Nintendo had another very bad year and it's all the Wii U's fault

[TruckWEB]

Nintendo had another very bad year and it's all the Wii U's fault

 

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/07/nintendo-financial-results-2013-wii-u/

 

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Wow, I knew Nintendo wasn't doing so well but a $456 million operating loss since last year is ridiculous.

[Blackhearted]

Well there's a clickbait title if i've ever seen one.

[Thief000]

Hope Mario Kart 8 turns it around a bit. It's a marvelous game.

[macrosslover]

Well there's a clickbait title if i've ever seen one.

That's the name of the article and frankly it's what Nintendo admitted in their financials.  Obviously they didn't say it as such but they essentially admitted it.  Nintendo deserves this IMO, only because they didn't read the market or their consumers properly.  They should have dropped the Wii name and not made an underpowered console.  There are many things that they could have done but didn't, but no need to beat a dead horse.

 

This system is compared to the Gamecube, but sadly at the rate it's going it probably won't come anywhere close to Gamecube's 21 million total sales.  The one thing I do find funny is people complain because the system doesn't have games, but honestly it has more exclusives than the others at this present time.  I finally bought a Wii U and I bought Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and it came with Mario & Luigi, all of which are exclusives.  I eventually plan on getting Mario Kart 8 and then Pikmin 3, eventually Lego City, possibly Bayonetta 2, and obviously the next Zelda game.  All of those games are exclusives.

 

All those games are good but I'll admit it's hard for the average gamer to not feel that they are just HD upgrades of the same 5 Nintendo games in their particular series that came out before.  I hope that Nintendo eventually releases all of their previous games on Virtual console, including Gamecube that you can download.  However I think the most distressing news to come from this is that they only predict like 3.8 million units to be sold this entire next year.  That's considering Mario Kart, which was easily their number 1 selling game for Wii, will be released as well as Super Smash Bros.  I think that's an admission that Nintendo themselves don't have anything else coming out this year for the system and there's nothing from third parties that will be a significant system seller.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i love the Wii U, but yes, it's not selling. There are some great games for it, but not enough to attract new buyers. MK8 will certainly help, but that game should have been out in 2013.

 

imo, Nintendo needs to finally compete w/ the Xbox and PS4. They need to ditch the "everyone can play" mentality and go hardcore. That's not to say they cant release more Mario games, but how about some new 'mature' IP? What about specs that'll actually beat the PS4s?

[+Warwagon MVC]

They just need a softmod on the Wii u side to sell more systems :laugh:

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Funny timing on this article, as I actually fired up my WiiU last night to play some Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and while doing so I wound up on the eShop, in which I almost purchased two games (Abyss and NES Remix 2), wound up watching the Mario Kart 8 Nintendo Direct, and just wound up wasting upwards of 60 minutes poking around the eShop and Miiverse just having fun, and I honestly thought to myself the WiiU is a damn good console as it really does a great job of putting the end user into the world of Nintendo.

 

Side note, I actually finally checked out Donkey Kong with my newly purchase WiiU Pro Controller, and it is such a great controller overall. It also improved my precision on DKC:TF very noticeably. They should seriously consider bundling it along with the GamePad, as it truly makes a big difference.

 

The other two games I am currently playing the hell out of right now and absolutely loving is Mario Golf: World Tour and Kirby:Triple Deluxe on my 3DS XL. Especially Mario Golf. I just close my 3DS to suspend the game and open it up the next time I want to play and the game is right there perfectly ready to play. They really have made the 3DS such a user friendly handheld. They do not get enough credit in that department imho.

 

So it actually saddens me to read this news to be super honest. I think Nintendo deserves better. I also think they have done an incredibly job of keeping their whole ecosystem very Nintendo centric. I guess at the end of the day that is why they are having so many issues, as the system really does underperform when dealing with other publishers and developers games, but it is incredibly good at delivering Nintendo's view of gaming. For myself personally that is all I truly need. I do get why others do not see things that way though, I do. But again as I said, I think they deserve better. They have a very important place in the history of video games thus far. I hope that does not eventually get forgotten, as it should not be.

[Blackhearted]

All those games are good but I'll admit it's hard for the average gamer to not feel that they are just HD upgrades of the same 5 Nintendo games in their particular series that came out before.  I hope that Nintendo eventually releases all of their previous games on Virtual console, including Gamecube that you can download.  However I think the most distressing news to come from this is that they only predict like 3.8 million units to be sold this entire next year.  That's considering Mario Kart, which was easily their number 1 selling game for Wii, will be released as well as Super Smash Bros.  I think that's an admission that Nintendo themselves don't have anything else coming out this year for the system and there's nothing from third parties that will be a significant system seller.

 

I think they're just doing a modest estimate like that so they don't have a repeat of last year where they predicted 9 million and didn't even come remotely close to that. Exceeding that modest estimate would look a lot better than failing to meet a somewhat unrealistically high one for 2 years in a row.

 

i love the Wii U, but yes, it's not selling. There are some great games for it, but not enough to attract new buyers. MK8 will certainly help, but that game should have been out in 2013.

 

imo, Nintendo needs to finally compete w/ the Xbox and PS4. They need to ditch the "everyone can play" mentality and go hardcore. That's not to say they cant release more Mario games, but how about some new 'mature' IP? What about specs that'll actually beat the PS4s?

 

I kind of disagree with that. I mean, do we really need another box based entirely around CoD, GTA, AC etc like PS and xbox are?

[HawkMan]

Well there's a clickbait title if i've ever seen one.

 

Is it wrong ? no? clickbait titles are generally less than accurate. 

Funny timing on this article, as I actually fired up my WiiU last night to play some Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and while doing so I wound up on the eShop, in which I almost purchased two games (Abyss and NES Remix 2), wound up watching the Mario Kart 8 Nintendo Direct, and just wound up wasting upwards of 60 minutes poking around the eShop and Miiverse just having fun, and I honestly thought to myself the WiiU is a damn good console as it really does a great job of putting the end user into the world of Nintendo.

 

 

That's because it takes so long to get into the eshop you don't want to leave in case you need to check something else :p

[HawkMan]

 

I kind of disagree with that. I mean, do we really need another box based entirely around CoD, GTA, AC etc like PS and xbox are?

 

The problem is kind of two fold on that.

 

while I sort of agree making it a hard core console is a bad move, on the other hand... lets look at the history, the Wii brought gaming(lets focus less on the console) to everyone, great everyone got a Wii. granted in the end the attach rate and usage rate of the Wii's where dismal which should have predicted this, but anyway... Now everyone who previously thought games where for kids and boys who started playing on the Wii are playing casual brain damaging non games(no, candy crush isn't a game, it's ranodmly made levels that aren't checked if they can be solved and most aren't solvable without buying extras. It's gambling, with no prices) on their cheap laptops through facebook and on their phones. These people have no interest in paying for a dedicated gaming console.

 

as such, focusing on the everygamer isn't a winning tactic anymore, casuals don't 'buy consoles anymore. 

[LimeMaster]

OK so the Wii U is failing, but does there need to be an article about it every few months? :laugh:

 

Obviously the best thing for Nintendo to do is stick with the portable market, which is what they are good at. Of course, if they can somehow figure out how to get more third party developers on board to release a ton of exclusives, then there might be a small chance of hope, but the way things are going right now, I don't think Nintendo will release another console after the Wii U.

[Blackhearted]

Is it wrong ? no? clickbait titles are generally less than accurate.

 

They also tend to be worded in ways to get much more hits than they would have gotten with a different title.

[HawkMan]

They also tend to be worded in ways to get much more hits than they would have gotten with a different title.

 

what should the title be, "Wii U causes nintendo to lose hundreds of millions again for the second year".

 

however they word the title, since it's accurate for what's in the article, it would be a "click bait" title. all news titles are click bait. 

[spacer]

I don't own a Wii U, and probably won't until its price gets super low. I have a Wii, and my girlfriend and I used it a lot after first getting it. Then it kind of fell to wayside. The only Nintendo games that I still have an interest in playing are Zelda games, and maybe Metroid. Neither of which are on the Wii U yet. And no, a remake of Wind waker does not count.

 

Another thing is they have a huge catalog of games that they could port to the virtual console, but don't for some reason. If you told me the Wii U could legitimately play every Nintendo game ever made I would probably buy it in a heart beat.

 

I just don't understand Nintendo's strategy with the console. As a consumer, if I can't tell if what Nintendo's plans are for the console or if they really care about it, that doesn't motivate me to buy it.

 

They also tend to be worded in ways to get much more hits than they would have gotten with a different title.

Would it have been to title the article "Nintendo posts $450 million loss year over year" ? Both titles give the reader a similar idea as to the tone and content of the article. I don't really see the problem.

[compl3x]

what should the title be, "Wii U causes nintendo to lose hundreds of millions again for the second year".

 

however they word the title, since it's accurate for what's in the article, it would be a "click bait" title. all news titles are click bait. 

 

 

The title could have been "Here is a story about Nintendo's current financial situation" and you'd get "Why does everyone hate on Nintendo so much!!!" as if reporting on a company's financial situation is a trolling endeavour.

 

From Nintendo itself: "The Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo's profits, owing mainly to it's markdown (overseas)."

 

 

 

 

That's from the horse's mouth.