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

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Ninjimbo said:
Every fucking day, right?

Anyhow, what I said yesterday still applies: make more appealing hardware. Remember that Nintendo is in this to make money and not win some idiotic, fabricated console war. They have a bigger chance at making bank if they create a new piece of hardware that everybody wants.
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You can't just "make new hardware" now. Developing, launching and supporting a console is not something you can turn off and on at will. They have to keep up the support for the console (for different reasons) and their best bet now is to sell the system at a bargain price, pump out whatever 1st/2nd party game they can and hope for the best. Every day they try to sell a 250€ console to gamers when there is a PS4 available for "just" 150€ more is a wasted day for the console.
 
Cheesemeister said:
It may not have been overtaken yet. Spurious thread premise.
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Even if that is the case now it most likely will have been by the end of Q1.

Anyway, Nintendo will probably go into GCN mode. They will try to get as many people as they can with their first party titles and figure something out for their next console. Nintendo isn't in as bad a financial situation as Sega was when they discontinues the Dreamcast, so I doubt they will discontinue the WiiU early on. Though I also doubt they will keep it around fro longer than 4 years.
 
Just a thought here, but aren't Wii U dev costs lower than PS4/XBONE? Let's say Nintendo makes a profit from every console sold, and that even games that sell moderately well make a profit for them in royalties due to the lower dev costs. Keeping this in mind (if it's true that is) then Nintendo could continue to profit off Wii U even while it stays in 3rd place, while they continue to make real cash off 3DS.


In other words, even if they get crushed by PS4XBONE they'll continue to do what they always do.
 
Stumpokapow said:
The PS4 probably hasn't outsold the Wii U yet. We have PS4 at 4.2 million and Wii U at 4.6 million as of September (so I'd guess maybe 5.5 or so by end of year). It'll pass it soon, obviously it doesn't change the thrust of the discussion or whatever. But I don't think the pass mark will be until Spring or so.

I'll repost what I posted in a "should Nintendo sell Wii U without a gamepad?" thread a week or so ago:


That's sort of where I see things. I don't think there's an immediate solution.
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Er...how is it possible Wii U was at 4.6 with shipped at 3.91.That doesn't include the fact that there was a not insignificant amount of stock on the shelves in that shipment too.
 
Nintendo presumably wouldn't release a new console for at least a couple of years. Then do they target PS4/XB1-level hardware? Or beyond? By the time it's on the market it'll probably be past the halfway mark of the Sony and MS consoles, and Nintendo might end up in an odd position again.

I think they really need to fix their 3rd party relationships if they're going to be successful in the home console market again. This is assuming they don't come up with some genius idea that captures the casual market again...
 
Buy majority stake in Oculus.

Dig "third pillar" company line out of the moth balls.

Release Wii VR in 2015 with mind melting, balls to the wall, 3D Mario.

….
 
Eventually (probably by the end of this year), Nintendo will make money on every Wii U sold. They'll ride it out until holiday 2016, when they release their next console.
 
Dali said:
That's what screwed Sega though. They kept releasing hardware and upgrades and quickly abandoned it such that eventually no one trusted them anymore to drop the money on something that would be dead in a year. At least that's how I felt around dreamcast release.
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This is an excellent point - so what do they do? Ride it out and regroup for next gen? Hope that the 3DS carries them I guess?
 
TDLink said:
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.
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Nintendo is likely to release some more games this year outside of what's on that list, but even so, that lineup looks anemic. Even if the PS4 and XBO do have a drought in store for them, it's nothing compared to the multiple, sustained droughts that the Wii U is going to have.
 
Normally you expect to see similar threads pop up on a regular basis but this topic is so overdone. I mean literally everything has been said and heard on the subject hundreds of times by now.

Nintendo will keep on keeping on and keep supporting the wii u for a few more years. On Sony's end they sold a lot of ps4's but the company has some bankruptcy dangers looming. They both got themselves some shit to deal with.
 
I really hope Nintendo can turn it around and bring back the revolutionary charm. Just think about it; this company invented the analog stick.
 
Gonzo The Great said:
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.
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Sakurai was never Nintendo, Sakurai was HAL. He left HAL in order to work as a freelancer and formed Sora Ltd. He works for whoever needs him.

Incidentally, the only non-Nintendo game he's credited for since leaving HAL is Meteos. Which was still developed for the DS.
 
Nintendo needs to focus on saving their handheld market. The decline from the DS to the 3DS has been huge in both hardware and software, and the 2DS hasn't done much despite the attractive price.

Every game they make for the dead Wii U is a game (or 2-3 depending on budget) they could instead make for the 3DS.
 
Iwata closed the door behind him and fired everyone of course.

In all seriousness, anyone saw PS4 overtaking Wii U coming, it doesn't change a thing for Nintendo.
 
Daingurse said:
If the WIi-U was their idea of appealing to casuals and core, then it was a piss poor effort.
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Of course it was. Why the hell else would they retain the "Wii" name other than to try and appeal to the existing Wii casual market they already had? You know, the same market that was already in the process of transitioning to mobile platforms which Nintendo seemed to somehow completely go without noticing?
 
AniHawk said:
it's the software stuff that i believe nintendo can deliver on. they have great problem-solvers. it's the hardware where they got stuck this gen- trying to appeal to two fanbases with half-efforts and effectively reaching none (although the 3ds seems to have picked up the psp's audience).
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While they bungled the hardware, they didn't exactly succeed with their software either (at least on the home console side).
 
It's sad that I knew this thread would be made. Didn't think it would be so soon.

Nintendo will do what it did when the PS1 and PS2 outsold the N64 and GameCube; nothing. It will ride the wave and keep afloat for 4 more years and plan for the next console.
 
Yeah, I don't think PS4 has outsold Wii U quite yet. We have around ~1.5M in Japan (as of the end of 2013) and ~1.6M in US (as of Nov). I think ~700k is a good estimate in Europe, maybe a little more, so putting those together, Wii U has sold ~3.8M, not counting some minor territories or December US sales. I think best case scenario for Wii U is ~4.5M or ~4.6M.

Of course, it's all academic as PS4 should outsell it very soon. I imagine, though, nothing really changes for them right now at least. I'm more interested in what happens in Japan when PS4 launches and how receptive the market is there.
 
I just wish they'd stop trying to shove Donkey Kong, Mario and the usual characters down my throat. Every time I hear Reggie Fils-Aime cite those same old properties as the sole examples of what games they have coming "this holiday" a small part of me turns against Nintendo.
 
Mondy said:
Right now, their creations that they pour their heart and soul into are being played by barely anyone. It must be discouraging.



That's a bit of a false equivalency though. Like it or not, the Wii is the most financially successful console ever. SEGA had multiple hardware failures in a row before they folded with the Dreamcast.
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True but Nintendo dropped wii support like a bad habit and killing wii u early will be another strike. Add that to all the other ways they've lost consumer confidence (or my confidence at least) and the reasons to not trust them and drop money on whatever their new console would be keeps growing.
 
Napoleonthechimp said:
I just wish they'd stop trying to shove Donkey Kong, Mario and the usual characters down my throat. Every time I hear Reggie Fils-Aime cite those same old properties as the sole examples of what games they have coming "this holiday" a small part of me turns against Nintendo.
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You don't like good games?

I was going to cone in here and say they need to keep making nintendo games. But with people like you, how could that ever work! I must rethink this.
 
moltonasty said:
Just a thought here, but aren't Wii U dev costs lower than PS4/XBONE? Let's say Nintendo makes a profit from every console sold, and that even games that sell moderately well make a profit for them in royalties due to the lower dev costs. Keeping this in mind (if it's true that is) then Nintendo could continue to profit off Wii U even while it stays in 3rd place, while they continue to make real cash off 3DS.


In other words, even if they get crushed by PS4XBONE they'll continue to do what they always do.
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They might be lower, but not by much. HD development costs were enough to make tons of studios go bankrupt and close last gen. It probably wouldn't even be close to the profit on games they were making with the Wii.
 
10k said:
It's sad that I knew this thread would be made. Didn't think it would be so soon.

Nintendo will do what it did when the PS1 and PS2 outsold the N64 and GameCube; nothing. It will ride the wave and keep afloat for 4 more years and plan for the next console.
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Gamecube and N64 sold software. A ton of software. 12 million copies of Goldeneye alone. Right now WiiU games seem to struggle to break even.
 
Daingurse said:
Wii-U's failure is nearly cemented, I don't really see any hope of a turnaround happening. Nintendo will simply have to bite the bullet that is the WIi-U, and come correct the next time around. I can't see another "Nintendo box" being successful though, they'll need some kinda appealing gimmick or innovation.

They need to capture the non-Nintendo fans or the casuals. Hell, ideally they need both.
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What other gimmick can they possibly concoct that is cheap enough for them to stick into a console? I can't think of any, and looking back at patents over the last few years, Nintendo hasn't been on a roll with ideas either. I remember one filing for a peripheral that read the air pressure and temperature. Pointless.

In my opinion, their best course of action is to release a machine about equal in strength to PS4 or slightly stronger for $199-$250 in late 2016. Have it play the same games as their next handheld plus whatever AAA titles they can score/develop in addition. In the mean time, start prepping a real account system and subscription service and comprehensive virtual console. Call it the NES2 or something and make the case look slick like Wii's at the time.
 
In hindsight, it was a total mistake to fill 2013 with more family titles and 2014 with the more core ones.

Make sure your core is appeased on the next console and that chasing the casuals doesn't always work out. How ironic that Nintendo has fallen to what caused many 3rd party publishers to suffer in chasing CoD money. Only this time with the ipad crowd.
 
I've spelled out the vision I'd have for Nintendo several times before in other threads. Basically, this:

1. Ride the Wii U out. Too much content already in-process that can't be ported to the 3DS and it isn't cost effective to do a hardware reboot, let alone a hardware reboot that keeps enough Wii U hardware components to make up-porting anything other than starting from scratch.

2. Begin R&D on a new handheld + HDMI dongle device now, if it isn't already in the works. Target PS4 power levels and a 2017/2018 release, with a $250 MSRP. This is analogous to when the Vita could be produced on the heels of the PS3 (actually giving it a bit more time to further reduce hardware costs).

3. From this single handheld then spin off optional accessories for legacy support. A $50 clamshell cover for the system that includes a second screen and a few bits of silicon from the 3DS line that can't easily be software emulated. A $100 dock + pro controller (optional Wiimote support) that would read Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U discs, along with external HDD connectivity. Otherwise everything is offered via digital download and SD cards. Equip the device with two microSD ports and a game specific SD card port.

4. Unify all developing onto a single platform, greatly reducing cost and expanding market penetration instead of splitting consumer interest across two different formats.

5. Leverage strong Nintendo brands onto smartphones. Give only the most basic of legacy support and instead focus on smartphone specific offerings. An endless runner game featuring 8 bit Mario art assets (up to 16 bit for sequels) re-using old school Mario levels. Animal Crossing as a F2P social connectivity game. Pokemon as a direct competitor for Puzzles and Dragons. Keep all these franchises alive in superior value core installments on the new device, but use the smartphone/tablet offerings as a gateway drug to the Nintendo family. Offer up these titles to Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. as timed exclusives to their devices/stores for hefty fees.

Basically, they need to forget about competing with Sony and MS and instead focus on carving out their own profitable niche while finding secondary ventures to stabilize their profits. Long term they'll likely have to move into a "third party" role of simply making software as the role of specialized hardware period is nearing it's end and Nintendo isn't going to set up the multimedia partnerships that Sony is looking to build already, but they can do that 15-20 years from now after a few more successful platforms and on their own terms when the hardware platform concept has evaporated into mist and it's all about streaming services.
 
Dali said:
True but Nintendo dropped wii support like a bad habit and killing wii u early will be another strike. Add that to all the other ways they've lost consumer confidence (or my confidence at least) and the reasons to not trust them and drop money on whatever their new console would be keeps growing.
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That's Nintendo's biggest issue currently. The horse has bolted. Sitting on their hands will cost them a lot of money in the lead up to the next console generation or they take a punt and start planning a new home console that can better compete with PS4 and Xbone now. Of course, ostracizing the core Nintendo fanship isn't the only thing they risk by doing that.
 
Freezie KO said:
While they bungled the hardware, they didn't exactly succeed with their software either (at least on the home console side).
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How do you mean? This past year-ish has seen Nintendo Land, NSMBU/NSLU, Pikmin 3, WWHD, 3DW, Wii Fit U, NES Remix...pretty great line-up from where I'm sitting.
 
You have a much more optimistic outlook on the games industry than I if you think Iwata is likely to be replaced by someone that matches or exceeds the actual appreciation for games that he's shown. Greenlighting games like SMTxFE, TW101, Bayo2, X, etc., along with his history as a developer and even things like Iwata Asks engender a lot of good will from me, personally. If anything, it'd be fair to criticize his software strategy as simultaneously too broad and too niche, but I'll take those sweet, sweet niche offerings over some middle-of-the-road stuff any day. We can get that stuff anywhere else.

I also find the basic premise of this thread to be akin to something like, "if Nintendo exited the console race, who would take their place?" Sure, these companies are all in competition with each other, but not so much so that their every action is a reaction predicated on the actions of a different company. Nintendo will do all they can, which is get the price of the Wii U as low as possible, continue to build its library, and very likely introduce new hardware as early as 2016. It's entirely possible they'll remain profitable until then, or at least healthy enough that they aren't in any real danger. The Wii U was a swing and a miss, but they're still in a position where they can try again next time.
 
Gonzo The Great said:
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.
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It sold only in Japan in Dezember over 300 000 units
 
Chinpoko_Master said:
Nintendo is likely to release some more games this year outside of what's on that list, but even so, that lineup looks anemic. Even if the PS4 and XBO do have a drought in store for them, it's nothing compared to the multiple, sustained droughts that the Wii U is going to have.
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There's no way of actually knowing that. We're completely in the dark on nearly everything releasing for PS4/XBONE after the Spring just like we're completley in the dark on nearly everything releasing for Wii U past February. PS4 has Infamous and Drive Club instead of DK and Mario Kart. XBONE has Titanfall. All the lineups are thin this spring, and we don't really know what is happening beyond them currently.
 
Why does everything have to be the same? Why do I need two PS4's?

Nintendo needs to work with third parties, smarter, and convince them to take risk on new games that will target the Nintendo audience.

It's nice to want a one and done system, but I doubt we will see that from Nintendo or any console for that matter.
 
ShineALight said:
You have a much more optimistic outlook on the games industry than I if you think Iwata is likely to be replaced by someone that matches or exceeds the actual appreciation for games that he's shown. Greenlighting games like SMTxFE, TW101, Bayo2, X, etc., along with his history as a developer and even things like Iwata Asks engender a lot of good will from me, personally. If anything, it'd be fair to criticize his software strategy as simultaneously too broad and too niche, but I'll take those sweet, sweet niche offerings over some middle-of-the-road stuff any day. We can get that stuff anywhere else.

I also find the basic premise of this thread to be akin to something like, "if Nintendo exited the console race, who would take their place?" Sure, these companies are all in competition with each other, but not so much so that their every action is a reaction predicated on the actions of a different company. Nintendo will do all they can, which is get the price of the Wii U as low as possible, continue to build its library, and very likely introduce new hardware as early as 2016. It's entirely possible they'll remain profitable until then, or at least healthy enough that they aren't in any real danger. The Wii U was a swing and a miss, but they're still in a position where they can try again next time.
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This is the best post so far.
 
Here's what they should do:

muddled console sales
-release a newer console and take another year or two or more to reach profitability

gamers "tired" of games that sell
-build the userbase with several unprofitable games
 
sponk said:
You can't just "make new hardware" now. Developing, launching and supporting a console is not something you can turn off and on at will. They have to keep up the support for the console (for different reasons) and their best bet now is to sell the system at a bargain price, pump out whatever 1st/2nd party game they can and hope for the best. Every day they try to sell a 250€ console to gamers when there is a PS4 available for "just" 150€ more is a wasted day for the console.
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I didn't say they had to make it now. They just have to make it as far as I'm concerned. Whenever that is, it's up to them.
 
lumberyard.jpg


To zee lumber yaaaaard!!!

Seriously though, how many of these "Nintendo is doomed" thread do we really need?
 
Gamer @ Heart said:
You don't like good games?

I was going to cone in here and say they need to keep making nintendo games. But with people like you, how could that ever work! I must rethink this.
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The games are good but that's all they're really known for now.

Just look at the "Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze" let-down; fans seemed to be hoping for a substantial announcement that would be something other than the same usual fare that Nintendo trot out.
 
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