Whatislove said:
BrotherRool said:
The Gamecube also came in last place with abysmal sales.
Xbox (original) Lifetime sales: Roughly 24m (7 years)
Gamecube Lifetime sales: Roughly 22m (6 years)
The Xbox was as much of a 'failure' in the east as the Gamecube was in the West... even though over 12m Gamecubes were sold in the US alone.
It wasn't as big of a failure as many would have you believe. The clear winner of that generation was the PS2 but the other consoles did about as well as each other.
I'd hardly call 22m units "abysmal" for that generation, nor would I call the original xbox sales of 24m abysmal, everyone wanted a PS2.. there was no way around it.
And can we not forget that the PS3 was widely regarded as a complete failure for several years and now it's lifetime sales are higher than the "winner" of the last gen, the Xbox 360.
You were assuming that I didn't consider the Xbox a failure too. I do. And it is. And I thought it was considered as such by most people. The reason people don't hate on it was that Microsoft were launching a new console and trying to penetrate a well worn market to establish a base for the franchise, which they succeeded in doing. It doesn't do Nintendo's street cred well that the oldish console manufacturer remaining got beaten by Microsoft's failed initial attempt to penetrate the market.
The Xbox and Gamecube were beaten by an unprecedented amount of units, there hasn't been such clear losers compared to the winner in any other previous generation. A good measuring stick for just what a failure they were, is the fact that 2nd and 3rd place of our previous generation sold over 3x as much as the Xbox and Gamecube did. The N64 was not a successful console, being soundly trumped by the Playstation but it managed to sell a good 50% more than the Gamecube. Another even better measuring stick is that the PS4, in less than 1 year has sold almost 1/3 of the Gamecube or Xbox's total lifetime sales.
I also very much doubt that the Wii U is the same situation as the PS3. For starters, the PS3 had good access to third-party titles and support by publishers all through the period that it was failing.
Secondly, by the 6th quarter in it's launch cycle the PS3 had sold
12 million units. The Wii U in it's 6th quarter has sold 6 million. In fact
in the 6th quarter of it's life cycle the PS3 sold as many units as the Wii U sold
in the entire year after it's launch. And the 6th quarter is January-March, which is often a pretty slow quarter. For comparison, it it's 6th quarter the Wii U has sold 0.31 million units, which is less the average number of PS
2s sold in a quarter in
2012 (.6 million a quarter).
Thirdly, thanks to the Wii's excellent ability to serve a new gaming market and it's inability to satisfy the 'normal' demographic, the PS3 was competing in a two horse race. The Wii U is competing in a 3 horse race.
Fourth, if the Wii U were to gain third-party support, the third-party games would be noticeably inferior on the Wii U unless the third-parties spent a lot of time designing games around the Wii U's controller, which they have no incentive to do. Also, when designing any multiplayer third-party titles developers would have to design their games controls around Wii motes or further restrict their market by demanding that people buy peripherals.
If Nintendo try hard, I believe the Wii U can be a Gamecube. The Gamecube was by no real measure a successful console, however it did please the people who owned it, provided that they were satisfied by Nintendo games above any other. This is awesome news because it means that the people who bought a Wii U don't have to be burned by their decision, unlike some of the people who bought a Wii early on hoping for third-party support. It absolutely sucks to get your hopes up for something and having them disappointed, so I really do hope that Nintendo try very hard to make sure this is a Gamecube situation, and I hope that they make enough money from the first-party software sales (because what else will people be buying?) to make it financially successful. That way it's practically guaranteed that Nintendo will continue to support their fanbase who've never given up by them.
But I can't see a situation where the Wii U can feasibly pull a PS3 nor can I see a world where I could recommend it to people who don't adore Nintendo games. It sucks, and it's weird that Nintendo have failed to provide adequate third-party support, since the time I was first learning to read, but that's how it's gone and for some reason it looks like there's no sign of this turning their track record around.
Nintendo haven't managed to attract the 'core' gamer demographic since the SNES which was before I was born. It's unreasonable to think they might now when all the signs suggest they won't. Of course if they manage to find a new demographic again with the Wii U, which is completely possible, then that would change everything.
