Halting Wii Production Will Not Make WiiU Any More Appealing, Nintendo.|General Gaming Discussion|Forum|SNES HUB

Nintendo is leaving a heap of money on the table. With a new market opening in China where a cheap simple system like the Wii would be received extremely well (Note Sony has stated that this was what was in mind when thinking of the VitaTV);

Not to mention a trend of global macroeconomic decline and retraction in which the Wii would still sell fantastic if supported (don’t believe this, look at the PS2 which outperformed the PS3 and sold millions of copies.)

This is not the company I once respected and loved as both a gamer and an investor.

People will continue to buy a system that is supported, especially considering the massive install base and a NEW MARKET opening that will need a cheap price point (Chinese by and large will not be buying any of the new systems.Hell, If the WiiU, 3DS, and Vita are the new normal for the game industry it would seem that nobody will be buying those new systems, aside from the obsessive freaks you endearingly call the hardcore. (a Young Adult Male demographic that is too small to support these increasing budgets and a group whose buying power will be devastated by the macroeconomic decline.

A gamers system. What does that even mean? The entire growth proposition of the Wii (which the game industry missed and failed to see due to their “hardcore” centric outlook) was about bringing gaming to the masses, which is the ONLY way forward. We must shrink budgets and yes that means cutting all this bullshit out of the games. Maybe we don’t need photorealism and superduper processors. Maybe we just need some fucking compelling games that attract interest of more than otaku. Maybe we need a price point that is not over 300 dollars for entertainment that expects you to upgrade every five to eight years. Every time Nintendo follows the hardcore it declines. And every time the industry follows the hardcore it declines. If presented with NO GAMES or only having Wii-like games, do you honestly believe the hardcore will walk? Of course they won’t! At the same time, there are tens of MILLIONS of gamers who DO NOT NEED TO PLAY VIDEOGAMES and flee from the “hardcore” definition of gaming.

I WAS THERE FOR THE WII REVOLUTION. and I don’t just mean typing on the gaming message forums as I did not do that then. I was fully engaged with everything from money (buying hardware and software and investing) to time (playing games and informing people on what was happening) When the Wii came out I was not a gamer anymore and had not been since the beginning of the N64 era. I knew it was something special since I was there for the NES which the Wii emulates so well. Most current “hardcore” began with the PS1, and so they missed it. this includes many of the gaming press corp.

Finally there is truth to what I have typed. The WiiU is finished regardless of what you do with the Wii. Stick a fucking fork in it. There will be a spike during the holiday as there is a spike in every industry, then it will all be downhill from there. The PS4 and Xbox One will be out, and though I think they will also under-perform after the holiday season, all they will do is split the pie further. Since the WiiU does nothing to differentiate itself from it’s competitors in a way that consumers value, every PS4 or Xbox One that sells will likely be one less WiiU that sells. Sony’s console seems to have less bullshit, and Xbox has stolen the neglected Sports and Fit gamers. Also Minecraft, which is the new gaming phenomenon will be on every platform except Nintendo.

It’s not looking good. This is hard to hear especially if you early-adopted, but this is reality. People who want to pretend that everything is okay (not just with Nintendo, but with the Game Industry as a whole) should not pay any attention to me.

But time converts more than reason, and just as I once said that WiiU would be a disaster, now I am saying its over.

Better luck in generation nine guys!

Exactly. I am not advocating abandoning hardcore games, just stop following their habits off of the cliff for god sakes. Make games for everyone, in particular push High Quality entry-level games which A. are cheaper and help pay for Hardcore game development and B. create a pipeline for consumers. Is it really that bad of a thing that children, women and people of all ages can enjoy a console? Ask The PS2, Game Boy, NES, Wii, and Mobile gaming…..

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Hardcore hardcore hardcore hardcore hardcore hardcore

Is this what a healthy market capable of creating new customers looks like? That is the modern game industry almost without exception.

That is the fault of Nintendo and 3rd-party publishers, not the Wii itself, which was supported when they were making games that people gave two shits about. Nintendo had a good thing going that they wrecked. Trying to appeal to Hardcore and 3rd party? HOWS THAT WORKING OUT FOR THEM? DIDN’T THIS COMPANY LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE GAMECUBE?!? Resident Evil 4 was a TERRIFIC Hardcore game, and it didn’t change dick for the GC. The GC was MADE to appeal to 3rd-party, but it didn’t change dick for the GC.

The perception you are putting out is the same perception that the analysts, Journalists, 3rd party executives, and forum dwellers put out during the entirety of the Wii’s lifespan. It was wrong then, it is wrong now. I would go over this again, and we have both been here long enough that you know what I am going to say.

It is a Hardcore perception that you need over 65 quality titles to get your money’s worth and be happy. Who the hell has time for 65 modern games?!? The hardcore do not even have time to play every game they buy! It is the Hardcore perception EVERYONE gets excited for games like The Last Of Us. In reality no one else gives two shits, and this is reflected in their sales. Most games do not move hardware, and most games made today do not appeal to the mass market Nintendo attempted to tap before abandoning. The truth that no one wants to hear is that 3rd party games only matter when they are good. And most are not and so they do dick for a consoles sales. These “hardcore titles” are also expensive moneysinks that oftentimes cannot make their money back in the age of HD.

In the Eight generation, there are less video game companies and so there will be less games coming out. And In the eight generation games will be more expensive and take longer to make, so there will be less games coming out. To catch a glimpse of Generation 8, Imagine Generation seven with no Wii Phenomenon and less games. That means less gamers, and less gamers+higher budgets+DOES NOT COMPUTE. The Game Industry is not just in a transition period, it is in jeopardy. The macro environment has changed. Economic growth has turned into economic depression in the West. Population growth is no longer there. Development costs have quintupled, and the industry no longer has new markets to expand into to spur growth(though If they can convince the Tablet-loving Chinese this may change).  All this in the service of a fickle and shrinking demographic (the hardcore gamer). If someone wishes to argue that the Game Industry is growing and getting stronger everyday, please attempt to do so. I would love to hear it because even at Neogaf and Gamefaqs no one is pretending that the Game Industry is having ‘good days’.

 Naturally this implosion has turned into a war on gamers who are bieng increasingly blamed as game studio after game studio implodes and as game developers begin to make up for their shrinking customer base with things such as DRM, Nickle-And-Dime DLC,and Streetpasses.  Of course this will only fuel the decline further as it will limit the product only to the most obsessive fans. If these practices sound familiar perhaps it is because we have already seen happen in the Anime industry where now only the most obsessive fan is “all-in”, and thus leveraged by the Anime companies with ludicrous pricing and limited availability.  All for a product that only appeals to a tiny aspect of the population (have you seen most anime today?  It’s fucking creepy and outside the realm of mass market).

 ……………………………………………………….

Let’s rewind back to the start of the Seventh Generation. Nintendo said the Game Industry was in big trouble because all the ‘growth’ wasn’t actual growth but riding macro economic trends such as population growth, gamers-getting-older-and-having-more-disposable-income, multi-console ownership, additional territories to sell to thanks to globalism, and so on. Gaming stopped growing in relationship to society around the SNES/Genesis Era. Since the macro economic trends wouldn’t continue and costs would keep rising, gaming would inevitably decline.

 Nintendo offered a turning point to the Game Industry. The Game Industry could keep doing what they are doing and enter decline OR they could change their ways and enter actual growth or, in times of macroeconomic decline, stability. I think the choice is obvious. When the Seventh Generation started, I assumed that all game developers would choose the better profitable path.

 I was wrong.

 I was wrong because I thought that in this economic downturn game developers would at last begin to look at the bigger picture concerning the relationship of their jobs to society. WE DO NOT NEED VIDEOGAMES like we need groceries or oil or commmunications. Things such as videogames are ALWAYS the first to go in economic downturn. The Golden Age of gaming was marked by games being made for blue collar workers who typically do not have time for a 20+-hour slog in a fantasy world. Those games were there but the general time investment was much less then it is today.Today that link has been severed. Iwata complained in 2005 that the Game Industry was just making games for itself.

 Taking a page of the NES past, Nintendo’s proposition of the future was to make games for normal people as opposed to the obsessive freaks (which Game Industry’s marketing has propagandized as ‘hardcore gamers’). It made sense to make games for normal people. Normal people did not care so much about the ‘graphics’, for example. Therefore, costs could be kept down or in check instead of going bankrupt trying to sell to the freaks.

Nintendo’s Growth Proposition symbolized by the Wii, was declined by the Game Industry because game developers and the critics who push the products don’t want to be connected to normal society. They wrap themselves in gamer culture (whatever the fuck that is) and pride themselves on their exclusivity. This of course happens in every industry but usually it is small niche companies that serve the need of these snobs (Hollywood has IndieFilms, Grocery has Upscale markets like Whole Foods). Most peopel could give a shit less and just buy whatever brand satisfies their need.

 I remember Hideo Kojima being offended by Brain Age and Wii Sports and being puzzled by this. I shouldn’t have been: These same developers and publishers smeared the people who bought these games as ‘casual gamers’ as if games were supposed to take priority over the real world, as if families and those with jobs were to be excluded. This arrogance is exemplified in the attitude that 3rd party companies used when dealing with customers such as myself on the Wii. ‘Casual game sales will fuel hardcore game development’. So the only purpose of the non-typical gamer is to buy a cheaply made ‘casual game’. This would fund hardcore game development. What happened is all that “casual” money vanished and now game companies are going bankrupt because they can’t fund the ‘hardcore’ games.

 The Game Industry had the opportunity to sell $60 games to normal people. They abused this to sell us junk and so they have done more than turn away. They now are making the Game Industry bankrupt since they have left the industry again. Gamers like myself will not buy a WiiU or a PS4 because we see no need to. And yet game developers keep saying gamers like myself are ‘stupid’. Perhaps we are the smart ones. We know that if we wait that we can get the same game for 15 bucks on GOG/Steam or used when the easily-manipulated hardcore gamer sells it to GameStop to buy yet another game he will then never play.  WHO”S THE STUPID ONE!?!

 What is the Game Industry about? It is about games. I laugh at all these people trying to find a scapegoat to the Game Industry’s misfortune to be anything but the games. “It’s the smartphones.” “It’s the changing Internet.” “It’s the stupid casuals.”

 Or Maybe the games just no longer appeal to enough people to justify these INSANE budgets. They are approaching Hollywood levels without the mass-market appeal and reach of Hollywood. And this is sustainable?

 “No, The games are amazing, just look at the metacritic scores.”

 What was the metacritic score for Wii Sports? you know, the best-selling game of all time?

 The Game Industry revolves around games (not the developers, the developers are irrelevant and their beliefs and opinions are irrelevant) and gamers (the overwhelming number of real gamers, the ones who made Tetris and Mario 3 and Sonic a success before these games were twisted to sell to the “hardcore”

 The Game Industry’s response to the Wii eruption was to say, “We will put out junk casual games to fund the hardcore games we want to make.” It is so funny that the Game Industry thinks they can choose their direction. Today the “Hardcore” buys the junk game for full price (or collector’s edition) while everyone else will eventually get the same game for less than ten dollars!

That was the true purpose of the Wii. It was INTENDED to be a Mainstream phenomenon that brought more gamers in. But somewhere along the line that changed. The Wii post-NSMB might as well have been a fucking PS3, and sales reflect this. This is because Nintendo retreated back into their eccentric tingle-creativity direction, and everyone ran away from the games as Wiis began to collect dust or be used for Netfilx Streaming. Kirby Yarn games, Metroid: Other M, and Skyward Sword did not appeal to the masses. They didn’t even appeal to the Hardcore! These games damaged the brand and showed the future: That Nintendo was going back to their weird Gamecube days. When the 3DS was shown I got my investments the hell out of there, as it was now evident that Nintendo had let it’s insanity spread to its handhelds as well.

If the Gamecube did not get Hardcore Gamers, why would the WiiU? If The Gamecube did not sell units, why would the WiiU?” Keep in mind that the GC was released when Economic times were GOOD. Gaming has never seen how the industry will perform in economic BAD times. So far every Next-gen system has failed in it’s purpose. Why will PS4 and Xbox One be any different? Why will the WiiU turn out different?   

Of course. Take your time since There is a lot of ground covered. I thought I was very thorough but I pretty much posted my entire thoughs on the game industry there, so If you have any questions or if I can make anything more clear, just ask!

As a former Merchandiser I agree with you 150 percent. Retail Space is vital to brand awareness and visibility. Where you are mistaken is in the thought that large available library is what gives you that retail space. While it helps to have a diverse array of games on the wall, that is not how retail space is negotiated. So how does this work?

Money. One of the largest draws of revenue for brick and mortar stores (which are very expensive to maintain) is the checks that come to pay for retail space. You have a guaranteed allotment of space (which is ALWAYS under what companies want. You can always have more space lol) and anything more is payed for. Sony and Microsoft which are huge companies that make much more than games have an obvious advantage in this arena. Nintendo, which only makes games has a far lighter pocketbook for these expenditures.

The other consideration is 3rd party support which Nintendo fans can scream for all day long and it’s not fucking coming! The reason why the 3rd party companies spent more time smearing the Wii and dumping cheap D-team junk on it was because competing with Nintendo is almost impossible for these corner-cutting thugs. When you consider the Virtual Console ( and you should. I would not want to compete with Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Metroid. Not when they are that fucking cheap lol!) it becomes almost impossible. Nintendo still follows the legacy of Total Quality Control.Nintendo games might be weird and alienating, but they are ALWAYS quality. A quality the rest of the industry isn’t generally willing to match. So they dump their cheap junk onto the platform (which is Nintendo’s fault as they should not have been allowed) and say that would fund their 360 and PS3 titles. But since consumers are not stupid and can smell quality most of these games fail, which has led us to where the 3rd party cartel is now.

And I do think a large library is important. But it must be able to SELL. The Wii is amazing because if you look at what is actually interesting to play it is very small. It won without Call of Duty. It won without Assassin’s Creed. It won without Grand Theft Auto! those are the kind of 3rd party games that make a difference, and would do so even if the library was small. They are also very rare, and in this age of Multiplatform it is only important that your console HAVE THEM.

To the average consumer, there is no difference between Max Payne 3 and Portal 2.They might as well be invisible to anyone except “hardcore”. Nobody talks about these games, most people don’t have time to veer off the mainstream path, and most people will not play them. So no, They don’t really mean anything. And the trends bear me out because we are Seeing LESS games come out, not more. If large libraries are so vital, why are we making less games? Clearly the gain does not justify the cost. 

It’s good to have a large library, of that I have no doubt, but nobody in this generation is going to be breaking their back or their bank to do so, so I cannot call it VITAL.