gaming Could Nintendo go third-party?

[CastletonSnob 3,089]

I mean, the Wii U's not selling well, and it's being sold at a loss. Do you think this could cause Nintendo to drop out of the console race?

[MatrixChicken 879]

Nah. Sure, the Wii U launch hasn't been going as well as it's predecessor's, but there's next to no games right now. I bet the sales will pick up again once the new Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, Smash and other first-party titles are released (or maybe even revealed more publicly with trailers and the like). Plus, the 3DS is doing pretty well.

Edited March 28, 2013 by MatrixChicken

[I am Lunar Fire 198]

With the number of successful franchises Nintendo owns, they can keep selling consoles for a while. The reason for the poor sales of the WII U is a low number of games. The 3DS had a similar problem. Games like Super Mario 3D Land, New Super Mario Bros 2 and the like brought popularity to the console just after they dropped the price. So they milked out the money out of the hardcore Nintendo fans and lowered the price to augment sales to the casual community.

They are doing a terrific job in the console market and have no reason to drop out any time soon.

[Titan Rising 2,156]

On the contrary, I think after one or two more generations Nintendo's going to be the only one left.  There is no reason to own any other console.  Nintendo is the only one that differentiates itself enough from a pc through it's hardware.

 

The Wii U is actually selling fine, it just hasn't met Nintendo's exceedingly high expectations.  I expect far less people to buy the next playstation and xbox, they would be far better off just buying a pc.  There is little to no reason to buy them.  Nintendo on the other hand can pretty much completely support themselves with their own software.

 

That said, maybe they will stop making hardware some day, but it won't be because of sony or microsoft but rather because everyone has a pc.  Maybe at that time instead of entire consoles they'll just develop different kinds of controllers to play their games.

[Envy 6,387]

Is the Wii U really doing that bad? I'm sick and tired of all of this doom-and-gloom talk. Everybody and their dog did it with the 3DS, and look how that turned out. I'm not one to defend the Wii U. Because really is doesn't have anything going for it at the moment as far as I can see. However, I haven't seen that it is failing. Even if it's underselling, Nintendo's a large company. They'll be okay. Seriously.

 

Third party for Nintendo would be the saddest thing in the history of gaming for me personally. Not that I love Nintendo's console directions, just that them having their own console really helps them. They are the only one of the console makers that I can feel confident in not wasting my money on, in the long run. Nintendo's the only console maker that makes franchises which appeal to me. To have the one unique console maker fade away into limited third party titles while the consoles full of war games and generic zombie apocalypse junk stay around... You wouldn't want to see me then.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Envy

[Scootalove 10,692]

I guess Nintendo could if they wanted to. Since, the next-gen consoles will be coming soon and since Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are well the only three console companies. I guess Nintendo could go for third-party, but the thing is Nintendo made a huge success with the Nintendo 64 but the Wii-U I wasn't surprised if it didn't do so well since it's launch.

 

Nintendo will survive, besides it's survival of the fittest in the gaming industry.

Edited March 28, 2013 by ~Chaotic Lightning~

[Shanks 10,817]

Nintendo is for the most part avoiding the mistakes that Sega made which drove them out of the console race while Sony (especially Sony) and to a lesser extent Microsoft are making some of those same mistakes. This is not to say that Nintendo hasn't made mistakes, they have released the 3DS way too early when they should have waited until they had more games before they released it but the sales for the 3DS are doing well now because it now has a respectable number of games.

 

Sony made this same mistake with the Vita and while its cross play features with the PS3 are nice are yet to correct this oversight. The Wii U was also released too soon but since the Wii U is the first next gen to be released it might give Nintendo some breathing room if they play their cards right but they shouldn't get cocky. Nintendo won the console wars of the 90's because they unlike Sega still make consoles but this is despite the fact the Sega Genesis was released 2 years before the Super Nintendo was. So it is still possible that Sony or Microsoft could come out on top in the next gen but so far things seem to be favoring Nintendo because nearly every game you can get for the PS3 you can also get for the Xbox 360 and vice versa while that is not the case with Nintendo.

[Mutemutt 773]

I'm pretty sure that they'll be relatively fine. Even if they're selling the console at a loss, they're going probably going to make up for it in 1st party game sales. You got to get people to buy your console before you can profit off 1st party games after all. Plus after some big name games start being anounced for Wii U, there will also be more console sales.

[SPLinux 381]

I say it's very unlikely,

 

Nintendo has a revenue of over 8 billion and made a ton of dough from the Wii and DS alone not even counting all the games they release that sell millions. The Wii U will pick up just like the 3DS did, its just needs more games, advertising and any other necessary moves to push things along. Nintendo doesn’t need to sell as many Wii U's as they did with Wii and DS. Nintendo owns several of the most valuable Franchises to help them succeed.

 

People love to call Nintendo "doomed" when they post less then expected sales or post a loss. Sony and Microsoft seem to report more losses for their gaming divisions from what i have read and nobody seems to think they could be in any trouble.

 

People comparing the Wii U to Sega and the Dreamcast are bit off, Sega didn’t just release the Dreamcast and have that not do well compared to PS2 and drop out, it was a snowball of other failures and disappointments (CD, 32X, Saturn ,Game Gear, Nomad) and lost of trust by gamers that hurt Sega to the end in addition to that.

 

Nintendo has been making home consoles for 30 years, I think they know how to handle things fine.

Edited March 28, 2013 by superponylinux

[Megas 28,110]

The 3DS is selling like hot cakes, even if the Wii U does fail, which I don't think it will, Nintendo will still likely stay afloat for a few more years. And even with that said, I just can't see Nintendo going third party even if they did fail

[Le Kvlt Dawn 2,368]

Oh come on now, if anyone is going out of buisness it's Sony sadly. They had massive success with the PS1 and PS2 but they really screwed up with the PS3. The PS3 may be a good system but, the way they launched really put them in a hole that they'll never recover from.

[Android 21 0]

While I do believe the Wii U's game lineup came out rather weak. (seems to be an increasing trend) I highly doubt it would spell doom for nintendo's home console market. Eventually they'll have enough good games released to make it a worthwhile library to choose from, along the same lines as the 3DS.

I believe most of the Nintendo doom prophecies comes from parties which only follow the product for the initial release then they write it off and move on to other things, therefore not noticing the development and subsequent releases of games and the likes.

[Guest]

sure they're fine, just look at the 3ds! terrible launch where not a lot sold but then mario came and it sold like mad! give it time

[Aaramus 450]

You do have the bear in mind that all consoles are sold at a loss, the companies make their money through selling the first party games, online transactions ( like Microsoft Points) and peripherals. 

 

While the WiiU wasn't the runaway success like the Wii I think it's safe to say that having an extra year on the other consoles will have given them a good point to stand on for the next "console war".

 

I'd like them to go 3rd party so we can see more titles coming from them but at the end of the day they keep producing some really good first party games. I'm currently considering getting a WiiU just for Bayonetta 2 and ZombieU.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Aaramus

[Radiance64 7,059]

No, they won't. Say what you will about the power of their hardware(although the 3DS is still capable of quite a lot visually, and the Wii U's power seems to be an anomaly of sorts yet), they always come up with something innovative, and to not see the sort of innovation they bring to console development would be a sad day. The Wii U may not be doing well(heck, I don't have one yet), but I'm sure it'll pick up, but for now the 3DS is the best place to be for Nintendo fans imo.

[Abstract 832]

I feel like the only reason Sony and Microsoft are able to compete with Nintendo, is because they're huge companies with truckloads of money to dump into becoming loss leaders. Nintendo just does games, and it still comes out in the green in the end. I wouldn't worry about them too much.

[Zygen 6,066]

Naw they don't need to I  don't think. They just don't have any games for Wii U yet, thats a good bit of the reason why I don't have a Wii U yet anyways .

 

Once all the popular games come out I'm sure they'll start selling like cake. Or atleast better then they are.