x86 consoles, smartphones and tablets, failing Wii U... this generation is... weird.

[Epona]

The Wii U appears to be doing worse than the Gamecube did. And most people in the industry do not forsee the system taking a significant pickup.

It hasn't even been a year, and they have barely released anything themselves. Its a fact of life that most people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo made games. As soon as Nintendo gets 2 or 3 of their most popular franchises on the thing, people will buy it! Of course it is priced way too high in its current condition IMO.

Did people buy the Wii for Nintendo games or for the motion controls?

See all those millions of casuals who bought it because of the motion controls are gone and they aren't coming back just because Super Mario 128 or Mario Kart U comes out just like they weren't here when Mario Kart 64/Double Dash and Super Mario 64/Sunshine came out.

I didn't say "all" people buy Nintendo systems for Nintendo made games, but Wii was a fluke. Yes most of the Wii sales were for that stupid gimmick (and is a huge reason why a lot people only owned Wiisports) but the tried and true Nintendo fans that like their titles will buy the Wii U when their favorite franchises start releasing for it.

I will say that a lot of people that may have not cared for the Wii motion controls bought the Wii for the Nintendo franchises as well, and tolerated the controls.

I also agree with you though about the "casuals" not coming back for round 2. And that's where my original post comes into play. I regard the Wii U as a system like all previous Nintendo consoles except for the Wii. They really shouldn't have named it the Wii U IMO.

They were trying to capitalize on the success of the Wii by keeping the name. They must have thought that the touch screen would be a selling point to the motion control crowd. They were wrong and I am sure many people on forums like this one were saying that since the first showing at E3 2011.

 

[Epona]

They were trying to capitalize on the success of the Wii by keeping the name. They must have thought that the touch screen would be a selling point to the motion control crowd. They were wrong and I am sure many people on forums like this one were saying that since the first showing at E3 2011.

Yeah, I am really surprised that they thought that would work. I mean, they couldn't be that naïve to not know that the Motion controls were the only reason they sold as many as they did... and now that the fad is pretty much dead...

Oh they knew it was the motion controls that sold the Wii in such great numbers and they also knew that they needed another gimmick to sell the next console. Just like the 3DS, the 3D is a gimmick and in my experience, most people play the damn thing with the 3D turned off. It isn't exactly playing out as they expected.

I think of the WiiU as a larger DS.

 

[Arkley]

The Wii U's bad launch doesn't necessarily mean it's going to have a bad run. The PS3, DS and 3DS all had truly dreadful first years.

For comparison, the Dreamcast had one of the strongest launch lineups of all time and sold out across the globe on launch.

The Wii U hasn't even been out for a year yet. If it reaches year two and is still in the same situation, we can call it a failure and start to worry. But right now? There's still reason to hope.

Comparisons can be used to show any point. I am sure it wouldn't be too hard to find some dead console (like the CD-I or the 3DO) that had a bad launch and also failed.

It reaches year two in November, when the PS4 comes out. Do you see anything on the horizon that will turn the WiiU around? I certainly don't.

I'm not saying the Wii U will turn it around. I'm not even saying that things don't look dire - they do. The only point I'm making is that a bad launch does not always make a bad run for a console, and a good launch doesn't always make for a good run. As you said, there have been plenty of consoles that have had bad launches and bad runs, and that may well be the case for the Wii U. But it doesn't have to be. There's not much on the horizon right now, but who's to say we won't see a slew of announcements over the summer and accompanying releases later in the year/early next? It's not likely, but hey, it could happen.

The good thing about Nintendo consoles is that Nintendo have never yet given up on one. The N64 and Gamecube were thoroughly thrashed by their Sony opposition (the latter moreso) and the Wii failed to hold the core crowd, but they all saw more than a few great releases. They may never have amassed the sort of library that the competition did, but they were all worth owning. It might take a while, but I expect the same will eventually be true of the Wii U.

 

[Epona]

The Wii U's bad launch doesn't necessarily mean it's going to have a bad run. The PS3, DS and 3DS all had truly dreadful first years.

For comparison, the Dreamcast had one of the strongest launch lineups of all time and sold out across the globe on launch.

The Wii U hasn't even been out for a year yet. If it reaches year two and is still in the same situation, we can call it a failure and start to worry. But right now? There's still reason to hope.

Comparisons can be used to show any point. I am sure it wouldn't be too hard to find some dead console (like the CD-I or the 3DO) that had a bad launch and also failed.

It reaches year two in November, when the PS4 comes out. Do you see anything on the horizon that will turn the WiiU around? I certainly don't.

I'm not saying the Wii U will turn it around. I'm not even saying that things don't look dire - they do. The only point I'm making is that a bad launch does not always make a bad run for a console, and a good launch doesn't always make for a good run. As you said, there have been plenty of consoles that have had bad launches and bad runs, and that may well be the case for the Wii U. But it doesn't have to be. There's not much on the horizon right now, but who's to say we won't see a slew of announcements over the summer and accompanying releases later in the year/early next? It's not likely, but hey, it could happen.

The good thing about Nintendo consoles is that Nintendo have never yet given up on one. The N64 and Gamecube were thoroughly thrashed by their Sony opposition (the latter moreso) and the Wii failed to hold the core crowd, but they all saw more than a few great releases. They may never have amassed the sort of library that the competition did, but they were all worth owning. It might take a while, but I expect the same will eventually be true of the Wii U.

Pretty sure they dropped the Wii the moment they announced the WiiU at E3 2011. The only things left were things already in development like Skyward Sword. Even before that, people thought the console dead after Mario Galaxy 2.

Now look, I am not trying to hate on Nintendo here. In fact, I hope they save us again like they did in 1985 because the anti-consumer tactics being rumored scare me.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

Anyway smartphones and tablets target a different market than consoles and PCs

I definitely agree. And that is certainly the case right now. A fact that many in the smartphone industry seem to overlook.

I watched a video presentation by someone in the smartphone industry making the argument that smartphone gaming is the future. And that consoles are the new arcade. He argued that the claim that the small screens are not an issue, because when arcade gaming "died", and was replaced by console and PC gaming(mostly console gaming, because PC gaming was not all that popular in the 90s), screen size didn't matter. And console gaming meant people playing on smaller screens, and people didn't seem to care.

That doesn't make sense because most people played on smaller screens because they could not afford an arcade sized television. And most TVs were still plenty large enough to play and enjoy games including of the arcade variety. Also, there is a limit to how small of a screen people are willing to play certain types of games on. Phones are not limited by the cost of how much a user wants to pay for a screen. Things like tablets which use phone services are and phone-tablet hybrids like the Samsung Galaxy Note are making screen sizes more feasible for gaming. But many hardcore gaming genres will never be popular on screens as small as on phones. But best that people in the phone industry can hope with that, is an HDMI output on smartphones.

Tablets on the other hand I see a possible future in hardcore gaming. There's already people who wanted to buy an Ouya for Android gaming. Showing there is an interest in the Android market for hardcore gamers. And personally, I see tablets as an evolution of the ultrabook and netbook. Tablets may not be currently popular with PC gamers, but they could be in the future. Gaming laptops are already pretty popular with PC gamers, though the costs of laptop gaming leads many "true enthusiasts" to build their own desktops, get more power, and save more money.

But the longer time goes by, the more powerful laptops are going to be, and the wider their library of playable games will be. Since tablets are really just an evolution of the ultrabook, it seems feasible that gaming tablets may exist someday. In fact I see the tablet PC market expanding significantly as Intel and Microsoft really want to compete with the tablet market and not lose a laptop buying marketshare to Android and ARM.

And yes, tablets are basically an evolution of the laptop when you really think about it. Tablets are basically a touchscreen ultrabook with optional keyboard. You can buy touchscreen ultrabooks, and they're almost tablet PCs in every way. The only difference between a touchscreen ultrabook and a tablet PC, is that with a tablet PC, the keyboard is a peripheral. And if you think about it, there's no reason why keyboards shouldn't be peripherals instead of graphed into the PC itself. And there's plenty of tablet keyboard peripherals that basically turn a tablet into having the exact same form factor as an ultrabook laptop.

I see the tablet PC in the future, almost entirely replacing the big laptop. And the big laptop market dwindling into almost nothing and only being for enthusiasts. And thus when that happens, you'll start to see tablet PCs specifically designed for PC gaming. Tablets PCs which will be guaranteed to run your entire Steam library at maximum settings.

So while maybe not now, I feel that in the future, tablets will most definitely have a hardcore gaming market. The problem with contrasting PCs and tablets, is that tablets are ultrabooks. An ultrabook is nothing more than a tablet PC with a keyboard force into it.

And right now, while the PC gaming market isn't all that interested in tablet PCs. When laptops become increasingly obscure and uncommon devices, and tablets play even the most demanding PC games, they will be. PC game development is hitting a budget limitation and pushing graphics much further hasn't become very feasible. Processing power, on the other hand, marches forward. Before long, we are going to have computer power that no developer is going to want to attempt to make full use of.

 

[themyrmidon]

I'm not sold on x86 mobile gaming. Intel has been trying to scale down x86 for a long time, and the results have never been great or shown any major promise. I see ARM continuing its rise to be a viable platform challenger (throwing Project Denver into the mix).

The past year and next few will definitely be more interesting than the previous years, going back quite a ways, but I'd hesitate to call it a 'generational' thing, since consoles are not the driving force, the electronics market on a whole is. This phenomena, I believe, is much more macro than micro, that the whole system is what must be understood, not the individual parts as many are examining.