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Topic: Is Zelda's delay the writing on the wall for the Wii U?

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LzWinky

Even so, Zelda will not "save" the Wii U in any way. The Wii U will never reach a higher threshold than it is right now, and that will never change. This delay will not kill the Wii U and the opposite would not have saved it.

Current games: Everything on Switch

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iKhan

TingLz wrote:

Even so, Zelda will not "save" the Wii U in any way. The Wii U will never reach a higher threshold than it is right now, and that will never change. This delay will not kill the Wii U and the opposite would not have saved it.

Yes, but the impact is still notable. Zelda was supposed to be the keystone piece of the Wii U's very good 2015. Delaying it kind of pulls the foundation out from under Nintendo's feet.

They need a holiday game. Now, maybe it's possible Next Level Games is working on something big, and that will be the 2015 game, but we don't know yet.

Currently Playing: Steamworld Heist, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Tales of Graces F

skywake

TingLz wrote:

Even so, Zelda will not "save" the Wii U in any way. The Wii U will never reach a higher threshold than it is right now, and that will never change. This delay will not kill the Wii U and the opposite would not have saved it.

I'd go further and say that Zelda can't "save" Nintendo's home console position regardless of what platform it appears on. I don't think any title or any piece of hardware could do that. Not while the PS4 is dominating and I suspect it will continue to dominate through 2017. They need clear air and they're not going to get it.

The portable space however is wide open. For Nintendo the portable space is right there ready for them to get the hammer out again. For their competitors there's also a very small window where they could potentially take some of Nintendo's thunder. That's where the NX needs to be, they need to get the hammer out again.

Edited on by skywake

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"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

LzWinky

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Current games: Everything on Switch

Switch Friend Code: SW-5075-7879-0008 | My Nintendo: LzWinky | Nintendo Network ID: LzWinky

Bolt_Strike

skywake wrote:

2. The Zelda delay has to be significant. Not just slipping to early 2016 but maybe a full year

If it's not even showing up at E3, then it's likely not coming until the second half of 2016. So a full year delay sounds about right.

Bolt_Strike

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TuVictus

A handheld only Nintendo wouldn't break my heart. It would just suck to go back to pre-HD nintendo games, assuming the handheld wasn't powerful enough. Better that than struggling to support two platforms with no 3rd party support.

TuVictus

iKhan

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Are you being sarcastic? I really can't tell.

Anyway, dropping out of either market would be a mistake. Nintendo relies on profit from both sectors of the company, and home consoles have significantly more respect and publicity in them market. Additionally, handheld devices are slowly but surely becoming more and more niche compared to smartphones and tablets. Nintendo should definitely keep making handhelds for that narrower market, but if there were ever a time when it was a bad idea to put two eggs in that basket, it's now.

Currently Playing: Steamworld Heist, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Tales of Graces F

LegoNintendo12

I'm glad that Nintendo is staying in the console race, the games on their home consoles are there best.

LegoNintendo12

LzWinky

iKhan wrote:

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Are you being sarcastic? I really can't tell.

Anyway, dropping out of either market would be a mistake. Nintendo relies on profit from both sectors of the company, and home consoles have significantly more respect and publicity in them market. Additionally, handheld devices are slowly but surely becoming more and more niche compared to smartphones and tablets. Nintendo should definitely keep making handhelds for that narrower market, but if there were ever a time when it was a bad idea to put two eggs in that basket, it's now.

And their home consoles have been mostly niche as well. Heck they've been historically more "niche" than their handhelds. None of their consoles have outsold the respective handhelds.

Current games: Everything on Switch

Switch Friend Code: SW-5075-7879-0008 | My Nintendo: LzWinky | Nintendo Network ID: LzWinky

iKhan

TingLz wrote:

iKhan wrote:

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Are you being sarcastic? I really can't tell.

Anyway, dropping out of either market would be a mistake. Nintendo relies on profit from both sectors of the company, and home consoles have significantly more respect and publicity in them market. Additionally, handheld devices are slowly but surely becoming more and more niche compared to smartphones and tablets. Nintendo should definitely keep making handhelds for that narrower market, but if there were ever a time when it was a bad idea to put two eggs in that basket, it's now.

And their home consoles have been mostly niche as well. Heck they've been historically more "niche" than their handhelds. None of their consoles have outsold the respective handhelds.

Sure, but I never said they should stop making niche products. And the fundamental point is that there is room for success with consoles, not so much with handhelds.

Also, Nintendo maintained the Wii's success for 5 years, that's pretty sustained if you ask me.

Currently Playing: Steamworld Heist, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Tales of Graces F

LzWinky

And then fell into sharp decline after that while the handhelds were strong throughout.

Current games: Everything on Switch

Switch Friend Code: SW-5075-7879-0008 | My Nintendo: LzWinky | Nintendo Network ID: LzWinky

iKhan

TingLz wrote:

And then fell into sharp decline after that while the handhelds were strong throughout.

It saw a sharp decline because it's peak was so high. It actually had a pretty symmetrical sales curve, gaining popularity and losing steam in a typical lifecycle.

I don't know what you mean by "the handhelds were strong throughout". The DS had a pretty typical lifecycle too, if anything it was LESS symmetrical, with it losing steam a bit faster than it rose to popularity. On top of that, you just have to look at some of the most popular games on DS to see the problems with industry overlap with smartphones. Unlike the idea that the crowd that enjoyed (and still enjoys) large group party games somehow migrated to iPad, the idea that the types of games and players that have traditionally done very well on handhelds have migrated to smartphones.

Look, the 3DS is my favorite handheld system EVER, but I can see the threats. I'm sure even Nintendo saw the threats, given that they have implemented a mobile plan.

Currently Playing: Steamworld Heist, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Tales of Graces F

skywake

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Don't assume that's what I meant because it wasn't. What I was saying was that the most successful platforms haven't launched when their competitors already had a hold on the market. It's the same mistake they made when they launched late against the PS2 except this time Nintendo don't even have a technical reason to update their platform. The PS4 has insane amounts of momentum, Nintendo shouldn't leave the home-console market but if they're smart they'll wait until Sony starts to tail off a bit before they go at it again.

TingLz wrote:

And their home consoles have been mostly niche as well. Heck they've been historically more "niche" than their handhelds. None of their consoles have outsold the respective handhelds.

Which isn't surprising given that handhelds are personal rather than household devices. Even less surprising given that Nintendo hasn't really faced as much competition in the portable space. As others have said you could have made this same argument before the Wii. You could even say the same thing about Apple and their laptop business. Things in tech change quickly, particularly in gaming, in five years we might be talking about how much trouble Sony is in with their new home console.

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Haru17

Dezzy wrote:

I sense you're unaware of the attitude to new threads on this forum.

To summarize...

Untitled

Don't hate me because I'm bnahabulous.

Neuromincer

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

It's a sad fact, but your average punter who buys a console just wants to play the next iteration of GTA, Fifa, COD, and Madden, etc.. on the hardware that makes them feel that they are really mature and grown up. Nintendo have had success along the way, but the fact of the matter is, is that your average consumer doesn't care about 'innovation' or new experiences, they just want the same un-challenging, pandering experiences over and over. They certainly don't want anything that isn't gritty, realistic or without a FIFA license. I don't mean to sound elitist or snobbish, but a game like Pikmin 3, in its presentation and design must be utterly bewildering to your average console owner. Miyamoto wants to make it a major franchise..

Nintendo are at such odds with where the gaming market is at with their core philosophy, that I don't see anyway they could ever reach mainstream popularity again with their home consoles.

It's like saying that "hey, if we market the hell out of Melt Banana, they'll become the biggest band in the universe some day!"....yeah, right.

Edited on by Neuromincer

Neuromincer

UGXwolf

Allow me to be the voice of specificity, as always, but can I just point out something in Aonuma's announcement that seems to have slipped everyone's attention?

"A release in 2015 is no longer a top priority."

Make no mistake about what I'm saying. Zelda U is most likely not coming out in 2015. Not by any reasonable argument. However, what does this sound like to you? Very careful speech. It's not a top priority. He didn't say it wasn't coming out in 2015. He said that's not a priority. This does two things: 1) It covers the likely possibility that it won't come out this year. 2) It leaves the statement open in case it DOES come out this year. I say we should expect Zelda U in Spring/Summer 2016. Not on the NX. Not ported to handheld, and DEFINITELY not on mobile.

Another thing I need to point out is that Aonuma said NOTHING about Nintendo focusing E3 2015 on 2015 games. He didn't even bring that up. He said they were going to focus on developing the game, which is why aren't bringing it to E3. This is most likely another cover. Odds are what happened is that what they were going to show no longer accurately represents the finished product, so instead, they're going to show the game off when they're ready to and not when E3 rolls around. (Believe it or not, these demos take a lot of time to put together and get more intensive as the dev cycle wears on. If they just made a groundbreaking change to the title this month, they won't have time to set up a working demo and there's no guarantee the game will be ready to show off, either.)

Also, someone's bound to bring up my analysis of the Zelda delay history. Yeah, I was wrong, but not in my analysis. Zelda U has only just now hit it's major change. Hopefully not as bad as it sounds. We do need to remember this has been in development for years, now. Mid-2012, at the latest.

And another thing! People seem to forget we've actually known about the NX since last year. Iwata openly stated that Nintendo is always working on the next system. If you weren't already aware, that should've been a big hint that the NX was in development. All that's changed is that Iwata's given it a code name. We probably won't hear about it until February at the earliest, and most likely, it'll be announced at E3, which is another thing! Have people forgotten how little Nintendo thinks of E3? They save things up for it because they know people expect a Direct at that time. That's the only support they show it aside from bringing their games to the show floor.

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The UGXloggery ... really needs an update.

Octane

Endriu7777 wrote:

The Wii U has been a commercial failure so far, nintendo doesnt seem to be able to put out as many quality games as their fans would hope for.

I'd beg to differ. Personally, my Wii U library is shaping up to be one of the greatest game libraries of all my systems. You can say whatever you want in terms of success, but I think they've nailed the software every single time so far.

Octane

Endriu7777

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Hopefully they won't listen to you

Endriu7777

CaviarMeths

TingLz wrote:

Yeah, to be honest, I think they should just drop out of the home console race. They really haven't had a lasting success since the NES/SNES. Make the NX a handheld with TV capabilities

Nintendo makes >50% of its revenue in hardware. They also have the advantage of releasing games on their own platforms without licensing fees. On top of that, they collect licensing fees from 3rd parties (few as they are last couple of years). They would need to sell significantly more software to reach the same revenue, and there's no guarantee at all that they'll sell an extra 10 million copies of Mario Kart by releasing it on a different machine. It's just not reasonable to say that they would be better off dropping their console line.

"But profit!"

Yeah, well maybe they could cut out a big chunk of their expenses and increase their profit margin by dropping hardware, but spending less and earning less is not a good way to grow a company. They need higher revenue to continue to invest and expand. The biggest earning companies in the world are also the biggest spending companies.

Spending money is a good thing. It's a healthy thing. The entire economy kind of depends on it. Nintendo's bajillion dollars or whatever they have in the bank is cool and all, but it's really not doing anyone any good just sitting there. I hope they spend a generous lump of it on new hardware R&D.

Edited on by CaviarMeths

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jariw

Operative wrote:

I think if the Wii U was selling well, the DeNA partnership would have never happened and thus there wouldn't have been a single mention of the NX yet. The timeline would be all wonky you see. We are in the "Wii U fails (to sell alot)" timeline

You're correct that Nintendo never does more than they need to make money. But Iwata mentioned the move to handheld to promote the consoles in October 2014 (in the Q&A to the investors). The DeNA thing has to do with both Wii U and 3DS. Nintendo's expected sales from 3DS software is very low, compared to such a high install base. If the current trend continues, we're soon reach a point where Nintendo expects the same total software sales from the Wii U and the 3DS systems during one fiscal year.

jariw

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