Wii U - General Discussion Thread

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-03/nintendo-s-founding-family-to-sell-shares-as-buyback-terms-set

This seems to be the explanation for the buyback. If the Yamauchi family wanted to cash in their shares (and that certainly happens in 2nd and 3rd generation shareholders) Nintendo would be wise to make the purchase themselves via a buyback. Releasing 10% of the shares to the market in bulk would either tank the stock or invite a single shareholder to make a play for a large interest.

It's never ideal, but by having enough cash in reserve to make the purchase Nitnendo can do this without extra cost.

 
Nintendo does need to ramp up their online capacity and get out some big online games.

That said, I don't think stuff like Pikmin (too niche) or the Mario games (the MP is really only suited to local IMO) would have sold more or moved systems if they had online.  They're still games that don't appeal much to core gamers these days.

If they want to compete for business with core gamers they need online games in genres those people play--shooters, sports, MMORPGs and so on.  They need to round out their library by complementing their existing franchises.  Not just add features to the same old franchises that have been selling fewer and fewer consoles every generation aside from the Wii success.

They do that, or they just keep focusing on their fans and kids/families while hoping to figure out the next fad to bring in casuals/non-gamers again with their next console.  That's really their only two paths to selling more consoles.  And neither may be feasible.  Time will tell.

 
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Blaster man said:
You honestly think their entire problem is one of marketing?
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Of course not. There are several issues plaguing the system other than just the marketing. It's the wrong system at the wrong time.

What frustrates me is that a lot of people seem to think that the Wii U is a sub-par video game system specifically because it isn't selling like hotcakes. I felt similar frustration with the GameCube. Just because a system isn't wildly popular and selling like crazy does not make it a bad video game system. It just means that it isn't selling very well. And a lot of the time performance in the market is dictated far more by marketing than it is by design.

The Wii had strong marketing, and it was a product that was very easy to market and sell. It also arrived on the market with near perfect timing. The Wii U is a much more complicated product, making it much harder to explain or market, and is weighed down somewhat by the legacy of its predecessor. (instead of being bolstered by it) Where the Wii had relatively little competition to contend with, the Wii U is drowning in competition.

The Wii U is a fine video game console. It is stable, performs well, and is getting an increasingly larger library of solid titles. It's not for everyone, no product is. But it is a mistake to dismiss it out of hand just because it is struggling to sell units. While I don't think you are dismissing it in this fashion, I do think that many game enthusiasts are jumping to that conclusion.

 
As I said before I bet 99% of the people that bought the Wii U this holiday season are not concerned with the numbers nor have they even bothered to look at them. I am sure they are satisfied with their purchase, they bought a games console to play games on, and that is what they got. From what I hear the console has sold in the millions, that is not a failure.

I would like to see Nintendo make a decent Pokemon RPG on the console platform like Pokemon XD, that would surely sell systems. They need a BIG game that you can play for hours at a time to get hooked on the system.  An f-zero with online play would help as well.  Mario Kart and Smash Bros games are sure to help the system, if they don't then that is when I will start to worry.  They also need to come up with an achievements system, patch it into the games, that wouldn't be that hard to do. People will buy games just to get achievements, so that would increase sales.

 
theflicker said:
It seems like they have some idea of that with the stamp system, they just need to really refine it.
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The stamps are sort of neat thing from the idea of giving people without artistic talent a means of making those sorts of posts, but it seems to encourage flooding of stamp posts and discourage the awesome drawings. Wii Sports Resort's Stamp system would've been a good way to implement achievements on the Wii U.

 
SaraAB said:
As I said before I bet 99% of the people that bought the Wii U this holiday season are not concerned with the numbers nor have they even

bothered to look at them. I am sure they are satisfied with their purchase, they bought a games console to play games on, and that is what they got.
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That's what people said about the Wii until it died 3 1/2 years later and became a dust magnet for most.

 
I have no regrets purchasing a Wii, tons of great titles on the system.

Arguably the best RPGs and platformers last generation were on the Wii. 

 
AFRO insomniac said:
I have no regrets purchasing a Wii, tons of great titles on the system.

Arguably the best RPGs and platformers last generation were on the Wii.
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Platformers maybe but RPGs definitely not. The Wii to me had 4 good RPGs and that was The Last Story, Xenoblade and Fire Emblem (SRPG but I'll count it) and Monster Hunter. I realize that your statement is just your opinion but when you look at the PS3 having: Mass Effect series, Ni No Kuni, Skyrim, Demon's/Dark Souls, Star Ocean, Tales of Grace/Xillia and the upcoming Symphonia remaster, Valkyria Chronicles, Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, Final Fantasy XIV and Dragons Dogma it is just hard to say that the Wii's limited RPG library beats that. Heck even the 360 had some excellent exclusive RPGs in Tales of Vesperia, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Fable and Magna Carta 2.

 
I regretted buying the Wii, and I did it twice! I love Nintendo games, but ended up loathing motion controls and SD games look like ass on HDTVs.

Wii U I have no regrets. It lets me play Nintendo franchises I love in glorious HD with mostly standard controls. I knew at time of purchase I'd probably end up with 7-10 must play games when all was said and done and I was, and am, fine with that.
 
The Wii remains the only Nintendo console that I did not like.  Outside of the 2 Mario Galaxy games (all-time great games) and ... ugh... Wii Sports/Resort... I can't recall anything else that really stood out.  The Zelda games were good (not great) but were made AWFUL with motion controls so I never finished them.  I liked Metroid Prime 3 a lot too I guess but it is my least favorite of the three games in the series.

The WiiU is already worth it, IMO.  That's not to say I won't be disappointed long-term but I feel like I got my money's worth already and whatever Zelda eventually comes out will just be icing on the cake (assuming they allow for a gamepad controller).  I really think that Nintendo should release HD versions of Wii games with normal controls - Wind Waker obviously worked and games like Mario Galaxy would look amazing and they are a ton of fun.

 
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CZPgGGb.png


:drool:

 
Deader2818 said:
Why? Because Amazon bought a crappy studio?
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would not really call them crappy yeah they did not make fantastic games but they had some couple good ones.

silent hill homecoming

mx vs atv relfex was pretty fun

green lantern was not bad

killer instinct is pretty fun on xbox one

but these are the kind of studios you buy when you are trying to get foot into gaming industry.

 
Blaster man said:
That's kind of what people said about the shitty Kindle Fire. Then they sold millions..
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so you think android games can match the quality of triple A titles on pc/ps4/xbox one/ wii u? i do agree that unlike ouya this thing will having much more money to toss around but no way it outsells big 3 or affect them in any way.

 
TimboSliceGB said:
so you think android games can match the quality of triple A titles on pc/ps4/xbox one/ wii u? i do agree that unlike ouya this thing will having much more money to toss around but no way it outsells big 3 or affect them in any way.
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Do I think Abdroid games can be big AAA games? Sure, why not? Then again, when you have a cheap console, let's call it $50, and tons of $1 games and a handfull of $20 games, a lot of people will be satisfied with it as "good enough".

Amazon isn't buying a studio for the hell of it, they clearly have a plan and expect it to eventually be profitable. I have no clue what the business plan for this is, but there is definitely something.

Hell, people buy Vizio TV's because they're "good enough" and eventually fool themselves into thinking they're actually good.
 
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Most likely it will be a new Kindle. I think Zynga and other mobile developers are more threatened than Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.
 
DNukem170 said:
Most likely it will be a new Kindle. I think Zynga and other mobile developers are more threatened than Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.
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Kindle...Fire you mean? Kindle is pretty much just for books.

I remember when Amazon first started putting out kindles, they would give you $40 off if you bought the ad supported one. I could see that happening here and that super low price will get it into a lot of houses. At that point the "good enough" attitude will set in for most gamers. If they can get Madden on it, many people won't even bother with the other consoles. I know guys that only play Madden.
 
DNukem170 said:
Most likely it will be a new Kindle. I think Zynga and other mobile developers are more threatened than Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.
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amazon already said they want to build a game system so it's not for a new kindle fire.

don mattrick is the biggest threat to zynga :D/

 
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Blaster man said:
Kindle...Fire you mean? Kindle is pretty much just for books.

I remember when Amazon first started putting out kindles, they would give you $40 off if you bought the ad supported one. I could see that happening here and that super low price will get it into a lot of houses. At that point the "good enough" attitude will set in for most gamers. If they can get Madden on it, many people won't even bother with the other consoles. I know guys that only play Madden.
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ea don't even make madden for wii/ wii u any more no way they make it for a androd system lol

 
TimboSliceGB said:
ea don't even make madden for wii/ wii u any more no way they make it for a androd system lol
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Sure, if the install base is large or Amazon subsidizes it. Don't kid yourself, the sector isn't static. Amazon's console may not turn the business upside down but eventually some other product will be there and disrupt the market. Tablets and smartphones have already wrecked Nintendo. Add to that an Amazon, an Apple console, some other big company - maybe Samsung? It's going to happen eventually.
 
i don't even want to think how much apple console would be if ipads are 700 bucks lol poor idiots that buy those things every year for no reason. apple is like Ea/activison of electronic devices they make new thing every year because they know their sheep will buy a new product every year.

 
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Deader2818 said:
So, how come it always seems like tablets and smart phones only hurt nintendo and not the other 2? lol.
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Because they just had successful launches (and have mobile divisions), so at the macro media level it looks like there are only articles against Nintendo. However, there have been more than a few prognostications that consoles could be killed by an AppleTV update.

 
Deader2818 said:
So, how come it always seems like tablets and smart phones only hurt nintendo and not the other 2? lol.
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I remember when 3ds launched all anyone was saying was "these will never sell, iphone has the portable market now no one else can sell anything". What do you know now, 3ds is selling really well.

We have to remember this is blaster man who probably quite literally gets off on any bad news for Nintendo, even when he manufactures it himself.
 
RedvsBlue said:
I remember when 3ds launched all anyone was saying was "these will never sell, iphone has the portable market now no one else can sell anything". What do you know now, 3ds is selling really well.
We have to remember this is blaster man who probably quite literally gets off on any bad news for Nintendo, even when he manufactures it himself.
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I probably literally died and came back.
 
I don't really see Android/iOS boxes threatening consoles.

At most they'll attract some of the Wii Sports crowd who have already stopped buying consoles anyway.

Steamboxes will be more of a threat once they get those polished, as currently console just can't compete with Steam's pricing.  They can't have as crazy of sales on digital games as they can't piss off their retail partners who don't want the physical games languishing on their shelves.

 
There are some announced Steamboxes for $500 that have specs better than PS4.  They need to work on box size and design though as most are pretty bulky/ugly.

I don't get the controller either, but you should be able to use console gamepads just like on a PC.

 
Blaster man said:
Do I think Abdroid games can be big AAA games? Sure, why not? Then again, when you have a cheap console, let's call it $50, and tons of $1 games and a handfull of $20 games, a lot of people will be satisfied with it as "good enough".
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Tons of $1 games on a home console will mean no one (a critical mass) will ever pay $20 for a game (or probably even $10) which means "real developers" won't touch it which means no AAA games. Everyone already carries around something in their pockets that plays shit games. I hope these android boxes or whatever they are called fail more than you hope Nintendo goes under times a billion trillion infinitiy plus one.

 
Just popped in my mind, anyone else have a "Star Fox Flight Jacket"? I got it when I was a kid at some contest that Nintendo was running at the Walmart.
 
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dmaul1114 said:
Steamboxes will be more of a threat once they get those polished, as currently console just can't compete with Steam's pricing. They can't have as crazy of sales on digital games as they can't piss off their retail partners who don't want the physical games languishing on their shelves.
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Sony has been getting pretty close, IMHO. They just recently had a sale with a bunch of good games for $3.75 or something like that. Dirt cheap. Plus of course PS+ giving "free" games. I don't know if it is working out for them, but it's certainly working out for the gamers.

 
crunchewy said:
Sony has been getting pretty close, IMHO. They just recently had a sale with a bunch of good games for $3.75 or something like that. Dirt cheap. Plus of course PS+ giving "free" games. I don't know if it is working out for them, but it's certainly working out for the gamers.
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I don't know how they're doing it. The games they're giving for free are pretty incredible.

 
crunchewy said:
Sony has been getting pretty close, IMHO. They just recently had a sale with a bunch of good games for $3.75 or something like that. Dirt cheap. Plus of course PS+ giving "free" games. I don't know if it is working out for them, but it's certainly working out for the gamers.
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Definitely. But it's mostly older stuff, indie stuff and stuff that just didn't sell.

What is harder for console makers to do is match the steam prices and sales on newer games and hit games. Retailers don't care about the stuff that goes on PS+ or the big PSN discounts as it's either PSN stuff, games that have long stopped selling much at retail, and stuff that never sold well.

 
The interesting thing about the new Sonic game... It's not made by Sonic Team. It's being made by an American studio run by one of the guys who made Jak and Daxter. http://brbent.com/team/bob-rafei/

I mean, it's still a Sonic game, but at least they're trying something new this time. (A Sonic game made with CryEngine 3 is kinda weird tho...)

 
sonic franchise at this point for me is DEAD which sucks because it used to be sega's version of mario back in early 90's.

 
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