Nintendo Titles Struggle to Make an Impact in Official UK Charts

I think Europe in general. I'd like to see a comparison on sales between EU countries though. Is UK still the biggest market? I have a feeling France is close second.

I'm sorry, but you can't keep using the eShop downloads not being counted as an excuse; the Playstation and XBox stores won't be counted either.

As for how Nintendo UK should get better sales here: How about actually ADVERTISING the bloody games.

I haven't seen a single Smash Bros advertisement on TV in the UK since it came it out. Is it any wonder why they aren't preforming better?

I continue to get this feeling that Nintendo really has little to no time for the EU/UK market even though they release exclusive limited edition versions of some games and console bundles. You can't rely entirely on Internet advertising, especially as most I see are on Nintendo focused news sites.

Aside from advertising, I think the main problem is shelf space and availability. I buy all my Nintendo games, both Wii U & New 3DS digitally simply because I struggle to find them anywhere in stores.

I can't believe they don't fully expect these appalling sales figures. I've never seen more than one advert for any given Wii U game and I've never seen one at a time that potential buyers would be watching TV. The only console/games I've ever seen advertised heavily by Nintendo was the Wii.

Step you game up UK!

It matters not, Nintendo has some great games people who love Nintendo will buy them and be delighted and that is all that matters. We have already established that Nintendo's weakest link is to the European people's for various reasons, but those reasons and that lack of sales won't bankrupt Nintendo. The only effect that weak sales will have for Nintendo in Europe is a delay of popular titles, meaning that new titles will release in that region later than others, which blows for big N fans.

What may help UK sales is better support within Game and other retail stores. I've said it before in other threads on here, the Wii U and its games are afforded minimal shelf real estate within these shops. You want a good choice of games to pick from? Well, you'd better buy online as shops stock very little aside from the top/new titles. Also, as others have pointed out, where are Nintendo's Console and Game TV adverts?... I see plenty for XB and PS.

France is a big market for Nintendo but overall none of the European countries come closer to the UK market despite a lot of them being significantly more populated.

I'm surprised by how quick Pokemon has slipped as it usually has great legs. It's like Nintendo's market is really shifting to the crowd that buy on day 1. It's no surprise with smaller userbases made up of more dedicated fans than past Nintendo systems.

@RainbowGazelle

Iwata recently targeted marketing costs are something being cut to reduce spending. You know, because the last thing you want to do with your struggling console is actually tell people about it.

It's almost as if there's a conspiracy against Nintendo over here in the UK. - Big stores do not stock Nintendo products, the shops that do will have it tucked away in a corner. All HMVs (store for games and dvds) near me either stopped stocking Nintendo all together, or only sell Pokemon games. There are no Nintendo games or consoles in Tesco or Morrisons, two of our biggest supermarket chains. GAME is the only real option, and they favour Xbox and PlayStation big time.

Well with the eshop prices in a lot of cases being more expensive I doubt it would even make much of an impact in Europe to add those and if that the case I'm sure other consoles have a greater presence on their respective shops then Nintendo. The simple fact is Nintendo fans are more likely to go retail so if anything shop sales would probably hurt them further.

@plunkettmonster

"It matters not, Nintendo has some great games people who love Nintendo will buy them and be delighted and that is all that matters."

That is actually not "all that matters."

Many of the games selling better are not only 3rd party, but could run and should have been on the Wii U. You know, third party games. Nintendo fans like to pretend the company is just fine without third party games, but when those very games they don't have are crushing them at retail, it's obvious how much they matter and it's telling how poorly the Wii U is performing when it doesn't even have Call of Duty or Madden on it--games that are notorious for appearing on every available platform.

What way too many of you guys seem to fail to realize is that without third party support, Nintendo's revenue stream dwindles. Nintendo is making money on Mario and Smash while MS and Sony are making money on literally every other game on the list that isn't first party. Call of Duty, GTA, Dragon Age, Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed. This revenue stream makes the companies vastly more profitable than Nintendo can be with revenue from only a couple titles--even if they are their most popular. Because at the same time, MS and Sony's exclusives also routinely reach high positions in sales charts. Halo, for instance.

To a single consumer, they may feel that is all that matters, but I'm also a consumer, and I'd prefer many of these games to have been available on the Wii U--Call of Duty for instance. Lately, I'm having more fun on my Sony platforms because they have more than just a couple first party games to play. At the end of the day, this severe lack of revenue very much matters to Nintendo, and to the potential future of the company.

@Moon

It's not a conspiracy or anything of the type. Put yourself in the shoes of the people running those stores--would you want to waste shelf space on items that almost no one is buying? Of course not.

It's part of supply and demand--and if there's no demand, then you aren't going to carry the supplies.

@Moon

Very much my experience here.

@Quorthon

I take your point, but it will be interesting to see if they re-think their product allocation given how well the first wave of Amiibo sold. There is already relatively large amounts of shelf space for Disney Infinity and its associated figures in Game alone... perhaps Amiibo is the magic bullet that Nintendo needs in the UK.

Sure third party support would be nice but that's if the titles work at all for me quality is better than quantity and revenue is for companies to worry about not me. I care about the games I play not how well a company profits, bit just the same I am sure Nintendo will be in the black after this Holiday season passes. As I say to all those who believe 3rd party games are the answer to Nintendo's woes: You can keep your third party games I will keep my Nintendo games and we all will be happy in the end.

Nothing shocking here. Overall though, Nintendo in Europe is probably the worst option you can possibly take. That's probably because Iwata only complains and doesn't do anything to actually make Nintendo on the top here.

Having two versions of Smash Bros does not help either regarding chart positions.
I bought the 3ds version. It was not really a game for the small screen.
I will not buy the Wii u version. But I would have bought it had there not been a 3ds version.

UK is Microsoft's Japan.

Lets just be thankful Japan's population is double that of UK and call it a day

Sony UK strikes again!!!

@Quorthon I know. It makes no sense. Here in the UK you still see Xbox One ads running all the time on TV and online. PS4 not so much, but they sponsor football on ITV. Every time there's an ad break, BAM: "Sponsored by PS4". They keep the PS4 and XBox One constantly in people's minds. Everyone is aware they exist. Nintendo just hasn't bothered to try and put the Wii U or 3DS on people's minds. We used to get 3ds ads, but they're pretty much gone now, too.

The perfect advertising opportunity for Wii U in October was Bayonetta 2. It got amazing reviews from all over. Nintendo should have been marketing the crap out of it. Was there any advertising on TV or instore? Not one bit. Nintendo sent it out to die, just like every other Wii U game pretty much. Even with Amiibo being super popular, many people don't know they exist. Go into ASDA and you'll see shelves packed with Disney Infinity and Skylanders. I asked a member of staff if they would be stocking the Amiibo.
"What's an amiibo?" was the response I got. Nintendo haven't bothered even telling retailers what the hell they are selling. I have to actively seek out Nintendo games and amiibo from specialist stores. However, the only specialist store that actually stocks amiibo stuff is GAME. And, being the rip-off scumbags that they are, GAME are charging £14.99 for each amiibo. They've also added £5 to the price of every Nintendo game this week, just in time for Christmas!

Bottom line is, Nintendo STILL need to make people aware of the Wii U (and new 3ds games), and keep it in peoples' thoughts, but they never will. It's their own fault that stuff isn't selling in the UK.

People need to stop acting like UK is represenative of the entire EU region. Also stop acting like its all on advertising. They have been putting out adverts for Smash U and MK8 as well as holding several events. I recall Nintendo saying preception had changed with MK8s release. I believe there are many Brits who would like a Wii U now but the problem is they can't find the darn thing. It doesn't help much either when stores don't even bother to stock
Nintendo products. Chart Track is pretty much worthless anyway considering how they donlt track Digital. I hear Wii U has been doing well in France too.

@RainbowGazelle 'As for how Nintendo UK should get better sales here: How about actually ADVERTISING the bloody game's'

And that's the problem. In Ireland and UK I never EVER see and ad for WiiU, even since launch, I saw Mario U a hand full of Times and one mk8 ad in June.

No advertisement, no body cares, it's that simple. They seem to think everyone looks up ads on YouTube, lol! is all I can say to that. A hell of a lot of people still watch tv in Europe, as in most people on the plant see adverts on their home tv still, so......

I don't know where they got this idea from cause it's clearly failing them.

Nintendo are so stubborn sometimes. I read someone say on here a month or so ago that it takes time to set up ad campaigns etc and I get that, but it's been the same for the past two years, no advertisement, no sales.

God they make me angry sometimes.

Nintendo could take a couple leafs outta Sony and Microsoft's book, seriously.

@Quorthon I find that hard to believe considering Nintendo is making more money then MS and especially Sony could ever dream of atm

@zool You not buying Smash U because Smash 3DS exists is a logical fallacy. You 'chose' to buy Smash 3DS and as a result of lack of funds or some sort of grudge, you now won't buy the Wii U version. There was a Smash 3DS Demo on the eShop, if you were worried it wouldn't be a good fit for the screen size, you should have tried it first.

@Wolfgabe With Nintendo, that's pretty much the truth, sadly. To them there's UK and few countries in between...

They make the same mistake MS did, and like idiots they continue doing that, while MS learned and it shows with sales.

@Wolfgabe

Do you have evidence to this nonsense? Because MS and Sony--particularly the gaming divisions--have been practically rolling in profits pretty handily with the XBO and PS4, and still with the X360 and PS3, while the Wii was almost dead a year before the Wii U released. Not to mention that both the XBO and PS4 were better designed than their predecessors, which meant that for the first time, MS and Sony were actually making money on hardware sales at launch. It wasn't a lot, but a big difference considering that the PS3 was sold at a $200 loss, and the X360 at a $126 loss, initially.

If Nintendo is making more money than MS and Sony, why has there been two years of constant losses? Where the hell is this magic money coming from when the Nintendo consoles have far, far fewer games being released on them? You can tout the sales of Nintendo's first party stuff, but then, Microsoft and Sony's first-party stuff is selling about the same. Remember, Halo is in a top sales position as well. If MS and Sony are seeing their exclusives and first-party games sell about as well as Nintendo's, but they also have in-coming revenue from massive 3rd party sales and excellent paid subscription services, how could Nintendo ever be making more money than they "could ever dream?"

On top of which, Nintendo is still making drastic cuts in order to desperately try to create profitability: http://www.gamnesia.com/news/nintendo-wants-to-cut-advertising-costs-rather-than-downsizing

Kaz Hirai noted that the PS4 was profitable by March 2014: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/23/5744344/ps4-already-profitable-for-sony-ceo-says

The Xbox One struggled a bit at launch, but has now surpassed the Wii U and unlike the Wii U, has known strong 3rd party support both now and moving forward.

Beyond which, MS and Sony are far larger with income streams from multiple branches. Something Nintendo does not really have. Just because you want something to be true does not make it so.

@Folkloner The reviews look good so I gave it a go. The demo was ok, but after a few hours the small screen and tiny figures were off putting. I was not the only one judging by the amount of second hand Smash Bros 3ds games that have traded in.

Having to consoles and the same game released so close together is not a good idea, as chart listings show.

@Quorthon I agree for the most part other than Game who have basically been giving the EU eshop monopoly. It is basically like a subsidy from which Nintendo is getting basically nothing.

@Quorthon You do not know that a product is not selling if the store in question never bothered to stock what is claimed to be "not selling" in the first place. Case in point - Amiibos are supposedly flying off the shelves, yet my GAME has never stocked them.

@LunaticPandora

They can tell if something is selling by looking at market demand and sales elsewhere. Another UK chain, ASDA is noted to have stopped stocking the Wii U in stores. They're owned by Wal-Mart, so if a company with that much money doesn't see a point in stocking the Wii U, why would a smaller venue with far more limited shelf space?

It's not a conspiracy--and most any time someone moves to that as an explanation, they're already on the losing side of an argument--it's how an open marketplace works. That which doesn't sell doesn't get stocked.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-29-supermarket-asda-no-longer-stocking-wii-u

@plunkettmonster

If quality matters to you, then you should either be championing 3rd party games to be on the Wii U or stop mindlessly acting like all third party games are some kind of "no-quality" software.

I have illustrated this elsewhere on this site, and you can look it up yourself if you aren't afraid of the facts, but a huge number of third party games are extremely highly rated, even on Nintendo systems where their options for success have often been limited (weak online, no Achievement systems, overly limited storage space for DLC, etc), Nintendo has released more than it's fair share of low-rating gaming doggerel, and Metacritic analyzed several major publishers over 2013 (I'm curious how 2014 will fare) and Nintendo came in fourth for average game scores--behind Take Two, EA, and Ubisoft.

Quit with the tired "quality over quantity" BS, especially when the consoles crushing Nintendo at retail have both quantity and quality in their software selection, and given low reviews for some of the games released by Nintendo--Pokemon Rumble, Game & Wario, Nintendo Land, Wii Party U, WII MUSIC, etc., you must find it incredibly trying to even attempt the "quality over quantity" claim.

Damn. I live in the UK and have to admit the advertising for the Wii U is pretty bad.

Nintendo needs a bigger presence in Europe. ALL OF EUROPE, not just England! Otherwise FIFA and other multiplat software is gonna continue rocking the charts.

@RainbowGazelle

Nintendo has been terrible at marketing for as long as I can remember--and I've been playing since I bought my own NES as a kid. Microsoft famously spent $500,000,000 just on promoting the original Xbox in 2000 and 2001, and have continued that strong backing to this day. They've turned Xbox into a powerful, recognizable brand, and it appears everywhere. Halo is frequently promoted on Mountain Dew cans (this year it's Call of Duty), and numerous other places.

MS and Sony actively promote their consoles in conjunction with 3rd party games, so you'll see a Call of Duty commercial that is paired with the Xbox One, or a GTA commercial paired with the PS4. Nintendo barely does this with their own games. I saw a Fantasy Life commercial last week and remember being shocked because I didn't even know there were commercials for it! I only saw it because my TV happened to be on Cartoon Network (leftover from the day before watching Adult Swim).

I heard rumors that Bayonetta 2 may have been advertised on TV, but never saw a single ad and have no idea if that was actually true.

It's just more to add to my hypothesis that Nintendo is completely out of touch with modern gaming and consumers. Yeah, again, they've always been pretty bad at advertising, but they seem particularly awful at it now, especially compared to how strongly MS and Sony do it. They don't know who to appeal to--general consumers, core gamers, families, kids, etc. They have no idea how to reach those audiences, and they have no idea how to appeal to them--and now they're talking of cutting marketing budgets so their solution to no one knowing about the Wii U is apparently not to try telling anyone.

@whodatninja

I think it would be better if Fifa was just on the Wii U and 3DS--you know, the way it was on the Wii and DS.

Silly Europe with their FIFAs.

@Quorthon GAME is not "more limited in space." Asda is a supermarket first and foremost, with an entertainment section being an afterthought, which is split 3 ways between music, movies and games, so this actually means Asda has barely a third of what GAME would stock. And GAME specialises in games - of course it will be smaller as it is not a supermarket, yet has more shelf space for games despite being smaller.

@RainbowGazelle Nintendo has some pretty rabid shareholders and their overall size (compared to their competitors) doesn't help. The others can subsidize any losses they have with other divisions/product lines. If Iwata did not cut expenses, chances are that he could have been replaced with someone that ONLY cared about the business side of the industry. That could very well end up as a slippery slope to the complete disappearance of Nintendo.

@Quorthon Not all conspiracy theories are wrong, here are some examples: http://listverse.com/2013/05/02/10-nefarious-conspiracies-proven-true/

It would not be a wise idea to write off something until it is proven false. Not to say that this particular conspiracy claim isn't ridiculous but it does have some possible merit to it when people are clamouring for the company to go completely 3rd party.

The marketing is problematic, but then again Nintendo doesn't have the bankroll to put out absurd marketing campaigns like their competitors. Super Bowl ads aren't exactly cheap.

It's not that they are more awful than they were in the past. It's actually the other way around, their competitors are much better at doing it than they are and have much bigger budgets. For example, Microsoft pretty much destroyed the Xbox One's image when they first showed and talked about it. Now how are they doing? After a marketing blitz and a quite substantial price cut they seem to be selling extremely well. Neither one of those are options for a company that is as small (comparatively) as Nintendo and whom is also in deep trouble with their shareholders (read the shareholder meeting minutes, it gives you a very good idea what their investors are like).

Before anyone mentions the Wii...successful blue oceans generally market themselves in the majority of cases. Word of mouth is the strongest factor in those extremely rare cases.

EU is not UK, the EU is much bigger, so those that say there's no Nintendo advertisement in EU, should better say in UK, I'm from Spain and I constantly see Nintendo ads in TV, like it's provably one of the brands that advertises the most as a whole, seriously, they advertise a ton, both WiiU and 3DS consoles and games, even third party games are advertised (like Skylanders for Wii U for example).

Now how this works for them, I don't know.

@Quorthon

Sony is right now struggling to survive as a company, they just had to sell both the TVs and computers divisions to stay afloat. And the Xbox has been on life support since its inception and survived just because MS throw piles of money at it (though they might be doing better this time).

@Ernest_The_Crab

No, not all conspiracy theories, but when people launch into conspiracy theory territory to explain mundane things like supply and demand and market economics, they are really reaching. It's like Creationists claiming there is some kind of global conspiracy to keep down "intelligent design." The reason scientists are against ID all over the world is because it is fundamentally not science and not based on reality.

Throwing around "conspiracy" nonsense to the Wii U's struggles is beyond asinine. If you want to blame anyone for the Wii U's failure, blame Nintendo--Iwata, Miyamoto, Reggie, etc.

@arojilla

Interesting, according to this very easy Google search: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=sony%20sell%20off%20tv%20division, you are either wrong or a liar. Sony is not selling off the TV division.

And while true that Sony has struggled for the last decade, and they did sell off the Viao computer division, they have also been on-track to turn things around and the PS4 itself has been far more profitable than the Wii U. Which I already noted. That is an actual fact.

Xbox is on life support? By all means, surely you have some kind of evidence to this, after an incredible generation where the Xbox 360 reigned supreme for most of it (particularly among developers and in the US), and ended at over 80 million in sales, with strong developer and consumer confidence (even AFTER the RRoD!) and support that is still continuing. Keep in mind, the Wii flew wildly for a while in that it was a fad--and the last half of the generation saw the X360 and PS3 not only generally out-sell it month-to-month, but they also had far better 3rd party support.

If the Xbox is on life support, what does that make the Wii U, which is selling far worse? Does that place it in the morgue? You guys need to be careful with your analogies. Frequently calling the Vita a failure or saying things like the Xbox is on life support--when the Vita has better sales and support than the Wii U and not only is the Xbox One trouncing the Wii U in sales, but so is the last-gen Xbox 360.

I think it's telling that I have to do the work if I want to know about Nintendo products. I have to stay tuned in to websites like this. That information never just comes to me. Microsoft and Sony don't leave me in that position, and I don't even have television service.

Granted Sony seems to have forgotten the Vita exists: I own that and a Wii U, so that tells me I either really like the underdog or I'm a glutton for punishment.

@Melkac I used to love the series back in the late 90s, but it's just gotten progressively harder to play the more realistic they've made it. The pick-up-and-play joy is gone for me. And I never feel like I can really see the field.

Football Manager for me these days.

@Quorthon

You have limited understanding on economics it seems. For a product to be profitable it doesn't need to win an imaginary race, it just have to sell in enough quantities to recover costs (R+D, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and so). I'm not saying the Wii U is profitable, just that you can't judge it comparing its sales to those of other products. You can sell the most of any product and still incur in loses and you can sell just a few and return a profit.

@Quorthon Dang did I ever find Nintendoland to be dreadful. It felt like a lot of work for little bits of pleasure. Maybe others found joy in it, but I cringe when I see it in bundles. "Ah, yes, well, you're getting a game with it, I suppose..."

Sorry for Nintendo, but it is what it is. I hope they will have more succes with the next console. I just installed my WII U again and I have to say they really need a lot more games. Only some top titles are holding it otherwise it was already dead! My point of view.

@arojilla

Actually, I understand that just fine. Then again, I never stated anything about an imaginary race. Sony themselves stated the PS4 is already profitable. Nintendo has noted that the Wii U is not.

In this case, Nintendo will not turn a profit by only selling a few of anything, and their profits are further limited by a lack of revenue from 3rd party sales.

For that matter, success of the Wii U can be compared to it's contemporaries. If there was only the Wii U, and no other console to compare it to, judging it's success (or lack thereof) would be much more difficult. While true that you can sell the most of a product and still lose money, that is not what's happening there. Sony is selling the most, and making a lot of money, and MS is selling better than the Wii U and making a lot of money. The Wii U is hardly selling at all, and on top of that, doesn't have much in the way of 3rd party support anymore--it is not making much money, and less than Nintendo appears to be spending to merely keep it afloat.

The Wii U is not successful. If you'd like, we can compare it to the Dreamcast in sales and marketplace, as the Dreamcast was discontinued around this time in it's cycle--and had already out-sold the Wii U. But that's not entirely fair. The Dreamcast came after a generation of Sega burning bridges and making terrible decisions. Really, the Wii U is more aptly compared to the Saturn. Nintendo's next console will be their Dreamcast... if they aren't careful. One thing they definitely do have in common is the lack of 3rd party support, particularly from EA. The difference there is that Sega still had sports games. The Wii U does not.

I don't know why people care so much about Nintendo having third party games, there is a simple solution to this problem buy another console or don't buy one, but please do everyone a favor and get over it. Nintendo will plot it's own course and there isn't anything we can do to alter their path to either glory or destruction so either enjoy what they have to offer or don't. I personally have been enjoying my Wii U since launch, so much so I purchased a second one so I didn't have to share with my family! The games are fantastic and fun that Nintendo has to offer and I couldn't ask for more from them. I don't miss games like GTA or COD being available on the Wii U because they are unappealing mindless shooters that only embrace violence there is no glory or honor in murdering and raping people just because everyone is doing it. Give me fantasy and adventure that isn't readily available on the streets already or that can't be had by going to war, this is gaming to me. I want to be surrounded by the impossible and fantastic because it's so inspiring and makes me feel good, and that is what Nintendo delivers best games that make you feel good. The world sucks but I don't need to relive it in my living room via video games. You can keep your ultraviolet wet dream 3rd party games and I will keep my fun and friendly Nintendo games.

@Vineleaf

I think Nintendoland is a good concept, but the execution was borderline awful. and several of the mini-games were just plain not fun.

A robust online mode and an actual park to explore and unlock, and hell, using Amiibo to open up attractions and features would be a brilliant concept--but then Nintendoland should be free. It was, at best, a throw-away experience that sort of delivered some GamePad concepts, but more rationally, it was a total missed opportunity.

@plunkettmonster

This is the typical blind Nintendo fan ignorance. GTA and Call of Duty are just mindless shooters where you commit murder and rape? What are you, a monk? Somebody's mother from the 80's? How much more removed from reality can you be? People play GTA games as much for the freedom, open exploration, ridiculous varieties of gameplay options, deep stories, and overall solid experience. Oh, and you never commit rape in the games. None of them.

People enjoy Call of Duty for the teamwork, online gameplay, competition, and deeply customizable gameplay and variety. Call of Duty has reigned for a generation as a great military and squad shooter, featuring loads of options, and being one of the most played and enjoyed online experiences.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, and your stereotyping is just sad and woefully ignorant.

And what the hell does fantasy and adventure "not readily available on the streets" even mean? Are you living in a near future warzone with mech suits like in Advanced Warfare? You know Link spends most of his games cutting enemies down with a sword, right? Have you even seen Hyrule Warriors, where you kill a thousand beings in every level? Hell, Samus Aran made entire species extinct, and destroyed entire worlds.

And I'm quite sure Sackboy has spent no time at all murdering much of anything, and I'm not aware of any ultra-violence in Disney Infinity, Epic Mickey, Skylanders, or Peggle--Peggle by the way, being one of the formerly exclusive titles highly touted by Microsoft for the Xbox One, which my girlfriend plays during breaks from Dragon Age. Which, by the way, is an epic fantasy adventure that only occurs infrequently on my local city streets.

Your post is the very definition of absurd, and that you miss the point of the importance of 3rd parties only a small slice of it. Without third parties, Nintendo's revenue stream becomes extremely limited and their potential for successful sales to different consumers gradually vanishes.

On top of that, if all you want with Nintendo hardware is Nintendo games, then you are not treating them like a console maker, but you are actively treating Nintendo like they are already a third party company. You might as well be championing them to actually go third party.

You have delivered arguably one of the most uninformed comments I have ever seen on this site and seem to be forgetting that Nintendo published Bayonetta 2, hyper-violent Ninja Gaiden 3, and the upcoming violence-laden Devil's Third. That you can simultaneously act like Nintendo's games are always the equivalent of a stress-free Care Bears picnic filled with love and cuteness and that everything "not Nintendo" is bathed in rape-fueled ultraviolence and rape can lead me to only one conclusion:

You know less about gaming than Jack Thompson.

@Quorthon

If Nintendo is making more money than MS and Sony, why has there been two years of constant losses? Where the hell is this magic money coming from when the Nintendo consoles have far, far fewer games being released on them?

I agree with your argument in principle, and I'm not denying that Nintendo is in an awful spot, and that they have work to do when it comes to advertising and staying in touch with the pulse of the consumer, but to put a different perspective on on the situation, the one thing you have to remember is that Nintendo, until the Wii U era, has always been profitable year over year. I think they have rarely sold their hardware at much of a loss, if at all. So one could argue that as solely a video game company, they have a much larger war chest than Sony or Microsoft. Working on a surplus, they can absorb a few failures, otherwise they would have been dead after the N64 era.

Which brings us to the 'magic money.' That's simple - Nintendo is propped up by their handheld division, which had always done extremely well. They had a slip-up with the 3DS, but it has made up for itself by now.

Even though Nintendo doesn't have the the 3rd party support the other two have, they can survive off their own titles are because the great deal of their games are evergreen titles. I'd wager that even if Mario Kart 8 falls off the top 40, it'll make its way back on the list... Heck MK7 still manages to creep on there every now and again, and as niche of a title Tomodachi Life is, it's still on the list. Nintendo themselves said they make a profit with each piece of software sold. Obviously with first party game sales, most of the money is coming back to Nintendo, as opposed to if a 3rd party game was sold.

EDIT: That said, they can't live off of 1st party perpetually. They need to find some way to get them back on board. It may be too late for this gen. But next gen, they are going to have to do something, anything to get that support, lest they want their next system to be, to put in your words, their Dreamcast.

@Yorumi @Quorthon

@Sir_JBizzle

Nintendo has traditionally sold their consoles above cost, and up until recently, was the only console maker that still operated this way (Atari and Sega also operated this way). This generation, it's interesting that the trend as exactly reversed, and MS and Sony are making money on hardware and Nintendo is not.

I have previously made the point that Nintendo may be able to merely survive on their own--you know, like the N64--but they simply cannot thrive or grow on their own--much like how the N64 led into the GameCube after a generation of falling well behind the Playstation. Nintendo cannot grow or expand or thrive on their own. Their success will continue to be marginalized or continue to slink away.

They are indeed propped up by the portable division right now, which is part of why I think they should just do a kind of merger with Sony--Sony make the console, Nintendo make the portable, and they both make games for both. It'd be win-win at this point.

However, that considered, the 3DS is a bare shadow of what the DS was, and it is also severely lacking 3rd party support and major franchises. Call of Duty, Madden, Fifa, even Assassin's Creed--these found their way to the DS, but not the 3DS.

I think it's impressive that Tomodachi Life has remained on any sales chart, let alone with some impressive numbers, but for every Mario Kart 7 or Tomodachi Life Nintendo has, MS and Sony have several games both first and third party. They may not stay quite as long in the charts, but they're numbers are initially much bigger. Call of Duty, for instance. Just the Xbox 360 version of those games regularly out-sold most of what Nintendo delivered, including games like Mario Galaxy.

My point is, we regularly note that Nintendo makes a ton of money from first party game sales, but seem to act like MS and Sony don't. Indeed, they do make a lot on their first party games (especially Halo for MS), but unlike Nintendo, they also make money back on 3rd party revenue and excellent subscription and rental services.

To put it in simple numbers, we'll count each of these as one: Hardware sales, first party sales, third party sales, subscription services, rental services (like movie, etc). That's a total of 5 points of income.

Nintendo makes money on 1 point (software sales, hardware is likely a loss right now). Nintendo likely makes money on 3DS hardware sales, so if we wanted, we could say 2 points of income.

Sony and Microsoft both have 5 points of income. They have first party, third party, subscription, rental, and for the first generation ever for them, they are selling hardware for a profit.

If we include something like Amiibo as another point, Nintendo would go up +1, but then we'd also need to include things like computer software and electronics for MS and Sony.

I'm not ever dismissing how some Nintendo games rake in money for a long time, only noting that it's still a small amount of revenue compared to MS and Sony and all the places in which they make money.

Oh wait, another +1 for Microsoft, who have stupid advertisements on their dashboard.

And yet they get Donkey Kong land and Country on their VC

@Yorumi

Ahh, Creationists are just an easy relation for conspiracy theories, ignorance, anti-intellectualism, self-delusion, creating actual conspiracies, fraud, outright lies, misinformation, and hucksterism. I could probably go with psychics, but they tend to be less on the conspiracy theory side. I suppose anti-vaxxers are pretty close to Creationists. Perhaps worse in that their behavior actively harms other people. Creationists simply embody the most farce and fallacy in one easy-to-spot package.

Hmmm... You know, with all that farce and fallacy in one package, maybe Creationists aren't specific enough for an accurate analogy. I shall endeavor to incorporate more accurate relations of proponents of nonsense and woo in the future.

I've always wondered this!! I'm from America, and Here the Wii u is doing okay? Not really the best, but for example, TV ads have been running non stop about Super Smash bros, the last one we got was Pokemon, and Tomodachi life. But what I'm really confused about is how in Europe you guys get all the cool exclusive items, limited editions, and all this bonus stuff, yet it barely remains on the charts! Lol like I get that it may tempt people to buy the game if it comes with something extra, but is it just not working over there for you guys or what? Like I so badly wanted, MK8 LE, HW LE, Bayonetta LE, and the Majoras LE, it seems like that would boost sales?

@Yorumi

I attacked or slandered no one. I addressed concepts and ideas only. At worst, I made a comment relating the thinking addressed in a comment to the kind of "it's all devil music" ignorance of an 80's housewife and then to Jack Thompson who repeatedly showed that he did not actually know anything about gaming, and appeared to think that Nintendo published MadWorld.

Ideas and statements are not sacred. They can and should be challenged should fallacy be peppered therein.

Any ignorance I actually have, I address and constantly research. The things I don't actually know about, you'll see me state exactly that. I know very little about Pokemon games (though I can name several of them for some reason). When it comes to Nintendo fans or Creationists--I know both, rather well. And I have been addressing fallacies in both for an absurd amount of time. I must really enjoy the challenge.

You are seeing hatred because you choose to. I don't hate Nintendo fans, for instance, as I am one. But I find the loud majority annoying. I grew up with Nintendo as a console maker, not a Nintendo-box maker. I'd prefer not to see this company fail, but I appear to be the minority. I bothered to admit the company is troubled, that the Wii U is fundamentally flawed, and to try to understand what's happening. Making apologetics for failure only results in more failure. Being dismissive of the importance of 3rd parties does not help Nintendo succeed, it only makes their failures worse. Acting like there's an idiotic conspiracy against Nintendo does not address actual problems, it merely unconstructively casts blame elsewhere.

And Splatoon and Codename STEAM deserve better than to be ignored because an old Zelda game is being made available for a 5th platform.

Per Creationists, by all means, outside of this forum, tell me what there is to like about them? Aside from abject and depressing humor.

@Quorthon Just remember there are two different forms of quality. Quality in the entertainment derived from a title (which you are speaking of) and Quality in the product actually performing as intended (which most of us who speak of Nintendo Quality are talking about). As far as the later quality goes, Nintendo is still on top of their game. Even their crap releases function properly.

As for the quantity over quality argument, take a look at the release schedules for the big "AAA" games. Annual or bi-annually releases is what you will find and you cannot keep that production schedule up without a loss of quality. Madden, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Borderlands, Gears of War, and the games like them do suffer because of that fact. Most have required patches to fix game breaking bugs, and one day will be unplayable from the disc because there will be no patch server to download required bug fixes from.

@Yorumi

Over and over and over and over? I'm pretty sure this may be about the third time. Since I signed up for this site.

And no, it's not a complex issue. Creationists are completely, entirely, factually wrong--about just about everything. The complexity comes in trying to prevent them from ruining the lives of children and others when we need smarter people to fix the issues this world faces--not more ignorant people who think praying fixes problems or that combating global warming is less important than thinking the second coming is just around the corner.

Every belief you have influences every other belief you have. If you believe in one conspiracy theory, odds are that you believe in others. If you believe in one piece of nonsense, odds are you'll believe in other nonsense. It's like the Ancient Aliens TV shows. Every episode stacks the pseudo-scientific nonsense ever higher, their blatant misinterpretations of the past (often bordering on racism because "how can these primitive humans blah blah blah") become more obscene with ever "interview."

Brilliant evidence of this actually comes from a group of Creationists--who attempted to prove the biblical flood, by referencing the Loch Ness Monster as evidence for it! Studies have shown that children raised with this nonsense have a harder time differentiating fantasy from reality, or understanding bunk from facts.

That could hardly be more depressing. If you'd like to continue this, by all means, I think you can PM me.

UK is a sony fortress, no surprise here.

@Darknyht

This comment doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is laden with assumptions and apologetics. Nintendo's crap releases function properly? Funny, I don't think I saw a single review of Wii Music that ever said it functioned properly. Nor FlingSmash.

You're also making an assumption, based on nothing, that a game like Call of Duty doesn't function as expected. Yeah, actually they do. Some releases drop out with problems, like Assassin's Creed Unity, but you can't take that and act like "everybody else does it with these problems but not Nintendo because special pleading." No, wrong. Very wrong.

Metroid Other M springs instantly to mind, and not just because of it's laundry list of other problems, but because it had a game-breaking bug that I don't remember Nintendo actually fixing. Smash Bros for the 3DS featured hefty updates, and maybe you haven't bothered to notice, but there are some rather drastic Wii U error codes making the rounds lately.

Borderlands and Gears of War are not annual franchises, and I can't remember a single instance of a Gears game having a troubled launch--and I own all of them.

Again, the quality over quantity is a BS argument that you should not use. It can be easily disputed and does not paint one in a smart light.

Here, the PS4 has about 90 games averaging 75% or higher.
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/release-date/available/ps4/metascore
The Wii U has about 76 games averaging 75% or higher.
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/release-date/available/wii-u/metascore

On top of that, the Wii U has been out for twice as long. The PS4 has both quantity and quality with more games and in half the time, and your special pleading does not change this.

Your argument is self-defeating as Nintendo's games also have been known to have game-breaking bugs and required patches to fix issues. You clearly have not played many of these games, which is about the only way you could pretend they have some kind of lower quality to the gameplay than Nintendo.

This is special pleading. You're saying "Nintendo is special because Nintendo." The facts show that they are not only not special, but they are behind their competitors, especially where the quality vs quantity argument comes in.

It's a dead argument. Stop using it. You aren't helping yourself, and it certainly doesn't make Nintendo look better.

@Yorumi - I never said they were perfect. In fact the most famous bug of Nintendo is negative world of Super Mario Bros. It is that i know that playing a Nintendo game, I generally can complete the main story without issues or having to download 2 GB patches on day one.

@Quorthon Again. We are talking two different things. Quantity = the number of releases a franchise gets in a time span. Quality = the ability to play a game from start to finish without having game breaking bugs occur (falling off world map, having broken objectives, broken balance in multiplayer (every publisher is guilty of this as it is difficult), save game corruption). Take the publishers and line them up and you will find that Nintendo and a few others stand above others.

It is the reason there was a time I would purchase EA games without thought. There was a time I felt EA stood for quality (man, times have changed). The same for Square, Capcom, Konami, Sierra, Lucasarts and a few other now long forgotten publishers. But as their release schedule between sequels shortened, the quality of the releases became poorer. So I no longer purchase from those publishers sight-unseen. Nintendo is probably one of the few publishers that I will still give good-will to because they haven't burned me as the others have.

Just to clarify, I don't give two flips about review scores. They are subjective opinions when you get down to it, and Metacritic is about as reliable as chicken gut reading in determining what games I will enjoy.

@Yorumi

I don't think you know what slander is. ...challenge a scientist? When did I... Oh, I see. You must not be paying attention. You must be assuming I'm saying things I'm not actually saying, and commenting without reading. If this is your way to tell me to ignore your posts as you ignored the content in mine, you could've just said so. This explains how you can keep accusing me of some kind of slander that I haven't been saying and magically assume I want to ... challenge a scientist... about something.

@Darknyht

Cripes, this is still special pleading.

You're magically redefining quality and quantity in a desperate bid to make your statement correct. If you have to do this, you never had a valid point to begin with.

And you are again assuming something of non-Nintendo games without playing them, and assigning special privilege to Nintendo games. You complain about "subjective opinions" on Metacritic, then try to pass off your own subjective opinion by loosely redefining words to fit an already faulty argument.

You should've quit while you were ahead. There is no point in me arguing against your gobbledegook. I might as well be debating literally anything with Deepok Chopra or Dr. Oz. My facts clearly have nothing on your utter nonsense. You could just as well tell me that the quantum vibrations of the dimensional spirit vortex within Nintendo games trumps the quasi-quantum poly-rhythmic spatial flux nether-wires of 3rd party games and your argument would make just as much sense.

Bam! Way more specific than relating to a Creationist! Thanks Yorumi!

@Quorthon I don't recall ever saying I don't play third-party games, but I did say they no longer get the benefit of a purchase at full price on day one. I purchased Assassin's Creed III only this month because I knew there were numerous bugs in the game, so I waited for a price that I felt was fair for the quality of what I was getting. I am enjoying it, but I am frequently removed from the enjoyment by falling off the world map or losing progress due random glitches ending Connor's life. (My favorite was being randomly launched into the air while trying to climb something only to fall to my death costing me to restart a long mission). Due to my past experiences with the Ubisoft, I will never purchase their products day one (and seeing what most say about their recent releases I feel I make the right choice).

I am making no case that the publishers themselves haven't admitted to. Why do you think that there are now three developers working on the Call of Duty franchise? Their explanation was that a two year development cycle was too difficult to keep the quality of the product while maintaining the quantity of products they brought to market. I would say Activision understands the problem well since they killed two good franchises that way.

EDIT: That game that turns into a random human catapult simulator got a 84% on Metacritic by the way.

What is it about that stupid frozen game that won't make it go away?
I've never even seen a copy of it out in the wild.
This is why we can't have nice things.

This downward trend in the UK is very concerning, but it doesn't appear to be a Europe thing. The Wii U does ok in Germany & France, behind the PS4 but still ahead of the XBone. The XBone only does well in the UK & US.

I don't blame the shops, they are only going to display what will sell. And with little to no advertising Nintendo products just don't sell enough. Both Sony & Microsoft advertise their products on TV, radio, buses, billboards, big posters and wall displays in shops. Nintendo do nothing.

Of course Nintendo through no advertising may turn around a better profit margin than the other two which may put them into a stronger position in the future. The risk, is that if this trend continues then eventually they become irrelevant.

Come on Nintendo...SORT IT OUT...there are a number of us here in the UK that do not want the COD and FIFA bore fests to dominate the UK.

@Yorumi Actually if you wanted to point to the sins of Nintendo you need to look no further than the Mario Party series. Now you could argue that it was Hal Laboratory that ran it into the ground, but ultimately Nintendo was the publisher of that series. In that case they chose the quantity over quality path. That is why I prefer a single game a console for most of their franchises. Do one excellent one and then put your energy to making something different.

As for games like Wii U Party (and the entire Wii game series), I chalk it up partially that I am not their intended audience (my six and three year old children love for some unknown reason). Wii Party and Wii Play especially were to me a $10 game bundle thrown into a Wiimote. I do think it is dishonest of Nintendo to sell it without the remote at the same retail price. But all of that said, the production quality of the game itself is good yet a polished turd is still a turd at the end of the day.

@Quorthon Quit believing that Nintendo will EVER get 3rd party support for their home consoles. It will NEVER happen. Why? It's a two way street. Yes, Nintendo has to want to support 3rd parties, but 3rd parties also have to want to support Nintendo. Nintendo HAD 3rd party support at the Wii U's launch. They all jumped ship. Amiibo could scare away Skylanders and Disney Infinity too.

3rd parties DO NOT want to support Nintendo. There's nothing Nintendo can do to fix that besides moneyhatting like Sony and MS do, but if Nintendo were to do that, 3rd parties would take advantage of it and ruin Nintendo financially. This is why Nintendo has been courting indies so much - they actually want to support Nintendo, unlike major 3rd parties.

3rd parties have been unable to sell well on Nintendo's home consoles. Nintendo's consumer base won't put up with any of the bs that 3rd parties pull, unlike Sony and MS's consumer base who will buy it up anyway (though they are starting to wake up finally). When you release late, unoptimized ports with missing features and little to no DLC support, then you should expect low sales. Why should I buy a 3rd party game on my Wii U when it's an inferior version to the other platforms and I could buy it on my PS4? People aren't stupid - they KNOW they're getting the short end of the stick. You have to build a relationship with the consumer base, and so far 3rd parties have FAILED to do so on Nintendo home consoles because they expect overnight success.

3rd party games also seem to struggle to coexist with Nintendo's 1st party offerings on their home consoles, whereas on Xbox and PlayStation they can do easily. In fact, they're top dog on those platforms - without those 3rd parties the Xbox and PlayStation would not survive. Nintendo is capable of surviving just on their 1st party games (thriving is another story) and 3rd parties most likely realize that and probably don't like it.

On the other hand, the 3DS has a fair amount of 3rd party support from Japanese devs. In fact, they're making up a lot of the 3DS's upcoming lineup while Nintendo focuses on the Wii U. If Nintendo didn't have that, then the Vita would have a better lineup because of Nintendo's relatively weak 1st party offerings in the upcoming lineup (a new IP that is extremely niche and a remake of a 15 year old game that's probably been done for months now).

As far as advertising goes, when will people on here realize that there's a point where they can't blame lack of advertising for the Wii U's struggles? No amount of advertising will fix the Wii U's situation. That being said, Smash Bros Wii U has been advertised quite well here in the US - I've surprisingly seen more advertising for Smash Wii U, Captain Toad, and Smash 3DS than I have for Pokemon. A couple days ago I was watching Comedy Central for several hours and saw several Smash Wii U commercials, a ****ton of CoD commercials for XB1, and 1 Halo MCC commercial - not one PlayStation commercial.

As far as conspiracy theories go, I will say that the UK and Europe in general might have a slight "grudge" against Nintendo after how the company treated the market for 20+ years. It wasn't until the DS/Wii era that Nintendo took the European market even remotely seriously. Iwata has actually improved Nintendo's situation in the European market - it was Yamauchi who disregarded the European market for the most part.

@Quorthon When I said Sony and MS are losing money I meant they are losing money AS A WHOLE. One successful division means diddly sqaut when all your other divisions are bleeding you money left sand right and in case you didn't hear Nintendo is back in the black now while Sony on the other hand is still in an ever increasing hole of debt that will take more than Playstation to get out of

@Quorthon I am sick and tired of people like you making excuses for third parties. Do you think blaming Nintendo fans for the poor sales of their games is gonna make people gonna change their mind? Do you think releasing crappy half baked games is gonna make their sales any better? Why on earth would I spend my money on a crappy unfinished game with little to no DLC and missing some other important modes like online? Maybe if they released their games at the same time has the PS4 and Xbox One and have all the modes and available DLC in them. And with Nintendo and the third party support dude I am sorry but that is gone and its not gonna come back. 3rd parties have made it clear time and again that they do not want to work with Nintendo even if Nintendo begged them they still will not want to. Add in the fact that the bogus excuses they make on why a certain game is not gonna be on the Wii U instead of telling the truth. Not sure why you people countinue to defend them when they pull all this crap releasing games late on Wii U, making them incomplete not the definitive versions of the games with DLC, blame the fans for the poor sales of their games, making bogus excuses has to why certain games are not going to be on Wii U. Its things like that as to why we dont like them they pull stupid stuff like that. And they expect us to buy their game when they are just crappy half baked junk. Buying a game that is incomplete that has little to no DLC missing some key modes and sell it at $60? no way man. Yet they expect us to buy their games. pfft yeah right.

On topic, its mind boggling that a big company like Nintendo does not know how to advertise their products. Nintendo you cant expect to sell tons of units of the Wii U when lots of people do not know about it. Geez bust out the big guns and market it. I bet if lots of people saw it on TV and actually know what it is they could try it themselves and will love it. They will tell everybody they know about it and will do the same. See how that works Nintendo? Get it together Nintendo!

@electrolite77 thats because they dont. If you put tow games infront of one person a sports game like fifa and the other a really good game with excellent storyline and good characters they would pick Fifa over that game. Its like they dont care about those types of games. They want to be like christiano ronaldo or like messi.

And again, let's compare Wii U titles that have made the UK and North American top 10.

Games that reached top 10 in both markets:

Mario Kart 8
Tropical Freeze

Games that reached top in North America only:

Smash Bros

Games that reachrd the top 10 in the UK only:

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Pikmin 3
Wind Waker HD
Hyrule Warriors

So many people dismissing the UK has being a Sony stronghold and therefore impossible for Nintendo to do well in. Last gen, PS3 was dead last in the UK. The Wii was the highest seller, only recently replaced by the 360 (just like it has in North America). MK Wii the best selling console game of all time until last week where it got replaced by GTA V, a game with a vastly higher mwtacritic before anyone tries to use that as an example of poor taste.

The UK market has shown over the years it has blind loyalty to nobody. Pretty much whatever is decided by General consensus to be the best choice (PS1, PS2, 360 etc) is the one that sells the most in the UK.

We just got NPDs where the Xbone outsold the Wii U by over 5 to 1, but why do so many people still think the Wii U is doing okay over there? Is it because we only see the charts once a month as opposed to weekly with the UK charts?

@Quorthon It would be great to get third party but Nintendo will do well with just there first and second party titles, there shouldn't be a worry at all. The point of owning multiple consoles is so you can get different experiences. Third parties are being released on ps4 & xbone also pc. Pretty much you own one you get 3rd parties, this situation forces nintendo to come out with different quality titles or revamped old titles that people want. Nintendo was in trouble but are turning a profit now. With that said the xbone just got its lead from last month after dropping the price to what the WiiU's was before when it first came out because sony was crushing them and still is but either way devs don't want to put effort into wiiu ports which in turn puts consumers off.

@Peach64 you also have to look at how much they are selling at a loss, xbone w/o kinect costs 400$ to make they are selling it at 350 with the kinect its 471 but not everyone wants one of those useless things so, the wiiu costs around 230 to make and goes for around 300 or 250 on sale! The looking at the two i can see why microsoft would be in hot water they need 3rd party, nintendo however doesn't!

@BoltedArc

As I've illustrated before, Nintendo will not do well on their own with just their first and second party games. The last time they did this was called the N64, which had such low consumer confidence that the GameCube struggled for relevance. Nintendo slunk by, but they did not grow, they did not advance, and they were not thriving. It stifles growth.

When we make the defense that "Nintendo can go it alone," we're defending them making a console like the Saturn or Jaguar--two other consoles which largely "survived" by a spate of first party content and little else.

Without income from third parties, Nintendo does not have the revenue to fund larger projects, take bigger risks, or appeal to a broader range of gamers. It essentially limits them across the board and makes Nintendo more reluctant to try new things--granted, given the way Nintendo fans reacted to seeing Majora's Mask being made available for a 5th platform, the last thing the majority of Nintendo fans want is new things.

Nintendo cannot survive like this forever. They simply won't have the profits necessary to do it, and as we've seen, they haven't. Again, the Wii U has sold worse than both the Dreamcast and GameCube at this point. We're essentially looking at an audience that is too small for something like Xenoblade Chronicles X to make back the money spent on development. Hopefully it won't be as bad as Shenmue--which at the time was estimated to merely break even, every Dreamcast owner would have had to purchase the game twice, but I don't see XCX making money.

It's a massive sequel to a game Nintendo fans ignored the first time around.

Devs don't want to put in the time and money on Wii U ports when Nintendo fans have shown that, regardless of quality, they won't buy them anyway. Nintendo's fault in this is releasing hardware that is going to be incapable of running new-gen game engines, which means developers of AAA games have to put in a lot of extra work down-grading the game for the Wii U, and for lower sales, and potential losses.

We shouldn't be apologetic for "we should buy more consoles." That's idiotic for the average consumer (I'm a collector, and even I can't justify owning both an XBO and PS4 as they're too much alike). If that's what we're talking about, the conversation needs to evolve to a unified platform, with a unified or unified-friendly OS, and Sony, MS, and Nintendo just having their own channels to download games. Exactly like TV set-top boxes.

The way a lot of you guys talk, it's truly time for Nintendo to go third party. Most of you don't buy the consoles to be game consoles, but Nintendo boxes, so what's the point in even having a separate console with the Nintendo logo on the front? It's just a gross waste of money and Nintendo is increasingly not worth it--granted, many of you here think it is, but it's time to face facts--the rest of the gaming community does not agree.

The Wii U feels obsolete and irrelevant already. There are more games coming out on the Vita.

By the way, I fully understand why the XBO surged ahead for November (and likely through January as their discount lasts until then), but I fully expect the Playstation brand to largely return to the high status it held with the PS1 and PS2. The Wii U will not be noticeable by 2016.

I live in UK, I rarely watch tv and have seen adverts for 3ds Smash Bros. (during the first couple of weeks after it's launch), and still see ORAS ads.. Xbox and Station ads are on far more regularly though and I've never seen Wii U tv ads.

I agree with all the comments saying Wii U really needs to be advertised here.. MK8, Bayo and SSB ads could surely be a good thing for console sales..

@Nintendobro

I've already explained to you that you are wrong about 3rd party games, provided evidence, and shown that several 3rd party games on Nintendo platforms are not the stereotypical crap you have lied to yourself that they are.

Suffice to say, if you will not accept reason and facts, it is safe to say you are living in a fantasy world of your own making--not to mention the conspiracy theorist nature of your views. You are not making yourself look particularly intelligent if you continue to fly your flag of nonsense in the face of delivered contradictory information.

Third parties tried. Nintendo didn't give them confidence in selling DLC with very limited storage space, weak online, and finally an underpowered console. Then the fans blatantly ignored them even when they did a remarkable job on the games.

If your goal is to see Nintendo go third party, your buying habits are doing a great job of helping move the company in that direction. Then Nintendo can be a third party, which by your definition, is completely terrible all the time about everything because facts are scary. Beyond this, I think I have ample evidence that, given the nonsensical, conspiratorial, change and education-fearing, and erratic nature of your comments, from here on out, it's a waste of my time trying to explain reality to you.

I'm obviously not going to change your mind, because learning from your errors and understanding reality is difficult and scary. I'm not going to convince fanboys that they should change their habits. I'm only explaining why things are happening when I see idiotic conspiracy theory-style nonsense being thrown about when there are perfectly rational explanations for Nintendo's struggles and the failure of the Wii U. Because when people believe things that moronic, it runs the risk of them believing equally or more moronic things elsewhere in their lives. That is not healthy, not for the individual, not for society, and in this case, very much not healthy for Nintendo as a company. Instead of understanding the problem, you cast blame to those least responsible.

@Quorthon I knew you wouldnt understand instead of calling me a fanboy I guess I am a fanboy who grew up playing with Nintendo, Sony and sega. SNES,PS1 and Sega Genisis. I think you did not stop and think after you read and I think you did not even read what I typed. I just dont understand why do you defend them? You make bogus excuses for them even when they did all that to Nintendo fans and Nintendo. You say because of online and underpowered hardware yet Nintendo could make a console that could blow the other tow out of the water yet third parties will not want to work with Nintendo. Again they have said and done so many many times that gave us an indication that they do not want to work with Nintendo no matter what Nintendo does. You still defend them even though all the crap they do that I explained to. They make excuses to why a game isnt coming to Wii U. They blame Nintendo fans for the poor sales when its their problem not making proper definitive versions of their games with all the DLC. They release the version of the game at the same time on all the platforms they release the Wii U version way later. I just dont get that, even with all that stuff I mentioned what the third parties have done you still defend them. I would also like to point out have the third party games ever help Nintendo sell their consoles? Even with the Gamecube which had good third party support yet it didnt help Nintendo win that generation even though they made profit off of the Gamecube. All I am saying is the image of the third parties isnt gonna change until they start changing themselves. Not blame fans for their poor sales of their games, release their games at the same time on all platforms,and release good definitive versions of their games. Again I would not spend my money on a game with no DLC or half of the DLC, and that is unfinished. If I have to drag myself into mud to explain to you my point then I will. Third party support is gone its not gonna come back third parties will not want to work with Nintendo no matter what they do even make the most powerful machine and still it wont change their minds. And to quit making it seem that its all that important when it has not helped Nintendo's consoles in any way like with what I explained with the Gamecube. And please stop calling me a fanboy I grew up playing with Nintendo,Sony and Sega even there are things I do not like what Sony has been doing especially charging for online and no backwards compatibility might not be a big deal for you but for others like my brother and I its a big deals since we have tons of PS3 games. Quit making it seem that third parties are important when it hasnt done jack and this is the nail in the coffin that third party support for Nintendo is gone and there isnt one single thing that Nintendo could do at this point and bribing isnt gonna do anything either. No please sit back and think about it for a sec on all the things on what the third parties have done. Yet they expect us to buy their games.

Personally i think i has nothing to do with 3rd party or te lack of horsepower. It doesn't help but it won't make Nintendo leading again. Look at the Gamecube. That little machine had everything. Good 3rd party support and strong hardware. The Wii had terribly 3rd party support and was seriously lacking at the hardware department (ever seen a Wii game on a 50inch plasma?). Didn't stop Nintendo from winning that genaration. The problem is marketing. Sometimes i think Nintendo hates marketing. A fellow entrepreneur ones said, the first money you earn is the money that you didn't spend. Nintendo probably follows that same strategy . The first time i saw the Skylanders figures there where beautiful displayed at my local game/toystore. These days they even have there own wall. The amiibo lay on the ground for a week (Netherlands, Groningen). The iPad/iPhone generation stil don't know what a Wii u is. They think it is a Wii. Because it has the name Wii in it. Nintendo's direct videos are great an new. But not the way to go. Show a CGI trailer of StarFox, make a nice trailer of Zelda en don't just sit behind the TV and play it for yourself. I like it, but it don't got that wow effect. I love my Wii u. And i think Nintendo will soon be profitable again. I only hope that they stay in the game business with there own console and won't focus to much on that QOL thing.

Nintendo simply do not understand how to do business in Europe and worse still, seem unable to hire staff that can help them.

Advertising is abysmal, the feature sets are designed poorly and do not work well with the Western demographic.

Love my new 3DS LL, but as a company, there is a lot they can do to improve and draw in better third party support.