So the wiiU isn't doing as well as expected (by Nintendo) with only selling 3 million units to December 31. The Wii still sold half a million more.. For games it was even worse with the wii outselling the wiiU 4 to 1..

What do you think the consequences will be?

Personally I think that it will mean less third party support. Which in turn will mean even less games. I am getting a Gamecube 2.0 feeling from this.

I'm not worried or anything. As long as Nintendo keeps making games for it, I will be hunky dory.

will the inventor of WiiU die in a car crash?

I think it will continue doing what Nintendo has always done. Sell a ton of first party games and outside of a few great third party games it's all going to be shovel ware. The Wii was the exception to the rule for Nintendo. A bunch of casuals hopped on board for one ride and now they are off and won't be back. Anyone who thought otherwise is fooling themselves. The Wii was a fad for non gamers that has passed and people have moved on to other things. I'm sure there were some people that ended up staying on, but not massive numbers or the type that buys new systems/games like dedicated gamers do.

Worth noting that they were expecting 5.5 million sales by the end of March which they have now revised downwards along with there software sales expectations.

I think it was unreasonable to expect the launch and early sales of the Wii U to be anything like the Wii. That was just unexpected and unprecedented. The Wii U is more expensive, and the economy isn't what it was back in 2006. Time will be the real telling factor, but I think it'll be fine.

I think it will continue doing what Nintendo has always done. Sell a ton of first party games and outside of a few great third party games it's all going to be shovel ware. The Wii was the exception to the rule for Nintendo. A bunch of casuals hopped on board for one ride and now they are off and won't be back. Anyone who thought otherwise is fooling themselves. The Wii was a fad for non gamers that has passed and people have moved on to other things. I'm sure there were some people that ended up staying on, but not massive numbers or the type that buys new systems/games like dedicated gamers do.

Sales for it haven't been a flaming horrible mess. So, I think it will carve out its own niche. As for third-party support, I could care less. If the limp third-party ports we got at launch are indicative of what they are willing to put forth, who needs them?

The Wii was selling like hotcakes when it first came out. No one (even Nintendo) was expecting it to be a runaway hit. In short, I believe the WIi-U will be just fine. Besides, Nintendo have never been a great supporter of third party titles, no matter how many times they say that they will change.

Give me Pikimin 3 by the summer, then I will buy a Wii-U.

@Nictel said:

@crusader8463

I think it will continue doing what Nintendo has always done. Sell a ton of first party games and outside of a few great third party games it's all going to be shovel ware. The Wii was the exception to the rule for Nintendo. A bunch of casuals hopped on board for one ride and now they are off and won't be back. Anyone who thought otherwise is fooling themselves. The Wii was a fad for non gamers that has passed and people have moved on to other things. I'm sure there were some people that ended up staying on, but not massive numbers or the type that buys new systems/games like dedicated gamers do.

True but with games like Nintendoland and (not so new) Mario Bros games I'm not sure they really have something going.

Have you actually played Nintendo Land? Because that's honestly pretty fun.

The consequences? Absolutely nothing. I think the huge, ginormous success of the Wii gave Nintendo so much wiggle room even Gabe Newell would call it roomy.

@Nictel said:

@crusader8463

I think it will continue doing what Nintendo has always done. Sell a ton of first party games and outside of a few great third party games it's all going to be shovel ware. The Wii was the exception to the rule for Nintendo. A bunch of casuals hopped on board for one ride and now they are off and won't be back. Anyone who thought otherwise is fooling themselves. The Wii was a fad for non gamers that has passed and people have moved on to other things. I'm sure there were some people that ended up staying on, but not massive numbers or the type that buys new systems/games like dedicated gamers do.

True but with games like Nintendoland and (not so new) Mario Bros games I'm not sure they really have something going.

With the exception of the F-Zero game (busted tilt controls), NintendoLand is great. Actually, between Mario U, Zombi U, Tekken Tag 2, I've sunk the most time into NintendoLand, and I still have a lot left to try and do (I'm terrible at Pikmin). Mario U was the best in the NSMB series, too, although I do think it's ironic that they use "New" to describe it when it's mostly a collection of Mario's past.

I still wish that Nintendo would stray from their established IPs, but what they have going on the Wii U so far in terms of software is pretty sound.

@LikeaSsur: That's not how that work when you're a publicly traded company. If you've got money you have to spend it to expand or make acquisition or give it back to your shareholders. You don't get to accumulate it or accumulate enough of it to sustain an unprofitable company for years.

Prognostication: I buy a WiiU when Xeno2 comes out. Iwata continues to milk money out of his cash cow product lines, though not quite as much as he used to do. Nintendo makes up for third party timidity a bit by expanding first and second party volume. I continue to mostly play through my backlog of 200 current-gen games. I finally give into my desire to play a faith and fist only Dark Souls build.

They pulled the pin on a very conceptual system, with a high (for Nintendo) price, and a launch line up so weak the best title to date is a Uibsoft launch game. No shit it's selling slow. Long term I'm not worried. Games move systems and games are forthcoming.

Nintendo made $160M from April to December just because the yen weakened, and they raised their profit forecast for March from 6 billion yen to 14 billion.

They'd love to sell more WiiUs and 3DSes and they didn't sell as many as they thought they would. This will have zero impact on anything.

@Pr1mus: Unprofitable, you say?I still stand by what I said. Nothing will happen, Nintendo is fine.

@LikeaSsur said:

@Pr1mus: Unprofitable, you say?I still stand by what I said. Nothing will happen, Nintendo is fine.

I didn't say they're unprofitable. I said if they were they couldn't just weather it off with the money made with the Wii because they don't have that money. It's gone somewhere in new developments or acquisition or shareholder dividends.

I too think they'll be fine. In a GameCube kind of way. The GameCube didn't loose them money despite being the least successful of the 3.

should miyamoto die?

This seems like a solid launch. Sure it wasn't the instant hit but they still doubled their net income along with these numbers. If the ps4/next Xbox sell more than this I'll be surprised.

When taking into account the cost of peripherals, the Wii-U is actually less expensive than its predecessor. Since all Wii controllers are usable with Wii-U there isn't that initial cost of purchasing a set of controllers in addition to the console itself. Problem is that there is really no effective way of communicating that fact in their marketing.

The Wii had so much going for it when it launched.

• Only $250 in a stable economy.
• Had controls no one had ever seen before. I know I was super excited when it was launching.
• People were happy with the GameCube.
• It fucking launched with a brand new Zelda title.
• It was only $250!

Wii-U on the other hand

• $350 in a bad economy.
• People refuse to be burned by Nintendo systems again. I won't be buying one for several years unless some extremely great game comes out or get extremely impulsive.
• They did not launch with a great First Party exclusive. I don't think there are many people that really care about New Super Mario Bros enough for that to sell a system. A lot of the games released were just ports of older games and I can't imagine someone bought the system purely to play Assassin's Creed III.
• Nothing revolutionary about the system. The controller has a screen... yay? Also, for a next-gen system, it's pretty weak.

@Nictel said:

@crusader8463

I think it will continue doing what Nintendo has always done. Sell a ton of first party games and outside of a few great third party games it's all going to be shovel ware. The Wii was the exception to the rule for Nintendo. A bunch of casuals hopped on board for one ride and now they are off and won't be back. Anyone who thought otherwise is fooling themselves. The Wii was a fad for non gamers that has passed and people have moved on to other things. I'm sure there were some people that ended up staying on, but not massive numbers or the type that buys new systems/games like dedicated gamers do.

True but with games like Nintendoland and (not so new) Mario Bros games I'm not sure they really have something going.

Have you actually played either of those? NSMBU is easily one of the best Mario games in a long time, and Nintendoland is fantastic.

Is it time for dogs to have a social network of their own?

@xMEGADETHxSLY said:

People in Africa are starving

Why don't you post that in an Africa forum then, this is a gaming forum, take your attempt at a "witty" comment somewhere else.

@usgrovers: That is assuming every Wii U sell is a return customer that bought a Wii and Motion Plus remote. I even bought a launch Wii, but never purchased a Motion Plus remote. So, I had to buy a Motion Plus remote when I bought a Wii U. Also, I hear that a second Wii U gamepad is going to be pretty expensive when they are available.

Just too many moving parts to nail all of that down into a marketing message. What Nintendo needs is killer software and lots of it. In a couple months or so they may be struggling against the reality of new, more powerful systems.

It means that Nintendo will keep throwing out Mario N Friends games and Nintendo fans will try as hard as they can to feign interest in the random third party games that come out.

i still need to buy a Wii U for Bayonetta 2, dont want to buy it i ratner buy Durango or Orbis

I think comparing to the wii is not fair and the only issue was that Nintendo thought that this would sell as much as the wii. In a low economy with a more expensive system. How ever I would be interested to compare it to what the sales where for the xbox 360 and ps3 in there launch period.

are they selling the wii u at a loss like they did with the wii or was that the ps3?

@darkvare said:

are they selling the wii u at a loss like they did with the wii or was that the ps3?

All systems are sold at a loss. The Wii was the exception where they were actually making something like $5-$10 profit on each unit. They haven't said or I haven't heard if they are making/losing money on it. I would assume with this system they are actually taking a small loss.

@SathingtonWaltz said:

@Nictel said:

@crusader8463

I think it will continue doing what Nintendo has always done. Sell a ton of first party games and outside of a few great third party games it's all going to be shovel ware. The Wii was the exception to the rule for Nintendo. A bunch of casuals hopped on board for one ride and now they are off and won't be back. Anyone who thought otherwise is fooling themselves. The Wii was a fad for non gamers that has passed and people have moved on to other things. I'm sure there were some people that ended up staying on, but not massive numbers or the type that buys new systems/games like dedicated gamers do.

True but with games like Nintendoland and (not so new) Mario Bros games I'm not sure they really have something going.

Have you actually played either of those? NSMBU is easily one of the best Mario games in a long time, and Nintendoland is fantastic.

No but I do have a good reason for that: I didn't like NSMB for the Wii. Neither did I like Mario Kart Wii, Twilight Princess, Skysword (Still unfinished), Metroid.. Frankly I was dissapointed with most of the Wii line up. Only game I truly enjoyed was Super Mario Galaxy. I'm just not looking forward to anything Nintendo any more. Maybe my tastes have changed.

@TyCobb said:

@darkvare said:

are they selling the wii u at a loss like they did with the wii or was that the ps3?

All systems are sold at a loss. The Wii was the exception where they were actually making something like $5-$10 profit on each unit. They haven't said or I haven't heard if they are making/losing money on it. I would assume with this system they are actually taking a small loss.

They sell at a loss. "owing to the fact that the Wii U hardware sales have a negative impact on Nintendo's profits, the operating loss was ¥5.8 billion." from Nintendo.

Is that worldwide sales?

@Colourful_Hippie: Yes worldwide

@Nictel said:

@Colourful_Hippie: Yes worldwide

Well that's depressing, but the comparisons to the Wii sales aren't really that justified. No way Nintendo was going to have lightning strike twice.

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@Nictel said:

@Colourful_Hippie: Yes worldwide

Well that's depressing, but the comparisons to the Wii sales aren't really that justified. No way Nintendo was going to have lightning strike twice.

No but Nintendo expected it to do better than the wii in a bad market.. They obviously were expecting a lot. I personally find that a lack of insight.

I think it’s too early to judge the Wii U’s success. None of the games are system sellers in the traditional sense, and it’s only been out for a few months. If holiday 2013 comes and goes and things aren’t looking better, there’s more cause for concern. The DS wasn’t looking great for its first year, and look how it turned out.

I’m also not clear on how it’s doing (and what its prospects look like) in Japan. When I think about the games I’d want to play on Wii U, they’re mostly Japanese, so in some respects its chances there are more relevant to me.

@TyCobb said:

• People were happy with the GameCube.

I was happy when I bought it and got Wave Race with it. Same as when Mario, Zelda and that other Zelda (8.8) came out.. and a few other games that stood out on the system.

But overall.. I don´t think anybody was happy with that thing. Maybe not as disappointed as with the Wii in the long run, but definitely not happy. Too much wasted potential. I honestly think the last Nintendo console everybody loved was the Super Nintendo.

Nintendo´s hot streak of making people sort of regret the decision to buy a system is going to bite them in the ass.

They doin aight, just not great. Come E3 though I doubt people will even remember NIntendo exists.

@Mirado said:

Nintendo made $160M from April to December just because the yen weakened, and they raised their profit forecast for March from 6 billion yen to 14 billion.

They'd love to sell more WiiUs and 3DSes and they didn't sell as many as they thought they would. This will have zero impact on anything.

How can it have "zero impact on anything" if the sales are below expectation? Obviously sale forecasts had to be revised and that effects profits as well.

@Zlimness:

Due to the "negative impact" of Wii U sales, Nintendo revised its full-year financial forecast, lowering the annual net sales figure from 810 billion yen to 670 billion yen, a decrease of 17.3 percent. However it has more than doubled its net income from 6 billion yen to 14 billion yen and its net income per share forecast has jumped from 46.9 million yen per share to 109.5 million yen per share.

There are more factors at play here than just selling systems. Also, by "zero impact on anything", I'll clarify to "zero impact on anything to the average consumer". No third party is going to jump ship over this. It's far too early to say how well the WiiU will do; the will sold 3.19m units in the same period vs the WiiU's 3.06m. Nintendo just overestimated; the WiiU isn't really performing any worse than its predecessor which, as we all know, went onto be a massive success.

...by "zero impact on anything", I'll clarify to "zero impact on anything to the average consumer". No third party is going to jump ship over this.

@Superfriend said:

Nintendo's hot streak of making people sort of regret the decision to buy a system is going to bite them in the ass.

That really sums it up!

@Mirado: How a company is doing will trickle down on it's customers eventually. It's too early to say anything about the state of Nintendo however. I don't think anyone doubted Nintendo would double the net income though. It only means they did better this year than last, which is not saying much considering they only had expenditures on the Wii U and no income.

I really hope Nintendo won't screw this up.

I think the sheer lack of any must-have games is also a reason why the console isn't selling. If there was a new Zelda or Mario 64-ish game that would be a system seller.

@rebgav said:

@Bell_End said:

will the inventor of WiiU die in a car crash?

That is pretty rough. I'm not sure if I'm entertained or slightly sickened. Good job! Or fuck you.

"Good job! Or fuck you." is how I'm going to respond to everything, always from now on.

As soon as they make something I'm interested in, they'll sell one more Wii U.

Mario #542 and Zelda #113 or ShovelWareTitle #18964 won't do it for me, however.

I bought a Wii early on. The last time I played it was the week Boom Blox came out. I think that was almost five years ago. I packed it up when I bought my new house, remodeled it, and moved into it. I don't think I ever unpacked it. If i did, I don't know where it went. Or it might still be in the box I packed it in. Or it might have been lost. Or someone might have stolen it. I honestly don't know, because in the three years since I packed it for the move, I have not felt compelled even once to go in search of it. As a result, I'm not feeling a particular hurry to buy a Wii U that will probably (based on prior experience) also sit in a box somewhere for most of a decade.

Iwata will turn it around. During its first year, people where calling the DS a failure and look how that turned out. The WiiU has been out for 2 months! Just give it some time. Sure the state of the global economy doesn't help but I have faith in Nintendo. It's quite probable that the WiiU won't be as successful as the Wii, and Nintendo is well aware of that, however, in the long run it will be a success and it may very well have longer legs than the Wii.

Right now people are taking hits at Nintendo because of the the post-launch drought and the apparent lack of third party support. Hopefully the third party support situation improves but there are some good games on the horizon. Particularly Rayman Legends and Monster Hunter Ultimate. Lego City Undercover looks interesting but who knows how good a game it will be. These are by no means AAA, chart blazing titles nonetheless they are interesting exclusives which should be able to give people something to play until the summer when Pikmin and The Wonderful 101 come out. The next 1st party release will probably be either WiiFit U or Game & Wario which are both interesting. It will be interesting to see the reaction of casuals towards WiiFit U, but Game & Wario could be a genuinely great game.

I remember that the Wii had a similar post-launch drought of releases, albeit a much shorter one, and that it wasn't until Wario Ware: Smooth Moves that the Wii started to gain more traction with gamers (Jeff really liked it and gave it a 9.1 back in the Gamespot days ). It was the game that showed the potential of the Wii Remote. Maybe Game & Wario will be the game that shows off the possibilities of the Game Pad. Game & Wario looks cooler and cooler with every new showing so who knows? Maybe it will be awesome!

The thing is: Never write Nintendo off. They may be behind in many aspects with respect to Sony and MIcrosoft, but if there is one thing that Nintendo knows how to do well is game design. They will find that one game that makes good on the potential of the Wii U and people will buy a Wii U for it. The only question is when.