Quote Originally Posted by InsaneDavid View Post
Digital distribution does not sell hardware. Nintendo needs, absolutely NEEDS software in the retail stores filling up the WiiU case so people are enticed to purchase the system. I can tell you first hand that WiiU systems are a hard sale for the exact same reason Wii systems are a hard sale - there's nothing new to play. Pikmin 3 is awesome but it's not enough to justify someone that might be curious about Nintendo's current offerings to throw down $400 when they don't see anything else that interests them.

PS3, 360 - old hardware that has a new generation on the horizon yet both systems receive new releases, interesting and good new releases, at retail every week. Seeing those games, right then and there, lights the fire that sells hardware. This week I've seen a tick up in PS3 and 360 hardware sales due to Grand Theft Auto V. These are hardware packages less than three months out of a new console cycle! Why? There's a game, right there, they can buy the system and go home, right now, and play it, right then.

Digital is fine if you have a huge install base, with the WiiU Nintendo simply does not. Generally only the absolute most Nintendo faithful dove into the WiiU head first, and even with them this "digital early" release method splits those small ranks down the middle. Week after week I see the WiiU display case remain exactly the same and the consoles collect dust while their older contemporaries continue to have robust software sales that continue to push decent hardware sales.
I won't disagree with you that Nintendo needs to increase the volume and quality of the WiiU games being released. I do however, strongly disagree that digital sales can't move hardware. People are buying the new WiiU Zelda bundle like crazy from what I saw in stores today and that comes with only a digital download of the game. The fact that 30% of the sales on many of Nintendo's recent 3DS releases are digital (and incidentally sold without any sort of discount and no ability to resell or transfer ownership) shows that there is a huge audience that prefers digital. While it's not the majority, 30% of sales with no distributors or middle men skimming a significant chunk off is huge for a company like Nintendo, especially considering how late they were to the digital game and how poor their rights and accounts management systems are at present. The point is, Nintendo is releasing all of these major WiiU games physically in most cases a couple of weeks later, so it really has no impact either way on hardware sales.