ConfusingJazz
Member
In relation to the N64, not currently.
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NPD Sales Results for February 2013 [Up5: Dead Space 3, Crysis 3, Official PS3/WiiU]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
In relation to the N64, not currently.
Hey, we all know Lightning Returns is going to blow ALL other Final Fantasy sales out of the water. Game is gonna be the juggernaut that resurrects Square-Enix and empowers them to become one of the top devs of ANY region, east AND west.
god i need a fucking shower
Except they're not dealing with a dying Sega, they're dealing with Nintendo, a company that has proven they can and will survive purely on their own created content, meaning... what happens if Microsoft and Sony weren't there anymore? Should things ever come to that point, having an on-record open bias against the only console platform maker left would easily cause very serious consequences to their bottom line.
EA openly snubbing the Dreamcast was just spitting into Sega's open grave a little while before the coffin got there. Not a comparable scenario to knowingly pissing off a cash-rich business with survival instincts.
So yeah, there's plenty of reasons to obfuscate a bias that a company might have.
CouldBeWorse
Member
It's not fair to exclude the rest of my point.
Also, it's only truly false if we live in a world where people have unlimited gaming budgets and can buy all of the 1st and 3rd party content that they want. But we don't. And a dollar spent on Nintendo content is a dollar not potentially spent on 3rd party content.
Manmademan
Member
Nintendo's poor relations with third parties did not stop with the NES. the N64 was still a poster boy for this (the reason nintendo stayed with carts had everything to do with the outrageous licensing and manufacturing fees they got to charge, and nothing to do with load times), and nintendo didn't bother to try turning things around until things were dire with the gamecube.
even now, look at how nintendo is handling the WiiU- there have been developer complaints that nintendo does not bother to provide ANY kind of detailed documentation or developer assistance with that system. This is the exact opposite of what Sony and Microsoft have been doing.
this isn't true at all.
I meant I doubt they are still mad at Nintendo because at that reason, there's different reasons now, that was my fault. Sorry.
Maybe Nintendo needs to do what Sony and Microsoft do and get the support.
N64 = profitable
Gamecube = profitable
Wii = OMGWTF PROFITABLE
That's 3 systems with terrible 3rd-party support in varying degrees. Nintendo could survive them packing it up outright if they had to, which is pretty much exactly what they did with the N64 before regaining token support from 3rd-parties via poorly-marketed exclusives, spin-offs, worst versions of multi-plats (SC2 excluded) and the RE4 betrayalton. A trend that has continued on ever since.
Wii had more 3rd party support than both the 360 and PS3.
Far more 3rd party games released for the Wii.
I do wonder how much of it is the price? That a huge chunk of Ninteno buyers like their system being cheap, and so would be more agreeable if it were $200-$250 instead. Not that I can see Nintendo doing a $100 drop too soon. Not unless they can make those controllers and the console WAY cheaper sooner than later.
Let's not get me started on a quality vs. quantity tangent by bringing up that most of that larger quantity of support was shit like Ninjabread Man. I was thankful for what little GOOD 3rd-party games were there, but I don't kid myself into thinking that Wii would have sold significantly fewer units without them, considering almost NONE of them were advertised in the slightest.
Manmademan
Member
Go and look up opportunity cost, then come back.
"making a profit" doesn't mean very much on it's own. how much profit? 10% YOY? 5? 2? 1? how long before making a console makes less sense than just sticking your money in risk free bonds? Nintendo IS publically traded, and I'm willing to bet that the company has an interest in keeping it's stock price out of the toilet.
each system nintendo released since the NES saw it's sales drop in half. nintendo's own created content didn't go anywhere, but consumers sure did. The SNES sold about 50 million consoles, the N64 about 35, the Gamecube about 20. the Wii was a wild success, but not due to nintendo's franchises- the hardware was very much "right place, right time" and those consumers have not returned. Now the WiiU is tracking BELOW gamecube levels.
Do you think it makes financial sense for nintendo to release a console that sells 15 million units over 7 or 8 years? this is not "surviving", this is barely on life support.
N64 and GCN also had GB/GBC & GBA respectively doing massive numbers to help out.
3DS is not doing anything close to massive numbers, it is down year over year so far, down a lot. And last year wasn't anything that impressive to begin with.
Aquamarine
Member
A big factor in console profitability is ROYALTIES. The more third-party games released on the system = the more royalties Nintendo rakes in.
The Wii had about 3,036 UNIQUE retail releases. Every one of those releases requires manufacturing disks, printing artwork, licensing the title for release in the region, money for development kits, etc. And that goes straight into Nintendo's bottom line.
Generally there's a correlation between console sales and software royalties (more consoles = more third-party games). It's in Nintendo's best interest to make sure as many consoles are out there as possible, but a 15-million-selling console isn't automatically "a failure" financial-wise. There's a lot of factors to take into consideration.
I'm aware of opportunity cost, but thanks for being condescending all the same. And I'm glad you can see 7-8 years in the future to bring back that 15-million sales number for Wii U, should save us a lot of arguments.
Consoles allow a higher ROI on games Nintendo produces for it, and thanks to that, while constantly trending lower as you stated, opportunity cost is still higher than a situation of going 3rd-party by a HUGE margin and all Nintendo has to do to capitalize further than that is outlast its competitors.
Competitors who take HUGE losses on console introductions hoping to make it all back.
Competitors who are likely to take whatever profit they made in the previous generation and flush it away on the razorblade method yet again.
By comparison, Wii U is suspected to be the first Nintendo console ever made to actually be sold at a significant loss (meaning over $20).
When you talk about opportunity cost, you have to look at how much of a gamble is involved, and Nintendo has no history of gambling away their profit margins on hardware like both of their current competitors do, to their detriment.
H_Prestige
Banned
Prove it. Show me how 21 million consoles sold at $99 at a loss for a while and with a total of 208 million software sales somehow generate enough revenue to cover all R&D, manufacturing, software development, marketing, distribution, and employee paychecks.
Nintendo barely has any third party games on the Wii U. And the ones they do are selling like complete shit. The royalties won't amount to much.
Manmademan
Member
15 million is at a point where it doesn't really make sense to make a stand alone console. third parties will ignore it entirely, and nintendo does not have the ability to make enough games fast enough to keep fans happy on their own- we saw this with the droughts that plagued the N64 and GC in their later years. 1 or 2 big releases, followed by 6 months of nothing.
It's hard to bring new consumers into your ecosystem when that happens, which is why we saw the gigantic drop from the N64 to the GC. If the WiiU ends up in 15 million sold territory, you can guarantee their followup (if there is one) will be even less viable.
who needs to look into the future? we already have launch tracking numbers for the WiiU, and know it's performing worse than the gamecube did- and that system only managed 20 million sold with far better third party support, and hardware performance on par with it's contemporaries. The WiiU has neither. The WiiU is not going to get the equivalent of RE4 or Soul Calibur 2. From a marketshare standpoint and a hardware standpoint, they're not in that position. Gamecube level sales are basically the high water mark for the WiiU unless something absolutely unforseen happens- basically microsoft or sony imploding in on themselves.
and how do they plan to do this, when no one is buying systems?
neither microsoft nor sony are reported to be doing this for next gen.
and why do you think nintendo is reduced to selling consoles for little to no profit this time around? they tried building in huge margins to the 3DS and that did NOT go over well at all. Nintendo is in a position where they NEED third party royalties to make the console investment worth it this time- their hardware margins are gone. And if the WiiU continues to undersell the gamecube they will not have this, and cannot survive solely on their own output.
So 4 months of data is enough to extrapolate over 5 years into the future? Wow, you should ask Michael Pachter for a job, that skill of yours would be a GOLDMINE for Wedbush Securities, you're obviously in the wrong career.
The last NPD thread had someone (John Harker I believe) list a general breakdown of how the 3rd party Wii U games are at LTD in a range in US. Has that list been updated yet? I'm curious to see what the numbers are now for all Wii U games (1st party and 3rd).
Also, have we gotten numbers on how the ZombiU bundle has done?
Also, have we gotten numbers on how the ZombiU bundle has done?
Manmademan
Member
let's put this another way. what exactly is nintendo going to do to radically turn around dismal sales, without third party support and with two major competitors launching in 6 months?
Another mario kart, or another zelda isn't going to do it (even if one was coming...and it isnt), and they can't price drop to a level anyone will give a shit without losing $100 per console.
Just in terms of marketing alone, the WiiU is going to be buried under a flood of new console hype and advertising, and will struggle for any kind of recognition this holiday season. Sony and Microsoft don't even need to lift a finger- tech blogs, game magazines, retailers, and third parties will do all that FOR Them. but they will anyway. Who is going to be pushing the WiiU besides nintendo? the answer is no one, especially with third party sales this bad, and projects being canceled.
The time to make an impact and start selling consoles has already passed, and this year will be brutal.
Bruno MB
Member
Yes, around 7,000 units.
The rest of your post was core vs. casual crap. It's a false dichotomy across all games, so felt no need to include your useless "especially" particulars.
mentalfloss
Banned
Add ZU and JD to the >100k group
H_Prestige
Banned
I don't see GC profits anywhere in that chart.
LOL, now you posted another useless graph.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
I hope you are not serious with that table lol.
You do realise Nintendo had a very successful handheld on the market during the gamecube era.
I don't know. But you seem to since you're speaking to a future scenario as though it has already come to pass.
Hmmm, thought GAF had established this as a non-disputed fact already.
Which would you prefer to see, statements from Nintendo's upper management team stating as much, or the breakdown of cost of components for the GameCube that show price drops coinciding with a significantly reduced cost of materials? One piece of evidence is easier to produce than the other, given how long ago it was, but both can be obtained for you if given enough time spent with Google and GAF search. So it's your choice.
H_Prestige
Banned
It already has come to pass. Console devs are moving away from current gen technology and making software for ps4/720. That means Wii U is out of the equation, even before you take into account the horrible sales.
And nothing can change that, ever? Jeez, if that's true, PS3 should never have come CLOSE to catching up to the Wii in Japan and languished in its pathetic 1st year sales figures.... and yet, here it is, slowly but surely catching up to what was thought to be an insurmountable sales momentum for Wii. And moreover, if the first 3-4 months are all it takes to predict the future, Wii sales momentum should have never slowed down.
Things change. All the time. Pretending they don't or can't is a fool's endeavor, ESPECIALLY when we're talking about being 4 months into a minimum 5 year product life cycle.
Manmademan
Member
you don't need to be a fortune teller to discuss business strategy, or what is LIKELY to happen within an industry. I do it in my own all the time. (I'm in industrial distribution).
Is it POSSIBLE that nintendo isn't screwed, and the WiiU will be a success? sure. but there's nothing announced in the near future that would make this likely. Nintendo made a gamble with the WiiU that the casual market interested in tablets would also be interested in the WiiU and that gamble did not pan out.
the remaining strategy is to attempt to convince core gamers that it's worth picking up, and they are poorly positioned to do that at this point, with two new systems launching in 6 months, and two strongly performing current consoles matching them on performance and undercutting them on price.
it's to their credit that they're actually selling the consoles that they are- if this was say, Samsung who put the WiiU on the market sales would be REALLY dire.
not sure if you're serious here. The PS3 had the benefit of being on par with the 360 and the PC, and being the ONLY viable next gen console in japan. Devs could make one version of a game for PC/360/PS3 and spread out the costs. The WiiU isn't in this position, and can't handle next gen ports at all. Once support for the PS3/360 dies off in a few years, its in a class by itself.
mentalfloss
Banned
Nintendo made a statement claiming the console was profitable, but even if not, I'm sure software sales made up the difference. The Wii U doom and gloom really is no big deal. I'm sure Nintendo's not happy, but they'll pull through in the next few years.
People are just suffering from (or capitalising on) the recency effect of Wii U sales for the last few months without looking at the entire picture.
And I'm sure gamecube hardware had a negligible impact on profits if it were negative.
Yeah, right now, we don't know what will turn things around. So we should only be speaking to near-future scenarios. Predicting a long-term future and speaking in tones that suggest it's immutable like you have been is foolhardy.
I'm using an example of how foolish using 4 months of sales and marketing data to predict into long-term. Looking at Japan's PS3 sales in its first 4 months, 8 million+ units would be IMPOSSIBLE. And yet, things turned around, regardless of whatever was said at the time.
We should apply prior examples to our understanding of why long-term projections from 4 months of data are totally useless.
H_Prestige
Banned
Err, what exactly changed about the ps3's software situation in Japan? It was already scheduled to receive FF, MGS, DMC, RE, etc. from day one. The ps3 had almost the entire third party industry behind it right from the beginning. You have it backwards. As the software accumulated and the price dropped, the hardware starting selling better. Not the other way around.
Wii U does not have third party support like Sony does. Nintendo can't aggressively cut the price right now. And it's released in an environment where console devs are transitioning to next gen tech. Add the three things together and you get a very grim picture.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Ah, we're at the "you can't call it a flop until 5 years later/discontinued" line of argument. When your sales data is matching up spookily to the Gamecube but with a rationally diminished and thus smaller hardcore Nintendo base, its pretty easy to see how this all plays out since most of us have done this rodeo 4-5 times over.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
I believe that EA is contractually obligated to make Madden for every viable platform as part of their deal with the NFL. There will probably be Madden Ouya and Madden Shield at some point in the near future.
Aquamarine
Member
What's the methodology behind this chart?
No we're not.
mentalfloss
Banned
Nintendo first party software sales can be pretty impressive even on a system with a smaller userbase. There is no doubt in my mind they will have at least a few million sellers on the Wii U. To think otherwise is overly pessimistic.
Basically to show that Nintendo could sustain three generations worth of complete losses and still be profitable life to date.
Which makes the 3 months of bad Wii U sales = Nintendo should exit the hardware biz laughable at best.
H_Prestige
Banned
They sold about 50 million pieces of software on the GC. I haven't checked yet, but that doesn't seem much different than MS or Sony first party sales, which Nintendo fans frequently cite as weak.
Wii U is in a worse state than PS3 was. In US, Europe and Japan. It also has less software on the horizon and has 2 major competitors launching this year. Sony only managed to somewhat turn around a slightly less shitty situation after 3 or so years.
Manmademan
Member
Again, you're missing the point. we're not ONLY looking at 4 months of sales and saying "oh well! nintendo is fucked!"
we're looking at what nintendo has coming down the pike software wise, and seeing bad news. Third party software is selling badly, projects are being canceled.
we're looking at strong competition launching in 6 months, and nintendo getting absolutely buried in next gen marketing over the holiday.
we're looking at the cost of the console, and seeing nintendo unable to price drop it without heavy losses, but the PS3 and 360 able to undercut it on price anytime they choose, and the PS4 and the 720 coming in possibly as low as $399.
we're looking 2 years down the line (or so) when support for the ps3 and 360 terminates, and seeing the wiiU in a position where it is literally unable to run the games it's competitors are.
virtually everything we can see coming within the next 2 years or so for the WiiU is EXTREMELY bad. Could something positive happen? sure. But the possibilities for this are VERY limited, because nintendo's third party relationships and sales are so terrible. Good exclusives can turn around a bad launch, but nintendo isn't in a position where they can negotiate for these. They're not even in a position where they can even get PORTS of system sellers. it's that bad.
Aquamarine
Member
No I mean...how was the data in this chart calculated / what figures was it sourced from, exactly?
CouldBeWorse
Member
The whole point of the conversation was about certain games that the poster wanted to see on the Wii U and why they weren't appearing.
And call them useless or not, but it's a fact that the top-selling lists of third party games look VERY different on the HD consoles with the notable exceptions of music games.
The debate over the years is WHY since you might argue that developers didn't try hard enough in these genres. Or maybe the Wii couldn't support what the developers wanted to do. That's a completely different conversation that's been done.
mentalfloss
Banned
Nintendo first party titles take much longer to drop in price compared to Sony/MS so they reap more profit.
If it's operating profit then it should be directly from each company's financials.
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
They haven't made a Madden on the PC since Madden 08. Last years edition had only 5 systems (PS3/360/Wii/Wii U/Vita) as opposed to the usual 6 or 7 it has.
There is definitely a baseline for the amount of releases they put out for the contract, its why stuff like NFL Head Coach and other spinoffs. Not sure about number of platforms but that may be the case.
H_Prestige
Banned
MS and Sony only drop price once sales start to plateau. Or if the game is bombing, in which case it probably isn't contributing much to the total sales in the first place.
So you're imagining that Nintendo has announced everything it has coming for the entire year, on top of predicting changes in hardware sales from content that hasn't even released. And on top of that, we're making the assumption that their competitors won't hit similar or worse hurdles that will change the landscape entirely from what you think will happen.
Does that sound like an incredibly solid foundation to make long-term claims on to you? When it's all based on assumptive thinking? Whether it SOUNDS likely or not is irrelevant. There's too many variables in play and not enough hard data.
I gave the Vita a year at the minimum before I started really talking down its prospects, as we had the data. I'm merely applying the same principle here.
Tallshortman
Member
Of course that includes software, when companies talk about console profitability they always include software sales and licenses. Did you think the Gamecube was close to being profitable based just on hardware sales?
mentalfloss
Banned
Right, which still means more money in Nintendo's bank if your argument is that all three manufacturers sold the same amount of units during that lifecycle.
Nintendo said it does. I would say that it definitely could be. I'm pretty sure the tech heads were praising how efficient GC hardware was built in 2001 and Nintendo does prefer to keep costs low on their tech.
H_Prestige
Banned
Nintendo has had since e3 2011 to announce third party software. They haven't. And they are right now so desperate they are announcing Mario and Zelda games that are literally just concepts or years away, just to drum up some kind of hype. But, yes, they're clearly holding all those third party games close to their chest.