Haha, the Wii U and Nintendo. Where to start?
Firstly, it's sold out in most US retailers for pre-order already. That doesn't suggest Nintendo have dropped the ball. However, we don't know want volumes of pre-order they had available. If it's 20 units per company it's not exciting, if it's 20 million units per outlet, it's amazing. PR spin is untrustworthy.
It's also considerably more complex than that. The Gamecube was seen as a "failure", yet it shipped about 26 million units and made Nintendo a tidy profit. I'd posit that there are a very firm, hardcore base of Nintendo fans which probably made up a significant amount of those numbers.
If you look at "attach rates", single console release titles for the "lower volume" consoles tend to be around between 5 and 7 million (PS3, GameCube, 3DS and XBox). The 360 is a good seller and hits out at 12 million units of Black Ops sold. The PS2 was 10 million+ units of things like Gran Turismo and GTA 3.
Likewise, the Wii (which outnumbered PS2 sales at the height of "big release titles") sells 10 million units of big first party games (they sell massive numbers of games like Wii Sports, Sports Resort, Play, Wii Fit and Mario Kart - but all of those also include hardware bundles and they don't distinguish between boxed game sales and bundles so it's not an accurate figure - though I'd argue the case for Wii Fit).
Generally, in terms of "core gamers", you're looking at about 7-13 million gamers per console. We can't tell which gamers have multiple consoles, but I think it's safe to assume that most "core gamers" will own two of this generation. So maybe up to 20 million core gamers out there out of around 200 million console buyers. Those numbers of about 10% seem to work too on sales figures generally too (with exceptions like COD being exceptions rather than the norm).
What does this mean? Well it means that there's probably 10 - 20 million "hard core" Nintendo fans out there literally dying at the moment. I keep up with the release schedules of games each week and the Nintendo schedule is dire. The Wii gets maybe a third part release every three or four weeks - ONE release a month. The DS and 3DS see more, but compared to the PS3 and 360 release schedule, it's very poor.
It's all about the big N first party stuff which moves by the bucket load. And all those Wii owners who have been sat waiting for
anything decent - the Wii U gives it to them. A whole host of new Nintendo games for the first six months and then..? Well, same again. In 12 month's time nothing but an obligatory Nintendo release every six months and a load of shovelware nobody buys (which dries up because devs and publishers make no money from Nintendo systems, except oddities like Carnival Games).
So, who is going to buy the Wii U? Well, the same people I imagine who bought the Game Cube, and the N64 and who have championed the Wii (until this year and realised that it's dead). Like the Game Cube, it doesn't matter if the Wii U sells as well as the Wii or not, Nintendo can still make money out of the system selling it to their own particular market.
I think they're fools if they expect to see the same sales they saw with the Wii. I know it's anecdotal and I want to avoid any straw man kind of arguments, but how many people do you know who bought the Wii at the height of the hype who played it beyond two or three months? How many of those with their dust coated Wii's, Wii Sports and two other games (one utter trash that put them off buying any more Nintendo games) have no desire to ever want to put their money into another bit of hardware that they got ripped off by last time?
Though maybe I'm the fool and Nintendo really understands the market. I just can't see it. The casual market has shifted to smart phones and tablets in the same way it shifted from the PS2 to the Wii.
The irony here is that Nintendo saw the rise in the tablet idea and have carried it on board. It's not "knee jerk" in the way that Sony and MS dealt with the Wii's sudden dominance of the motion controller market - but I think the effect will be the same. A slew of games ill-fitted to the console/market/games shoehorning in the "new" control method which rapidly becomes an irritating gimmick than a real enhancement to the system.
The big question of course is why buy a Wii U at £300 when you can grab a Kindle Fire for £150 that not only does the same kind of job (tablet wise) but can also be used anywhere away from your living room?
However, it doesn't matter. Nintendo will ensure that they're making money on each unit sold. They'll sell to their 10-20 million devoted fans and will gather several million other adopters who want to grab a slice of that Wii-like hype and excitement. They'll still sell up to 10 million of their first party games which will ensure their "success" as a software developer/publisher.
It may be that they hit issues as they did with the 3DS initially and use a price drop to help push sales along - but I guess that will depend on uptake. The biggest issue with the 3DS was that it wasn't a "replacement" for the DS. The DS still had strong sales and a long list of upcoming games. Devs didn't want to move to the 3DS as it's a longer and more expensive dev process and with a much smaller user base. Nintendo needed to either stop DS production and force the 3DS on to people as a replacement, or do what they did, massive price drop to increase the user base to help entice Devs.
However it's still a mess. The 3DS has been available for almost 2 years now and it still doesn't have a core Pokemon game! If Black and White 2 had been 3DS only, they'd have sold millions of 3DSs. I guess if they can mess those kind of things up, it puts some doubt on their understanding of the consumer and markets.
So I see it as another Game Cube. A steady seller that under performs compared to (and this is a guess based on the current market, we saw things completely thrown by the Wii last time so it's a real unknown in reality) the next XBox. I think the PS3 will sell strongly to the current fan base (they're tying people in with PSN and PS+ sales, which if they allow people to seamlessly move those across to the PS4 immediately gives adopters a massive game collection), but the next XBox will dominate due to the strong brand Microsoft has built, customer loyalty and the fact they've been "getting it right" online for to generations (and Sony, even with the Vita, still haven't quite got there).
I think with the Vita PS+, the Vita becomes a very attractive product (and I'd like others to have one so I can send them **** from games :lol: ). It's just far too expensive. To buy the unit (on offer), a memory card and a game you're still looking at £250. I was lucky and sold the limited edition 3DS I won to pay for mine, but otherwise it's not a purchase I'd have made. Sony also need to do as they promise and get unique games on it rather than PS3 ports.
Having said that, the fact you get free Vita versions with a lot of games (and with stuff like the Wipe DLC) makes owning the console surprisingly cheap. There's so much PSP stuff for a few quid, lots of sales of games under a tenner and the free stuff adds to it (all your PS3 Little Big Planet items (bought or won) transfer to LBP Vita). They've got the combination of console and handheld Nintendo should have nailed with the Wii/DS (or 3DS) - hell, you can't even use Wii points to buy things on the 3DS, what a mess.
The thing is I'm not entirely sure where the Vita sits. It's a very nice bit of hardware. I have Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, 4 square and other stuff always at hand on it. I also have a good selection of drop in and play casual games. However, I also have all of that on my iPod touch and (even better when out and about as it's always online) my phone. Both iPod and phone are also portable where as the Vita isn't.
The Vita is gorgeous though and the Vita specific "proper games" are solid. It really is big console gaming hand held, but if you have a console in your room, where is the place for the Vita?
Such an enigma :lol:
Have we had enough yet? Best stop now before things REALLY get out of hand
