yeah sure..

@nethlem: I get the feeling that the plan was to sell a bucketload of WiiU's before the next gen was released, so they could comfortably drop the price when MS and Sony launch, without it hurting their bottom line too much.

Only flaw in the plan is the not selling a bucketload of WiiU's bit.

Still, I find it very difficult to believe that the price wont change before MS and Sony drop their new machines. Look at how attractive a Vita was when it was about the same price as the 3DS, and see how much has changed...

or like sega it would be their plunge into irrelevance.

i'd also say ninty is in a far better financial position than sega was during the dreamcast years. they also have the 3DS to bolster them. if some draconian measure were required, i'd say cut losses on wii u and focus on the 3DS/portable for the foreseeable future, but i'm highly doubtful it will come to that.

wasn't there the same kind of talk that they should go full software publisher when the Gamecube was released? i kinda despise this sky is falling talk that's surrounded them so much in the last few years.

Excellent article, these are getting better each week!

....Uhhh... I don't think that's what Alex is saying at all.

I guess that's the point. We'll be finding out in just over a month, I suppose.

Well, Sega went from the Dreamcast selling well initially to Sega throwing in the towel on consoles in well under a year and a half. Nintendo is a bit stronger than Sega was a the time, but it's still not an impossible scenario, especially considering Nintendo's already diminished status.

"as it struggles to find its place in the modern gaming landscape."

3ds outselling ps3 lifetime in japan is struggling? On pace to outsell the DS is struggling?

People get way too down on Nintendo. Lets wait and see how the ps4 and Next Xbox sell. If we are looking at an industry wide slow down in console sales many game writers will be singing a different tune this time next year.

The 3DS and PS3 are apples and oranges comparison where the sales are different because they are in completely different price brackets and markets.

And people already forget how much of a disaster the start of the 3DS was. It still has the 3D feature few care about where only a price slash helped. And the argument still stands that the development costs are still too high and will never attract the growing small producer.

So instead of saying the 3DS is doing much better than the PS3, maybe we should look at both of them as underperforming. You know...struggling.

I think the article is more well-reasoned and unbiased than you're giving him credit for, but hey see what you want I guess.

Also, I will now and forever be referring to Adam Sessler as, "Videogamesman".

the wonderful 101. I could list more than just this one game, but its pointless, that one game will pwn everything else to be seen on the ps4 and kinexbox2. sure I'm worried for nintendo, but I'm also worried for sony too. microsoft can eat a fat dick, but seriously I think all consoles are in the same trouble.

Alex Navarro...I'm converted. Your long(ish)form pieces here are some of the best writing I've read on this site. That's all i got.

Oh and that Ian Bogost quote, damn near poetry I'd say.

@manmadegod said:

This is another thing people also tend to forget, to be honest. We're probably witnessing the start of a modest resizing of the entire games industry similar to what the music industry went through after the 90s. That's not a bad thing, it's actually a really good thing from our perspective, I think, but while the Wii U will never sell Wii levels, I would also be shocked if the Ps4 sells as much as the Ps3, or if the Durango reaches 360 levels of sales as well.

The Wii U's problems are much broader, of course, but as the games industry is getting squeezed from other industries, and smaller outfits outmaneuver the bigger developers and publishers, the video game industry as a whole is probably going to shrink a little bit, and everyone needs to rethink what "success" means. If Nintendo outsells the Gamecube (around 22 million) then I personally think they can come away feeling pretty good about that, in an industry that is going through a lot of rough patches right now. Nintendo may not be raking in the cash anymore, but they're still selling things at a more fiscally responsible position than anyone else.

Big publishers right now need to re-evaluate what "success" means to them because the numbers have gotten too out of control, and we all could probably do with trying the same thing with console sales numbers, because, like the music industry of the 90s, the traditional games industry got way too broad and reached way too many people, and it's obviously only going to shrink from here. But that doesn't mean the "end" of anything.

I think Nintendo need to stop wasting time and effort on Wii U. They need a "Manhatten Project" to make a thoroughly simple and modern system and hav it out by 2014.

CONTROLLERS: By simple, I means bring back the Wii Mote and ditch the Nunchuck. If you need a Wii-mote and Nunchuck, that means a joypad is what should be the players hand. The new system - games either just use the Wii-Mote because they're simple needing one hand input, or they need analog sticks so the joypad is used = simple, easy, and clear. Allows for simple games for grandma and complex games for the gamers in the family. Simple and cheap, understandable and clear to the consumer

SYSTEM: The system should just be a PS4 insides. Copy the chips and parts Sony uses and be done with it. Porting a game onto the Nintendo system should be as simple as taking the PS4 code and tweaking it for a few days for the Nintendo network and controller protocols. No fuss, no special parts, no being different for no other reason than to be different.

GAMES: It has always been about the games. Nintendo makes awesome games, so stop futzing with hardware. That why people buy Nintendo systems - to get the Nintendo games. Why pretend the hardware matters in 2013? If Nintendo makes a system where all game ports arrive on it and there are awesome Nintendo games, they win. No special magic needed, offer what people want and it will sell. In addition, Nintendo needs three or four more studios. They need new IPs and they need more games coming out more often. Nintendo American needs to make games, Nintendo Europe needs to be making games, not just handling the regional copies...MAKING GAMES!!!!

B2B RELATIONSHIPS: Nintendo needs to fix it B2B relationships because without 2nd and 3rd parties everything above is worthless. First, tell all the shovel ware game makers they are not welcome. Second, tell the top 40 games developers world wide that Nintendo will have a whole department meant to make putting their games on the Nintendo system easy. No snaggs, games get on easily, and no restrictions about how, when or why. If EA want to put out Battlefield 5 on the same day as the Mario Galaxy 4 game is coming out that's fine. If Ubisoft wants help trouble shooting a Nintendo network issue a team of coders will be on the problem by phone or flying to France if need be.

I love Nintendo and it's kind of sad that the 3ds might be the last piece of Nintendo hardware I will ever own.

The reason I compared the 3DS to PS3 is because of the "modern gaming landscape" headline. The modern gaming landscape in Japan is shifting toward handheld platforms. I was just confused at how one can say Nitnedo is struggling in that regard.

And is the 3Ds under-performing? Animal Crossing is about to hit the 4 million sales figure and it's not even out in NA yet.

After two years on the market the original DS moved 35 million units. The 3DS has moved 31 million. Remember all that talk about cell phone gaming killing off Nintendo handhelds?

This is an excellent post. How many people bought a 360/PS3 for Netflix and one or two sports games? Are they any different from the "casual" Wii buyers? What reason do they have to upgrade to new hardware? Especially when Netflix and other entertainment apps start coming installed on the TVs themselves.

Guess we'll find out soon enough.

Yes and it is still happening. Last year the entire cell phone business sold 1.75 BILLION units with 264 million in the last quarter of the year and 2012 was an off year. 35 million in two years is laughable but since we are making wild comparisons.....

All Nintendo needs to offer is : the magic.

Wii offered the magic of playing a video game without buttons, and rode strong! Until Kinect came along and delivered even better button-less magic.

The wiiU is essentially just the gamepad. People keep pointing out that idiotic consumers are confused and think the gamepad is for the old Wii... Well, that's not the right story! The story should be that ALL THESE IDIOTS AREN'T BUYING IT for their old Wii! Because a gamepad isn't being touted as more magical than a kinect.

Whatever nintendo's marketing people are doing, they aren't focused on explaining why the gamepad offers magic gameplay you can't get anywhere else.

(before you say "smartglass" note that there isn't a single smartglass game, or announcement of any game, that comes close to the response and integration that the gamepad already delivers in multiple/all titles).

I'd say it doesn't even need to be true. They just need to market the mutherfucker as if it was true. "touch our new game pad : shit your pants!" it adds insult to injury that the gamepad is in fact delivering cool new game play innovations - but they can't figure out how to explain this to the public. fuuuuuck

3DS is an amazing handheld, and I recommend it to everyone. It had a load of great games to play on it too.

But I have no reason to own a Wii U.

@nardak: Remapping of controls? not really? The Wii U's controller is pretty normal, and it isn't that weird of a console if you've played a DS before.

Also, I just feel bad for the Wii U. There are no games for it at the moment and even the non-game side of the system is messed up. I want one pretty bad, but there aren't many good reasons to have one. In the end, I hope they can get their shit together and find a way to get a steady stream of great, exciting games out the door. It's hard not to root for Nintendo, because when they do get it right, they really are in another ballpark from everyone else.

I know I'm in the minority here but between Monster Hunter and Mario U the Wii U has been my most used console this year, and assuming Bayonetta 2 and Wonderful 101 don't get delays it might stay that way.

@warrenebb: A very good point. Nintendo's focus is on controller gimmicks or what they would call disruptive interaction. That decision also leaves their hardware in a previous generation.

What is the motive for a developer to port their game to the Wii U? They would have to take a hatchet to the game code and cripple the software on the difference in ram alone.

Not exactly what entices developers and leaves little to no chance that they will make the Wii U a lead platform porting to the other consoles.

That means if they are going to make games for the Wii U they will most likely be exclusives and Nintendo does not drop money hats for devs to make exclusives.

So the Wii U ends up like the Wii, GC and N64. A Nintendo exclusive console that like the Wii is drastically under powered compared to the competition.

Even for die hard Nintendo fans that is a daunting proposition. How many Zelda games do you get to play in a generation? If your lucky two. How many 3D Mario or Luigi games do you get to play in a generation? If your lucky two. How many Mario Cart, Pikmin or Metroid games do you get to play in a generation? Again two if your lucky.

What then will a Nintendo fan be playing for the majority of the Wii U's existence? Nintendo Land?

@warrenebb said:

I stop reading here.

Monolith's X (working title) for starters. Fire Emblem X Shin Megami Tensei might be cool. Both will probably not be mass-market system sellers, but they will do fine if they are great games.

The assumption that the listed series are the only games worth playing or are available on a Nintendo system is a faulty belief whose propagation is due to actions from all sides: Nintendo for not marketing and assisting their obscure games (Xenoblade, The Last Story, Pandora's Tower) and third party games, third party for knee-capping their Nintendo efforts in one way or another (as good as Dead Space: Extraction may be, no one will take an on-rails shooter seriously), and the audience -- the Nintendo fan and the Nintendo complainers -- for not looking deeper in to a Nintendo system's catalog.

I admit that of the 31 games I own for my Wii, 22 of them have been touched by Nintendo in some way either through development or published by a foreign branch. And some of the truly third-party offerings are of questionable quality (The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces being the most egregious, and Muramasa: The Demon Blad has its issues.). But I had plenty video gaming experiences that I enjoyed and loved that were outside the Nintendo's familiar pillars of Mario and Zelda.

Already on my 3DS, four of the eight 3DS titles I own for it are from third-party developers and publishers, thanks to the Nintendo eShop. Those titles offer experiences that aren't typically found in Nintendo titles. It will take time and a lot of effort on Nintendo's part, but I'm hopeful and optimistic that the Wii U will offer experiences that are fresh and outside of Nintendo's aged staples. It's just that, sadly, the audience will most likely have to dig a little deeper and venture farther from their comfort zone to find them.

From the instance the Wii U was announced, I knew it stood no chance in the marketplace. The Wii U suffers in every single possible way. The graphical limitations heading into a whole new generation of super-powered consoles, the whole strange, niche necessity in the "two screen experience", a lack of games, and even the name is confusing and ultimately dumb.

Nintendo should just stop trying to compete in the console business and rather focus their attention on something that is actually more unique, the 3DS. I hate handheld gaming, and generally always will (especially with phones out), but the 3DS offers something that is truly impressive with legitimately glasses-free 3D and some good games. The Wii U offers nothing special in particular that people want in a game system in 2013. Hell, even in 2004 or so when they pushed the GBA connection cable for some interactivity between Gamecube games, nobody bought into it and liked it — why would they now?

It seems pretty dumb, in all honesty. With things like the Occulus Rift coming, it seems like having no "screen" is how the market of games is going — why push for two devices for a gameplay experience? It just seems like a hassle to deal with that sort of necessity.

I predict in 5 years we'll be seeing Nintendo games exclusively on a handheld-specific platform, or they'll start releasing games on iOS. I just don't see them staying into the console business with how jittery all of this Wii U stuff is.

I think another way Nintendo has been a victim of it's own success is the divide it's caused among gamers. Now people fall into the 'hardcore' or 'casual' crowd, even if you play both. The Wii bridged that gap and drew in more of the 'non-gamers', now called casual crowd.

Now with the terrible marketing, only the 'hardcore' crowd would bother to look up to see what the Wii U is all about and those same 'casual' gamers have no idea what it is or why they should get it. At the same time the 'hardcore' crowd don't know why they should care because there's no AAA titles on it. I feel that's why Nintendo is now playing the nostalgia card because it's the only way they can attract anyone to the console because Mario, Zelda etc. are the only thing which both audiences understand or care about.

@aaronchance:

Yeah, just the idea of switching between buttons and the touchscreen would work a helluva better if you weren't forced to pull out a stylus anytime it called for it.

I think Nintendo is in no different place than the rest of the old guard gaming industry (i.e. console manufactures and large publishers). I see fear and uncertainty throughout the whole industry as everyone's looking for surefire ways to have hits in an environment where there are no more guarantees. Makes me sad as I'm reminded too much of the industry crash that occurred in 1983.

did someone really say the Wii U was "feral design" how can you write something like that and not immediately jump off a cliff

So many people are quick to forget what console launches are actually like. Remember the PS3? Remember not having jack shit to play for almost two years? Remember the PS2? That thing had a terrible lineup of launch games, and it took ages for the system to build up a solid library. Maybe I'm just old, but do you guys even remember the launch of the SNES? That thing released with a whopping four games! It usually takes a year or two for consoles to gain momentum with their selection of games. People are way to gloom and doom about Nintendo and lack a perspective I think that a lot of older folks have. Sega went through multiple failures and some pretty catastrophic management issues before they threw in the towel. Atari only had one successful system (not counting their personal computers), the other FOUR were complete failures.

I'm curious about the quiet confidence Nintendo has lately shown. They don't seem worried about the Wii U, and all this "they're clearly lost in the world of modern gaming" is not something I've seen from them, but from people who want that to be the case.

This company has dealt with worse sales and worse consoles in the past--it's simply too soon to call the Wii U a failure when it hasn't even been out a full year. Poor sales, yes, but they turned the 3DS around pretty quickly and adjusted fire. It makes more sense to wonder what it is they must have in store that is keeping them from actually cutting the price of the Wii U.

A) It's irresponsible to call any console the failure people are saying of the Wii U so early in it's life. Hell, it's too early to say it for the Vita, and it's been out over a year.

B) Patcher is never right. His track record is as bad as Sylvia Browne's. He could switch careers to being a palm reader at Renaissance Festivals and it would be a lateral move for him.

@o0o0jack_burton0o0o: I'm primarily a PC player. So each unique Nintendo game is something valuable - because I can't get it anywhere else. WiiU is the only 'next gen' system I want. (now that E3's dust has settled - the only XBONE/PS4 game that I want, which wasn't ALSO announced for PC - was Quantum Break. And I bet in time Remedy will bring it to PC).

Nintendo's "sequels" are polished and expertly designed. They are in a different class.

I think the hit or miss nature of sequels to most third party games (assasin's creed, mass effect, madden, Gears, call of duty vita, etc.) have trained mainstream gamers to poo poo franchises as cash ins.

but Nintendo designs games differently, by nailing down new worthwhile game mechanics first, then figuring how to work them back into existing franchises (instead of just adding more "story", spectacle, or some mode that nobody likes). I know it's not everyone's bag. but i wish people could stop appreciate the difference.