the main part of the system, pivotal to is functionality, and take it away!
 
Has Nintendo ever commented on whether or not it would ever go third party?

Japan's love for their handhelds will keep them afloat enough to stay in the hardware market no matter how dire the home console situation gets in other territories. If that ever collapses then yes they would go third party, they're publicly owned so shareholders aren't going to allow management's stubbornness to lose their billions of dollars.
 
Holy shit. If they said that then the people running that company are dumber than i ever imagined.

I never read that comment but I did read them say "If we ever have to stop making hardware than we'll leave this industry all together".

But really, there's no reason Nintendo should go third party, same for Sony/Microsoft.

I don't really understand why people hope any of them will leave, it will just hurt the industry.
 
I know I keep repeating myself in these sorts of threads, but the lack of games for me isn't a major issue as much as the absolute (and I mean that in the literal sense of the word) absence of marketing. Nintendo could be promoting ZombiU, NSMBU and Nintendoland and for the average consumer, who doesn't frequent game websites and know about the dearth of new software, that's three interesting exclusives. All this nonsense about struggling to market the Wii U's 'philosophy', meanwhile, is just a (bad) excuse: show which unique features the console brings to new games (off-TV play in NSMBU and asymmetrical multiplayer Nintendoland, touch screen use in ZombiU) and it's job done. The only other block would be the price, and the £50 cut is already a step in the right direction by retailers. This is all on Nintendo in any case, and even as a lifelong user of their consoles, can plainly see they've done a horrendous job supporting their console in terms of software and promotion in these first six months.
 
The whole point of business is to offer something better then your competitors and Nintendo cant even do that with the current generation.

After 720 and PS4 release the only way I can see the WiiU be a success is to be 50% cheaper,have the majority of 3rd party releases and have amazing unique games that the 720 and PS4 cant do.

Worst case scenario for the Wii U is that Microsoft and Sony keep selling the 360 and PS3 as low budget systems.
 
I'd be interested to see whether Nintendo really do have a better ad campaign and serious plans to turn the situation around - hopefully we will hear what comes out of this meeting.
 
Holy shit. If they said that then the people running that company are dumber than i ever imagined.

You have to look at the context. The quote was made when wii was launched and nintendo came from a rough gamecube, n64 generation.

They had to say such things to convince people to invest in another nintendo system.
 
I wouldn't say that this is the gamecube all over again just yet. It seems more like the 3DS to me. We all know what happened once after a price cut and actual games started coming out. So I am still good with it for now I guess.
 
Has Nintendo ever commented on whether or not it would ever go third party?

Why would they do that? To give the media one more excuse to badmouth them?

On-topic: something must have gone terribly wrong inside Nintendo with the Wii U. Personally speaking, while I loved the Wii, the Wii U hasn't attracted me in any significant way. But that's not what I mean - I'm referring to the lack of advertisement, the confusing situation with software (particularly 3rd party one, which seems to have been cancelled even before 3rd parties knew how the Wii U was going to sell).
 
Worst case scenario for the Wii U is that Microsoft and Sony keep selling the 360 and PS3 as low budget systems.

Why? Nintendo can have some ps360 multiplats (provided they pay for development of the ports) and their own games so the release list will be greater than 0
 
Holy shit. If they said that then the people running that company are dumber than i ever imagined.

If they go third party, their income will drop considerably. As such, they'll have to close various studios. As such, you complain that you don't get enough of the non-Mario franchises now, wait for the hypothetical where they have even less studios to develop with and have to focus on game sales solely for their money.

3DS is at a profit. 3DS is selling well; amazingly in Japan, decent elsewhere. As such, that has helped Nintendo return to the black after two years in the red.

The Wii U has faltered, yes. However, that's mostly due to marketing and unfortunately delays in software release. There's also the continuing, ridiculous, view that Nintendo is for kids just because their games have colour and don't involve shooting and instead create games that are accessible to everyone.

It's fixable and Nintendo does NOT need to quit being a first party.

The ridiculousness is that people want Nintendo to make a third, near identical, console to the others, and that wouldn't sell and WOULD cause Nintendo to collapse, considering they're sold at a loss for at least the first half of their life
 
Let's get the main part of the system, pivotal to is functionality, and take it away!

Or they could stop producing the system entirely.

I'm not saying its the best idea, but its an idea. They need to get that cost down. Seems as though the $50 price cut trials weren't successful. Which means that either people think the price is too high and/or people don't like or get the concept of the Wii U Gamepad.
 
Price cut will almost always fail in the middle of a software drought. Nintendo just doesn't have anything to release for the thing. We still don't have dates for the games that moved out of the launch window.
 
They dont. Throwing away billions in IP? please They arent going 3rd party anytime soon though

Is the idea of Nintendo only focusing on the Japanese market where they thrive in the handheld sector, and becoming a much smaller businesses in the distant future really that crazy? Or do they have to have complete global saturation domination?
 
I never read that comment but I did read them say "If we ever have to stop making hardware than we'll leave this industry all together".

But really, there's no reason Nintendo should go third party, same for Sony/Microsoft.

I don't really understand why people hope any of them will leave, it will just hurt the industry.

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I'd be interested to see whether Nintendo really do have a better ad campaign and serious plans to turn the situation around - hopefully we will hear what comes out of this meeting.

My guess about what this new UK strategy is a new bundle with a game + some kind of voucher for their online network shop. This is along with the $50 cut. So the premium with Nintendoland and Mario, and the basic with Mario or something.
 
Can we lose the ever-moronic 'are Nintendo going third party' posts? Even taking the points of my previous post into account, the Wii U could fold tomorrow and Nintendo would still be financially fine and more than capable of releasing hardware for many generations to come.
 
Is the idea of Nintendo only focusing on the Japanese market where they thrive in the handheld sector, and becoming a much smaller businesses in the distant future really that crazy? Or do they have to have complete global saturation domination?

i see them going single-hardware or hybrid hardware before they go japan-only.
 
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