With the announcement of the NX, Nintendo admits defeat with the Wii U

[parallaxscroll]

source: Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-18-with-the-announcement-of-the-nx-nintendo-admits-defeat-with-the-wii-u)



By Martin Robinson Published 18/03/2015

What to make, then, of yesterday's Nintendo announcement? A certain amount of shock met the news that Nintendo was partnering with DeNA and making the move into mobile gaming development, but it could hardly be called a surprise. This is a company, after all, that used to run a taxi firm as its playing card business sprawled outwards in the 60s, and has a proud history of the unexpected. But even though yesterday's news marks perhaps the most significant shift since Nintendo moved out of the arcades and into the home with the NES, it's a move born of nothing more than common sense.

In Japan, the console market is flatlining, while mobile gaming is booming. What's more, there's not the slightly prissy attitude held by more traditional audiences towards the mobile market in Japan: the idea of a hardcore game on mobile is something that's more readily embraced, and Nintendo joining forces with one of the biggest players in that space not only makes sense, it's perhaps somewhat overdue.

What the partnership means for western audiences is a little fuzzier. The timing, location and style of yesterday's announcement suggested this was very much a Japanese deal for the Japanese market, and we may not see a knock-on effect over here until well after those first Nintendo-developed games find their way onto handsets. Indeed, the biggest concession made to those tuning in from afar was the announcement of the NX, the next dedicated games machine Nintendo has been leaving clues about for well over a year, and which we already have a decent handle on. (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-in-theory-nintendos-next-gen-hardware-and-the-strategy-behind-it)



It was a necessary move to calm the inevitable uproar in the west that Nintendo was shifting its development teams over to mobile gaming, but if yesterday's conference was full of unanswered questions, there's one very real thing to be taken from it: Nintendo has now quietly reserved a place in the graveyard for the Wii U. Yesterday's announcement was an affirmation of Nintendo's commitment to dedicated gaming platforms, but also an admission of defeat over its last effort.

It's a little too early to be writing the obituary for Nintendo's current home console, but its days have clearly been numbered, its timeline etched into its tombstone. If the NX is being prepared for a full reveal at E3 next year, there's the possibility of launch towards the end of 2016. Even pessimistically, we can expect to see it some time in 2017, clocking the Wii U's time on the frontline between four and five years. That would be comfortably the shortest lifespan of any of Nintendo's major home consoles.

So often, the most fondly remembered consoles have the most tragic lifelines, and while the Wii U has already outlasted the Dreamcast's glorious two years on this mortal coil, it's destined to take its place alongside Sega's doomed console. They're part of our own 27 Club: the Kurt Cobains and Brian Jones of the gaming world.

The reasons behind the Wii U's demise are commonly accepted: after going big and broad with great success with the Wii, Nintendo fell back on a hardcore market that had moved on from Mario. It was a marketing disaster from day one, too, a console searching for a purpose from its first bizarre reveal at E3 in 2011, and one that to this day still hasn't found one. The low-spec gamble that paid off with the Wii was never backed up with an idea to sell it: the GamePad has been a flop, barely supported beyond a handful of games at launch and a run of new, smaller experiments created under the guidance of Shigeru Miyamoto launching later this year that will be too little, too late.

It's going to make for an odd E3 later this year, where Nintendo must still show support for a console it has effectively acknowledged is a failure while being unable to acknowledge the elephant in the room that will be the NX. Zelda could well be the last big first-party game - and, who knows, maybe even the first on the NX, Twilight Princess-style - and if Nintendo has any sense it will have moved most of its big-ticket development teams, the likes of Retro and Tokyo EAD, on to its new hardware concept.

Such an odd send-off for such a wonderful machine. For all of its failings, the Wii U has consistently hosted the best games this generation has had to offer so far. Its appeal comes down in part to its outsider status, of course - everyone loves the underdog, especially one hobbled with something as unwieldy as a GamePad around its neck and with an adorable little limp - but the adoration thrown its way comes down mostly to its incredible software library.


The Wii U is host to one of the best hardcore 2D Mario platformers in New Super Mario Bros. U and its Luigi-themed follow-up, one of the best 3D Mario platformers in 3D World, and quite simply the best Mario Kart to date. It's home to the brilliant Pikmin 3, the eccentric and loveable Captain Toad as well as strange offshoots such as Hyrule Warriors. It's got multiplayer gaming at its best in Nintendo Land, and it's got Platinum Games at its finest, and its most experimental, in Bayonetta 2 and The Wonderful 101. Splatoon, meanwhile - what could well be the only new Nintendo IP launched in the Wii U's lifespan - looks to be a fitting tribute to this most peculiar of consoles. The Wii U is often compared to the GameCube, another Nintendo console that fell flat commercially but went on to become a cult favourite, and already I think it has the better library of the two.

And while the hardware might have faltered, there are still ideas within the Wii U worth savouring, chief among them the Miiverse. It can be occasionally sparse, your friends-list having moved on elsewhere, but in the chatter around games, the words of encouragement from strangers and the lavish fan-art sketched out with a stylus, there's the constant reminder of the power and warmth gaming communities are capable of. It's a reminder, too, of how Nintendo went about remedying the hostility of online gaming, even if the numbers were never there for its grand innovation to ever truly pay off.

The Wii U's catalogue and concepts like the Miiverse are also a reminder that, for all of the console's failings, Nintendo has been as effective a force as ever on other fronts, churning out a succession of great games for the faithful few who have stuck with them. If it can bring that work-rate, craftsmanship and imagination to its new mobile venture, and bring some of the Miiverse spirit into the cross-platform network that's part of the DeNA deal, then maybe it'll be time for some of us to start playing games on our handsets again. If it can bring some of that to its new hardware and learn from the many mistakes of the Wii U, then the next few years are going to be very exciting indeed.

[retroguy]

Let the Sony and Microsoft fanboys' taunting and jumping up and down with glee commence.

[Tanooki]

Yet to a point, that trolling if it's not taken too far to gloat, would be fairly well earned which is really sad. The highlighted pieces up top are pretty spot on too about the quiet burial mound being set up with the NX, whatever it is, it's a console, or it's a consolized handheld that's scalable like I was hoping/thinking for. They flopped trying to disrupt again using a tablet and last gen hardware again with also taking an opportunity to get games and flushing that down the toilet too. If you factor in the Japanese factor which they will always do first being the homeland, consoles are going on the whole towards niche territory while handhelds (dedicated) and not (tablet/phones) are chomping up large chunks of game time to the point you're even seeing PSP games like Monster Hunter Unite ported to IOS later last year. Now you have Nintendo in bed and partly owning the largest game porter/developer of Japan as far as high quality gaming experiences go (and not lame flash game like port junk.) With that NX to the side this is the whole 'third tier' again which I doubt they'll say like with how they assassinated the GBA with the DS about a decade ago. We all knew they were throwing GBA under the bus and this is the same situation here but now it's the console being put to death. Just like the GBA or the quoted Dreamcast it will be seen as for its time for the medium offering some of the best, if not at least best memorable experiences from a quality or uniqueness standpoint that also couldn't keep itself alive even further due to corporate seppuku. Again Link with his sword will be doing the gut cut on WiiU just like it did with Wii (skyward sword.) Hell it wouldn't surprise me as badly as the WiiU has done to get people other than the most dedicated to buy their games if they already don't have plans cooking to port stuff over and again boost the quality to get some money back off those projects because they definitely weren't junk.

[ZeroCool]

I love the Wii U. Much better so far than the PS4 and XBOxONe.

[Dashopepper]

The NX will be some shitty budget tablet for kids to run games and apps on. Not something that replaces 3ds and wii u. I think people are letting there minds run a little wild. Time will tell.

[Leo_A]

They talked about it being a dedicated gaming platform, so I really doubt it.

The 3DS and Wii U line are just about due, and the mention of the single platform under development with a completely new concept aligns with the rumors of merged Nintendo hardware.

I didn't see how the 3DS could do very well if it had to last until Fall 2016 (The sales have been really down), but the New 3DS refresh should keep it kicking well enough to reach the Wii U's 4 year anniversary, providing a life for the console that's close to that 5 year mark that many people expect out of one.

I'll be very surprised if the New 3DS and Wii U survive 2016 as Nintendo's premier home gaming hardware.

[Tanooki]

Dash the dating for a likely release would be killing the WiiU at roughly 5 years, which matches the N64 which really was dead after 4 1/2 but dragged out to 5 to make it to the Gamecube.

They combined both their handheld and console groups into one, which makes me lean into that argument I've had of the scalable hardware internals where they can have one system and then break that into a console and a handheld with greater/lesser level parts which run the same games on the same medium. They can still play their do it ourself thing, get the handheld third party support still, and it will carry to the TV too. It can be relatively powerful like those new micro consoles like Mad Catz has out now or the new Nvidia shield home console and just be its own thing while allowing for budget and freebie junk like they're getting into with that pokemon puzzler test on 3DS for 'free' with the paid hearts for more turns w/out waiting.

They're testing and testing the waters and it looks more to me like that NX is going to be something that'll end up replacing the WiiU and perhaps the 3DS in time as well. it would be to their benefit not juggling 2 systems in theory if you can make games for one and have it on both as it drives costs down a lot and widens the player audience too.

[retroguy]

I have to admit that if that's what they're going for, the ability to play the same games at home or on the go sounds pretty appealing to me. Nintendo said once that the day they quit making consoles is the day they leave the gaming business for good. If the NX succeeds, it could breathe new life into a business where, let's face it, the old model simply does not work anymore and is unsustainable long term given the current economic climate. If it fails, than aside from likely meaning the end of Nintendo as a games developer, it could signal the end of videogame consoles in general as a sustainable business under any model. I, for one, hope they succeed.

[Tanooki]

See that's what I'm thinking. Where I came to the conclusion I'm not going to sit here and go googling mining for old stories and quotes but if memory serves I saw some events and releases tied to them directly and indirectly that indicates this is a very good possibility.

- They killed the separate hardware development teams, made them one, moved into the same complex to work together on 'something.' This was like 2 years ago~
- While smack talking tablets, they go and start releasing and touting the pokemon apps and wanting to do 'something' in the space while then double talking it wasn't for them.
- Hardware reports on news sites have shown Nintendo talking to/working with/buying into some companies
- Nintendo supposedly was looking into some hardware that has solid performance, cheaper development costs, but high quality output (like that nvidia console out any time now.)
- They've talked about scalable technologies
- A year ago Iwata said their next console and handheld will have a unified system, 'like brothers'.
- In that year ago piece they backward acknowledged the failure of the WiiU but their love of it saying going into the next they want to absorb the WiiU architecture.

That last one clearly they won't use the same chips again, they're a sinking ship, but going with the grain of the other stuff the WiiU system could be the literal design of it. It already is basically in a way a mobile gaming system with the console itself as kind of a transmitter dock. Sure the parts are in the machine as much as the tablet, but if the concept could be set using scalable tech then you could have a portable console (like WiiU) a touch panel full controller system (like the New 3DS finally made the 3DS) where the games could 'like brothers' work on either system means scalable internal tech. One system, one OS, two tiers of horsepower so the games will work on both, just prettier on the more expensive console. IN crusty talk, thing of old DOOM 1 on a 386 at med-quality versus a 486DX PC at full quality. Same game, same general experience, just a notch lower in visual/audio quality. That would stick with their no sacrifices feel of things against mobile (Tablet etc) gaming.

[kai123]

Are they ever going to cut the price on the Wii U? Talk about losing some sales that way. The damn thing never gets a real price cut and they wonder why their market share is so low. Plus they need a new market research team to help them name their machines. They have been screwing around for some reason and wonder why people are buying the 3DS instead of the Wii U. Most average customers who bought the Wii don't even know the Wii U exists. If they hear the name they think they already have one. They need a kick in the butt and I am glad their listening to the investors on this one.

[parallaxscroll]

I highly doubt NX is some sort of hybrid device.

It's almost certainly their next home console.

[Bojay1997]

I highly doubt NX is some sort of hybrid device.

It's almost certainly their next home console.

Based on what?

[Leo_A]

I highly doubt NX is some sort of hybrid device.

It's almost certainly their next home console.

Then most of the speculation, along with the anecdotal evidence that Nintendo is providing, is going to end up being wrong.

While I'm not naive enough to think I know all the details, I'm pretty confident that we're going to see a high degree of commonality between handheld and console Nintendo gaming in the upcoming generation.

[The Adventurer]

"Nintendo announces Super Nintendo, admits defeat with the NES."

[Gameguy]

It's a little too early to be writing the obituary for Nintendo's current home console, but its days have clearly been numbered, its timeline etched into its tombstone. If the NX is being prepared for a full reveal at E3 next year, there's the possibility of launch towards the end of 2016. Even pessimistically, we can expect to see it some time in 2017, clocking the Wii U's time on the frontline between four and five years. That would be comfortably the shortest lifespan of any of Nintendo's major home consoles.
At 5 years, it will have the same lifespan as their previous consoles, except for the Wii which was available for 6 years before the Wii U came out. This is entirely normal for Nintendo.


The Wii U is often compared to the GameCube, another Nintendo console that fell flat commercially but went on to become a cult favourite, and already I think it has the better library of the two.
Even though the Gamecube was lacking in sales compared to previous consoles, it still was on the market for 5 years before Nintendo replaced it with the Wii. Again, nothing out of the ordinary with this current cycle.

[Leo_A]

If it lasts five years. I still think that Fall 2016 is the best bet, which puts it at four years.

Would love to be wrong though, since it still feels like this system is brand new.

[Jorpho]

Ay yay. They practically said nothing more than "we're doing a thing". This is not worth basing any kind of speculation on. It is a Thing, that they are Doing.


"Nintendo announces Super Nintendo, admits defeat with the NES."Well put.

[Tanooki]

Even though the Gamecube was lacking in sales compared to previous consoles, it still was on the market for 5 years before Nintendo replaced it with the Wii. Again, nothing out of the ordinary with this current cycle.

That and quite a few developers were on board with the Gamecube for 3 of the 5 years it was around, and even when 1/2 of them did dump it the last year and a half roughly of its life, it still had enough third party quality releases to keep someone busy still even if quite a few sequels didn't get the courtesy. GC was I think misunderstood and thrown into the same lump with N64 which was screwed for most of its life that way and the Wii too, it actually got some respect, the only console since the SNES to get some.

[Gamevet]

The Wii got very little respect from the gaming community; That's why the Wii U is a failure and did not get a following from its mostly casual userbase.

[Sailorneorune]

The Wii had some great games (The Last Story, the first 50 or so hours of Xenoblade Chronicles, Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Metroid Prime 3) and the Virtual Console is just amazing (Wii U needs Genesis, TG-16, N64 support!).

[parallaxscroll]

In an interview with Nikkei, Iwata briefly mentioned the hardware, saying he wouldn't go into particulars about the NX. "However, if you only expand upon existing hardware, it's dull," Iwata said. "In some shape or form, we're always thinking about how we want to surprise players as well as our desire to change each person's video gaming life."

http://kotaku.com/what-to-expect-nintendos-new-hardware-a-surprise-prob-1693052456

[Tanooki]

You know, they're stubborn. If I'm wrong about them joining handheld and console to save them money and have a viable stand alone product I can see them being jerky once more despite the failures of the WiiU. They'll look back to the Wii and go, damn man, how can I repeat that! Easy...rip off oculus rift and Sony's version of it coming for the PS4. Design a console entirely around the goggle, make a real '3D' experience but yet again, do it on the cheap keeping prices down while sacrificing quality elsewhere. If you could see them shove out a 'cheap' $300 VR headset system that could interestingly do it as that could drag people who are anywhere age wise, or even the fairly immobile/disabled could get new life out of such a headset to game with. I know what I'd like to see, and since then I've seen media pull up the argument too as it's a smart obvious choice, but somehow deep down I don't think Nintendo has still learned their lesson yet.

[Zthun]

I don't know about you guys, but I've been looking forward to the Wii U lifecycle end so I can pick one up at a discount and have a huge library backlog available.

As for the announcement, I would love it if Nintendo put their franchises on the PC or mobile (iPad, iPhone, Galaxy, etc) platform. Would actually give me a reason to play games other than Hearthstone on my iPad.

[Tanooki]

Hate to admit it, but considering how Nintendo can so max out a lot of quality from lesser hardware, reading what you just wrote I think I'd actually love it if they only made games for the PC, never for their console competition. They could still have vast control since they get contracts with nvidia, etc for things, they could work with chipset makers to really get what they want, and because of the open architecture of the PC they could still release all the janky controllers and accessories they want to jack in through a USB connector and they'd have even a wider array of sales since people could apply them as a most desired controller for other games they don't make. Since they pull off so much within their limits, taking that to the PC, they could do amazing work that works 100% on hardware that's even a few years old and amaze people giving a fat audience not restricted to high end re-run PC buyers after power. Imagine the WiiU library on the PC.

[Leo_A]

I don't know about you guys, but I've been looking forward to the Wii U lifecycle end so I can pick one up at a discount and have a huge library backlog available.

With their pricing strategy, I don't think you're doing yourself many favors by waiting, if you're hoping for a lot of deals on 1st party releases.

[Tanooki]

Normally he would be doing himself a big one because the after market prices on Nintendo games drop a lot historically as time goes on. Problem is now Nintendo isn't printing games as heavily because they want to encourage their always full priced never discounted download eshop copies. With that, they run out of new physical games, won't make more, or make them at a slow trickle, and then you end up seeing stuff used going higher than the new retail price. I know I've seen some grumbling about Pikmin 3 which really isn't all that old. By waiting on WiiU games from Nintendo you're basically asking to pay more for a used copy then than for a new one now. It's sickening, but you're better off buying them now with random retail sales than getting screwed later when you have the hardware.

[Leo_A]

When did Nintendo games not do a decent job of holding their value?

Other than when there were actually decently priced reprints, it's always been pretty hit or miss playing the waiting game, unlike for most other videogames.

[Tanooki]

They don't bottom out hard, but they do fall off because they're very mass produced so the open non gamestop resale market usually has a nice lower price before things just got stupid in the last few years and affected everything. Like a year ago or so you could for instance get Luigis Mansion for the GC for like under $10, it's definitely not that way now. I'm just saying that Wii games that went down to like the $10 level like Mario Galaxy did for a time isn't likely to happen on WiiU because of their eshop emphasis.

[Leo_A]

Some, just as there will be Wii U examples that will be economical as well. Others never get particularly cheap or start getting expensive even when that system was still mainstream. Much of the 1st party GCN library is an example of what we're complaining about the Wii U today for.

The Pikmin 3 phenomenon isn't even new to that franchise for instance. All four previous releases started to escalate while most go for MSRP or well above after just a relatively short time on the marketplace. About the best you can do these days with this series is the original GCN edition of Pikmin for about $30 for a complete copy.

If you're lucky, you could score all three for $100, which is on the very high end for used software that in some cases dates to well over a decade ago. Never enough Pikmin to go around it seems, either in the games themselves, or in the real-world. :)

[kai123]

I just hope a Wii U emulator comes out. The hardware isn't that crazy powerful and they already have a basic PS3 emulator going. That is what I will wait for. I am tired of waiting on Nintendo to figure out what they are going to do. You don't need a revolution every single time.

[Zthun]

With their pricing strategy, I don't think you're doing yourself many favors by waiting, if you're hoping for a lot of deals on 1st party releases.

I'm looking more at the price of the console, not the games. Once the end of lifecycle is hit, usually you get big discounts on the console itself - sometimes with a late revision (The Wii Mini, for example). I don't know the pricing strategy or history as well as Tanooki does so it's not completely impossible for me to be full of it.

I've moved to a digital lifestyle and I have been unloading my entire physical collection on eBay, so the eShop prices would be what I would pay.

The biggest pull to the end of lifecycle purchase is one can evaluate all the games that are on the console. If one purchases at the beginning, said person is left with just future promises and a lot of complaining that there are no games to play.

[Leo_A]

Yeah, if you're looking for a good price on hardware, waiting isn't a bad game. Especially with digital distribution like you'd be doing.

Incredible deals can be had for time to time on the Wii U, but they're the definition of 'YMMV'. Best bet for a good price on the system itself is what you're doing.

I doubt we'll get a revision though. Nintendo will drop this like a hot potato at the earliest chance, N64 and GCN style.

[parallaxscroll]

Based on what?

Based on what Iwata has said:


What we mean by integrating platforms is not integrating handhelds devices and home consoles to make only one machine. What we are aiming at is to integrate the architecture to form a common basis for software development so that we can make software assets more transferrable, and operating systems and their build-in applications more portable, regardless of form factor or performance of each platform.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html

[Tanooki]

That goes with my wish (one hardware) being shot down, but the other of them having a unified style of hardware and os that's scalable so you can have two products but use the same assets to make a game for both. It makes sense because you can make a game and it will work on both so if someone is just a handheld or just a console gamer, they're not missing out. You can sell more software easier that way and hardware too leaving choice for the game to be played on.

[Bojay1997]

Based on what Iwata has said:



http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html

In other words, pure speculation based on a quote that is now over two years old.

[BlastProcessing402]

I just hope a Wii U emulator comes out. The hardware isn't that crazy powerful and they already have a basic PS3 emulator going. That is what I will wait for. I am tired of waiting on Nintendo to figure out what they are going to do. You don't need a revolution every single time.

You'd also have to somehow emulate the gamepad, and that sounds like a nightmare. Granted, for many games you wouldn't need to, but for a lot of them you would.

[retroguy]

You'd also have to somehow emulate the gamepad, and that sounds like a nightmare. Granted, for many games you wouldn't need to, but for a lot of them you would.

Simple: The emulator would have a secondary download of a free android app so you can run the main game on your computer and use a tablet for the gamepad functions. Not a perfect solution, but a doable one in theory.

[Leo_A]

Or a screen swap button that allows you to go back and forth between the two screens

While on the touch screen, you could handle touch inputs with your mouse. Not useful for touch-centric gameplay or games that are actively using both screens pretty much simultaneously, but useful when it's for something secondary like navigating menus and other secondary aspects, which are the more typical uses for the Wii U gamepad screen anyways outside of enabling off-screen play.

And I can't think of a Wii U specific need for it, but the ability to map a control input to a particular touch screen input would also be great. For a related example that makes a good illustration of how that could be useful, say that you're playing New Super Mario Bros. DS via emulation and want to activate your stored powerup, shown below with a emulator screenshot of both screens.

http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/705/705537/new-super-mario-bros-20060506070838117-000.jpg

If you could set it up in your emulator options where a press of an otherwise unused button mimics a particular touch screen input where that stored powerup is at the bottom right hand corner. That would completely liberate something like this game from not only the need for touch controls, but also the need of dual screens during gameplay (Homebrew emulators can already automatically swap screens in this game when you go underground and the action switches to the touch screen).

[Gameguy]

http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/705/705537/new-super-mario-bros-20060506070838117-000.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/5xpsuu.png