I think the bigger question is where will Sony be in 5 years?

They seem very directionless of late and at least Nintendo has a plan. I have a lot less confidence in Sony's current direction, and unlike Nintendo they don't need Video games.

If Sony's next playstation flops and they have to exit the business (entirely possible I fear), I could see Japanese developers flock back to Nintendo.

But if that doesn't happen, I dunno where Nintendo is.

Doing what they do best...handhelds.

I think Wii U is going to be an extremely short life cycle console, I'll bet we see a new console from Nintendo within 4 years. Other than the Wii, Nintendo usually was 5 years between new console releases so 4 years isn't a big leap, especially for a console that is a half step in most people's eyes.

How can you predict that? How do you know what prediction is believable? When the Game Cube came out, if someone made a thread like this and then someone said that within half a decade they would have the most popular and innovative home-console in the market, achieving an unprecedented worldwide success for a home-console, and attaining a market share that left competition in the dust, wouldn't that person be called crazy?

Wii Sports made an appearance at the Oscars one time. Jon Stewart was hosting, and he played that game with a kid (or at least made it seem like it). Who could've predicted that?

Nintendo's not going anywhere within the next 5 years. The Wii U isn't going to be nearly as successful as the Wii, no doubt about that, but it's another relatively cheaply produced console that will do well with enough people to keep them in the race. The 3DS got off to a rough start, but is doing fine now. Nintendo's handheld brand alone is enough to keep them going for quite a while. Tablets and smartphones aren't going to have the newest Pokemon.

That said, they definitely have to make some adjustments before too long, or all the doomsday predictions might start coming true. But making adjustments is something Nintendo isn't shy about doing. They'll be OK, I'm sure, although they won't dominate this time around

Japan.

So long as Nintendo has Pokemon it will be a long time before they die.

Even if they put out a console (or consoles) that completely fail(s) and nearly destroys them (like say SEGA's Dreamcast & Saturn) they would simply take the same path as SEGA and put all their resources into game development and pump out a ton of their big IP games and laugh all the way to the bank. Although even if they do put out god awful systems I can't see people not buying them anyway. I mean the Wii is a piece of crap (performance wise) compared to the other same gen consoles, Yet it still beat both of them in sales by a pretty large margin.

Nintendo has a cult following that is not going away anytime soon

5 years is a lot of time to make any predictions... 5 years ago Nintendo was the most successful game company in the world, the iPhone was only a fad and Sony was, by far, the least successful game company; 5 years before that Sony was the most successful game company in the world, Nintendo the least successful, Apple was just starting to get in the music distribution business and Microsoft in the hardware business. Predictions are a dangerous thing... people could not predict the success of the Wii 3 months before release.

My point is that a lot can happen in 5 years. 5 years from now Valve could be ruling supreme the gaming world with its steambox, Sony could have defeated Apple and Nintendo in the portable gaming devices market and Windows 9 could be the most used OS in mobile phones.

Okay, let's clear up some claims about the Wii U "draught" RAIT NAUGH. Here's a list of EXCLUSIVE games available by E3:

• Nintendo Land: Out at launch. Super fun.
• NSMB U: Out at launch. Totally fine.
• Zombi U: Out at launch. Actually really interesting.
• Rayman Legends: Out in, like, a month. The demo is fantastic.
• Lego City Undercover: Out in March. Too far out to say, but people are excited.
• Game & Wario: Confirmed "in the first six months of the year." A game people are excited about; honestly, it seems lacking to me, but people are people.
• Pikmin 3: Confirmed "in the first six months of the year." Will at least be totally fine, have played it with Wii Remote controls.
• The Wonderful 101: Confirmed "in the first six months of the year." If it turns out, this game's gonna be incredible.
• Wii Fit U: Confirmed "in the first six months of the year." May actually sell a whole bunch of Wii Us.

As far as I'm concerned, that's more games than I'm willing to buy. And while, to me, the highlights look like Rayman, Pikmin, and 101, to someone else, it might be Lego, Wario, and Wii Fit U. So there's gonna be plenty out before they actually need to announce stuff at E3. They do desperately need to do that, though.

We can't know anything about Nintendo's chances until we see Orbis and Durango. This conversation is at least six months early, and is probably nine months early, at that.

6 Months Later...

It's been really interesting to come back to this thread. With the WiiU selling just 160,000 world-wide in Q1, the optimism from many people here was clearly misplaced.

I think Nintendo dropping out of console market is a stronger possibility than ever. When that will happen? Who knows.

Man, what a weird thread to read through 6 months later.

The Wii U is by all accounts dead in the water, and I don't think the next Pikmin or Zelda remake or Mario Kart are going to save it. From what I've read, though, the 3DS is still doing quite well for them.

In a year or two they aren't going to be getting any third party games for the Wii U anymore (as if they even are now, lol) and they're going to be back in exactly the same boat as the Wii, except that this time they can't ride the casual wave anymore because the marketing for this thing ranged from awful to nonexistent. I could see this being the last console (read: not handheld) they ever make, or I could see them launching a new one in the next 3-4 years.

I guess we'll revisit this thread again in another 6 months and see where we're at.

Nintendo dropping out of the console market is still as unlikely as ever. Are you aware that they sit on tons of cash? Wii U sold badly, big surprise, everyone who follows the industry should know this. Why would it have done better when nothing has changed UNTIL NOW. The Wii U's second wind has only just started with Pikmin 3 coming out. Why would it have improved in a period where nothing happened?

Have you learned nothing from the Hubris of this thread?

WiiU second wind? Ok then buddy. See you in another 6 months.

Nintendo's value is their intellectual property, not their hardware. The worst case, Nintendo abandoning the hardware market, won't affect their bottom line all that much. I don't think the worst case will happen however. The WiiU is a disappointment, but it's really not too late. All it takes is a few AAA games to push millions of consoles. If the WiiU is still selling 100,000 units a quarter after Mario Kart is released, then Nintendo is really in trouble. I hate to compare it to the PS3, but that launch was still worse. And with cellphones being as widespread and powerful as they are AND the 3DS competing just fine, I don't think we'll see them leave that side of the business any time soon.

WOW how can you still be in denial. The Wii U sold last 3 month 160K units. In Europe it was only 10K in WHOLE EUROPE 10K!!!! This is more than bad. This is the worst launch ever for Nintendo. Iwata is saying that they still sell this console at a loss which again will not help them at all as well. As soon as they can they should kill the console and move on Pretend the Wii U never happened.

In 5 Years: Lets hope they are smart letting Iwata go and maybe concentrate only on handhelds and software. They are so out of the console market it is just sad to look at it.

DAMN did not look at the thread date^^

But still Wii U is dead there is no other argument here.

It will take at least another successive failure on the scale of WiiU before they drop out of the hardware race (thanks to their conservative nature and huge cash reserves), so there's not much hubris in saying that they'll still be around in 5 years. Second wind is a fantastical leap of the imagination, though.

I really don't think so. If very important figures will have to go after this disaster like Iwata, Miyamoto as one member of the bord of directors etc. They could totally change also by force through investors. They could go Handheld only but even that is questionable with the current market situation in the West.

I haven't followed the thread before the bump. And I frankly don't care. Fact is, nothing was gonna happen with Wii U until Pikmin 3 rolled out and started off the continuous stream of strong software. Monster Hunter and Lego City were always just gonna be small bumps in the road towards this. And Wii U sales will not suddenly skyrocket this week and next week either. It will slowly build to more "normal" numbers as more quality titles will finally start coming out. The remaining 2013 line-up is strong. We'll see after Christmas how it fared. Mario Kart in Spring will also give another much needed boost. That's the road map, and it was always the road map, regardless of what some people in this thread might have been saying.

@jasonleeson said:

The 3DS is currently on track to outsell the DS, so, uh... no? You're completely wrong? And while the Wii U isn't selling great by any means, it's selling at a faster rate worldwide than the Vita did at this point in its life cycle, so maybe you should worry more about Sony.

Nintendo has a gigantic war chest of money, lots of great ideas and a gigantic fanbase. In five years they will be just fine. They might be gearing up for a new console launch, as they're going to need one before Microsoft and Sony will, but heck, even if they were only known for their handhelds, they'd be totally fine.

::EDIT:: Just realized this topic is six months old, but my points still stand.

I think Nintendo is in a much more favorable position than Sega was during the Dreamcast era. You have to imagine, it took multiple major hardware failures for Sega to exit the hardware business. Sure the Dreamcast is often thought of as the failure that led up to that decision, but before that they launched the Saturn which was also a miserable failure. The Saturn was also notoriously hard to program for, which probably burned up a lot of the goodwill Sega had built up with the Genesis.

Oh, and before that they sort of flooded the market and confused customers with a constant stream of terrible peripherals for the Genesis such as the Sega CD, 32x, SegaCD32x, etc.

Nintendo may be in dire straits with the Wii-U at the moment, but they have enough money in the bank and goodwill to sustain them until they can stabilize their losses. Also, as many others in this thread have pointed out, the 3DS is actually selling really well. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it has had the best lineup of games so far this year.

As for Nintendo's future hardware plans, I think Nintendo is in a great position to completely reinvent themselves if they should wish to do so. If I had to speculate, I'd bet on them further converging the home and portable markets, perhaps a dedicated portable device that streams the games out to your TV.

As long as they make money there's no problem. They will not suddenly fire the people who were responsible for Nintendo's most successful years ever. You're thinking seems to be very short-term.

@wrighteous86 "Second wind is a fantastical leap of the imagination, though." - how so?

@def: Profit is not everything. If the profit back than was extraordinary high like with the Wii and then goes to this normally drastically change will happen in a normal company. through pressure of Investors etc.

VR

Nintendo is not your "normal" company though.

And to investors and a company, profit is absolutely everything.

I was more referring to the definition of second wind as "sudden burst of energy that returns a tired runner to peak performance". Nintendo isn't at peak performance, and one game does not a second wind make. It's possible that this could be the start of a strong streak in Nintendo, but it's a bit early to say that, and I'm not too confident in the plan that they have laid out for the next 6 months.

Until 30-40 years into the future when the people that nostalgia jerk over their game start to die I would imagine that they will be in the exact same place.

Making shitty game and selling them to a 10 and less years old audience of a few hundred thousand and a few million others that should really re-evaluate their tastes in...everything.

...it's weird to arrive back in this thread now.

My optimism was at least partially misplaced. My three most anticipated titles in the set did not actually come out in the first six months of the year, and Rayman went multiplatform. But Pikmin 3 is pretty great. Sadly, the original Pikmin games aren't really popular enough for those who want Pikmin in their lives to not go get those first two games for roughly 1/3 price each (even accounting for buying the hardware itself, Wii U + P3 = ~$300-410 and Wii + P1&2 = ~200-250.) Pikmin 3 is the best balance between accessibility and engagement, I guess, but to buy into the Wii U for it seems unlikely.

And while Smash Bros. and Mario Kart are pretty big draws, they won't be out until next year, when new consoles are out and (hopefully) beginning to release bigger titles like Destiny and Titanfall. Granted, I don't think releasing Smash or MK would work this November, either, but without major launch issues in regards to PS4 and X1, the Wii U's situation looks kind of dire.

Granted, I still think it's a great device, and the Rayman Challenge app makes me a believer that the Wii U version will be the best version. But this is not how I'd hoped this six months would go, and the upcoming software doesn't look to be the revelation we're all hoping for (though seriously, guys, W101 should be fantastic)

As for Nintendo at-large, their games have been great this last year. If their consoles become so obsolete they have to move to pure software, they'll be in a far better position than Sega or Atari ever were.

I still think I'm right, Nintendo will close the door on Wii U extremely quickly and the next console they put out will skip the gimmicks and just be a powerhouse gaming machine.

If Xbox does poorly this gen, I could see them pulling out of the market and there just being Nintendo and Sony going forward.

All i see is the Wii U being crushed when the new consoles come out.

nintendo is just alrite with me. They walk beside me and guide me thru dark times in my life.

I think you are giving Nintendo entirely too much credit here, a lot of people (myself included) feel burned from the Wii. I have owned every single Nintendo console up until the Wii-U, and nothing that is currently on the horizon is going to make me buy one. I love Nintendo IP's as much as anyone, but I am at the point where that's not going to be enough to make me buy a Wii-U. The lack of 3rd party support is absolutely going to be a deal breaker for me.

Obviously I am only one person, and do not represent the gaming population as a whole, but based on current Wii-U sales numbers, it is at least somewhat apparent that there are lots of people who agree with me.

Nintendo needs some kind of big shakeup to get things going again.

I hope Nintendo will still be in a position to make Nintendo consoles and provide the same Nintendo experiences to lots more young kids.

In roughly the same place. The 3DS is doing quite well despite the phone+tablet markets success, and the WiiU won't be the first home console that has sold relatively poorly for them.

Yeah dude, 6 months later I'm probably with you. I mean we haven't had a major Mario or Zelda title yet but it would probably take a lot more than those to turn the tide at this point.

Nintendo can give you Nintendo experience on other devices as well. Look at nintendoland they would be perfect for IOS games.

There are 3 options:

1. They will get SUPER BIG again and ,aybe evne bigger than they ever were(but chance of this happening is one in a trillion at least)

2. Their situation will be much worse than now but they will still make some good products, be it consoles or games.

3. There won't be a Nintendo(even though their situation is bad, i doubt it highly that this will happen.)

I think number 2 looks to be the most possible thing happening

@aterons: That was probably a troll post, and I probably shouldn't even call attention to it but... You're a real idiot buddy.

Right and that is exactly what I meant and detailed in my follow-up post. I used second wind to mean just "getting back on one's feet" so that's probably where the disconnect happened.

Hasn't 3DS been the best selling system for months?

6 feet under.

It'd suck to see Nintendo exit the console business, but like a recent Bombcast said, consoles come and go. Besides, people don't really care much, and if that means Mario/Metroid/DKC will be multiplatform, all the better.

@donutfever: that doesn't make it good. Nintendo is far far behind their expectations and that is due to the struggle in the US and EU. It is totally fine in Japan.

Wasn't the 3DS in a pretty dire situation in it's first year of release as well? Aside from the fact that Nintendo was selling them at a profit for $250, it seemed pretty grim at the time to see Nintendo drop the price so soon after launch. At the time there really didn't seem to be much on the horizon for that platform either, but now (assuming they can't turn things around with the Wii-U) it may be the product that keeps them trucking along in the immediate future.

While I doubt the Wii-U will achieve the mainstream success of it's predecessor, saying it is "dead" when the system hasn't even been on shelves for an entire calender year seems beyond ridiculous. Nintendo can scale their output appropriately to manage losses in the meantime while they develop software, and work on ways to cut production costs. It might not be a Wii-Like success, but it most certainly has the potential to achieve at least Gamecube level sales figures.

Making New Super Mario 12 probably.

Here is my fantasy:

Nintendo and Sony make a historic, earth-shattering deal:

• Nintendo sign an exclusivity contract for 1st party console games to the PS4.
• Nintendo agree to write off the WiiU console and allow the WiiU tablet to be compatible with the PS4 as an optional accessory.
• Sony agree to leave the handheld business, forever.
• Japan rises again as the dominant video game mecca of the world.

Making Trading Cards

They'll still be around then, they're not broke yet.

Very successful by what scale? Yours? I don't know how even the most crazy of fanboys can rationalize that 160k units sold globally in their last quarter counts as anything close to the word successful.

If Nintendo wants to make a crapton of money, they'll go the Sega route and release some of their first-party titles on other platforms.

Doomed as always, all those billions of dollars will be gone by then.

Yes I'm afraid Nintendo faces a question right now.

Evolve or die?

@slag: And what's been wrong with Sony's business model?, they seem to be doing fine to me, and a heck of a lot better then Nintendo.