Satoru Iwata Cites Poor Basic Wii U Sales To Rule Out Price Cut Benefits

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Iwata, y u so smart!? 23 14.11%
Iwata, y u so stupid!? 30 18.40%
IsawYoshi for President! 16 9.82%
No, seriously, he's right 42 25.77%
No, seriously, he's wrong 52 31.90%
pokoko said:
That's kind of like being in a boat with five large holes in the bottom, pointing at one and saying, "THAT hole isn't the problem, it's the one beside it."

Are you saying that the Wii U has more than one problem? Because that's just ridiculous!

Nintendo can't be that far in the hole, can they?!

Carl is a Piplup hater and deserves to be punished eternally.

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Cut price. Bundle the 2D marios.

It's the best bet to salvage the disaster.


justinian said:
famousringo said:

And yet, nothing in your post suggests that lack of compelling software wasn't behind each and every slowdown.

Of course it was the reason behind every slowdown or more to the point every launch (apart from wii).

I wasn't suggesting otherwise so maybe you misunderstood my point.

The last two Nintendo console launches have been done very badly.

However Nintendo have learnt one thing. It took a price cut to get things going for the 3DS because of poor software support. Right there is bags of money lost. No company plans to cut the price of a console so soon after launch. It screws up the financial forecast. Yes the 3DS recovered but it would have been much better financially to have sold it for the launch retail price for much longer.

That's why they are not so keen to cut the wii u price as they did with the 3DS. The fact that it is already being sold at a lost probably aids this decision but it seems that every fool knows software sells consoles apart from Nintendo.

How often does a wise man fall into the same trap?

I cannot recall MS or Sony using this excuse every two minutes. They probably have but not as frequent as Iwata.

Ah, sorry, I did mistake your point.

I think Nintendo does realize how crucial software is, it simply isn't executing effectively on that knowledge. It does try to court developers, by leaving launch windows open (3DS and seemingly Wii U as well), modifying hardware (Wii U gamepad), and flat-out funding development (Platinum). They just don't appreciate how much of a handicap they have to overcome in the eyes of rival publishers.

On the internal side, they don't seem to be giving their studios enough lead time to know what kind of hardware they'll be developing for. So you end up with delayed up-ports of projects which were started for the previous generation and don't effectively leverage new hardware. Add in the challenges of managing ballooning development teams. The quality software comes, but a year or two late, and after the console has been stigmatized as a failure.

The 3DS is an exception here, as I really do think it was priced out of the market at $250, at least outside of Japan. I think Nintendo could have sold it for $200, but didn't want a repeat of the Wii with three years of sell-outs leaving money on the table. Tactical error.

*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

gum said:

Scisca said:

«I'm not buying a console just for what it's worth in December 2013. Wii U will be better at that point in time - no question, but will it still be better in December 2014? How about December 2015? 2016? »

Why not? Who is saying otherwise ? What are their arguments? Do they have any crystal balls? Did they predict rightfully that PS3 will lose all its exclusives, that Wii will dominate or 3DS will crush Vita? Everything is possible this gen, WiiU has a lot of assets to have a very significant third parties support and a really bright future. My guess is that nothing is set in stone right now and if you are excluding the possibility than WiiU could still be the best offering for years to come you certainly overlook very important criterias. 

Heres the thing, we can only go by history and history shows that Ninty home consoles dont get the type of support that Sony home consoles had since Sony even came in the game. Doesnt matter if it got crushed in sales or not, and PS3 didnt loose exclusives it lost exclusivity, theres a big difference.

i know they are not making money on HW but come on Iwata, saying the deluxe is selling better than basic and using that to say cost is not a problme when the system is missing projections by 2 mil plus? Really how much worst would it sell WITHOUT basic. Some denial

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pokoko said:

This is probably the best and most blunt summary of the Wii U situation ever. Just sums it up perfectly, lol.

The problem with the thought that the basic model sold less then the deluxe so price isn't a problem is that they sent out the basic model so gimped it can't even hold more then one full retail download. Yes, we know the Wii U can have external storage attached but Nintendo seems to forget a fundamental tenant of console gamers... majority of us are kind of lazy.

I mean if we weren't a bit lazy, more people would have switched to PC gaming and Steam by now instead of hooking their consoles to the internet to play our online gaming. We play consoles for convenience of not having to adapt our hardware to match or keep up with the latest or most recent graphics card. Not to mention, the basic doesn't even come with a game so buying it and then a game pretty much equals the deluxe without more memory and for early adopters that price discount they offered.

Dropping both models (or discontinuing the Basic and dropping the Deluxe) by $50 or $60 in time for the recent fall games would benefit in getting people to try to get the system AND a game. Heck, they could remove Nintendoland and just have the 32 GB hard drive version by itself at $299 and they would still probably see a small surge in sales. You are selling at a loss but the fact is with the poorly thought decisions made for the Wii U and its release you did yourself no favors and are going to be eating this loss until you build up the costumer base.

You are going to get sales this fall with the new games, but you could get more by biting the bullet and bringing the only practical version of system's base price closer to $300 or less.

I think the Wii U is dealing with 5 or 6 issues in order of significance

1. No new Wiimote type idea to bring back casuals. Many of the Wii Sports crowd has moved on to tablets/phones. No casuals = no explosive sales. Casuals are fickle, the tablet screen concept just doesn't appeal to them, and isn't getting people talking around their water cooler at work.

2. Not enough strong Nintendo IP upfront. The Wii U has games that's really not the issue so much, they are probably a game or two short of what you'd want right now though. They should have greenlit a Star Fox game and another new IP for the post launch window to fill in the blanks.

3. Price. Price is too expensive, especially for kids and a lot of Nintendo's fanbase doesn't like to spend a lot on hardware as they're used to not paying much for Nintendo consoles traditionally. Other gamers see PS3/360 with better libraries and more third party content, similar visual output and a lower cost and that kills the Wii U in its tracks. It's also killing the Wii U with parents I think, why pay $350 for a Wii U, when $250 gets you a 360 + some cheapo $20 LEGO Harry Potter/Star Wars game that'll keep the kids happy.

4. Mario burn out. They've released too many Mario games in a short time frame and didn't change up the NSMB formula enough, as such Mario on Wii U has a "been there, done that" feel to it even though it's pretty darn good game.

5. Poor third party support. Predictable I guess, but the Wii U probably could've used BioShock Infinite, MGS Rising, Resident Evil 6, and Grand Theft Auto V for starters. Ubi Soft delaying Rayman also hurt.

6. Crap marketing. Self explanatory.

It's not that exactly, the Basic set is just a bad value. I think a 32GB w/o Nintendo Land would be perfect for 299$. The Basic should cost less than what it is now.

No price cut whatsoever doesn't exactly put Nintendo in a great position this holiday even with Mario 3D World + DKC.

PS3- $199.99 (12GB); $249.99 (500GB?)
360 - $179.99? (4GB) gotta be a price drop coming

Wii U - $349.99 (32GB)

PS4 - $399.99 (500GB)
XB1 - $499.99 (500GB)

It's stuck between a rock and a hard place.