Nintendo and Their Wii U Troubles

[SuperAfroBoy]

Did you read the article Joe linked to? It really makes it seem like Nintendo was lost with the Wii U on all fronts. I'm pretty sure I even recall quotes long ago from Nintendo devs saying they don't focus on their competitors , but just do their own thing. And yeah, that's great in theory and can lead to some great ideas, but we can see now how much that has hurt them. When they finally made the switch to HD, they struggled with it because they had no experience and hadn't been watching what everyone else was doing. They're just learning now what the rest of the industry learned early in the Xbox 360 and PS3 days, and the just were not ready for it.

 

[Tarvis]

Ahhh I meant too yesterday because I had a chance and totally forgot. I will give it a read during lunch today.

And yeah I remember that quote although I don't remember who said it. It's like they don't have a market analyst anywhere in the company, or they don't listen to them. I somewhat agree that maybe it's time for the key players to step back, but I'm worried that Nintendo will be taken over by people like Bobby Kotick or John Riccitiello who only cares about yearly releases with no real substance - someone who doesn't even play games, just a businessman.

Although I see this morning that Nintendo shareholders are pressuring Nintendo to abandon the hardware market altogether after their stock dropped friday.

 

[SuperAfroBoy]

I think it will take a lot more than this for Nintendo to abandon the console market, they just have too much pride.

 

[Tarvis]

Hopefully. Perhaps now would be time to buy stock in Nintendo though.

I read Joe's link finally, and it's sad to hear how far behind they were in the online networking - although that might not be entirely their fault based on the rumors with EA and what Nintendo originally wanted them to do. I think the CPU issue is a tad overblown, as the Zelda U demo looked gorgeous and I can only assume it was running on Wii U hardware. But the CPU bottleneck certainly doesn't help in hoping ports for the other systems come to the Wii U.

I've never understood why third parties games have trouble selling on Nintendo hardware going back to even the SNES days in some cases. Even on the Wii, it seemed only shovel-ware sold besides Nintendo's own efforts. What's up with that?

But yeah, the fact they don't looking at Xbox Live or PSN to see what the other guys are doing is kind of unnerving. Don't get me wrong, Miiverse is one of the best online implementations I've ever seen in a game console, but there is a lot of basic functionality overall that is just missing for some reason. They need to hire some teams that either write network coding for their games or add network features to Miiverse - and fast.

 

[Joe]

Let's also not forget that the 3DS was the best selling console in 2013, and Nintendo still has a substantial war chest - they are far from doomed in any sense. If the Wii U is a total writeoff a couple years from now, it won't sink them. They have room to make a mis-step. But they do need to change tack sooner or later.

 

[Joe]

I was reading some article the other day, can't remember where or how I came to it, discussing the Miyamoto thing. Apparently he tries to step back as much as possible on game dev - when a junior dev asks him how he'd do something, he responds with something along the lines of "if I solve everything for you, what will you do when I'm gone?"

 

[SuperAfroBoy]

Third parties on Nintendo consoles are a bit of a conundrum. Nintendo's first party titles and IPs are so strongly known and loved that competing with them must be difficult. Especially considering the install base of a Nintendo console is going to have a lot of die hard Nintendo fans, where say an 360 or PS3 owner may not necessarily be a great fan of the first party titles available. If a hardcore Nintendo fan is going to the local game store to pick up a game, and he sees Nintendo's latest game sitting next to a multiplatform title, he's probably going to pick the Nintendo one. For example, I own an Xbox 360 but I don't really care for Microsoft's titles, or any Xbox exclusives for that matter. While if I had a Wii U, my lust would only be for the fruit of Nintendo's loving loins.

 

[Logan]

When it comes down to it, I think Nintendo's real problem was the Wii. They tried something different and had huge success and have went with the assumption that doing something that deviates from the norm will propel them to the stratosphere again. I know they maintain the idea that they've always "done their own thing", but they were ahead of the pack with the NES and SNES. You could argue that their deviation from disc based media with the N64 was the beginning of this stubbornness that's led them to here.

I really feel like they need a new marketing team though. It's a huge problem they've had.

"Okay guys, the Wii and DS were huge hits, what's our next consoles gonna be?"
"Throw a 3 in front of one and a U at the end of the other and watch the sales come in!"

Granted, I know their fancy reasons for naming those what they did, but I don't think there's any doubt that the names have led to confusion on BOTH of those systems. However, Nintendo just needs to follow suit with the Wii U with what they did on the 3DS. Release the games that people gotta have, and the consoles will sell. Not many companies rely solely on exclusives anymore, so I don't know what the immediate future holds. I do know that we won't see Nintendo going the Sega route any time soon.

 

[Joe]

omg u guise nintedno (moer like KIDtendo am i right huehuehue) is teh DOOMED!!111

 

[Tarvis]

Doubtless you've read a bunch of opinion pieces about what Nintendo’s problems are and how they should fix them all lately. It’s lead to a bunch of ingrates talking about going third party, developing for iOS or making a console to compete with the Xbox One and PS4.

And they’re all rubbish, rubbish suggestions and the people saying this stuff are idiots.

Sure, Nintendo doesn't help itself with its seeming inability to market a game or console, and it might be a bit out of touch as it showed with the whole Cranky Kong reveal at the Spike awards, but here’s the thing… on the whole it’s not Nintendo's fault.

It’s your fault.

[Source]

Fairly decent article and kinda goes with what some of us in this thread are saying although a little bit more fanboy-y than even we are (I think?!), although I think Wii U's problems have a lot more to do with lack of real software, THE NAME, and no advertising, instead of the Frat BROs who are currently turning gaming into freemium rehash FPS marketplace.

Although everyone lambastes Nintendo games as being kiddie, look how many people wish that Nintendo would go third party so they could play their games without buying their consoles. Nintendo games are like everyone's dark secret that they try to hide from their friends.

 

[Tarvis]

Rumor: "Nintendo Fusion" Is Nintendo's New Next-Gen System

A rumor has surfaced claiming that Nintendo is hard at work on its next generation of home and portable consoles, collectively known as "Fusion."

An anonymous source claims that Nintendo, which is reeling after an absolutely disastrous year, is working on the successor to the much-maligned Wii U. Called Nintendo Fusion, it's a collective name for Nintendo's next generation of both the home and portable consoles.

Nintendo actually purchased the nintendofusion.com domain in 2003 in support of the Nintendo Fusion Tour, a rock and video game music festival that ran for four years, but it has since gone dormant. And while news that Nintendo isn't just watching its money evaporate is not in itself remarkable, it is noteworthy that there are actual "possible" specs for the hardware, suggesting that development is relatively far along.

Fusion DS:

• CPU: ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 GPU: Custom Adreno 420-based AMD GPU
• COM MEMORY: 3 GB LPDDR3 (2 GB Games, 1 GB OS)
• 2 130 mm DVGA (960 x 640) Capacitive Touchscreen
• Slide Out Design with Custom Swivel Tilt Hinge
• Upper Screen made of Gorilla Glass, Comes with Magnetic Cover
• Low End Vibration for Gameplay and App Alerts
• 2 Motorized Circle Pads for Haptic Feedback
• Thumbprint Security Scanner with Pulse Sensing Feedback
• 2 1mp Stereoptic Cameras
• Multi-Array Microphone
• A, B, X, Y, D-Pad, L, R, 1, 2 Buttons
• 3 Axis Tuning Fork Gyroscope, 3 Axis Accelerometer, Magnetometer
• NFC Reader
• 3G Chip with GPS Location
• Bluetooth v4.0 BLE Command Node used to Interface with Bluetooth Devices such as Cell Phones, Tablets
• 16 Gigabytes of Internal Flash Storage (Possible Future Unit With 32 Gigabytes)
• Nintendo 3DS Cart Slot
• SDHC "Holographic Enhanced" Card Slot up to 128 Gigabyte Limit
• Mini USB I/O
• 3300 mAh Li-Ion battery

Fusion Terminal:

• GPU: Custom Radeon HD RX 200 GPU CODENAME LADY (2816 shaders @ 960 MHz, 4.60 TFLOP/s, Fillrates: 60.6 Gpixel/s, 170 Gtexel/s)
• CPU: IBM 64-Bit Custom POWER 8-Based IBM 8-Core Processor CODENAME JUMPMAN (2.2 GHz, Shared 6 MB L4 cache)
• Co-CPU: IBM PowerPC 750-based 1.24 GHz Tri-Core Co-Processor CODENAME HAMMER
• MEMORY: 4 Gigabytes of Unified DDR4 SDRAM CODENAMED KONG, 2 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz (12.8 GB/s) On Die CODENAMED BARREL
• 802.11 b/g/n Wireless
• Bluetooth v4.0 BLE
• 2 USB 3.0
• 1 Coaxial Cable Input
• 1 CableCARD Slot
• 4 Custom Stream-Interface Nodes up to 4 Wii U GamePads
• Versions with Disk Drive play Wii U Optical Disk (4 Layers Maximum), FUSION Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) and Nintendo 3DS Card Slot
• 1 HDMI 2.0 1080p/4K Port
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound
• Inductive Charging Surface for up to 4 FUSION DS or IC-Wii Remote Plus Controllers
• Two versions: Disk Slot Version with 60 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage and Diskless Version with 300 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage

Nintendo News claims it has an "impeccable reputation" with regard to rumors but also notes, as do I, that none of this is substantiated and is subject to change and/or outright denial at any time. And while it's only been a little over a year since the Wii U was released, it's been such an unmitigated disaster that I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo is in a rush to get a successor out the door. Whether or not it will do anything to restore its credibility is another matter entirely, but at this point, anything is better than nothing.

Source: The Escapist

 

[Joe]

I started looking at that spec list...yep, I know some of those words.

 

[Logan]

the damn wii u is hardly a year old!

 

[Lulu]

so much nintendo hate

 

[Tarvis]

Found a rebuttal to joe's eurogamer article. Hmmm.. the plot thickens.

http://www.destructoid.com/experienced-devs-counter-annonymous-wii-u-criticisms-268857.phtml

 

[SuperAfroBoy]

Well, like the article says, I'll believe a report from a dev that goes on the record over an anonymous one any day.

 

[Joe]

Oh man the Animal Crossing dude looks so weird next to the other characters there