Games By Matthew Humphries Jan. 17, 2014 8:26 am
As has been known for a while now, the Wii U is not doing great. Gamers just aren’t buying Nintendo’s latest home console, instead choosing to either stick with the last generation of machines or wait for the Xbox One and PS4.
Even so, last year Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was confident that by the end of March this year there would be 9 million Wii U sitting in homes around the world. As we approach February, it is clear that won’t be the case and Iwata has been forced to apologize to shareholders and revise the sales forecast.
How badly the Wii U is doing right now can be seen from the size of the revision. Nintendo has had to cut it by 70 percent, claiming by March 31 they will have sold just 2.8 million consoles instead of the projected 9 million. Such a shortfall in many company’s sales projections would see the person at the top resign or pushed out, but not Iwata. For now, nothing is set to change management wise and he intends to ride out the storm. Nintendo will suffer a big loss this financial year, however, of around $335.76 million.
So how does Nintendo turn the situation and fortunes of the Wii U around? There’s no easy answer to that. The year head start over the PS4 and Xbox One didn’t work, the predicted Wii U sales boost from their release didn’t happen, and the focus on first-party title releases also hasn’t boosted sales enough to give the console the momentum it needs. Third party developers targeting the machine are few and far between, with the Wii U missing many of the big franchise releases the PlayStation and Xbox consoles enjoy.
Nintendo isn’t offering up any new ideas just yet, but clearly they have to continue focusing on the games. I’d also suggest that internally they are considering a shorter lifecycle for the Wii U already. It seems unlikely the company would abandon the home console hardware business completely and go multiplatform like Sega did, and we can’t forget that Nintendo is enjoying continued success in the handheld market with the 3DS.
Is it out of the question that we may see a new home console from Nintendo around 2016? Or can they really turn around the fortunes of the Wii U? Nothing seems to have worked so far.
[Image credit: HollyGreenGames]
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Even so, last year Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was confident that by the end of March this year there would be 9 million Wii U sitting in homes around the world. As we approach February, it is clear that won’t be the case and Iwata has been forced to apologize to shareholders and revise the sales forecast.
How badly the Wii U is doing right now can be seen from the size of the revision. Nintendo has had to cut it by 70 percent, claiming by March 31 they will have sold just 2.8 million consoles instead of the projected 9 million. Such a shortfall in many company’s sales projections would see the person at the top resign or pushed out, but not Iwata. For now, nothing is set to change management wise and he intends to ride out the storm. Nintendo will suffer a big loss this financial year, however, of around $335.76 million.
So how does Nintendo turn the situation and fortunes of the Wii U around? There’s no easy answer to that. The year head start over the PS4 and Xbox One didn’t work, the predicted Wii U sales boost from their release didn’t happen, and the focus on first-party title releases also hasn’t boosted sales enough to give the console the momentum it needs. Third party developers targeting the machine are few and far between, with the Wii U missing many of the big franchise releases the PlayStation and Xbox consoles enjoy.
Nintendo isn’t offering up any new ideas just yet, but clearly they have to continue focusing on the games. I’d also suggest that internally they are considering a shorter lifecycle for the Wii U already. It seems unlikely the company would abandon the home console hardware business completely and go multiplatform like Sega did, and we can’t forget that Nintendo is enjoying continued success in the handheld market with the 3DS.
Is it out of the question that we may see a new home console from Nintendo around 2016? Or can they really turn around the fortunes of the Wii U? Nothing seems to have worked so far.
[Image credit: HollyGreenGames]
More...
