The Secret Developers: Wii U - the inside story

[Lil Frier]

You make a lot of valid points, although I think that the Wii was just a lucky hail mary that was caught, so 100M sales of the Wii U was never going to happen, even if it was a great console.

There is a lot of thought about Nintendo licensing its first party stuff to other consoles, but that didn't end up working for Sega. Nintendo could tuck tail and stick with the handheld market, but that seems to me it could be an even more competitive landscape in the future. Just because most mobile games suck now it doesn't mean they always will.

I agree with any sentiment that if Nintendo is content to stay as third place they will end up with no place. Apathy in a highly competitive market is a recipe for disaster.

In fairness, SEGA didn't (and doesn't) have the same depth of quality games to pull from that Nintendo has. You can probably find 5 franchises (Mario, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Zelda) bigger than the biggest SEGA has to offer (Sonic), and it didn't help that SEGA's first real go at third-party Sonic (that 3-D Sonic the Hedgehog that introduced Silver) was a PoS.

Nintendo thrives on its ability to rehash content and have folks eat it up. Its games play better, its mascots are bigger, and its overall library of games/characters is deeper than SEGA's.

 

[Lil Frier]

Do you guys think they may bring back the olden style 4 year console generation for this? It may piss a few million fans off, who probably expected 6-7 years, but if it continues to post below-Gamecube numbers...I dunno.


First things first though, they need marketshare to make developers deal with it, $199 Nintendo, $199. Sure, people make the argument that price cuts didn't save the gamecube, but it sure would have been worse off without them.

I don't think a shorter life cycle is going to fix anything--at least, not on its own. Unless they plan to have the successor ALSO live just 4 years, they'll have to produce something significantly stronger than the PS4 and Xbox One. They can't have a refresh in 4 years, put it on-par with the competition, then expect it to last 8-10 years (meaning 4-6 years past the likely Xbox One and PS4 successors).

But even then, they have to figure out the online. They need to figure it out on the Wii U, too. I just don't think it's smart of Nintendo to launch a console in this day and age, while bragging that they're ADDING online gameplay. They need to get it started within the next 2 years.

But their hope would probably lie in a pair of shot console cycles. Make 2016 or the launch year of something on-par with the Xbox One and PS4, then make 2020 the launch of something with the Xbox Two and PS5.

As for that Wii U2 (and there had better be a U2 version of it), they'll have to cover these things:

1. Get on-par with the 3-year-old (at a 2016 launch) competition, from a hardware perspective.
2. Get an online market and gaming platform up and running on the Wii U, because a fledgling service in 2016 can't be a good thing.
3. Evolve beyond the Wii sensor bar for motion gaming.
4. Launch at $300 (reasonable price-adjusted cost for 2013 hardware in 2016)
5. Support third-party developers (and let them support you)

Nintendo's just acting like such an isolationist right now, and they're REALLY far away from competing. They need to give up this 8th console generation, and have their very own 8.5 generation, which will be used to get reasonably close to the competition, in terms of power and services.

 

[hans030390]

Cause every game uses kinect and there is no controller right?

I think you entirely missed the point of what I was saying. I was not comparing functionality of the Gamepad and Kinect but rather the fact that those two items definitely tack on an additional cost to their respective consoles vs. taking an approach like Sony did. The Gamepad is certainly more integral to the Wii U "experience" than the Kinect is to the XBO, but they're both bundled with the consoles for a reason.

I think it would have been difficult for Nintendo to make the Wii U as powerful and easy to develop for as the PS4 or XBO at, say, $400 with the Gamepad (not just hardware specs, also including a better network infrastructure and software), but $500 is probably feasible. Once I had that thought, I realized that sounded like a more attractive option to me than what the XBO offers at $500. And people are certainly not shy of buying the XBO at $500.

Hopefully that clears things up.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think you entirely missed the point of what I was saying. I was not comparing functionality of the Gamepad and Kinect but rather the fact that those two items definitely tack on an additional cost to their respective consoles vs. taking an approach like Sony did. The Gamepad is certainly more integral to the Wii U "experience" than the Kinect is to the XBO, but they're both bundled with the consoles for a reason.

I think it would have been difficult for Nintendo to make the Wii U as powerful and easy to develop for as the PS4 or XBO at, say, $400 with the Gamepad (not just hardware specs, also including a better network infrastructure and software), but $500 is probably feasible. Once I had that thought, I realized that sounded like a more attractive option to me than what the XBO offers at $500. And people are certainly not shy of buying the XBO at $500.

Hopefully that clears things up.

Yeah but when they moved to HD and then publicly stated that they were not familiar with creating HD games...that is a big problem as well. It isn't all the hardware, it is making it work. I dont find mirroring the tv screen on the gamepad all that impressive when you have to be relatively close to the console for it to work.

 

[dagamer34]

I don't think a shorter life cycle is going to fix anything--at least, not on its own. Unless they plan to have the successor ALSO live just 4 years, they'll have to produce something significantly stronger than the PS4 and Xbox One. They can't have a refresh in 4 years, put it on-par with the competition, then expect it to last 8-10 years (meaning 4-6 years past the likely Xbox One and PS4 successors).

But even then, they have to figure out the online. They need to figure it out on the Wii U, too. I just don't think it's smart of Nintendo to launch a console in this day and age, while bragging that they're ADDING online gameplay. They need to get it started within the next 2 years.

But their hope would probably lie in a pair of shot console cycles. Make 2016 or the launch year of something on-par with the Xbox One and PS4, then make 2020 the launch of something with the Xbox Two and PS5.

As for that Wii U2 (and there had better be a U2 version of it), they'll have to cover these things:

1. Get on-par with the 3-year-old (at a 2016 launch) competition, from a hardware perspective.
2. Get an online market and gaming platform up and running on the Wii U, because a fledgling service in 2016 can't be a good thing.
3. Evolve beyond the Wii sensor bar for motion gaming.
4. Launch at $300 (reasonable price-adjusted cost for 2013 hardware in 2016)
5. Support third-party developers (and let them support you)

Nintendo's just acting like such an isolationist right now, and they're REALLY far away from competing. They need to give up this 8th console generation, and have their very own 8.5 generation, which will be used to get reasonably close to the competition, in terms of power and services.

It's even worse than that. It's clear that online is the future, Microsoft's investment in its server infrastructure and Sony pumping more money into that is proof enough. There is no way Nintendo ever catches up to that. You don't learn to run a marathon if you can barely walk.

 

[Doppel]

But if a Wii U 2 came out in 2016 that's a 4 year life cycle, which they have never done: http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_systems If a life cycle is too short owners will feel like they have a dud and will be left in the dark (rightfully).

Best-case they have a console in 2017, which means they need to grind through another four years.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Wiiu sales projections dropped to 2.3mil down from 9mil. Expecting a net loss rather than profit.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01...u-sales-forecast-from-9-million-to-28-million

 

[Imouto]

Wiiu sales projections dropped to 2.3mil down from 9mil. Expecting a net loss rather than profit.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01...u-sales-forecast-from-9-million-to-28-million

The expected net loss is $240 million. Last year net income was $68 million.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=753029

 

[mmntech]

But if a Wii U 2 came out in 2016 that's a 4 year life cycle, which they have never done: http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_systems If a life cycle is too short owners will feel like they have a dud and will be left in the dark (rightfully).

Which is exactly what happened to Sega with the Saturn.

The Wii U's sales aren't really that weak in the grand scheme of things. It sold just under 4 million units during its first year. That's actually better than what the GameCube did on average.

The problem is investors expected them to repeat the Wii's runaway success. I would argue that the Wii's phenomenal sales were a bit of a fluke. It came right place at the right time. Back when both its competitors were very expensive, and neither was offering the unique control scheme.

Nintendo might be better going private so they don't have to deal with the investor pressures. It would give them more creative wiggle room to find themselves.

Of course then there's the PS3, which struggled a great deal during its first two years of life. It didn't really get going until into 2008 after a few big flops. Nintendo really needs to follow Sony's lead in diversifying their studios and generating some new IPs. I just don't think Mario and Zelda sell consoles like they used to.

 

[blastingcap]

http://business.time.com/2014/01/17/nintendo-chief-we-failed/

 

[zerocool84]

Which is exactly what happened to Sega with the Saturn.

The Wii U's sales aren't really that weak in the grand scheme of things. It sold just under 4 million units during its first year. That's actually better than what the GameCube did on average.

The problem is investors expected them to repeat the Wii's runaway success. I would argue that the Wii's phenomenal sales were a bit of a fluke. It came right place at the right time. Back when both its competitors were very expensive, and neither was offering the unique control scheme.

Nintendo might be better going private so they don't have to deal with the investor pressures. It would give them more creative wiggle room to find themselves.

Of course then there's the PS3, which struggled a great deal during its first two years of life. It didn't really get going until into 2008 after a few big flops. Nintendo really needs to follow Sony's lead in diversifying their studios and generating some new IPs. I just don't think Mario and Zelda sell consoles like they used to.

When your competition outsells you in a matter of weeks when you've been out for over a year, you have a little problem.

For Sony, the PS3 was insanely over priced compared to its competition, a huge reason why it initially didn't sell well, the WiiU isn't.

 

[Lil Frier]

Which is exactly what happened to Sega with the Saturn.

The Wii U's sales aren't really that weak in the grand scheme of things. It sold just under 4 million units during its first year. That's actually better than what the GameCube did on average.

The problem is investors expected them to repeat the Wii's runaway success. I would argue that the Wii's phenomenal sales were a bit of a fluke. It came right place at the right time. Back when both its competitors were very expensive, and neither was offering the unique control scheme.

Nintendo might be better going private so they don't have to deal with the investor pressures. It would give them more creative wiggle room to find themselves.

Of course then there's the PS3, which struggled a great deal during its first two years of life. It didn't really get going until into 2008 after a few big flops. Nintendo really needs to follow Sony's lead in diversifying their studios and generating some new IPs. I just don't think Mario and Zelda sell consoles like they used to.

I think that there's some truth here, that you can't just stick "MARIO" on a box and get hardware moving. But still, I think that the technical limitations of Nintendo consoles is the real drag here. Mario and Zelda could sell the Nintendo consoles if the quantity of solid titles (EA, Bethesda, Take-Two, etc.) wasn't so lacking. Add in that those big-hitting games from Nintendo lack the most-basic of social features, and you have a recipe for disaster.

The GameCube sales comparisons, those aren't the best comparison. The GameCube was BARELY beaten by the infant Xbox. Now, the Xbox One has almost caught the Wii U, despite the fact that the latter launched a full year earlier. The PS4 seems to have already surpassed the Wii U, and that happened after about 6 weeks.

The thought that Nintendo could go from almost 40% of sales last generation to 10-15% of sales this generation is pretty damning. The GameCube was bad, but the Wii U is MUCH worse, when you consider the context. The GameCube-to-PS2 ratio will probably be worse than the Wii U-to-PS4 ratio, but Nintendo was in a similar hardware situation to the GameCube with the Nintendo 64 (outsold several times over by Sony), but the Wii actually outsold the PS3 last generation. The relative gap, when considering previous generations, will likely look MUCH worse for the Wii U.

Nintendo's lucky, though. There's a chance the Wii U could sink the company on its own. However, the highly-successful DS market will keep Nintendo going as long as they want it to, really. Well, until the competition gets good mobile experiences going, since they're likely to be extensions of the home consoles (like the Vita's Remote Play). Nintendo needs to figure out SOMETHING to give it some longevity, because it's hard to see this company existing in 10 years, if it doesn't get MUCH better on the hardware and networking side of home consoles.

 

[Doppel]

http://business.time.com/2014/01/17/nintendo-chief-we-failed/

Wow, now if that isn't a misleading quote at the start of that article. Nintendo chief: "We failed". His actual quote "We failed to reach our target."

 

[drbrock]

Nintendo really does need to work on its social experience. There are parts of SMW3d that are cool with the online features but it is stupid that there are not lobbies for people to jump into to get a full multiplayer experience on levels.

Marketing is horrible for it. Plenty of marketing for the games but nothing for the actual console. Should have been Super Wii to make it a call back to the SNES. Parents of today have grown up with that name system and would recognize it as the next step.

 

[jdelrio22]

I know that a lot of people here are harping on the online support. Which for a lot of 3rd party games is a big deal and should be developed.

But look at the current games that are out for the big N, does Wii party U, SMW3D, SMBU, or nintendoland really need online multiplayer??

I own an XOne as well as a Wii U and all of my games so far are at most 2 player games on XOne. When I have friends over we fire up the Wii U and I think that is what all of us older online gamers are missing the point on. It's a machine still focusing on local play. If I had kids for example (2 or 3), they could play the Wii U no problem with such an abundance of games.

I think as investors we all would like to see Nintendo # 1 but the market they are still targeting is a home multiplayer market. And in that sense yes they are still stuck in perhaps a pre-2008 market where online gaming is just starting to really take off.

This home multiplayer strategy can work but it will not get them to # 1 and with the strength of their handheld sales it makes no sense to sit there thinking that they should go the SEGA route and sell their games on other platforms.

That idea is just wishful thinking. If your Wii U is collecting dust, it's because you aren't getting your friends or partner playing with you. My WiiU gets a lot of use about 2 days of the week for about 4-5 hours each session and the amount of fun we have had I think is much higher than what could be measured with me sitting alone playing Dead Rising 3 or Forza online.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I know that a lot of people here are harping on the online support. Which for a lot of 3rd party games is a big deal and should be developed.

But look at the current games that are out for the big N, does Wii party U, SMW3D, SMBU, or nintendoland really need online multiplayer??

I own an XOne as well as a Wii U and all of my games so far are at most 2 player games on XOne. When I have friends over we fire up the Wii U and I think that is what all of us older online gamers are missing the point on. It's a machine still focusing on local play. If I had kids for example (2 or 3), they could play the Wii U no problem with such an abundance of games.

I think as investors we all would like to see Nintendo # 1 but the market they are still targeting is a home multiplayer market. And in that sense yes they are still stuck in perhaps a pre-2008 market where online gaming is just starting to really take off.

This home multiplayer strategy can work but it will not get them to # 1 and with the strength of their handheld sales it makes no sense to sit there thinking that they should go the SEGA route and sell their games on other platforms.

That idea is just wishful thinking. If your Wii U is collecting dust, it's because you aren't getting your friends or partner playing with you. My WiiU gets a lot of use about 2 days of the week for about 4-5 hours each session and the amount of fun we have had I think is much higher than what could be measured with me sitting alone playing Dead Rising 3 or Forza online.

The WiiU I had collected dust because the games were boring. That's all there was to it.

 

[Lil Frier]

I know that a lot of people here are harping on the online support. Which for a lot of 3rd party games is a big deal and should be developed.

But look at the current games that are out for the big N, does Wii party U, SMW3D, SMBU, or nintendoland really need online multiplayer??

I own an XOne as well as a Wii U and all of my games so far are at most 2 player games on XOne. When I have friends over we fire up the Wii U and I think that is what all of us older online gamers are missing the point on. It's a machine still focusing on local play. If I had kids for example (2 or 3), they could play the Wii U no problem with such an abundance of games.

I think as investors we all would like to see Nintendo # 1 but the market they are still targeting is a home multiplayer market. And in that sense yes they are still stuck in perhaps a pre-2008 market where online gaming is just starting to really take off.

This home multiplayer strategy can work but it will not get them to # 1 and with the strength of their handheld sales it makes no sense to sit there thinking that they should go the SEGA route and sell their games on other platforms.

That idea is just wishful thinking. If your Wii U is collecting dust, it's because you aren't getting your friends or partner playing with you. My WiiU gets a lot of use about 2 days of the week for about 4-5 hours each session and the amount of fun we have had I think is much higher than what could be measured with me sitting alone playing Dead Rising 3 or Forza online.

We don't all fit into that box. I don't really live with someone (mom and cousin) who I would get a Wii U to play with. If I got a Wii U, it would be to play with my little brothers (live with my dad) and my sister (lives with her husband).

Nintendo games ABSOLUTELY could benefit from online multiplayer. Take a game like PokeMMO for an example--if Nintendo made it, it'd be a big hit for their online play. It's Pokemon, but it plays on servers online, and you can trade and battle with people around the world. I played that with my sister and her husband quite a lot, for a couple of months or so.

As for Nintendo's ACTUAL games, it would still be a big addition. The only time I played the Wii was at my sister's. We'd play either Mario Party or New Super Mario Bros. It would be 3-player co-op with her and her husband. If they had a working online system, I would have considered buying a Wii and some games to play with them. Instead, we borrowed the Wii from my grandma and the New Super Mario Bros. from a friend of my brother-in-law for a few months, and we played it every couple of weeks or so. Nintendo has a LOT of games that would benefit from online. Just because they're more about co-op, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be played online.

For Halo 4, the first way I beat that was local co-op, but I also played a lot of the missions in online co-op with a friend or relative or something. Borderlands 2 is a perfect example of a non-competitive game that benefits from online co-op, to take a look at something outside of the Nintendo realm.

I mean, as much as I'd like Nintendo to get hardware capable of the big games from third-party developers, the #1 reason I won't get a Nintendo console is the lack of online. They can't do ANYTHING to convince me to buy their stuff without online play, but I can overlook third-party games (as I can play them on my Xbox or PC).

 

[zerocool84]

I know that a lot of people here are harping on the online support. Which for a lot of 3rd party games is a big deal and should be developed.

But look at the current games that are out for the big N, does Wii party U, SMW3D, SMBU, or nintendoland really need online multiplayer??

I own an XOne as well as a Wii U and all of my games so far are at most 2 player games on XOne. When I have friends over we fire up the Wii U and I think that is what all of us older online gamers are missing the point on. It's a machine still focusing on local play. If I had kids for example (2 or 3), they could play the Wii U no problem with such an abundance of games.

I think as investors we all would like to see Nintendo # 1 but the market they are still targeting is a home multiplayer market. And in that sense yes they are still stuck in perhaps a pre-2008 market where online gaming is just starting to really take off.

This home multiplayer strategy can work but it will not get them to # 1 and with the strength of their handheld sales it makes no sense to sit there thinking that they should go the SEGA route and sell their games on other platforms.

That idea is just wishful thinking. If your Wii U is collecting dust, it's because you aren't getting your friends or partner playing with you. My WiiU gets a lot of use about 2 days of the week for about 4-5 hours each session and the amount of fun we have had I think is much higher than what could be measured with me sitting alone playing Dead Rising 3 or Forza online.

Of course online matters. It's very important if you want people to choose your console over another. The lack of any decent unification or easy way to connect with friends only hurts it. It shows when multiplatform games either are missing the online portion on the WiiU or skip the console all together. There is no reason for someone to pick up the WiiU version of a game when it's better on other platforms. Nintendo shouldn't be content with being the second or third choice, they need to do everything they can to be number one.