Now let me start off by saying: this isn't a "fanboy rage against Nintendo" thread. There are plenty of those, and I'm looking for intelligent (or at least reasoned) responses. I apologize that this will be rather lengthy, but I've had a lot of thoughts on the subject and really want to discuss them.
Now, this isn't just a problem of the last two years. It seems that for over a decade Nintendo has been either obstinately resistant to any sort of change, or making completely arbitrary changes that seem to be devoid of reason. Or, they have something good on their hands, and they botch it.
To start from the beginning.
The Virtual Boy really represents the first in a long line of major "What on Earth were they thinking?" moments. I'm not going to drag it back up in detail because every complaint about the Virtual Boy under the sun has already been heard. I really appreciate innovation, especially in such a fast-moving industry, but the eye strain, monochromatic red/black graphics, awkward controller, absolute lack of convenient portability, and the fact you need to crane your neck just to use it, these should all have been readily apparent as problems, or at least revealed by some kind of testing, at some point during the development cycle. I get the sense it was a pet project that was pushed through more on some R&D senior engineer's ego than anything else.
This sense of "I'm gonna do whatever I want and you can't stop me" will continue on to the present day.
The Nintendo 64 was a fantastic console. However, despite its theoretically superior hardware it was still trounced by the Playstation. The CD format, despite longer loading times, could hold an order of magnitude more information than the N64 cartridges. On top of that, the N64 was also harder to develop for. It launched with only 4 launch titles, IIRC, and it was plagued with somewhat lackluster sales through much of the early parts of its hardware cycle. Now, overall the N64 generation was positive: it brought the industry titles like Mario 64, Goldeneye, and Zelda OoT, which really set the standard for three-dimensional games. However, Nintendo made some significant mistakes, and this was where their resistance to change first became a serious problem.
The PS2 sold because it was a cheap media center in a time where DVD players were an expensive luxury. The Xbox succeeded, despite initial difficulties, because of Xbox Live. The Gamecube had only games, and didn't sell as well. Now, they were fantastic games (Metroid Prime and Wind Waker, for instance) but again, the Gamecube suffered because of Nintendo's 1.) refusal to adapt to a changing industry and 2.) lack of features.
Now, the Wii was an incredible success. That doesn't need to be written much about. However, it still has some problems. The Wii failed to impress the "core" market as much as the 360 and PS3 did. There was a lack of support from big budget games because of the Wii's significantly weaker hardware. It still had little multimedia capability, and what was slowly added over time was not paid much attention. Finally, where the 360 and PS3 had online capability, the online multiplayer system that Nintendo has with the Wii might have been okay in 1995, but certainly isn't competitive now: the Wifi infrastucture within the console is just plain mediocre, but the real problem is the lack of any unified online system like Xbox Live or Steam.
Now, let's talk about what was really touted as the primary purpose of the Wii. The whole purpose of the Wii, as they said it, wasn't just to sell to the casual market, but to ultimately get casual players into the "core market", and therefore cultivate brand loyalty in people that may well have never played video games before. They made a pretty big deal over that master plan in the year up to the Wii's release. Do you remember that? Probably not, because while they were successful in getting the product to the casual market, they did not follow through on expanding the core market. In between pathetic third party support, a lack of new IPs, and no advertisement of their "core" IPs (Mario, Metroid, Zelda) to this newly tapped casual market, they failed to create "new gamers", and therefore failed to create any new brand loyalty among this "casual audience", which is such a precious resource in the video game industry.
Now, the Wii U arrived on the scene...last year, I think? Anyway, where the Wii was this huge, hyped machine where Nintendo came out with all their guns blazing, it seems they really weren't that concerned about what would happen with the Wii U. They dropped it on the market with little fanfare, almost no advertising, and few impressive titles, either at launch or down the road, to speak of. The hardware is decidedly last generation (comparable to the PS3), and I'm not bringing that up in the manner of the "DURRR SYSTEM SPECS" argument that fanboys of any particular platform love to toss around. Optimization of a game for a new platform is hard enough on levels of difference between, say, PS4 and 720. Both are pretty close in processing power, and Sony learned from their mistakes with the Cell architecture and now uses an ARM processor, as does the 720. This makes cross platform optimization rather easy , which helps with third party support. It's hard to explain in brief (this post is getting long enough) without a heap of engineering talk, but the power of the hardware is a key factor in accessibility, and therefore in the number of people who will develop for it. Sony and Microsoft have 2013 hardware, Nintendo has 2008 hardware. Gameplay may be ultimately more important than processing power, but developing for two extremely different systems is a very expensive undertaking.
The Wii U is, additionally, plagued with many of the other problems of its predecessor: lack of internet accessibility and multimedia capability.
Now, the argument I hear often is "Well Nintendo isn't competing with Microsoft and Sony." That may be the case, Nintendo may not intend to compete, but I still have a problem with that argument. When you are a company with a product, you need to give people a reason to buy it; this is especially true with expensive products like consoles and video games. With the superior number of titles available to the 720 and PS4 and the numerous features they have that are lacking in the Wii U, no one is going to spend $300 on a Wii U just because "They aren't competing with the others".
tl;dr : Nintendo's greatest problems are their refusal to adapt in an ever-changing industry, a lack of effort to encourage third party support, and a lack of effort to serve their own fans and encourage or create brand loyalty. Ultimately, it's like they're just doing whatever they want, or just stabbing in the dark, and hoping things sell.
Despite all this, Nintendo's portable hardware sales continue to lead the industry. They may have missed out on the casual market with the prevalence of smartphone games, but the "core portable" market is completely theirs. Think this is a sign that Nintendo needs to focus primarily on portable machines?
Should Nintendo stick with the Wii U and try to make the best of it or pull the plug and start a new hardware cycle early? In either case, what would you want to see?
Now, this isn't just a problem of the last two years. It seems that for over a decade Nintendo has been either obstinately resistant to any sort of change, or making completely arbitrary changes that seem to be devoid of reason. Or, they have something good on their hands, and they botch it.
To start from the beginning.
The Virtual Boy really represents the first in a long line of major "What on Earth were they thinking?" moments. I'm not going to drag it back up in detail because every complaint about the Virtual Boy under the sun has already been heard. I really appreciate innovation, especially in such a fast-moving industry, but the eye strain, monochromatic red/black graphics, awkward controller, absolute lack of convenient portability, and the fact you need to crane your neck just to use it, these should all have been readily apparent as problems, or at least revealed by some kind of testing, at some point during the development cycle. I get the sense it was a pet project that was pushed through more on some R&D senior engineer's ego than anything else.
This sense of "I'm gonna do whatever I want and you can't stop me" will continue on to the present day.
The Nintendo 64 was a fantastic console. However, despite its theoretically superior hardware it was still trounced by the Playstation. The CD format, despite longer loading times, could hold an order of magnitude more information than the N64 cartridges. On top of that, the N64 was also harder to develop for. It launched with only 4 launch titles, IIRC, and it was plagued with somewhat lackluster sales through much of the early parts of its hardware cycle. Now, overall the N64 generation was positive: it brought the industry titles like Mario 64, Goldeneye, and Zelda OoT, which really set the standard for three-dimensional games. However, Nintendo made some significant mistakes, and this was where their resistance to change first became a serious problem.
The PS2 sold because it was a cheap media center in a time where DVD players were an expensive luxury. The Xbox succeeded, despite initial difficulties, because of Xbox Live. The Gamecube had only games, and didn't sell as well. Now, they were fantastic games (Metroid Prime and Wind Waker, for instance) but again, the Gamecube suffered because of Nintendo's 1.) refusal to adapt to a changing industry and 2.) lack of features.
Now, the Wii was an incredible success. That doesn't need to be written much about. However, it still has some problems. The Wii failed to impress the "core" market as much as the 360 and PS3 did. There was a lack of support from big budget games because of the Wii's significantly weaker hardware. It still had little multimedia capability, and what was slowly added over time was not paid much attention. Finally, where the 360 and PS3 had online capability, the online multiplayer system that Nintendo has with the Wii might have been okay in 1995, but certainly isn't competitive now: the Wifi infrastucture within the console is just plain mediocre, but the real problem is the lack of any unified online system like Xbox Live or Steam.
Now, let's talk about what was really touted as the primary purpose of the Wii. The whole purpose of the Wii, as they said it, wasn't just to sell to the casual market, but to ultimately get casual players into the "core market", and therefore cultivate brand loyalty in people that may well have never played video games before. They made a pretty big deal over that master plan in the year up to the Wii's release. Do you remember that? Probably not, because while they were successful in getting the product to the casual market, they did not follow through on expanding the core market. In between pathetic third party support, a lack of new IPs, and no advertisement of their "core" IPs (Mario, Metroid, Zelda) to this newly tapped casual market, they failed to create "new gamers", and therefore failed to create any new brand loyalty among this "casual audience", which is such a precious resource in the video game industry.
Now, the Wii U arrived on the scene...last year, I think? Anyway, where the Wii was this huge, hyped machine where Nintendo came out with all their guns blazing, it seems they really weren't that concerned about what would happen with the Wii U. They dropped it on the market with little fanfare, almost no advertising, and few impressive titles, either at launch or down the road, to speak of. The hardware is decidedly last generation (comparable to the PS3), and I'm not bringing that up in the manner of the "DURRR SYSTEM SPECS" argument that fanboys of any particular platform love to toss around. Optimization of a game for a new platform is hard enough on levels of difference between, say, PS4 and 720. Both are pretty close in processing power, and Sony learned from their mistakes with the Cell architecture and now uses an ARM processor, as does the 720. This makes cross platform optimization rather easy , which helps with third party support. It's hard to explain in brief (this post is getting long enough) without a heap of engineering talk, but the power of the hardware is a key factor in accessibility, and therefore in the number of people who will develop for it. Sony and Microsoft have 2013 hardware, Nintendo has 2008 hardware. Gameplay may be ultimately more important than processing power, but developing for two extremely different systems is a very expensive undertaking.
The Wii U is, additionally, plagued with many of the other problems of its predecessor: lack of internet accessibility and multimedia capability.
Now, the argument I hear often is "Well Nintendo isn't competing with Microsoft and Sony." That may be the case, Nintendo may not intend to compete, but I still have a problem with that argument. When you are a company with a product, you need to give people a reason to buy it; this is especially true with expensive products like consoles and video games. With the superior number of titles available to the 720 and PS4 and the numerous features they have that are lacking in the Wii U, no one is going to spend $300 on a Wii U just because "They aren't competing with the others".
tl;dr : Nintendo's greatest problems are their refusal to adapt in an ever-changing industry, a lack of effort to encourage third party support, and a lack of effort to serve their own fans and encourage or create brand loyalty. Ultimately, it's like they're just doing whatever they want, or just stabbing in the dark, and hoping things sell.
Despite all this, Nintendo's portable hardware sales continue to lead the industry. They may have missed out on the casual market with the prevalence of smartphone games, but the "core portable" market is completely theirs. Think this is a sign that Nintendo needs to focus primarily on portable machines?
Should Nintendo stick with the Wii U and try to make the best of it or pull the plug and start a new hardware cycle early? In either case, what would you want to see?
