What is the Wii U's position after the conference last night?

[Bagel seed]

From an investor Q&A last week

Finally, Iwata is aware of the fact that many people hold the belief that Wii U is underpowered, and feels they need to work on remedying such misunderstandings. Not only that, but he knows that there are some third parties that are actively supporting Wii U, while others aren't even giving it a second glance. He wants to fix this by creating a situation in which third parties not currently actively supporting Wii U will regret that decision once third parties that did support it start to produce hits on the system. Of course, this isn't going to happen overnight, and it's hard for them at the moment to persuade third parties to get on board given Wii U's current state. However, Nintendo is working on producing such results following Wii U's "re-vitalization" on and after this summer.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/events/130425qa/03.html

The bolded reminds me of those Jerry Springer episodes where the ugly duckling becomes 'hot' years later and tries to throw it in their bullies faces

 

[BRiT]

Yeah, that's a sure fire way to gain third party support. Total mismanagement right there ... such a way to completely run existing third-party support into nonexistence.

 

[(((interference)))]

What exactly is his threat though?

AFAIC he's just implying that pubs not supporting the system will feel regret once pubs who are have hits and start making money (not that that's a likely scenario).

 

[rockaman]

I'm curious as to how much of the current poor sales people attribute to either A) lack of marketing and B) the quality of appeal of the new controller pad with a screen.

I actually think going so swiftly to the new pad might have been a terrible mistake for WiiU. Wii can attribute a great deal of success due to its marketing, the fitness epidemic which grew hugely over the last many years, and the intuitive nature of the Wii remote.

Without the Wii remote maybe Nintendo has actually failed to re-engage all the consumers they discovered with Wii and actually lost a ton of potential returning customers I think, kids and adults too. Like they gained so many customers with Wii and then threw all the same customers away with WiiU...

I think their future cash flow is safe with the likes of Mario/Zelda, Pokemon exclusivity, and Gameboy, though I do wonder what happens if that trifecta doesn't see as much success after 3DS.

 

[(((interference)))]

I also don't understand why their marketing push was so anaemic - Nintendo have deep pockets they should have splurged on marketing like MS definitely will with the 720.

 

[Grall]

I'm curious as to how much of the current poor sales people attribute to either A) lack of marketing and B) the quality of appeal of the new controller pad with a screen.

I think C) - lack of GAMES is a very large factor here. But also that people possibly don't even KNOW that the wuu exists. I'm not sure I buy the idea that the controller would be "too complicated" (which people said about current console controllers sans touchscreens too, around the time the wii premiered.)

Without the Wii remote maybe Nintendo has actually failed to re-engage all the consumers they discovered with Wii and actually lost a ton of potential returning customers I think, kids and adults too. Like they gained so many customers with Wii and then threw all the same customers away with WiiU...

...Possibly, but I can imagine that nintendo felt that the wii had brought them as far as waggle could take them, and wii's limited gesture recognition ability with the IR bar and remote control camera isn't nearly as sophisticated as either PS Move or kinect. Investing in similar technology would have cost hugely, both in money and processing power, so they decided to try to hop onto the tablet wave instead and gain gestures that way...

Maybe this is all bullshit speculation, but it seems likely to me.

Nintendo portables could be safe as long as they target younger kids primarily, whom do not own cell phones (they have no use for them, for starters), so a nintendo portable would be without competition in that market segment. Older people interested in the same type of games (pokemon, whatever) would then also buy the portable, expanding the market and bringing in titles targetting older players. ...But it could be tough, people often resent carrying around more than one portable gadget, and a gadget that only plays games and nothing else would be the first thing they drop.

 

[Platon]

Without the Wii remote maybe Nintendo has actually failed to re-engage all the consumers they discovered with Wii and actually lost a ton of potential returning customers I think, kids and adults too. Like they gained so many customers with Wii and then threw all the same customers away with WiiU...

It does not apply to their whole target market, but I am quite certain that a huge portion of the market they managed to grab would most likely not upgrade, at least anytime soon and if they would they would have more to choose from this time around as both the 360 and PS2 have motion controls.

But overall I agree that the tablet if anything always seemed to me to have more potential in what would be called core games, like strategy and so on than trying to capture that waggle audience once again...

 

[joesiv]

The problem I see is they don't command the child market as they did, and there aren't people growing up on Nintendo games who'll be buying Nintendo consoles for another 20 years to play Mario and Pikmin and Animal Crossing.

Well, actually, they do have the kid's, because they had the very successful GBA, then DS, and hopefully 3DS, which are all the goto Kid consoles, en-doctoring the yongins in Nintendo franchises.

I still feel that with a signifantly cheaper price than other next gen systems, and once the games start flowing, Nintendo will do "fine" this generation. They won't "win" it, but they'll get by, as some have it as their primary, and most have it as their 2ndary system for those exclusives.

The generation after Wii-U will be the interesting one IMO, just to see what Nintendo's strategy is. I'd love for them to push things in the technology side, maybe some wireless VR (Oculous rift style), using their wireless gamepad steaming tech, support for 4+ head sets would be pretty epic IMO.

 

[dagamer]

That's both an interesting and a downright scary scenario you're setting up there! Nintendo's share price won't crash as long as they're sitting on that $10+ billion dollars methinks, but if they were to start losing money badly this could all change.

...And should they get bought out by someone - which would happen, considering all the epic IP that company's sitting on - what cows would be allowed to remain sacred once new management is in charge...? Just askin.

With a guy like Bobby Kotick holding the reins we'd see a new Zelda, Mario and Metroid yearly (well, semi-yearly, perhaps) until all three franchises are so wrung out and spent that nobody can be bothered to even bat an eye in regards to them anymore (he's done it before... He's gonna do it again!)

Even if they lost $100 million a year every year, it would take them 50 years to go bankrupt. More likely, they would simply retreat to handheld gaming and stay there.

And Kotick is actually semi-smart, the same team pumps out a game every 2 years, they are just stagger-stepped. Though it really can only be done with multi-player games, pumping out Tony Hawk yearly, heck even Guitar Hero, eventually got stale.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, actually, they do have the kid's, because they had the very successful GBA, then DS, and hopefully 3DS, which are all the goto Kid consoles, en-doctoring the yongins in Nintendo franchises.

I don't think handhelds lead to console sales.

 

[rockaman]

I didn't mean to say the WiiU controller pad is hard to use. Only to say that I feel like Nintendo is not selling/not able to sell the capabilities of the WiiU controller pad as easily.

With Wiimote the actors can dance on screen to make it so painfully obvious what Wii is trying to do. I feel mostly that the WiiU pad is just impossible to sell on its merits in the same way. A communication problem/disconnect. Nintendo seems to know what they want to do with WiiU controller pads, but it seems the audience doesn't I think.

That's why I think WiiU may have benefited from keeping the Wiimote and simply selling WiiU as the next Wii, rather than changing the product too much and the WiiU as a different way to play. The Wii way is the one that was so successful, arguably with very few key games coming on time.

Wii is fitness and motion gaming. You know that without thinking as a customer. But then what is WiiU except a regular gaming console with a tablet substituting the controller? Much harder to sell IMO.

P.S. I still remember the Wii advertisements with Miyamoto going door to door in his Wii car and the sunset... Lol

 

[Persistantthug]

Anyone have a good idea how much of the BOM is the tablet? Personally, I think it's a mistake. Besides off-TV play, they haven't demonstrated any value in having such a large and obtuse controller. And having the Wii U look like a rounded off Wii was another mistake (when many in the public think every smartphone is an iPhone, it just leads to self-shaking head syndrome).

Then again, if the console had launched with a Smash game in the first 6 months, none of this would have mattered. Was Kid Icarus really so important to Masahiro Sakuri? It's not as if the 3DS isn't able to carry itself now.

I'd like to know that too.

Anyone?

 

[Exophase]

I'd be astonished if Nintendo pays even $50 for it.

 

[Cjail]

I could not find the official BOM for the WiiU pad but to give you an idea the BOM for the iPad Mini is around $180-190 and it packs better/more hardware/components than the WiiU pad.
Many Chinese tablets cost $50 to manufacture and are not much worst than a WiiU pad.

 

[dagamer]

I'd be astonished if Nintendo pays even $50 for it.

I think they should have spent that $60 building a more powerful console so it a) would have a clear distinction in graphical quality compared to the PS3/360 and b) won't get left behind when the PS4/720 launch. Also, I wonder how much power was left on the table simply building a "more efficient PS360" instead of going beyond them. I saw that because of the relative small amount of power the Wii U draws and how small it is.

 

[Persistantthug]

I could not find the official BOM for the WiiU pad but to give you an idea the BOM for the iPad Mini is around $180-190 and it packs better/more hardware/components than the WiiU pad.
Many Chinese tablets cost $50 to manufacture and are not much worst than a WiiU pad.

$50 for some tablets? Wow.

Can you show me one please?

 

[Rangers]

I'd be astonished if Nintendo pays even $50 for it.

which is a lot. and it's one of those mechanical costs that will never really decline a lot which are the worst.

I recognized early it will likely not just be not helpful, it will be an anchor around it's neck dragging the Wii U to the bottom of the ocean. Both in terms of making Wii U less desirable to port too, and cost.

 

[Exophase]

http://www.destructoid.com/cnn-estimates-the-cost-of-wii-u-s-parts-to-be-228-249435.phtml

CNN actually says that UBM Techinsights (whom they may have paid thousands for a deep dive on) estimates that the gamepad costs nearly $80, with the touchscreen costing $24 (!) and the logic chips $30, not including wireless transceivers. All well more than I expected. I do know invensense charged my work quite a bit for their gyros when we got them but I figured Nintendo paid vastly less.. but maybe not as little as I thought. That could be driving up the cost, the microcontrollers really shouldn't be very expensive and unlike a tablet they don't have large amounts of RAM or flash storage. But who knows, I get the impression that Nintendo likes to overspend on some things..

If this is anywhere close to accurate then it really is quite the hefty expense for a feature that hasn't exactly been driving new must have gameplay than the much cheaper Wiimote did..

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

24 bucks for the screen is something I can believe. 30 dollars for chips, not including wireless, I can't. You can buy a amd a4 3400 for that. A apu that is probably faster than the wiiu's cpu/gpu.

 

[Grall]

Didn't Nintendo themselves speculate when they announced that technically two gamepads per wuu was now possible, that a peripheral gamepad would cost in the $100 range, and due to the cost they weren't going to push dual-pad gameplay? No software support it as of now. (Of course, as it turns out with the lack of success the wuu is seeing, we may never get any dual pad games...)

So with that in mind, it's probably an unavoidable conclusion that the pad is quite costly. If it's $80 costly I honestly can't tell of course.