Post by Steve Farrelly @ 10:07am 13/01/14 | 11 Comments
While this might sound run of the mill, the full piece is a fantastic insight into how The Big N effectively failed to fully understand the gravity of their "next-gen" leap. Established systems like basic online networking are revealed to be so far out of their own expertise or vision (so far as to it being assumed they never even looked at how Microsoft or Sony ran their successful online platforms), that it all came down to the absolute last minute for anything being truly finalised. And even then, it was much less than perfect.
In many ways, this piece is also a reminder of just how far behind modern gaming culture and understanding Nintendo is, and paints a pretty clear picture that Wii U may have been doomed from the outset, rather than just dropping off due to the arrival of competitor systems.
From the article:
Well, we eventually released our game and it was generally well-received, so the management sat back to see what kind of sales figures we would get for all our efforts. Without going into detail it would be fair to say that the numbers we were seeing were less than impressive. In fact we would be lucky to make back all the money that we had invested in making the game in the first place, and although the management publicly supported the Wii U platform, it is unlikely that we would ever release another Wii U title.Head on over to Digital Foundry for the full eye-opening piece and have your say in the Comments section below: Is it time for Nintendo to give up on hardware they clearly aren't capable of producing? Should they shift to a third-party developer?
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Posted 10:52am 13/1/14
Posted 10:55am 13/1/14
personally, i'd like to see nintendo ditch the gimmicky controller and online functionality entirely and create a system dedicated to the metroid / zelda / mario style of game.
Posted 11:05am 13/1/14
Posted 11:53am 13/1/14
You can never really rule out the big N but it'll be a great shame to the industry if they ever do drop out.
So you want a Wii U with the Pro Controller? :P
Posted 12:02pm 13/1/14
Nintendo need to look at Sony and MS. They are doing online right. They are doing the consoles right too. None of this gimmicky bulls*** controllers, and huge libraries for every age. The wii had so much potential for being awesome, but it ended up just serving for shovel ware and the occasional first and second party game.
I hope the wiiu just drops off the face of the planet this gen so they completely rethink their methods and release something that can actually compete with sony and ms.
Posted 12:14pm 13/1/14
Frankly, using the Wii U controller is effort, and that ruins the experience.
Posted 02:25pm 13/1/14
It's clear they are learning from their mistakes though, in building a R&D building that will house both hardware and software developers to better encompass the needs of both. It's also clear that just making a high-end system won't help, it isn't the bandaid fix they need to stay relevant, instead combining new features with old.
I find it interesting that while the doom and gloom has been happening for ages, Nintendo has actually become worth more compared to Sony. It will definitely be an interesting few years, but I see them killing off the Wii U in 2016, which is a shame because I've thoroughly enjoyed the system. The future is definitely going to look interesting.
Posted 02:28pm 13/1/14
Posted 02:48pm 13/1/14
Posted 03:08pm 13/1/14
The problem is pride, and as a Japanese company, bowing out of the home hardware market right now would cost them a lot of face, so Wii U will likely be around for a while longer.
On the other hand, the handheld market is owned by them (excluding mobile devices), but 3DS is beginning to show its age and there's a very good chance it too will be buried by the strength-to-strength growth of mobile devices over the next one to two years, and unless their next entry in this field can actually compete with a regular and affordable all-in-one smartphone or tablet, they could be in serious trouble. The most alarming thing I learnt from the Digital Foundry piece was that it appeared no one at Nintendo had ever looked at or even drawn from the likes of the PSN or Xbox Live (and likely PC equivalent), which back in the day might have been fine, but there's a standard for gaming that needs to be met now, and single-minded 'innovation' alone won't overlook basic gamer needs and requirements.
Nintendo needs to suck it up, get their heads out of the clouds and actually look around at the gaming world as a whole, not at the now non-existent Wii crowd they drew in for two years.
Posted 03:57pm 13/1/14
What I'd really like to see is a hybrid. They own the handheld market, and won't be budging from there as long as customers are eager for Pokemon, Mario, Zelda and all the other huge titles so why not meld the two markets together? Make a really high-powered home console that works well, caters to the interest both socially and technologically and join it up with a powerful handheld.
Want to game at home? Easy enough with the home console portion. Thinking of heading out and want to take your game with you? Grab the handheld portion and off you go. Utilising similar features to the PlayStation 4/Vita sharing and current Wii U GamePad and you could essentially combine both markets together having Pokemon on the big screen or the smaller screen.
Of course, who knows what exactly Nintendo will do. The company has always been their own force, doing what they want (which is obviously hurting them) so they may just have some surprises left. I don't ever see them pushing games to other platforms, it would water down what makes those games work well in that they cater to the Nintendo hardware idea, but I guess the future will tell us all sooner or later.