Topic: When Do You Think the Wii U will Be Out?

This has been talked about over and over, but as 2012 is beginning and 2011 now ended, we're beginning to get a better picture of Nintendo's financial footing and I think it'd be interesting to respeculate on when this thing is coming out and why. First of all lets go over what we do know.

SUMMER RELEASE?

1. It's gonna be after JUNE. It's 2nd and final build is being shown at E3 this year, although it has been confirmed we will be getting more information before then. For a while Nintendo was saying that the Wii U wasn't going to drop til after April. Now they've revised it to after June.

2. Darksiders II is a Launch Title for the Wii U that is releasing in JUNE. Therefore it'd be optimal for THQ to release it on all 3 platforms simultaneously this coming June, but it might not affect the sales too much if they didn't.

3. The Wii has NOTHING planned after MARCH/APRIL. Seriously, after Mario Party 9 (March) and the long overdue US Xenoblade (April), there's nothing planned for the Wii.

4. Nintendo's Quarterly report just came in, its BAD. The company lost a lot of money over this last quarter. The 3DS had a disastrous launch, Wii sales hit an all time low, and despite its critical success and booming start, Skyward Sword did not sell nearly as many copies as Nintendo thought it would.

All these points indicate that Nintendo's planning to pump this thing out ASAP, but there's also arguments for it having a later release date.

FALL RELEASE?

1. Learning from the 3DS. Nintendo threw the 3DS out there as fast as they could. Heck they threw it out there so fast that the Circle Pad Pro had to be invented shortly after as an attachment to remedy their control stick blunder, not to mention it had a weak line up of available games. If Nintendo learned anything from this, its patience.

2. Launching a system during/right before the holidays is a proven success. It's what they've always done because it generates buzz and demand right before the biggest shopping craze. A sure-fire way to ensure a successful launch of just about any consumer product is to release it during the holiday season.

But can Nintendo afford to go a whole year relying on the 3DS and two Wii games? If their losses are looking bad now, they are going to plummet come June/July when they'll have another 5 months with nothing new. 3DS games like Resident Evil, MGS3, Luigi's Mansion and Kid Icarus are gonna be killer apps that really push the 3DS...but most of those are coming out in the first half of this year. Nintendo needs to come up with a money maker so they don't post 2 year's worth of consecutive losses.

It's my belief that Nintendo knew this for a while, that they had previously decided to release the Wii U late Spring cause they didn't have anything planned beyond that point. But with the disastrous 3DS launch and the confusion surrounding the Wii U at E3, I think they wanted to push the console back a little further to allow for a more extensive line up upon launch, as well as have another shot to generate maximum buzz at E3. I think they are going to try to start a tidal wave at E3 and jump on it as fast as they can to ride it into the holiday season. I think the Wii U is coming out late June.

What do you think?

Around Christmas...

The latest release date rumor thread is here. Please feel free to post any theories you have in that thread. Thank you! :3