Didn't they say this about the virtual boy several years ago?
I am serious!
I am sorry but, to me, two screens is still a dumb idea. Bet this thing would sell for less than $150 if it werent for the controller screen deal.
I could spend hours listing all the faults behind wii u, besides the name souding like a european ambulance, but the real point is that it is already outdated and out performed by the current competition.
Did I just say that?
Games and backwards compatibility.... The wii u doesnt do gamecube, the wii games have always been mediocre, downloadable games are rather unexciting as most are available free for pc emulators, and the release day game catalogue is rather grim.
The competition: 360 and PS3 are loaded with games, most of which have been unavailable to wii users due to exclusives and hardware limitations. Nintendo has mario... but no zelda metroid or pokemon again at launch.
Hard drive... 32 gb??? oh... wow. At least they added a connector for portable hard drives.
The competition: We know all about the storage on 360 and PS3... never a worry about space for music, vids, games, saves, updates, add on content, etc. The 32 GB seems like nintendo is being cheapskates.
Price.... Oh boy Nintendo...wow... Too much for what it is.
The competition: Most people who have been long time gamers have bought another 360 or PS3 for their other tv's.... or they will since the price is so cheap. It's nice to watch neflix or play Halo in the bedroom, the kids have their own games in theirs and can watch dvds or netflix for kids. You can do this with wii and wii u, but it isn't cost effective, the wii is barely SD quality, and the controllers aren't easy at all to use for video navigation.
Power... The specs are pretty weak... honestly. Nintendo knows that people who bought the wii are thinking "for the kids" and aren't worried about a powerful next gen system, and have locked in on that market.
The competition: There is no mario-style character on PS3 or 360. Sackboys could go there but Sony doesn't know how to sell to kids, never have and never will. Skylanders is the equalizer here, but it will never reach mario levels.
So what is the bold statement from Nintendo about?
Sales werent as good as they expected... especially with 360 selling almost double the wii u in the same period and being 7 years old.
People aren't falling for the "shortage" BS this time around like they pulled with the wii and tried to do with the 3DS. Most customers saw the "sold out" P.R. and went to Walmart.... finding many unsold units on the shelves. It appears that many online retaillers are playing along with the "shortage" scam, but how much in kickbacks are they getting for doing so? (besides selling their inventory on ebay for inflated "shortage" prices.)
Nintendo boasted over a million in pre orders... and then got caught lying. Most of the 400,000 sold werent pre ordered anyway. It was black friday impulse buying.
The bottom line is that the smell eminating from the Nintendo corporate offices is fear.... plain and simple.
The smallest kid on the playground always has the loudest mouth.
@Thetylander At least it has backward compatibility with wii and some games of gamecube if you dont know that. Ps3 and Xbox360 doesnt have backward compatibility, even previous generation. Maybe xbox 360 with some xbox titles. But PS3 doesnt have.
Xbox 360 sold more consoles because of the stock. Wii u only sell 400,000 units because they only produced that amount. They sold all the stock with preorders. My sister went to best buy and there were only two consoles.
And on the wii u you can attach your hard drive... one of the xbox 360 kinect model only have 4gb and you cannot attach a hard drive.
And .... for kids??? Wow.... Many adults bought this system and were happy with the system. Thats your opinion... Im bored of 'Hardcore' games, and for that I have my Desktop with mouse and keyboard.
Correction to your correction.
PS3 plays all PS1 games, Early PS3 units played PS1 and PS2. Most x-box titles worked on the 360 as well. Prior to PS2, none of the major consoles had backwards compatibility.
As for wii u.... It DOES NOT play gamecube. Nintendo issued a statement to that effect and also stated that gamecube games can be purchased via download through virtual console.
X-box live and PS store do this as well with certain old games.
Xbox 360 sold 700k units because people know a good deal when they see it... It was not because there were more of them available!
Same with PS3.
Here are the best deals I could find from Black Friday:
$250 for wii u with nintendoland in pack. less than a dozen games available at launch.
$199 for X-box 360 250gb Kinect with Skyrim, Forza 4, Kinect Adventures and Kinect sports 1 and 2. A $20 gift cards and Xbox live for six months. Hundreds of other games available.
$199 PS3 320gb with move, GT5 and Little Big Planet 1 and 2, Two dualshock and two move controllers, $20 ps store card voucher for $20 off any new game.
(I am sure there were better deals but I focused on national big box stores)
So, which was a better deal? No contest!
Nintendo wii u even got beat out by wii, due to the amazing deals out there at retaillers. This isn't shocking as the PS2 outsold PS3 4 to 1 during the first two years of the PS3... which is why Sony decided to remove the backwards compatibility.
As for not being able to attach a hard drive to a 4gb 360... Then what the hell is that hard drive attached to my kids 360 doing????
You can't rely on brand loyalty to move product. If that were true Oldsmobile would still be making cars and GM would never have declared bankruptcy.
The PR machine at Nintendo makes many errors. like producing over 2 million wii u systems and then slowly trickling them out of the warehouse to keep demand up.
They have to file production logs, some of these fell into the wrong hands in china and the info was leaked. Most retaillers and media outlets prefer to ignore this info as it would hurt their sales as well if it was known that the wii u was not a rare and hot item.
As for your sister finding only 2 systems at Best Buy... That's called "Low stock". (former B.B. employee here) You pretend to have few units in inventory to move product. Best Buy is notorious for this practice, primarily on high dollar items like the bigger tv's. It's actually an old car dealer trick and it's perfectly legal so long as bait and switch is not used. It pressures the consumer to make a impulse buy because the item may be gone if they wait too long.And yes we did lie to customers and say an item was out of stock. The customer usually bought something else and got a raincheck for the item they really wanted. We sold plenty of PS3's and 360's this way while customers waited for wii's to arrive... even though they were on a pallet in the back room! This was legal because they weren't "checked in" yet so the store had not yet officially recieved them. And they usually sat there until a slow sales day (wednesday) when they would be checked in and announced to the public.
Nintendo markets to kids... always has and always will. It is nothing to be ashamed of, Star Wars was marketed to kids as well... Those kids grew up and still love their star wars, but now they collect the toys as a hobby (or obsession).
I loves me some mario or zelda from time to time. It's part of our Japanese heritage... (funny!) But, as you use your pc for hardcore gaming, I use mine as a game emulator for all those nintendo games in my collection that I no longer am able to play on my toaster, snes, gameboy,and N64.
