What will Wii play Next?
Hello everyone, how are you? Earlier today, it was reported that Nintendo will stop manufacturing Wii U consoles in late 2016. What this could mean is anyones guess. Reports are saying it is due to the NX, others are saying because it didn't sell well. And as usual, many are blaming 3rd party devs for this. Well, it turns out that Nintendo is denying that claim and that they will in fact, keep producing them. I personally don't know.
Here's the thing, I remember reading that Nintendo hasn't actually manufactured Wii U's in a while due to stores being well stocked or something. That also aligns itself well as not too long ago, I hread that there hasn't been new shipments of Wii U's for a while in Japan or somethin of the like. It could be stores there being overstocked as well. That still doesn't change the fact that it isn't selling well. They are most likely well stocked because it isn't selling. Who knows. Who knows why is isn't selling, in fact, it is Nintendo's worst selling console, if we take out the Virtual Boy out of the equation. The Wii U has, in fact, sold way less units than the Gamecube, which was considered Nintendo's worst selling console at the time.
The Wii U isn't a bad console, it has some great games that can keep you entertained for years to come, as well as a select number of third-party exclusives. In my opinion, it is a success. But that is me as a Nintendo fan talking, so obviously I'm going to say that. Any Nintendo fan would. To the general public it is a failure.
There is a saying that sales don't make the console, but rather the games do. As in your console will be successful as long as it has great games. It is something I still believe in, but the thing is it has to sell well to turn a profit to be successful too. You can't overlook that fact. Obviously your product has to sell well in order to turn a profit, if it doesn't it flops. But it really depends if the product is great or not. Heck, there are proably alot of great products out there that probably didn't sell well. And I'm willing to guess that not-so-great products turned a profit. This is a reason why third-parties abandoned it, it wasn't selling enough to justify the costs of making a Wii U port of whatever game was/is out on the other consoles. If there's no sales, there's no money to be made. Well other than the fact that is was underpowered next to what the competition has.
People might say sales don't measure success, but in reality they do. Those numbers do matter. We recently got some new Nintendo Selects games for the Wii U (and 3DS), and last time this happpened it was near the end of the Wii's lifecycle in 2011, or at least that's when I saw Nintendo Selects at the store. So this may in fact, be the Wii U's last year. I mean who knows who is right and if Nintendo is halting production of the Wii U or not? If they were, they probably wouldn't be releasing new games on it or announcing new ones, but that could just be them filling the gap till the NX arrives on store shelves. They might lower the price of the Wii U, which might actually help a bit, maybe 200 bucks will be a reasonable price to get people who are on the fence to get one. Heck I hope they do lower the price so I can maybe get another one because the analog on my gamepad is faulty, and would probably cost almost as much as the Wii U itself to fix.
The Wii U is a great console in its own right, it is basically an HD Gamecube to me, it has some really great games. It might be Nintendo's best console, or close to that sense of the word as it can play games from most of Nintendo's hardware, minus Gamecube games. But it is also flawed due to some questionable choices. In the mean time, I'll continue to enjoy the games I have and buy what I haven't on the Wii U and look forward to whatever Nintendo has planned for it, and the future, and hopefully see the release of Zelda Wii U. I'm really optimistic on this but who knows with Nintendo...
Still hoping it isn't a car...
So, what do you think? Do you think Nintendo will stop manufacturing Wii U consoles? What do you think of the console itself?
Thanks for reading and later.
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