Yeah they really screwed themselves with the tablet. I can see one of several things happening.
1. Giving up on consoles altogether and going all handheld, with optional video out.
2. Trying to get AMD to design them a SoC so they can join the console party. (next console yes)
3. Price drop to $200, get rid of the tablet, and bundle Wii Fit U and mario or something.
4. Nintendo on smartphones.
If I can get a Wii U during holiday sales for $200 I might go for it.
Ready your TLDR;s
I try not to opine too much on the future of Nintendo, as being an obvious enthusiast you just get written off, but I don't see any of that stuff happening. If only because they'll resist those kind of moves to the end.
For me:
- Start planning the next console, abandon current architecture and backwards comatability completely
- learn from Sony here, and do whatever is efficient and cost effective. Keep shooting for the cheaper family-friendly end of the market.
They have united the handheld and home console R&D teams in Japan, so it sounds like this might actually happen. - Drop the price again whenever possible.
- FIX relations with their distributors and retail. Call of Duty ghosts behind the counter and not on the shop floor with other versions, UK supermarkets withdrawing shelf space, modest promotion in Game-dedicated outlets. They need to pump money here hard. They've got a deal for the holidays with Tesco in the UK, and that's the kind of thing they need to do everywhere. If they don't act, they will lose retail altogether. It's going to cost them money, but they need to do it.
- Drive synergy with 3DS. Create benefits for owning both. Market Wii U content on 3DS more and vice versa, exploit the new 3DS Miiverse update. Now that they're merging wallets and NNIDs, they need to reconsider cross-buy and how Virtual Console ownership works.
- Consider 'companion' apps on Smartphones. They've already released a pokedex, stuff like that really can't harm anyone and can help market systems and software. Its ugly to have unlockables in games tied to companion apps, but they could create benefits that go both ways. If that kind of thing was successful, there's no reason they couldn't do a Google and start partnering on hardware with the likes of Acer, Samsung or HTC etc. They're already sort of working with Acer through iGware.
Personally, I think the
only reason the console isn't cheap at the moment is because they stuck with an evolution of the Gamecube / Wii architecture. The gamepad is a dumb terminal with speakers and a screen, and I doubt it costs all that much -- the clever software trickery that keeps the latency low and the artifacting to a minimum is a one-off payment. You can't save the money on that R&D by axing it now.
They stayed with familiar tech for BC -- which I don't think many people actually care about. You can see their rationale - 100 million Wiis, 880 million Wii games, a metric fuck tonne of plastic remotes, balance boards and wheels etc. Why make the controllers compatible and not the games? It makes sense - but they're essentially making IBM work on updating an old line instead of pumping out a variation of something that they currently already produce in large quantities. That costs money. Their GPU choice was to compensate for that by adding something that would do general purpose processing on the GPU as well, and they through in a separate DSP for audio and the wireless streams. Unfortunately, their desire to stay small, quiet, cool and super-low-watt has means that what they've put in is basically an evolution of one of AMD's embedded components. That's the reason early games and ports haven't easily breezed past PS360 games. Again, you can see the rationale -- the original Wii was also small, quiet and unobtrusive. I just don't think many people care about size or the fact its 35w... even Japan doesn't seem to care.
Next generation, with a digital market taking over, they need to ditch hardware BC... unless of course, its really cheap to do. It hamstrings the rest of the hardware, and the reward is just not great enough. Hence Microsoft and Sony not bothering with it.
Actually owning a Wii U, I don't have a problem with Nintendo's own games, the gamepad itself, or even the power of the system -- but I recognise its not attractive to others yet. I see no reason that it can't be an attractive companion system. The absolute priority has to be to bring the price down as fast as possible, while continuing to pump out games. Wii U needs some of the first party love 3DS has been getting. There's a 10/10 brand new Zelda game coming out on the 3DS next week, and we have no idea when we can expect similar on Wii U. Everything we've been given so far is overly-familiar, we need to start seeing some more unique stuff.
I was in the Pachter 20m-is-a-dream thread on GAF recently, and I saw some guy say PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS (in caps, just like that) repeatedly. I think that possibly works both ways. Wii's past success couldn't be banked on, but I don't think you can say with certainty, that its going to continue being a total failure. Wii U is trending below Gamecube at the moment, but unlike Gamecube, its firmware upgradeable, has a much better online system, a lot of good software yet to come, and potential for a proper co-existence with 3DS.
Speaking of that, I've always thought that one of Nintendo's biggest hurdles has been that their Gameboy / DS customers are not necessarily their home console customers. You can have one and not the other, and be perfectly happy. Even right on this page I am seeing someone say that they wished 3D World was a 3DS title. Good. That's the kind of frustration they need to cause more often. If they can get 3DS owners to play similar but far better games on Wii U, they will win some people over IMO. GC never really leveraged GBA, because they had to sell you cables or the Gameboy Player. With Miiverse and NNIDs effectively merging their online eco-systems, they have a true mechanism through which to monitor and market for the first time. I expect to see Sony bundling the Vita in with PS4 at some point in the coming years, and I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo start doing similar - perhaps offering discounts for people who buy one or the other.
That's the kind of thing I'd be doing anyway. But Nintendo will probably release Donkey Kongs Heart Rhythm Scanner or something.
