Actually, the WiiU is probably going to do...

Actually, the WiiU is probably going to do horribly in terms of actual games. Developers doing multi-platform games HATE developing with console specific functionality in mind, which is why the Wii utterly failed in 3rd party support.

Also, MS and Sony are probably going to go to the next generation in a few years, so the WiiU will still be the underperforming console on the market with weird but unrealized gameplay potential.

Short version: If you get a WiiU, don’t expect amazing stuff to come out for it. Except for from Nintendo (maybe).

My brother Eric, commenting on this post, and probably accurately predicting the future. (via lizlet)

No offense Liz, but I totally disagree with your brother’s premise, as well as his conclusions.

The Wii was the most successful console of this generation, so I don’t understand his “still be the underperforming console…” comment. It sold more consoles and more games than any other, and made more money than PS3 and 360 - combined. Chart here, numbers on the right hand side.

Coupled with the fact that it sold 50% more consoles than either Sony or MS, is the fact that Nintendo is the only console manufacturer that sells its consoles at a profit - the other two lose money on hardware, hoping to make it up later on software licenses. So even if they all three sold the same amount of hardware, Nintendo would have made more money already.

Speaking of software, yes, the Wii lacked in 3rd party support, but no - I don’t think Nintendo minds. In fact, they might happily continue giving EA and Activision the middle finger because doing so made them a metric fuckton of money. Since they sold more software (again, see the chart here) and since it was mostly first-party developed, they made far more money than they would with robust third party support. A single copy of Mario Kart makes them 2-3 times more than a copy of Madden (this is sort of an oversimplification, but at million sales+ scale, it ends up being somewhere between 2 and 3x.)

So given the above, where they make more money on a single console sale, more money on a single software sale, and sold (by FAR) more software and hardware than their competitors…how are they underperforming?

Their market strategy as brilliant - “we’re not going at it like last time, where it was the gamecube VS the PS2 VS the Xbox, we’re going to be the system you have *in addition to* your hardcore platform. AND, since we won’t have as many cross-platform games as the other two - who will be forced to duke it out against each other for the Metal of Battlefield Warfare crowd - most of our best games will be exclusive to our platform.”

Genius.

(via spytap)

Healthy debate! Though I think Eric’s point has more to do with the creative success of the Wii as opposed to the business. Nintendo might be happy with how the Wii has performed, but what about the millions of users who got bored of bowling and Rayman after six months? And that alone could have an effect on Wii U sales — it’s a cool toy, but people might be wary of shelling out for a new device to gather dust.

(Source: tumblr.com, via spytap)