I doubt that Nintendo has lost a lot of money on the Wii U.
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Nintendo FY3/2019 Q4 Earnings Release, Switch HW 16.95M, FY3/2020 forecast Switch HW 18M
- Thread starter ggx2ac
- Start date
I doubt that Nintendo has lost a lot of money on the Wii U.
They really didn't. It also led to them dramatically reshape their advertising and getting rid of the E3 show. You can check their books and see how they got better at making more from less during those years, which is great cause now they have all those lessons and an actual success.
Yep
It was actually the saving of the 3DS with the price cut etc that seemed to cost them the most.
The approach with the Wii U was to eke as much money out of it as possible and specifically not save it. I have no doubt they could have got to 20 million or whatever with aggressive price cutting, but instead they let it sit at basically launch price its entire life.
And every time I see this chart I think WTF at them approaching six billion in operating profit in 2009.
Yep
It was actually the saving of the 3DS with the price cut etc that seemed to cost them the most.
The approach with the Wii U was to eke as much money out of it as possible and not save it. I have no doubt they could have got to 20 million or whatever with aggressive price cutting, but instead they let it sit at basically launch price its entire life.
Yeah the 3DS price cut was the real thing that hurt them, and that's why Iwata cut his pay in half. They did some creative stuff to squeeze every penny out of the Wii U, like Amiibos.
it means that Nintendo wants more Switch Lites on the shelves than OG Switches, so they slow the amount of OG Switches to stores. not discontinued, but that might not happen until the Pro comes out
Or the Lite may indeed replace the OG Switch. We really don't know yet.
They could do a regular SKU with dock and chargers and all of that for like $275 or $250 and a dockless, chargerless, gripless SKU for $200.
It really all depends on whether or not it has a die shrink (I'd be shocked if it didn't) and whether the controls are integrated or it just uses the Joycons. AFAIK we've had no reports saying the controls will be integrated.
there's no way it's not a die shrink. they can't shrink the system without it.
also, I think the Pro will replace the OG switch. mainly because if the Lite doesn't come with a dock as part of the cost cutting, people will want a way to have the dock in the package rather than buy it separately. not to mention, I believe the boosted GPU clock would be a part of the firmware update if they intended for the docked experience to get an equivalent boost as the handheld mode
Was always upsetting that Nintendo didn't try and save the Wii U, but I guess things worked outYep
It was actually the saving of the 3DS with the price cut etc that seemed to cost them the most.
The approach with the Wii U was to eke as much money out of it as possible and specifically not save it. I have no doubt they could have got to 20 million or whatever with aggressive price cutting, but instead they let it sit at basically launch price its entire life.
And every time I see this chart I think WTF at them approaching six billion in operating profit in 2009.
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Not spending much on advertising and never dropping the price bellow $299 doesn't seem like trying.
3DS's $80 price cut after half a year is trying
The Wii U's demand and interest was extraordinarily low. Whether it was $200 or $100, it wouldn't have sold much more. It was just an unappealing system so they were smarter to not bother trying to go all out to save it
They weighed and calculated without a doubt imo. Wii u was a terrible and unapealing product. They knew at some point, just like we knew after a couple of months. There was no way to sell it.
I wonder if that would've been reversed if the Wii U released first. You can't really justify slashing your home console $50 when your handheld just bled you dry.
The issue with the Wii U wasn't a price issue, if that was the case they would've solved the problem. People didn't like the system itself.
Its price was lowered to 300$ and they bundled a game with it and it didn't make a difference at all.
Price was an issue for 3DS and PS3, both were desirable but consumers wanted them cheaper.
Its price was lowered to 300$ and they bundled a game with it and it didn't make a difference at all.
Price was an issue for 3DS and PS3, both were desirable but consumers wanted them cheaper.
Seeing 3DS recover so well and Nintendo not doing anything for Wii U.
I understand the *why* they didn't, probably way too expensive to try and save the 3DS and wii U while supporting both and the Wii U would likely never fully recover (because it was unappealing), but I still lament it.
Honestly if it hastened the transition to the amazing Switch I'm happy they didnt save it
Yeah, it's why I said things worked out.
Failure of Wii U made them consolidate their hardware lines, and also increased the values of ports from Wii U to switch since fewer than 10M people ever got to play even the best selling games on the platform
It is not they didn't try, they tried but the response was 0. They lowered the price 50$ and bunbled the system with their high profile games like MK8 to increase its value.
They offered a big collection of VC titles across many systems like GBA,SNES,DS and others to make it more attractive for their fans.
They improved the software and the time needed to start a game.
They announced games like Yoshi and FExSMT very early.
None of what they did had any effect, and the system was expensive to produce + not compatible with third parties engines and tech.
It was a failed product. They did the right thing even though a part of me wished they were more faithful to it, it started to gain some positivity with Splatoon and Mario Maker but they let it fade away.
They offered a big collection of VC titles across many systems like GBA,SNES,DS and others to make it more attractive for their fans.
They improved the software and the time needed to start a game.
They announced games like Yoshi and FExSMT very early.
None of what they did had any effect, and the system was expensive to produce + not compatible with third parties engines and tech.
It was a failed product. They did the right thing even though a part of me wished they were more faithful to it, it started to gain some positivity with Splatoon and Mario Maker but they let it fade away.
They didn't cut the price by $50 and bundle a game, they just started bundling games in at $300.
Yoshi and SMTxFE were announced 2 months after launch, not really a long term example.
Wouldn't say VC was much of an effort too since nintendo's platforms since Wii had a VC.
I'm sure there are better examples, like Smash (though hamstrung by a 3DS version) and MK8
They cut the price of the deluxe SKU which launched at $350 and they discontinued the basic SKU. Technically it's a price cut, even if it's not one that really enticed many people.
Also the MK8 promo was one of the best promos Nintendo has ever done, with a free game (from a pretty solid list of games) being included with MK8 for the first few months. They definitely tried a bit to salvage what they could but I guess they knew it wasn't really with breaking the bank to try and save it.
I meant that they didn't drop the price by $50 and bundle a game at the same time, the deluxe bundle always came with a game, that was dropped by $50
Oh I didn't realize you meant simultaneously.
Still, they did do bundles from time to time and had some pretty generous deals like the MK8 one. It just wasn't worthwhile to do more than that I guess.
Nintendo digital sales hit $1 billion USD for the first time in 1 fiscal year.
https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/532219-nintendo-digital-sales-1-billion
https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/532219-nintendo-digital-sales-1-billion
A decade later and that's still the annual record for a console gaming company/division.
It will be very hard to top. It was a company with low overhead having two systems operating at all-time highs around the world, simultaneously and they were selling every piece of hardware at a profit.
I think Sony or Microsoft would need a F2P service game breakout ala Fortnite on top of their typical business to get there. Nintendo would need a breakout mobile success, I guess Sony could do that too.