• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Now that the PS4 has already outsold the Wii U, where does Nintendo go from here?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Do they ride out the Wii U trainwreck for a few more years and pray for the best? Do they put all of their eggs into one basket and promote the 3DS as much as possible? Unless the Wii U miraculously sold over 500,000 units in December, it's pretty sad that the PS4 has already surpassed it in sales based on hype alone. Although I have no interest in purchasing a PS4 at the moment, evidently other people do, and Sony should be congratulated accordingly.

As much as I hate to say it, there is literally nothing they can do short of firing Iwata and releasing a new console more powerful than the PS4 in 2015. Please take a look at the upcoming release schedule and tell me how they're supposed to turn this sinking ship around. It doesn't matter how good their first party releases are, as proven by the lackluster Super Mario 3D World sales; Nintendo consoles will continue to fail if they don't have sufficient third party support. The Wii was an outlier and would have sold well regardless.

It's time for Nintendo to abandon their apathetic attitude towards third party publishers, and release a more desirable platform for them to work on. The way I see it, this problem is not directly Iwata's fault, but things have only gotten worse under his reign. Aside from Retro Studios and Next Level Games, which get commissioned to work on Japanese IP, Iwata by his lonesome is responsible for shutting down all North American game development, making Nintendo even more Japanese centric than ever before. What they fail to understand is that the Japanese game market is shrinking, and yet Nintendo doesn't seem to give a shit. Hiring an American to develop the PS4 hardware was quite possibly the smartest decision Sony has ever made.

Nintendo still has the best developers in the business, but they're being creatively constrained by upper managerial goons like Iwata and Miyamoto. What hardcore Nintendo fans like myself need to realize is that calls for Iwata's resignation aren't intended to be malicious. You should be angry at Iwata for tainting a company that we have grown to love, not criticizing other people for pointing it out. Iwata is not Nintendo. Eiji Aonuma, Hideki Konno. Masahiro Sakurai, Takeshi Tezuka, and Yoshiaki Koizumi are Nintendo, and I'm sure they'd be much happier if they could release their games on a more successful platform.

itblPYh.png
 

Gaz_RB

Member
lol "goons"

Nintendo doesn't really care about the PS4 surpassing them. They like to think that they aren't competing with the XB1 and the PS4.
 

goldenpp72

Member
Wouldn't that imply the Wii U sold basically nothing in December? I expected the PS4 to outstrip the U by March/April since I assumed Nintendo would get a nice boost in the holiday time frame.
 

Draconian

Member
Releasing a new console next year is not the answer unless they just want to enrage the remaining diehard fans they have who already have a Wii U and anticipated them supporting it for a decent amount of time.
 

Timeaisis

Member
Same thing they did with the Gamecube. Ride it out.

They still have their fans. If they can convince some hardcore Nintendo fans (or otherwise) to go for the Wii U (with games like Smash, X and Bayo 2) then I think they'll be fine. They're not going to be the #1 system this gen, which is obvious. But I doubt there going to abandon it like that. Nintendo games have very, very good legs, typically. Doing their own thing in the face of assumed competition is what they do best.
 

Mondy

Banned
lol "goons"

Nintendo doesn't really care about the PS4 surpassing them. They like to think that they aren't competing with the XB1 and the PS4.

Well I guess that's good for them and their own comfort zone because they clearly aren't. They're completely incapable of competing currently.

Releasing a new console next year is not the answer unless they just want to enrage the remaining diehard fans they have who already have a Wii U and anticipated them supporting it for a decent amount of time.

Right now, it's probably in Nintendo's best interests to risk pissing off their dedicated fanbase in order to win back the rest.
 
Wait for PS5 and try to compete with that. I think this gen will last 5-6 years, if so, they can wait. They need to focus all of their attention on 4DS right now.
 

erawsd

Member
Nothing changes at Nintendo.

They are where they are because they don't respond to market forces or trends.
 

Kyzon

Member
They'll continue pumping out quality games in a vacuum. Nothing new there. If the 3DS loses traction as well though, then we'll have something to talk about.
 
WiiU is most probably at around 5.5 or 6 million, then they have DKC TF in Feb and MK8 in March / April. I don't think PS4 will catch WiiU until May or June.
 
Nintendo will not continue to invest in development on a failed platform. I predict you won't see any more announced games that weren't already in development.
 

Neff

Member
Iwata is not Nintendo. Eiji Aonuma, Hideki Konno. Masahiro Sakurai, Takeshi Tezuka, and Yoshiaki Koizumi are Nintendo, and I'm sure they'd be much happier if they could release their games on a more successful platform.

Give me a fucking break.
 

Fandangox

Member
As much as I hate to say it, there is literally nothing they can do short of firing Iwata and releasing a new console more powerful than the PS4 in 2015.

Abandoning their console so early, pissing the few who bought it, sinking more on R&D on a more powerful console, without guaranteed that it would sell or not is not a viable thing to do.

They got in this trouble and now they have to ride it out.
 
Is the Wii U at 4 mill or 5 mill?

It was at 3.91 million units in October. Assuming it sold another 250,000 units in December, I'm guessing it's at about 4.2 - 4.5 worldwide at the moment, which is exactly where the PS4 is, if not less. They may not be very far ahead, but the fact that the two console are so close already is an embarrassment. Please don't start sourcing the banned site.
 

makatk

Banned
ppl wont buy a console with a Nintendo name on it (the wii was a fad) , so if they want to continue making games (on consoles) they should go 3rd party .

if they don't go 3rd party , expect another failing console 3 years from now , and then to ios hell they go.

and btw fuck region lock .
 
They're not going to drop it barely over a year after release, but I do expect the Wii U's lifecycle to be much briefer than the Wii's was, and the next console to not have "Wii" anywhere in the name.

And yeah, Nintendo doing some PS4-esque soul-searching with publishers would probably do a good deal of goodwill wrt them, although they'll still need some reason for people to buy their next console over sticking with their PS4 or Xbone - just like they need a reason for people to buy a Wii U over sticking with a PS3 or 360, something they clearly can't articulate very well.
 

pixlexic

Banned
People are reading too much into these sales numbers.

The wiiu is struggling be uses of content . That could change this year.

Just like if the next gen consoles do not start to get more content their sales go down.


Point being its way too early to say things are set in stone.
 

drspeedy

Member
Massive price drop and a concerted effort to focus on it being a kids console.
The gamer market is gone,
with the lack of third party support, the only thing they can do now is sell to parents looking to buy little Timmy/jenny their first console.


Sadly, this is 100% true. Not sure about what it means for next moves, but at this point arguing about if Wii U sold 4.2 or 4.7 million consoles ks irrelevant- Ninty lost the gamer market, and their 1 year lead to woo them in came to a crashing halt in Dec.
 

TDLink

Member
This thread could also be called "Now that the PS4 has already outsold the XBONE, where does Microsoft go from here? '

Besides, the PS4 hasn't actually overtaken Wii U yet. We don't know December numbers and they almost certainly will put it over 4.2 million. Not that that is all that great for a system that has been out a year longer, just saying.

Are they seriously only six games coming out in the next 4 months?

And people talk about the "drought" that is coming for the PS4/XBO lol.

No. Nintendo has not officially announced any games past February. Mario Kart, at the very least, is likely to release in the next four months. And there is indeed a drought coming for PS4/XBO. In fact we're in it right now. Every system has it after their first christmas, it's not abnormal.
 

GenericUser

Member
They have to accept that the WiiU is a failed product and start "panic mode" by selling the product at a very low price while they have to continue to provide their 1st class 1st party games and conduct a couple of good or/and awesome 3rd party deals.

The longer they deny WiiU's failure, the more they will suffer. Shouldn't have made the WiiU in the first place, but now they have to do some proper damage control.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom