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

Boy am I ever glad you don't work at Nintendo

The DeNA partnership has been in the works for 5 years, long before the Wii U was even released. 5 years ago, the Wii was still selling nearly 20 million units a year, so this is definitely not a Hail Mary play.

And there's nothing particularly unusual about the timing of the NX announcement. N64 was announced in 1993, 3 years after the SNES launched in 1990. Gamecube was announced in 1999, 3 years after the N64 released. Wii was announced in 2004, 3 years after the Gamecube was released. NX was announced in 2015, 3 years after the Wii U released.

From Nintendo's quote:

"...Because we’d like to focus on developing the game, we aren’t planning on showing it at this year’s E3, where we will be highlighting games launching in 2015. We will let you know when we’re ready to share more specifics.”

I have one REALLY big question: Since when does any games company go to an E3 AND NOT talk about games coming in the year after? Even at 2014's E3 they talked about 2015's Kirby, Yoshi, Xenoblade, Splatoon, Mario Party, Mario Maker, Codename: Steam, Mario vs DK, the 2 Miamoto games and announced Star Fox (and Zelda, but that now isn't 2015).

This makes me suspect that the Wii U will be supported with Zelda and a couple more games before E3, then the NX train is going to be set on the tracks.

The way that's worded doesn't make it sound at all like they're saying "oh, that's all we're showing off at E3." In fact, Aonuma has little control over what Nintendo shows that he isn't directly working on, himself. He's more or less stating that they want to focus on the game, and not the show. Which brings me back to my previous point of "sounds like a cover for 'what we were going to show no longer matches the product' to me."

Besides that, Nintendo showed those off, yeah, but what did they HIGHLIGHT? Smash 4? Bayonetta 2? And beyond that, Nintendo didn't have as much to show off for the end of 2014 as it sounds like they'll have for 2015. I seem to recall Iwata teasing that there may be some things in store for us we have no idea about for this year. Even without Zelda U, it looks like the Wii U will still be busy, the second half of this year. Thank about it: How many of those things that they showed off last year have already come out? From your list? 4 out of 10. 11, if you count Zelda.

Also, Nintendo would have to be completely out of their minds to drop support for the Wii U. Iwata was developing games around the time SEGA made a similar mistake (I know that mistake was a lot more complex, but the core holds). We've learned from experience that cutting support early (like 3.5 years early) destroys consumer confidence. I don't think Nintendo's going to place all their cards on the NX pile. At least not this year. Maybe in 2017. Even less time ago, Iwata definitely saw what happened to the Wii. I'd like to think he won't willingly make the same mistake twice. Cut support this soon and you're gonna get boned.

What I personally think Nintendo's best course of action right now would be is to do their absolute best to ensure 3rd parties come to their next console. Hand out Dev kits one, two years before the system comes out. Make absolutely certain that Activision, Ubisoft, and hopefully EA are on board, as well as any others that might be down for the system. (From Software would be great, but their pedigree doesn't exactly scream out in support of Nintendo.) Namco and Platinum and Capcom and SEGA would help, and as they seem to mostly be on board, anyways, Nintendo could ensure a decent line-up to keep the system from drowning before they can even get one must-have exclusive on the thing. Basically, the same approach as this generation, minus the step of pissing off EA and failing to market the dang thing that caused them so much trouble out of the gate. First impressions mean a lot. The PS3 had plenty of support by the end, but the 360 was known for it, by then.

Well, there's a lot to be said for the convincing power of financial misfortune. If the Wii U performed like a Wii 2 then I doubt Nintendo would be delving into mobile gaming beyond farming out their IP to crap mobile devs.

I'd like to think Nintendo's become way more careful than that, since the Wii days when shovelware was everywhere. Maybe a bit too careful. I'd be surprised if they didn't have specific devs in mind when they started those talks and even more surprised if any of them weren't Japanese.

After the CD-i debacle, I think Nintendo would be very cautious of the quality of the games regardless of the Wii U's success. Times have changed and mobile audience standards aren't that high anyway, but nobody wants another Wand of Gamelon unleashed on the world.

Hard to know how extensive the mobile thing is going to be anyway. I still believe that Iwata was telling the truth when he said the goal was to use mobile to draw people into their dedicated hardware, whatever that means. As far as ideas go, you could do worse than glorified ads that make their own money.

@UGXwolf Splatoon was definitely shown off more than most of the 2014 titles at E3 last year despite being a 2015 release. The 2 versions of Smash were the only games that were shown off more though I'm including the Treehouse streams. Of course there's the possibility that Nintendo doesn't do streams and keep low like in 2013, I'll be very disappointed if that happens as the streams were definitely a very good thing.

They also talked about Smash Bros, Captain Toad, Bayonetta, Hyrule Warriors and Amiibo. I mean if we're talking about what their focus was last year, I think there's a strong argument that it was on games coming in 2014. Obviously we only remember the stuff about things that aren't out yet because the other stuff is old news. But it was definitely laden with 2014 content... case and point:

I'd agree with that. The problem of releasing a console in about a year and a half's time is that that'll be when the PS4 has the most momentum (and will have a lot of good exclusives)

God, I hope not. I hope this new console is a handheld.

I don't see how going the route of a new home console is going to help Nintendo. That would make Wii U owners feel so cheated. I know I would feel that way, and the Wii U is still a fairly new system and I think it has a lot of potential. It just needs more games.

I agree, if the Wii U's successor is released before holiday 2017 then Nintendo will end up like SEGA and eventually only create smartphone games.

Well, I suppose that's it then. "Nintendo Life Admin believes Nintendo should drop out of home console race. 'They've not had success with home consoles for nearly 20 years.' Actual quote from Nintendo fan. Nintendo is DOOMED."

Ha, if this was another subject that comment would be posted all over twitter and the equivalent of Salon.com would write articles like "Nintendo sites hire masochistic moderators."

The funny thing is that Gamelon is better than most mobile games of the same genre simply by the virtue of having button controls.

I don't regret my truthful words

I'm not saying you should. I'm just saying you're an admin on a Nintendo fan site and you believe Nintendo should stop making home consoles. Like @Dezzy said, if someone from another site saw this, they'd blow it up into some big story and in a few days, we'd be seeing articles from IGN or GameSpot or something where the headline would be "Nintendo Fans Are Done With Home Consoles: Nintendo is Officially Doomed"

"I disagree with facts" isn't exactly truthful.

Okay then. Where are the facts supporting home consoles (by Nintendo)?

Explain what you mean. Sales? Third party support? Game quality? Financial strain? What?