Topic: Why does the Wii U get so much hate?

you were obviously joking here, weren't you?

anyway, nice talk man (kudos)

I think the self fulfilling comment is pretty right on. I've said it before on other sites, probably here too. It only takes a look into the long history of the Wii and the first year efforts of third parties on WiiU.

Often times in the gaming press we found third parties who did make games pop up when asked questions about a game and the future, they'd say, if this game would sell so much, we would do more in the future or something of that sort. Some of these games were put together with care, others were just slapped together. One thing was clear, Nintendo doesn't advertise third parties, and other than preaching to NIntendo fans on Nintendo sites, the companies would never advertise a damn thing. If people don't know something exists, that's kind of death in the waiting. Another example would be in the case of a game that would be done, but just slapped together poorly, or to take a hot franchise and make a lame spinoff style game using the franchise yet not using it. Dead Space and Resident Evil being perfect examples, damned rail shooters. Dead Space being even worse, the developers of Extinction came out in development and said it started as a rail game, then they redid their engine and made it the same as the primary franchise, and EA MADE them switch it back to a lame rail shooter. When you get companies that sit there and say, buy this and we'll do more, and then they don't, that's creating a vacuum of interest. When you get them making a game, then just sliding it out to no fanfare, no press, no tv or ad spots, that's sabotage too. And then you get a huge AAA franchise and then make a shadow of a game claiming the hardware isn't suited or can't do it, when it can, and expect people to get a watered down experience, again you got more sabotage. All this plays into the self fulfilling prophecies of failure the Wii had.

This then rolled into the WiiU. Ubisoft, Activision and EA lined up to put stuff up for the system when it came out. In every case they put out very dated (1year~) old experiences and did minimal additions for the touch panel, but did nothing to clean up the games for release or optimizing them for the differently functioning WiiU processors. AC3 was glitchy, Black Ops2 had visual problems and framerates that were in the toilet and uneven, and EA just did minimalist works and sabotaged the best of them (ME3) by placing it out full price against 'Trilogy' on PS3/360 which cost $10 less. Some bailed, some tried harder a second go around, but the damage was done and trust shattered. Ubisoft goes multi on Rayman the promised exclusive and while doing a nice effort on AC4 compared to 3, nothing good to draw people to buy it on WiiU. Activision did better but again nothing to stand out and still limited what they gave Nintendo users compared to the others with AC4 and Ghosts(I have Ghosts it's great.) EA amazingly actually did try with NFS but had already been talking crap about Nintendo, they supposedly put the best version of it out there yet it was well delayed heavily over other versions and it's glitchy. All these games they self-fullfilled the concepts of failed sales by their own actions then pointed fingers at Nintendo and the WiiU owners.

Had the first go around they put up games that were NEW ports of stuff going at that rate to the other guys that would have made a difference. If they had bothered to not cut out DLC and other stuff from the packages only allowing the others to have them that helps too. If they'd properly port the stuff so it runs and displays right would be a good idea. Not undercutting the sales of a game by placing better versions or 'package' deals out at the same time for less would be wise (ME3 vs ME Trilogy.) Of course going back further, actually bothering to aggressively advertise and talk up the stuff couldn't hurt either as if no ones aware, no one buys.

All said in my last post, another good stand alone reason why the WiiU gets hate. It's Nintendo. There has been years now since they were perceived as cool and fun to own, use, and get third party goodies on without caveats or being blatantly ignored and that hasn't happened since the SNES. Throw in some major smear campaigns over the decades of the kiddie box, no adults and teens use that, their do it themselves gimping of hardware or the media it is on. If Nintendo actively tried to make a system up to par with what game makers want and actively did things like Sony does to get developers, help them, and blow out the media to get the attention, they'd be in a better place. Right now you have a system that again is a generation old that third parties self-sabotaged their efforts on from day one, and now it's left in the dust by most game makers. It's a nice system, a nice one without backing.

Eh, not enough exclusives? It's all about exclusives. If you want multiplat games, buy a decent pc. Oh well, to each their own.

Ok, despite the lenght of each post is assuming a biblical scale, I guess we are all agreeing there is a huge problem of "portability" on WiiU, some says it's developer lazyness, some says it is mainly market driven, but I guess we touch a open nerve in the WiiU-saga. For one reason or another, porting games on the console is not worthy, probably for a mix of reason (hardware complexity + profitability issues in doing so). I believe that's why they still port games on Xbox1 and not to WiiU, despite the similar userbase size.

I believe this is something the next Nintendo console has to address... at the end, correct me if I am wrong, the change of hardware architecture won't damage any possible "gimmick" (let's call them like this even if many are great) nintendo will introduce in the new console.....

This I believe will be a must have factor for the new console, as long as Nintendo won't decide to become a real "niche" console, made only for its own game.

I particularly agree with this.... I felt in love with No Man's Sky since the announce at e3, and so I dig a little in the history of the title.... it was born as Indie (actually 4 ppl working on it), and then sony put their eyes on it, help the developers and give them support, and bringin them on the stage in the main Gamescom Sony event...

Yeah, you got me on that one.
I tend to automatically use some skills of my professional role (account manager, leader of a sales team) in my private life as well. Essays like this are written on a weekly basis by me and my fellow account managers to divulge our plans to our seniors/employers and to educate our teams. I therefore have this inherent need (or fault, depending on one's view) to explain in so much detail, which is of course always accompanied by lots and LOTS of text.
But thanks for the compliment and I also partially agree with you on the "Nintendo and the Developers" story.
But to me that is more aimed at the Indies, because Nintendo shouldn't have to help big buck developers like EA, Ubisoft and so on.
Just because Sony and maybe Microsoft too are holding their hands and throwing money at them (something that Nintendo couldn't do anyway because they just don't have a comparable wallet) that doesn't mean that Nintendo has to follow suit. Like "if I jump in the water, will you do the same?" Nope..
The dev kits are there, the architecture is well known by developers, Nintendo offers all the necessary middleware and offers support on eShop and what not, so yeah...
And the indies seem to be doing quite well in that department now, but for the most part it is too little, too late.

@tanookisuit Nice to see that you get the whole self fulfilling prophecy thing. Some people just keep digging and digging for other reasons, while the truth is already out there. You'd have to make more of an effort to NOT see it than just accept it for what it is. And it played a MAJOR part in this whole tragic comedy we're in right now.

@mamp
The only problem with that video, is that Sony has a weird image right now, too. They said that Nintendo makes them think of kid friendly experiences, but that's not all that is there. If Wii U got the likes of Tear Away or Ryme, people would totally be saying those are kid games and "hate" those games, instead of liking them, because they are on PS4. That's how things seem half the time.
Even with Xbox. He said it comes off as "dudebro", but PS fans would be totally stoked for games like Sunset Overdrive if they were coming out for PS4.

I'm not trying to target PS4 by itself, per se, but it is selling well and people are trying to figure out what Nintendo and Microsoft are doing wrong. I just don't see how Wii U and Xbox One are completely missing the mark, but PS4 is somehow "God" status.

As for everything else, I'm at least glad people are starting to realize that 3rd parties didn't do that good of a job in the first place. ME3 vs. Trilogy, missing modes, late releases, and lack of DLC is a legitimate a reason not to care about 3rd parties on Wii U. I think alot of people just don't really care much about those games anymore, either. I would personally prefer to have a new Tony Hawk game or something, rather than another CoD. If their games aren't selling on Wii U, they need to make something that does. That's besides the point that I think they didn't expect them to sell in the first place.

@SCAR392 in all fairness, the narrator of that video explicitly stated that he himself does NOT think of Nintendo that way, but that he feels that the majority of the public and maybe even the business perceives them as being kiddy oriented. And for the larger part the Xbox crowd is indeed seen as dudebro gamers (not that I'd agree since I own an Xbox 360 myself) and the Playstation is the "we want to please everybody" platform in the perception of the crowd.

That doesn't mean that it is true and indeed some people would love to see Xbox One exclusives on PS4 and the other way around and there are probably some people that would even sell their family or cut off their left foot to be able to play Zelda or any other Nintendo game on their platform of choice, but in the larger picture it is all about how these parties come across to the majority of the public.

These labels didn't just materialize out of thin air...

@kyuubikid213 Thanks for elaborating on that point, but I got that part. I'm sorry, this is my fault, I seem to have kind of expressed myself poorly last time around. What I meant was, that I got the impression from @TheRealThanos comment, that there was some level of intention to these poor ports, that they were almost meant to fail, to "proof" that the WiiU had no merit. I was just wondering, why anyone would bother with something like that. I don't see the upside for them, or anyone else for that matter. I think it was just a bunch of publishers being either cheap, meaning their believe that the game, even if flawed, would still sell enough, or just being cautious, meaning not willing to commit to much ressources to an unknown platform, maybe even a platform they were somewhat wary of, right from the beginning.

@TheRealThanos Well, we do both seem to have a penchant for, let's say, caring for details and being very forthcoming with elaborating on them. ^^
Anyways, in regards to your last comment, in a nutshell, you don't really seem to disagree with me. To abridge what you were saying, and please make sure to correct me if I'm wrong, the only real dissent between us, seems to be about the timeline and the degree of downscaling.
I don't dispute the fact, that you could put all those multi-generational games, that are still coming to the Ps3/X360 on the WiiU as well. That was the whole reason I raised the point about Destiny. At the same time, and on that we seem to agree, there are limits to this in the future, when the sequels e.g. to said game, will be taking full advantage of the level of power the X1 and especially the PS4 provide for.
The question then becomes if it makes any sense to port a game like Destiny, which is not just a game, but a whole new IP, spanning several games and most likely decades of publishing (Blizz.-Act. said as much), on a platform, where it has no future, esp. considering the additional cost of it putting there in first place.

Moving beyond that, and that brings me back to the part about 2015, the other pertinent question becomes then, if there is any good reason to downgrade games like the Division (assuming it will indeed be a 2015) title, or the Witcher 3, to name just two, to the point that they could still be ported to the WiiU (assuming such is in fact possible). That is an economic as well as an artistic question, and at least in that regard, both are closely linked together. A 'butchered' version of one of those games, would do no-one any good. It would hurt the long term image of all involved, thus limiting any future financial leeway, and thereby, in conclusion, also any artistic leeway, such as it were. It's hard to see either the devs nor the publisher having any vested interest in doing so then.

You made your point expressedly by "ONLY talking about the period in the beginning", and in that regard, I completely agree, and everything you say about that makes perfect sense to me. But we are already quite a bit beyond that peroid by now, and as you say yourself, there are already limits on the horizon: "downgrade 1080p to 720p, less advanced graphical effects (lighting, Anti-Aliasing and so on), fewer players online, slightly simpler AI and so forth."
To come back to my original summary, we seem to only disagree about timing and, let's say, degrees of compromise in quality, here, in the end, meaning the development mid- and long-term:
Mid-term: Basically this means, how far should a developer go in compromising his product, to be still able to make it available to as broad an audience as possible, including WiiU consumers. Again, I feel this has two sides to it, business and design, respectively long- and shortterm, just to keep that in mind. I don't have any definite answer to that, but I think graphic-downscaling, to a certain point mind you, is fine. If the downscaling effects other aspects, you mentioned slight KI changes e.g., which is where I think things would start to get tricky, but who am I to say really ^^

Long-term: This is what I was alluding to earlier with my remark our seeming dissent about the timeline. Long-term there will be games that can not be sensibly ported to the WiiU, no matter if the power gap is 1:3, or as you say, 1:10 in the Wii days. If this "will be near the end of 2016/beginning 2017" or earlier I cannot say for sure, but on the risk of repeating myself, from what I gathered from dev interviews, this point is already reached by at least some of the 2015 releases, like the aforementioned games the Division and the Witcher. And as you pointed out already, "The ONLY exception will (as almost always) be the console exclusive titles because they are more often than not developed with a far longer time scale so they can take FULL benefit of the hardware", for those the question is already answered. Games like Ryse and Infamous: 2nd Son would not have worked on the WiiU, as much as they would not have worked on the Ps3/x360, although of course, this is a mood point, since we are talking exclusives anyways ... except for one consideration. The fact that a game like Infamous: 2nd Son is released within 6 months of the PS4 release, tells me that at least as far as Sucker Punch is concerend, there is already a level of 'system mastery', we haven't seen at the start of the previous generations. Normally games like Infamous: 2nd Son would be what we expect out of I'd say at best 2nd year releases. I don't think there is any reason to assume that Sucker Punch is completely alone in this advanced stage of understanding the hardware they are working with. In fact considering Ryse was available on Day1, at least Crytek, too, obviously, despite making some concessions on resolution and modells, has to have a solid graps on their respective new system.
You yourself made some remarks as to why that is in your previous comments. All this adds to my impression that 2015 will bring even more games, and this time around not only exclusives, that are technic-wise already truly "next-gen". I.e. Games not suitable, even if there was a will and money for it, for being ported to the WiiU/x360/ps3 respectively.
Once again, this got longer than it had to be, sorry ^^

As for Iwata, I am very curious about it, but I think the simpel fact is, that we all lack even the most basic, and thereby crucial, insight into the internal dynamics of Nintendo (same is true for Sony to a lesser degree imo), to make any educated guesses on that part. This kind of personel decisions are never as clear cut as one might think from the outside, you probably know that better than I do, judging from your previous remarks.

Your points about the gamer hate, I think are well taken. I'm not sure why you termed it "sheep behavior" though, makes it sound rather negative (at least to me, but I'm not native speaker^^), when in fact accounting for your friends inclinations is completely reasonable, assuming of course you are into multiplayer games. Afterall, what good is a great console, if everyone you know, is playing on something else, and you have effectively cut yourself off from the rest. I know that multiplayer, especially online mutliplayer, is not that big a deal (yet) for (most) Nintendo users (something that personally annoys me to no end, since most of my friends don't live next door anymore :-/). That being sad, the situation is compeletely reversed for many if not most the Sony/ Microsoft users. I play on all platforms anyways, but as a simple example, the decision on what device I'm going to play Destiny, is entirely dependent on the choice of my buddies, since I play it for the purpose of playing it with them. I can assure you, I am not alone in that kind of thinking and consideration, and for people who want/ have to settle for one system or the other, this kind of "sheep behavior" becomes a completely sound criterium of choice ^^

Btw, just as a sidenote, this is also the reason the WiiU was the last system I got, and why it could never be the only system I play own. Nintendo is making strides in the right direction when it comes to online, but it is not quite there yet, even worse, it's reputation in that regard is still way worse than Sony's, which had kind of the same problem last gen, and to a degree still has. At least for me, that is a major point why I "hate" the WiiU ( I don't "hate", hate it obviously, I like quite a lot, but it is something that I just have to hold against it, time and time again, for good reason unfortunately).

I think marketing comes into play for this. Sony had the perception of the "console for gamers by gamers". It met the graphics requirements to keep the third parties happy, it was a cheaper price (implying Sony learned from the ps3), it has some exclusive franchises that help keep the sony fans happy, and Sony is known for chasing the indies and they did a good job capitalizing on the bad PR the Xbox one (you wanna talk confusing names...that one takes the cake) got prior to launch. I also kept seeing statements that sony went to devs and asked their input about what specs to use getting bandied about.

While I'm personally not drawn to the PS4 (I will admit to wanting the metal slime one because...dragon quest) I can see how some or all of the above create an awesome sales platform. Though I do feel both Sony and Microsoft need to get some games in the pipe line asap (they are coming but honestly to me it feels worse than the wiiu launch year).

As far as why the WiiU itself gets hate aside from the third party debacle (which I expected... though I didn't expect the half arsed ports) I'm not really sure. I love the gamepad both for off tv play and for its usage as a second screen and navigation device. I adore the backwards compatibility but then again I don't consume and discard media. I think the graphics are more than enough since nintendo as usual tends to leverage the hardware as much as they can (I almost wish Zelda was coming out in a few years due to the teams having more time to really learn the system). My only real points of irritation are region lock (because I import) and my fear that the need to keep a hard selling library will mean Nintendo won't get to take as many risks this gen (which means only high selling ips). Since they are propping the system up by themselves (and indies).

I do wish Nintendo would market more but they only have so much money to spend and if they had to choose between blowing the marketing out of the water and working on good games...I'm picking the games.

ok, guys, I am enjoying the conversation here, everyone got good points and the discussion is evolving, but jeez, here I need a tea cup for each posts of your!

Could we try to syntetize a lil?

From my point, Sony is selling for two (no, maybe 3) simple reasons:

1) Can rely on a huge and "historical" userbase on which Sony didn't try to change, betray or modifiy from past to current gen (contrary to Nintendo) and a strong "brand" tradition
2) Didn't try to suicide like Microsoft with its overpriced console (thanks to Lord of the Gimmicks: Kinect) and its stupid policy about used games...
3) As many of you already said, it as the most widespread selection of titles, from Nintendo-like (Little Big planet, Crash Bandicoot, many Japanese series) to "dude bro" games

That's why in a way I find hard to hate Sony (I mean, not me personally cos I generally don't hate any of them)... in their menu' there is really food for everyone taste, and "politically" they looks the more open minded....

@Ralek85 Yeah, I do think we indeed agree overall, save for a few points and I want to make some clarifications:

First off: I don't think that there is some evil plan amongst third parties to want to see Nintendo fail, but I do see that they only made half baked attempts at bringing their IP's to the Wii U. We could discuss this for the rest of the year but it doesn't change the fact that this is the truth. Just ask yourself why all these extras were cut from the Wii U versions? And what do you think these third parties could expect from us in return? Let that sink in and then we'll see the answers that you'll come up with. You come across as quite smart, so inevitably you should come to more or less the same conclusion.
From the very beginning they were very reserved and went for the quick buck/easy money so they brought their titles quick and full of bugs/glitches. Some of them still made some respectable sales regardless, but most of them failed to meet targets and support was gradually pulled.

Third parties should just come clean and say it is a money issue mainly due to the smaller market share of the Wii U without making excuses like "the Wii U is hard to develop for" or "the Wii U's online is still too simple compared to the other two" or "Nintendo gamers don't want all this DLC anyway so they will be more than happy with the standard local game" and let's not forget "well, for Nintendo only gamers this is a completely new game, so even if it's old or part of a series we could easily ask full price for it".

The short term should be simple: as long as they support Xbox360/PS3 with games, that should imply that the same could be done for Wii U because truly, there is NO significant difference in programming time if you compare these three to each other. This support should be attainable once Nintendo steps it up big time and does something about it's market share. A price reduction could very well be the way to go. That or a bigger package with more software and controllers.

Long term is also easy: port the games that are possible (and I forgot to mention in previous comments that ALL engines are scalable to the point that they can even run on the most basic of smart phones, so that should make it even more easy) and by the time that the games size and or graphics truly start to (for lack of a better word) obliterate the Wii U's, then it is time to pull the plug and like I said I fully expect Nintendo to at least have published some news of their next platform. (very likely to be x86 too)

And I'd hardly call reducing the resolution of a game from 1080p to 720p butchering. Even the reducing of graphical effects, when done correctly through a game engine's incorporated scaling ability, is hardly noticeable. The switching off of some of the more advanced effects can be ever so subtle if you know what you're doing. And especially in games were environments move fast or are drawn further away there are also lots of programming tricks to make the graphics look nicer so hardly anyone would notice unless you'd put it under a microscope.

As far as the other two consoles are concerned: there is hardly any "mastery" needed. The workstations they design on are x86 and so are the two consoles. The software is almost like a blanket that only needs to be moved from one bed to the other (PC design to console dev kit) and then all that there is left to do is to make the blanket nice and smooth and neat around the corners, so minimal optimization.
That is also why I expect third parties to be able to get more out of it way sooner than before, like I also previously said. Were it took 5 to 6 years on the previous HD systems, it will now only take 2 to 3 years tops. But by then Nintendo will have introduced the Fusion or whatever and if that is not going to be x86 (Power architecture being near obsolete as it is, except for use in dedicated servers) then I myself can safely say that they will have to come up with a VERY good alternative or otherwise I will not buy a Nintendo console anymore...

The point about Iwata is clear enough: the board of directors decides what should happen, so if they had wanted him gone, he would be.
So either they made that decision on their own or Iwata is such a persuasive person that he was able to convince them to let him stay on. I'd go with the first choice, by the way. NOBODY is THAT persuasive with the financial results being what they currently are...

And the last point: we call it sheep or herd (flock) behavior not as an insult but because that's what it is. It's large groups of people influencing each other positively or negatively with their choices. Another thing that overlaps this is peer pressure: other kids almost bullying you into doing the same thing they do otherwise you won't fit in and be part of the "popular" crowd. Just think of school and sports clubs or even going out with your friends...

Yes, I also agree with you to this point.... but must be also said that generally even the good ports or 3rd party esclusives (exept MH3U) coming to wiiU got abysimal sales numbers.... and if you look to the mario sales (2d plus 3d marios) you'll see that, believe me or not, a huge part of the historical Nintendo fanbase wanna play mainly (and sometimes only) "traditional" Nintendo games... quick example, MArio Galaxy got 11 million sales, and it was considered wordlwide one of the best (if not the best) game of the generation, New Super Mario Bros Wii? 36 millions... 3 times more.... the same history is repeating on WiiU by looking at the sales charts.... if even Nintendo has difficulties introducing new formats to the userbase (last case was W101), imagine a third party....
(and with this I don't wanna generalise to any of you specifically, just trying to get some interpretation to the numbers...)

I'll clarify it then. Exclusives I want to play. EDIT: Oh, and I do own a "decent pc" I just prefer relaxing on the couch with a controller in hand. Personal bias towards that I guess.

@arnoldlayne83 All good points, I'd add that, to a lesser degree maybe, 1) is true for M$ also, 2) might apply to Nintendo also (I know the Gamepad is a devisive issue, but so far it fared only marginally better ihmo), and 3) in fact, if you were to name games/ genres Nintendo covers and Sony doesn't (or better as), you'd came up rather short, especially in contrast to the outcome, if you were to ask the question in reverse. Microsoft is making big strides in that direction, too, which I largely attribute to the workings of Phil Spencer of there, but yeah, it is not there quite yet, even worse though, most people seem to just ignore this development entirely and keep bashing away at them anyways ...
Last but not least, neither Nintendo, nor Sony, nor Microsoft (I dared!) deserve to be hated, not at all really and certainly not the kind of hate they get, on occasion at least, by some individuals out there. I hope that was concise enough ^^

@Ralek85 to add something to your question "is it well woth to reduce some game to a level where it can be ported to WiiU?", I would like to show an example.
I am a huge fan (relatively young) of Dynasty warrior gameplay. First one I played was Warrior Orochi 3 hyper on wiiu.... great fun, despite the glitch of enemies just appearing in front of me... ok, who cares, there is some sick pleasure in killing them 10 after 10 like flies....

Then, got DW8 utimate on ps4.... wow, now I got entire brigades of enemies facing me.... I rose the level of some of my fav character, and then I saw I could kill HUNDREDS of enemies in one shot.... even more delight for my mass destruction sickness (I am generally a peace and love guy...).... this feature , I don't know, would have been maybe possible on WiiU too by optimizing the code and downgrading the graphics (pretty sure about that)... but even looking at HW gameplay, yes is cool, but still, take the PS4 version, you got 10X the enemies on screen... and that's to me, as a lover of the genre, it's a perfect example where "raw power" really makes a difference in term of gameplay, not only on pure graphic....

Sorry if it sounded silly to many of you, but I hope you got my point here....

Damn sure about that!

And I agree totally.... but you know... haters are a prolific species on Web

@TheRealThanos I can keep this shortER as well, since I think, we pretty much ironed it all out by now.

As for short term, I completely agree, there was never really any contention on that point to begin with though^^. The only question is really how to go about it, and how much sense it makes economically to do so at all, but that is a question, that can only be answered case-by-case.

As for long term, we also basically agree here, the only question left is, when it will be 'impossible' or what make kind of compromise would make it 'impossible' to do so. As for the latter, I didn't mean to say, that tuning down the graphics is per se "butchering" a game, of course that is not the case. I meant to say, that going after aspects of the actual gameplay, e.g. playercount, can be very significant, even to the point of "butchering" (I have to say BF is, to me at least, a good example of that). Also I don't know what it would take to port the Snowdrop engine over to the WiiU, but I doubt the end result would be in the spirit of the original vision for the product.

As for the mastery, we are again in complete agreement on this, I think there has also never been any dissent to begin with. You made some remarks about it in your original comment already I think, and as you say, both consoles are not only similar to each other (esp. CPU wise anyways), but also easy to work with, since they both went for a PC architecture this time around. The pertinent point, that sooner, rather than later the full potential of the systems will be unlocked, is uncontended then.
Personally, I'm not sure though, if Nintendo will be willing to talk about a new system in 2-3 years time already. But you might be right, in fact, I think they just might have to, but by the same token, I don't think it will do them much good by that point. The timing of the New 3DS would fit in nicely with that anyways. 2 to 2.5 years, seems about as much time as the New 3DS might be able to buy the platform (much as the DSi did at the time), and I think a unified homeconsole/ portable plattform is nothing short of quite likely for the next generation at this point.

Again as for Iwata, what you say is of course irrefutable on the surface, but it is also obvious, that their board is moved by more than one consideration on this issue. As you say, the financial results speak a clear language, yet Iwata is still in place, despite not being any kind of Cicero in my estimation. Again, I'm certain there are also internal dynamics at play here, that cannot be explained purely economically, just as Sony has as much troubles overcoming it's structural infighting, as it has overcoming it's actual competitors in the marketplace (the console business aside now).

On your last point though, I'm confused, what do you mean it overlaps with "peer pressure". "Peer pressure" is not connotated negatively then either? They way I understood the term so far, and in fact, the way you describe it, it certainly sounds like someone acts, not according to his own reasoning or believe, but to conform to some kind of social norm, set by others. In German "peer pressure" ("Gruppenzwang") is connotated rather negatively, as it implies a lack of personal backbone or spine, so to speak, or possibly a lack of selfconfidence. I'm not sure though, how this woulld apply in this case, since it didn't mean to say, this is about "pleasing" your friends by being a conformist, it's about coordinating a purchase decision with the people you intend to spent part of your freetime with later on. Not exactly the same thing in my book, since your friends could accept your "divergent" behaviour e.g. in school, and still accept you and keep you around. The same is not true for such a purchase decision, since it will simply be impossible for a group of friends to engage with each other while being on separate, not-interconnected platforms. Sheep/ herd/ flock behavior ("Herdentrieb") carries a slightly less negative connotation in the German language, since basically, it just means someone can't be bothered to be thinking for themselves, either because he is unable to or unwilling to, for whatever reason. So the later is rather passive where any 3rd party is concerend, some lead, the rest follows, the former is rather active where any 3rd party is concerend, some lead, the rest is pressured to follow.
Both, as you can see, hold negative connotations in German, and I had always assumed the terms held similar meaning to that in English, too. Like I said, not a native speaker here, so some errors in understanding are bound to happen, sorry for that then ^^

@arnoldlayne83 No, it's not silly at all. In fact, if you read my previous comment right above, I made pretty much the same point to the @TheRealThanos, without having read your post before. It talk about "player count", but I could have just as well talked about enemy count. As for optimization, I can't answer that unfortunately, maybe TheRealThanos can address that for you, he seems to be rather techsavvy on such matters, as well as willing to go into some detail. ^^
I only have a very limited background in computer science (when it comes down to it just two university terms really), and all that stuck with me from back then is some C++ and the likes of boolean logic, binary calculation, basic stuff as it were. Never had anything to do with hardware, or optimization for said hardware. I wish I had more insight here, but what'cha gonna do