I disagree. Nintendo had a number of AAA multiplatform games on the Wii U at launch, didn't do anything for them. In fact I'd say the more multi platform games they get, the easier Nintendo becomes to ignore despite the "THIS NEW GAME EVERYONE'S LOOKING FORWARD TO NOT COMING TO WII U" news stories that are such amazing click bait for enthusiast press sites. Those do nothing as a platform differentiator for Nintendo, and, they don't sell. You can point to Injustice, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Deus Ex, Splinter Cell Blacklist...yeah. There's the argument "but then third parties might bring exclusives to their platform." Third parties even when trying (UbiSoft) with good exclusives (ZombiU, LEGO City Undercover) cannot crack it. You can blame it on no unified online service or what have you, but would that really change things? No.
I agree that these games sold badly. However, there was really no reason to purchase these titles on the Wii U because (correct me if I’m wrong) those versions didn’t really offer anything different/extra than what is offered on current gen consoles. And I understand that this is the same case for a lot of titles on XBO/PS4, but at least in that case you have a very noticeable increase in visual fidelity.
I think an even larger reason for the bad performance is that Nintendo does not currently support the ‘AAA’ audience with their own software. They need to cultivate an audience for these titles by developing their own ‘Western’ type titles. Whether that is through putting some of their current teams on these projects, by collaborations with Western devs, or by new acquisitions, I think that creating their own flagship titles in these areas would help them greatly. You can look at that and say that they would be easier to ignore because they are similar; I think that they would be harder to ignore because they would be offering most everything the other platform holders are offering, and then some. I’m not sure that the company in its current state would be able to do any of this, but that’s on Iwata and other leaders for failing to invest.
"If Nintendo just built a powerful console" - if you look back on the history of console gaming, it's mostly not the case that the one with the more powerful system specs wins. If they had built a more powerful console it would've been more expensive to produce. And, it's not guaranteed that would have gained them any more sales success than they have now. Instead, Nintendo went for a very expensive controller - but with reason. It more clearly differentiated them from their competition. That's Nintendo's whole thing - they don't do what their competition does. It's not a matter of "well that's Iwata's doing" - no, that was also Yamauchi's style.
Look at the sales. Just because they thought it was the right decision doesn’t mean that it was the right decision. They chose to put their money into that controller, and where has it gotten them thus far? Currently, and I hate to say it, but the console is pretty much irrelevant.
It’s certainly true that the most powerful console does not always win. However, the Wii U is not even near the same ballpark as XBO/PS4. This makes it much harder for the console to receive ports of other next-gen titles. And yeah, the Wii did extremely well, but that’s because the hook caught on. I used to argue against the ‘Wii was a fad’ stuff, but damn it died off quick. Although that was probably partly on Nintendo for completely ignoring the thing for its last few years.
And yeah, doing things differently is sort of Nintendo’s mantra. That doesn’t mean that it’s not an often ineffective and shortsighted mantra.
The Eurogamer piece didn't offer crazily unexpected details - yeah, in the run-up to a hardware launch things are unfinished. Netcode is not complete. Tools are early or broken. This is not unlike the news/rumors that were coming out about the Xbox One. Nintendo doesn't know how online works - well, it's not the priority for them. It never has been on any of their systems. It's only a priority when it's to drive a game feature they believe in (Miiverse, Pokemon Bank, StreetPass/SpotPass).
I have definitely taken less from that article over the last few days. However, in regards to online not being a priority, it’s okay to criticize them for this! They are missing out on a huge portion of the market by failing to move forward in a lot of ways. There are so many people that just focus on online multiplayer. Hell, you know with the growth in mobile devices that the market can completely change at the drop of a hat. Not investing in future tech just isn’t worth it in the long run. Companies can get left behind. And personally, most of those online services you listed aren’t very useful to me. I understand if you enjoy them, though.
It still gets away from the most important part of any of these systems - the games. I'm hoping Nintendo's still up for giving us some memorable games on Wii U. Though the GameCube was a failure it had some of my favorite games of that gen.
Hey, me too. GC is one of my favorite consoles of all time. Although along with my Nintendo games on there I was still able to get EA sports titles as well as others. I was also to get a bit more variety than current Nintendo’s strategy of harping on the same franchises over and over. As with the Wii example, I used to really argue against people who said that Nintendo just focused on rehashes etc. But man, their software releases lately have just screamed safe. Back on topic, I just hope that they have better hardware in the future. It can’t hurt! I think the 3DS has a great library but I can’t get over how much better designed the UI/ergonomics are on other mobile devices now.
And this is another tangent but with how accessible/usable current phones and tablets are, and with how often they are used by kids, I wonder if that sector will find Nintendo’s current ‘Fisher Price’ type designs unappealing over time. I recently asked my 7 year old niece if she played her DS anymore; she gave me a reaction that looked like ‘that thing?’ before showing me her new Android device.
(as an aside, sometimes online discussion bothers me because we often get very caught up in minute details; things that would be hashed out immediately in face-to-face conversation often become pivot points for debate)
EDIT: damn I typed a lot. Only because man, I want Nintendo to do well.
I can only hope someone throws Phil a shovel next week so we can go deeper and forget this troubling turn of events ever happened
).