Iwata Putting Nintendo In Position To Fail

Iwata said that he expected 9 million Wii U consoles to be sold this fiscal year.

To date they're sold 500,000.

When given a chance to change his estimate he said he stands behind the 9 million mark.

This mans that Nintendo must sell 8.5 million Wii U consoles in 5 months.

Selling that many consoles is impossible and puts Nintendo in a very bad place going forward. Not only is there competition in the last and next generation consoles but there's also the fact that Nintendo hasn't done a good enough job of letting people know what the Wii U is.

This isn't like a sports team saying they're going to win a game despite incredible odds, this is a business and when you fail to meet projections the faith in the company falters and you end up losing supporters and your stocks fall.

This is why I'm very interested to see how this holiday plays out. Next Gen consoles are making their debut and Nintendo has a lot of faith in the casual games, Mario, and cheaper bundles.

Dude, where have you been? That's some pretty old news.

Anyway, yeah, the goal is unrealistic. I don't think it is achievable - especially with Mario Kart so far off.

this guy is a joke...hasnt turned on the wiiU in months....he probably sold it already.,..

he is just here to troll... dont take anything he says seriously.

if they would've sold only 500,000 by now they wouldn't support it anymore...

anyway i guess 6 million by the end of the fiscal year is more realistic, and after smash and the new zelda and maybe one more big nintendo game they should reach at least gamecube numbers by the end of the generation.

There are rare instances when I agree with you jaysonguy. This is one of them. He has no clue what he's doing. We're a full year in and there hasn't been one truly "core" title released. The casual content has also lacked.

I have yet to see a real demonstration of the Wii U's potential. I'm not in the least bit excited for Super Mario 3D Land, and all the other titles that would be my Nintendo collection have either not been announced, are not coming, or a long time away.

the 9mil mark will get change of course if Mario 3D World didn't become a hit like Nintendo expected...the mistake with Mario 3D World is it didn't wow people like SMG ..first time I saw SMG ..I was like WOW!! ..when I saw Mario 3D World I actually thought it was a new 3DS game. In any case the 9mil mark will get change ..unless of course MK, Smash Bros, Bayo2, X all releases before the due date of 9mil mark. :P

Iwata definitely threw himself into a hole. If he revises the number significantly now, investors are going to freak right now. If he doesn't revise it and WiiU fails to meet that number at the end of the fiscal year, investors are going to freak then.

His strategy is to hold off the freakout for as long as possible and hope with everything he has that the holiday and early 2014 titles will push console sales to somewhere near the estimate.

Standing by the estimate wasn't his mistake; making too high of an estimate in the first place was. But at that point, WiiU had sold several million from the launch surge, and no one knew just how far those numbers would drop off. It was an honest mistake that anyone in his position could have made.

I checked my friends list to prove you wrong, but... it says he was last online over a month ago, which is the WiiU's way of saying "he's been gone so long that we stopped counting," so you're at least partially right. :D

But he hasn't sold it. I'm kind of tired of people assuming Jaysonguy is just your average troll. He's not. I've seen a LOT of average trolls, and Jaysonguy doesn't fit into that mold whatsoever. He doesn't fit into any mold, which is what I like about him.

I also almost never agree with him and think he's wrong about pretty much everything and LOVE to tell him all about it. You should, too. It's fun. ;)

well you deal with him your way....i got mine :P... your way is better though

Gaa, Jason Guy, every time you say something my brain wants to explode. Wii U has sold like 4 million currently. Not 500,000. From February to October it sold 100,000 every month. That alone is 900,000. 300,000 were sold in October thanks to Windwaker. And sales haven't went down drastically since. They haven't really risen again, but have stayed stable.

But I love Iwata.. Please don't go, who will run Nintendo Direct?! Not Reggie...please not Reggie.

Just to clarify for some of you arguing with this guy, Nintendo's fiscal year is April 1st to March 31st. He said this fiscal year, not since launch in November 2012, but since April 1st 2013. Bearing that in mind, I agree that they won't reach 9,000,000 sold between April 1st 2013 and March 31st 2014.

Nope, that never happened

This fiscal year it's sold 500,000 consoles.

For anyone who doesn't trust this, I double checked. The WiiU actually sold 460,000 between April and September (yes, the fiscal year begins in April). Those are the latest numbers for this fiscal year from Nintendo itself. See here.

But it sold 160,000 in the first quarter and 300,000 in the second quarter. If that trend persists, it'll sell 600,000 in the third quarter and 1.2 million in the fourth. It won't happen like that because the holiday is in the third quarter, but just switch the numbers of the two quarters and Nintendo is still a couple million short of its goal. And these are VERY generous numbers, simply assuming that the current upward trend continues at exactly the same pace, which probably won't happen.

Iwata needs a miracle to meet 9 million consoles sold by April. But again, it makes more sense for him to hold out for that miracle than to just drop expectations now, not with Mario, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit coming soon, followed by Mario Kart in the last quarter, which is always a huge seller.

i love jaysonguy threads. why? because everyone ignores what he says, even on the odd ones where it makes sense(like this one), and they feel its ok to insult him. because "its the internet". so that clearly makes it ok. and makes them not horrible people.

Well, the question is, how much of this is on him? Does he decide/approve what gets released? Who came up with that 9 million number? I understand he runs the company, and is the face of it. But it may not be Iwata himself that's running the company down.

Now, don't get me wrong, as a long time nintendo fan, I hate where the Wii-U is today and would be completely fine with any change made in that management level.

@Jaysonguy: It's probably been said before, countless times, but if this was GAF you'd have been banned several times over. I get it, you're going out of your way to flame and tease people (like me) who can't resistant your tactics as you don't seem to behave like this on other sites.

None of what you said is necessarily wrong or offensive. Just how you consistently present things in a way that screams of thought-out trolling. I said it before and I'll say it again: I was hoping you wouldn't stay after GameSpot redesign.

On topic: Are they trying to sell 8.5 million between March 13 and March 14? Or are they trying to hit the 9 million market overall (LTD) before March 2014? If the latter than its very possible. I'd expect the Wii U to sell at least 1-2 million units globally this fall and wouldn't be surprised if it sustains 100k per month in US in 2014. I also wouldn't be shockd if Nintendo ships Mario Kart 8 in mid-March

While I doubt Nintendo will achieve that ambitious goal of selling 8.5 million Wii Us within the given timeframe, I do not think it necessarily means the Nintendo (let alone the Wii U) is on a collision course with failure. After all, the 3DS is still selling quite well. As for the naming, they are trying to address that through advertising (as they did with the 3DS with the "This is not a DS... this is a 3DS" commercials in the UK). The arrival of MK8 and SSB4 will also help out quite a bit. I also second what others have said when it comes to solely blaming Iwata for the current turmoil in which the Wii U finds itself: we know not how much fault rests with him.

What is in question is the Wii U's future beyond the first half of 2014 as little is known about the release schedule for the rest of that year. It appears to take more time for Nintendo to make games for the Wii U and it is once again having trouble finding 3rd party support beyond and Lego/Activision/Warner Bros. games.

Nintendo can nonetheless succeed (imo), should they bring new franchises/crossovers to the Wii U (SMT vs. FE is a good start) and get out a steady flow of games releasing for the system. With that, they will at least achieve Gamecube levels of sales and thus survive to see another console gen.

Their approach to the console as a whole has bee horrible managed. They aren't doing enough to entice core OR casual gamers, and their advertising is poor to nonexistent. This will be a tough generation for them.

I agree with everything except the last two sentences. It's one thing to make a miscalculation in terms of how well your product will sell, but it's a very different thing to make such a high miscalculation with too little backing it up. Even if Iwata didn't suspect that the Wii U would reach the level of futility that it found itself in for most of the year, his projections should have at least accounted for an instance where a bad (not worse) case scenario was possible. Nintendo was just fresh off a 3DS launch that also started extremely slowly and the Wii U's launch, while having some success, didn't set the world on fire. What exactly did Iwata see or didn't see that would make his projection so off target?

Also, this would be bad enough on its own merit, but this isn't the first time Iwata has been so far off in terms of the predicting how well his company's systems will sell. Wasn't it about 10 years ago when he predicted that the GameCube would sell 50 million consoles? It's this feeling of deja vu with just about everything the Wii U has done in its first year that lines up to that console that at some point has to raise concern with investors, retailers, and even consumers, assuming that it isn't doing that as we speak. And frankly, there's very little reason to believe that the end result will be very different this time around, which means that Iwata has to do something that manages to inspire a change in approach if he hopes to remain in a respectable standing as a CEO.

I hate to say this, as I actually like Iwata's personality and demeanor, but his judgements outside the prime years of the DS and Wii have been on very shaky ground. Once the Wii U misses its more recent sales projection by likely a very significant margin, I think there are going to be those invested in the company who will want to see a few heads roll. After all, if the Wii U's still coming up well short after all of its best cards being used within the first year and a half or so, what will there be left to convince the system's future is bright? I think it's only natural that at some point, people are going to demand something drastic to happen, and Iwata's position is probably the quickest thing to address in that regard.

I almost think that maybe Iwata should lower his number just to give himself a chance of looking good by being closer to the mark. As things stand now, the situation makes him look almost borderline insane, which doesn't look well especially for someone in charge.

Don't have the numbers but according to the release of Wii Party U in Japan the sale of consoles has gone up in early November. I think it will increase with the release of Super Mario 3D World

Yeah now gonna happen.

You make a good point but pushing the blame just to say Iwata is a bad person for the position is pushing it

We're gonna have to wait and see what'll happen

Who knows, maybe they will make that target, itll be a miracle but we'll be damned if it happened, Super Mario 3D World has been throwing people's guards off at every turn so who knows, it might be enough

I don't think anyone is trying to make Iwata seems like a bad person. Heck, if anything, he's gotten a number of passes because he truly seems like a good guy. Facts are facts, and the most important fact here is that the Wii U has grossly underperformed at every conceivable level. As the leader, Iwata is going to inherit the lion's share of the blame for that, regardless of what kind of person he is or seems to be. That's the burden that comes with being in charge of something, especially when you are as visible as he has become in recent years.

We can stop playing the "wait and see" game now. At the point, all anyone is doing is setting themselves up for more disappointment. There's next to zero demand for the Wii U, period, and this is after the price drops, bundles, and selection of games that were supposed to give the console new life by now. Whatever momentum those actions were supposed to gain have already been lost. Sure, the holiday season (with Super Mario 3D World's help) with boost hardware sales, but even they will end up being well below expectations if what we're seeing is of any indication at all.

I like the hope and all, but it really only takes a short glance at any Wii U-related sales data to see what has become of the system in a very short amount of time, and the more recent the data, the more telling it becomes. Not even Mario, which the system has already seen to begin with, can make such a drastic difference to the system's fortunes. All Nintendo can really do is save face and try to learn from its mistakes, and it remains to be seen if anything is being learned at all during the entirety of the situation.

@Madmangamer364: the thing is, Iwata some already stated before that he always takes the blame when something wrong happens, Nintendo isnt like Sony and Microsoft, if something bad hapoened, they'll state it and apologize for it. you guys act like this never happened before.

This means we're getting Smash Bros and Mario Kart early next year, right? Because there's no way the Wii U can get 8.5 million sales by April without Smash Bros and Mario Kart. Mario, Donkey Kong, and Wii Sports/Fit U are not enough.

maybe its on purpose. maybe nintendo want to get off the stock market. do a dell and go private again. so make the company perform like crap and reduce its value then have top management buy up a ton of shares as other are selling.

....probably not :P.

Being apologetic is fine and dandy, but we're talking about an actions-orientated situation here that only gets worse each time Iwata or anyone else at Nintendo has to address something that has gone seemingly horribly wrong in recent years. You're right... this has happened before... and that's a major part of the problem. Granted, I suspect most here are only consumers, like myself, but I don't think you'll find very many stockholders who want to keep hearing the same song, "Oops! I did it again!" when it comes to not meeting expectations and constantly having to admit that. That's not really how successful companies operate, and sooner or later, someone's going to want to see a significant change.

With that in mind, I get where you're coming from. What we're discussing isn't exactly hot of the presses. lol Still, as we approach what seems to be a most crucial moment for the Wii U and maybe even Nintendo as a whole, it's still more than relevant to bring this up and what it could possibly mean moving forward. Again, I like Iwata, and I find it a shame that what happened with the GameCube, Wii U, and a significant part of the 3DS' life has sandwiched and maybe even overshadowed what was accomplished with the DS and Wii just a few years ago. That being said, this is a "what have you done for me lately" kind of thing we're talking about, and I can't say that I've found much reason for myself or anyone else to be optimistic in more recent years about Nintendo's direction.

I just hope Nintendo has learned a lesson from this and will make their next effort more 3rd party friendly.

That's not what Nintendo needs to do. Third party games don't sell on Nintendo consoles... they just don't have the audience for those multi plat games and most won't bother to create Nintendo exclusive entries in a game series that most agree feels watered down (see RE: chronicles games)

What they need to do is focus on their games. They desperately need to expand their departments so they can get more games out in a timely manner without a dip in quality. They need to get new blood in so they can let go of some outdated conventions. And finally... they need to learn how to market their products.

For everyone that thinks Nintendo would be better off third party. I state again. Look at Sega, what was the last really worthwhile high quality game Sega put out as a third party? Sonic Generations? Yeah but that mostly coasted on nostalgia. I dread seeing the Mario equivalent of Sonic 06. You all have this set in your minds that Nintendo games would be just as good on other hardware. The reason Nintendo's first party games are so good is they have hardware and software teams in the same building meaning each game is optimized to run on that hardware. So look at the Sonic games we've had after Sega went third party, don't be surprised when Nintendo games aren't as good when they're on the PS4 or Xbox One. But hey at least evil Nintendo finally died and you're all happy. When you get a half assed port of Smash Bros. for the Xbone that's all glitchy, will you be happy?

Seriously why do you all want them to fail so bad? I'm sick of hearing how butthurt you are over them appealing to casual gamers or how somehow they "Owe you" because you bought a Gamecube back in the day or how they didn't sell out and make M rated dudebro shooters to appeal to stupid teenagers. How about this, if you don't like Nintendo, don't buy their stuff and move on with your life.

To be fair, Sega did put out the sensational Binary Domain last year, and they publish quite a few successful series on the PC.

But yes, I completely agree with you - I don't understand why anyone would want Nintendo to fail. They consistently release a range of the best first-party titles every generation, they're constantly trying to innovate how players interact with games and occasionally shaking up their franchises to great success, and they have remained largely unscathed from the constant bullshit plaguing the last generation consoles (hardware failures and paid multiplayer and day one patches and endless generic military shooters and...).

It's true that they've made some questionable choices this generation, and I can see why people might be frustrated with their technical specs...but bugger it, they're a games company that consistently release great games. So it seems like, if someone wants them to fail, then they either don't like games in general, or they don't like Nintendo's games - and in either situation, I really don't see why they should care enough to comment in the first place.

I desperately wish to see Iwata replaced, and management shifted. Nintendo needs a complete shake-up and new blood that understands today's market, is aware of what that market is doing, and is willing to adapt without viewing that adaptation as a dishonorable concession of defeat that what they are currently doing simply is not working. I think it's becoming very apparent that Nintendo's problems stem more so due to cultural differences ingrained deeply into their corporate culture than any other specific decision they've made. They have become incredibly stubborn for years now.

People can argue specifics all they wish, but the fact remains: Nintendo is being driven into irrelevancy due to inept management that refuses to look outside its self-deluding bubble. They are a shallow shell compared to what they once were.....a massive worldwide powerhouse that feared nothing into a Japanese centric, insular, overly conservative passive company that's afraid to compete.

And about apologizing: an apology is completely worthless until action is taken to rectify what was apologized for. Repeated apologies for the same thing for years on end yet nothing ever changes is demonstrative of only one thing: incompetence.

It is long since evident that Iwata and many of the suits sitting on the BoDs need to go. The sooner, the better.

bottom line is that you simply can't call the system a failure yet. Reason being is that the initial boom was from Nintendo fans--people that support their ethic on game design and know what will likely on the horizon. Then theres the other side; the people that really need that proof of why to buy the console. With the much lower price of the system, Mario 3D World recieving rave reviews, MK8 and Smash bros around the corner, and an imminent Zelda announcement, it is very likely that a boost in sales will come. IMO, it is more likely for someone to own a ps4 and wiiu, or Xone and wiiu. I know that myself personally would have a hard time(on principle) paying for both Live and PSN when most of these multiplayer games will be multiplatform releases. Plus, the nintendo library is just so much different than any other platform.

@starwarsjunky: It probably also has something to do with the majority of his posts ignoring common logic and basic truths in order to raise a hellstorm of Nintendo fans.

You put "but the fact remains" and then proceed to state your opinion that doesn't even make sense. Yeah, the Wii was so irrelevant that it sold more than the PS3 and 360! /sarcasm It's their most successful console to date. The 3DS is also selling very well. How exactly are they driving into irrelevancy? Yeah the Wii U isn't doing too well, but that is an abnormality for what Nintendo has been doing recently. The Wii, DS, and 3DS are all successful systems.

The Wii was so successful due to novelty that targeted the casual. A novelty so strong that it was able to obfuscate Nintendo's failings in other areas, areas now showing.

Nintendo's handhelds have always been a dominant force as they benefit for a plethora of 3rd party support and 1st party, they've basically held a monopoly on the market, and as developmental costs are much lower because they're not HD, the rate of software releases is much more frequent.

And yes, the fact remains that Nintendo is being driven into irrelevancy, due to a few factors:

• Nintendo continues to lag behind in the online arena. No unified account system, they refuse to fully capitalize on their enormous backlog of titles to their fullest extent, or implement multiplayer into many of their games even though they would do so locally. They already are doing multiplayer, just that local is impractical in today's world for a lot of people. Perhaps we'll have it in a four-player Mario in 2023, if we're to trust Miyamoto.
• Nintendo continues to suffer 3rd party support issues on their consoles, the Wii U being a system that has this problem worse than any other predecessor before it.
• Nintendo does not reach out and attempt to embrace the Western audience, an audience and market that has long ago transcended and overtaken the Japanese. In fact, upon becoming CEO, Iwata closed mostly all Western studios.
• Nintendo has become incredibly conservative and plays it safe, relying more and more on established IPs or low budget projects.
• Nintendo barely spends anything on marketing. A multi-billion dollar company that sees fit to use a camcorder in a vacant floor in their corporate office with Iwata in a suit struggling to speak English is what constitutes Nintendo's marketing effort these days. And yet, it preaches to the choir. And no E3 PC.
• Continuing the point above, everyone is left confused as to what the Wii U really is.
• Nintendo insists on region locking.
• Nintendo comes out with such statements as "we can't/choose not to compete", "we aim to be everyone's 2nd console", "we didn't predict the trouble of HD development" (years after everyone else had) and Iwata says "please understand" and "I apologize" over and over yet takes no action to fix anything, or is unable.

Which of the above points have anything to do with opinion? They are objective facts, and they are driving Nintendo (in the console space, at least) into the ground. The 3DS, while still profitable, is not performing as well as the DS did, and with smartphones/tablets encroaching upon this market more and more, it remains to be see how viable a market this will remain for them.

That's what's causing Nintendo to fall behind and become an afterthought in many gamers' minds. Don't get me wrong, you may think so but I'm not a hater of Nintendo, I'm just getting sick and tired of their constant bullshit excuses, current position, and where they're headed.

Some of your points are facts, but your overall theory that Nintendo is sliding into irrelevancy is completely unfounded. Who cares if the Wii was a novelty, it sold and it sold well. That's all that really matters. Also,you even said it yourself, Nintendo almost has a monopoly on the handheld market. How exactly are they becoming irrelevant? Look, I love questioning Nintendo's decisions as much as anybody else, but you're trying too hard with this one. Sure, your points are valid, but your overall point is not yet valid. Them doing a bunch of stuff you don't like doesn't mean they're going to be irrelevant soon. We'll just have to wait and seen, but I don't see Nintendo falling anytime soon.

But you can't use sales to argue that Nintendo isn't sliding towards irrelevancy as the Wii's insane sales were due not to core gamers, but more so in large part by people who knew next to nothing about gaming. With those casuals having moved on, Nintendo is back to where it was with the GCN: the core. GCN was a system that, while still profitable, was by their own admission a commercial failure and one that they've stated if they can't do better with the Wii U they'll pull out of the console race altogether (GCN sold 22 million worldwide until it was discontinued). Do you believe Wii U will reach that?

Nintendo's handhelds aren't irrelevant, but the overlying philosophy and choices that Nintendo makes threatens all of their products. The points I mentioned above affect the 3DS as well (no accounts, paltry backlog, region locking) as much as they do the Wii U, and these things will only become more glaring and ridiculous as the years pass. And again, the handheld market is being threatened on multiple fronts which will make things even worse.

What I mentioned are objectively bad policies for consumers (some being outright anti-consumer), which is bad for Nintendo as only the hardest of the hardcore Nintendo fans will stick around to tolerate it while everyone else will move on. I'll not list all of it again, but I have to wonder, in this day and age: why would people not wish for unified accounts? Why would people not wish for all the great NES/SNES games on their 3DS? Why would people not wish for extremely aggressive marketing, or 2-3 huge new creative and colorful IPs in different genres? Or online gaming?

My likes and dislikes don't matter here.

The above are what people want, and Nintendo continually stubbornly refuses to do them. That's why I think if they continue down this road of believing it's still the late 1990s-early 2000s and hunker down in their Koopa shell insulated in their own world, the market will treat them as such. I could be wrong, but this is what I see if things continue as they are.

@Jaysonguy: Nintendo does seem to be at the forefront of a lot of innovation regarding the gaming industry if you look at the past trend for video games, consoles and controllers. I feel that they failed to market how well the gamepad can change gaming. I hate watching reviewers of the PS4 controller say it is so different from anything out already and that developers can do a lot with that. But they can't do a lot with the Nintendo gamepad? Really, smdh.

@MirkoS77: Nintendo are so far behind in development because of Wii and they just dug that hole deeper with Wii U. They're just now making games with new HD techniques and they still haven't made a proper Mario game, Wii got Galaxy one year after launch. 3D World is not comparable to Mario 64,galaxy ect. It's a "family" focused Mario game, and speaking of graphics that game still shows how far behind they are, missing out on 8 years of HD development will do that.

I think that if with their next home console, they don't make an effort to be caught up in development and hardware, and in the coming years get the big games rolling with Wii U then things could very well turn out as you say. They need to crawl out of the hole they're in, focus on the West, and rally 3rd party support with a console that has completely modern hardware. People WANT to buy multiplats on Nintendo consoles, but they can't.

The 8th generation won't last as long as this one did, so I think they need to set the technology bar and blow Ps4 out of the water because if they don't they could end up smack dab in the same situation.

They do?!? That's not the impression I've picked up over the first year of the Wii U's life, and apparently, the same goes for most third party publishers. Just exactly who are these people, and are they large enough of an audience to make your statement meaningful enough? Frankly, this is something I still strongly doubt about moving forward.

All the horsepower and focus on western-made projects in the world don't mean a thing if your fanbase has time and time again proven that they're simply not that interested in the games that are supposed to come from them. This is precisely why the subject about the Wii U being the so-called big turnaround from third party games quickly turned to dust the moment most of the system's third party launch titles bombed, resulting into everyone second-guessing supporting the system. At this point, no one can say with certainly that top-of-the-line specs will resolve the matter at this anymore than "HD" and "standardized controls" were supposed to be the solution coming from the Wii. It's honestly just a grasping for straws, hoping that a resolution will somehow materialize.

Either these "people" you speak of are going to have really step up to the plate and prove their worth at some point, or third party publishers, both eastern and western, need to change their approach on Nintendo consoles to adapt to the audience, likely with Nintendo's help. I'm not even sure this can be accomplished with the Wii U in its entirety, but there need to be concrete signs of an improvement before Nintendo even thinks about what or how powerful their next console will be in order to cater to a certain group of consumers or developers. Since the Wii U isn't going anywhere for the next few years, there needs to be some takeaway of what Nintendo should do moving forward from its existence.

They're a minority. I'm one of those who want to buy multiplats for Nintendo consoles - and I've made good on that(Injustice, CoD, Mass Effect, NFSMWU, etc). I know developers have a difficult time turning a profit on Nintendo platforms, so I'll take what I can get.

Nobody wants to buy cruddy last gen ports of blockbuster games. IF, Nintendo had a powerful console to ride out the generation, and then stopped being inward looking and start to look outside the box by building up more of a hardcore fanbase, YES people would buy multiplats. The reason games don't sell on Nintendo consoles is Nintendo's fault, and they could rectify that.

Will they? Hell no but they could.

They could make an effort to get across how much multiplat support means to them, and show that they mean that by asking what developers want (ala Ps4), and after a while games would start to sell great on their consoles. It's all about effort, and Nintendo does the minimum. Nintendo consoles are built by Nintendo, for Nintendo and if anyone else wanted to come along for the ride, they could. Nobody wants to though, for good reason.

There is just a huge disconnect between Nintendo and 3rd party's and that is the root of the problem.

If their consoles went from being Nintendo's platform to a platform designed for everyone INCLUDING Nintendo games, all would be well.

Y'know, I could almost buy that argument IF we were just referring to the Wii U, but when it comes to the state of third party support on Nintendo consoles, we're not. This is the same song and dance that has been played for at least three consoles now, and its origin probably stems from at least a gen or two before it. At this point, the talk about the how and why third party titles continue do poorly on Nintendo consoles has become so cheap, it's pretty much being given away to anyone willing to take it. I'm just not one of those people, though.

That's not to say you don't bring up any valid points with your reply, though. I would agree that Nintendo consoles are built with Nintendo's best interests in mind at that particular time. I also think there is a major disconnect when it comes to Nintendo platforms, including the portable ones to a degree... but it's more to do with the interests of Nintendo's audience and the games most third party publishers (especially western publishers) typically provide than Nintendo's hardware policies. If you wanted to see how third party games can survive on Nintendo systems, just take a look at the games that have actually proven to be successful in recent years? Guess what, they're anything but the kind of games that have been released thus far on the Wii U, only to bomb.

Frankly, there's next to no evidence to back up your claim that a more powerful system is the solution, not to mention it totally disregards any potential shortcomings that could come with Nintendo releasing a $400+ system just to try to prove your theory. I'm not going to say if Nintendo has truly made any efforts to reach out third party publishers or not, as I'm not behind those closed doors. I just assess things based on what I can see, and in this case, that's a history of third party franchises outside of a very specific group of games struggling to find a sufficient group of Nintendo players to appeal to, regardless of the relative strength of hardware involved.

Until there's concrete evidence to suggest otherwise, I'm inclined to believe what YearoftheSnake5 said and see this group of people you speak of as a small, albeit very vocal, minority. Normally, I'd say "we'll see," but at this point, I've seen the ending to this story so many times already, I don't think it's worth making suspense over again. lol

I would say there is.

What we're seeing with the two next gen consoles is that when it comes to third party games people are flocking to the one who delivers 1080p and a solid 30-60 fps.

Horsepower by itself sells games.

There has to be horsepower all around though. You need games to be technically proficient but you also need the online infrastructure to have horsepower too.

If Nintendo had a console that could do Battlefield 4 with 60+ players on a map and Nintendo paid for a special perk for the ones who played on their console people would go and buy it.

Big companies don't hate Nintendo, they'll gladly sell to anyone who makes them money. The thing is that having to scale back games or cut pieces out costs a developer money and why waste the time?

Horsepower builds a base.

I never understand why people argue about things like this

I'm a Nintendo fan but, I don't lie to myself

The Wii-U is doing horribly financially

The hardware is outdated

This is not a debate these are facts

If you like the product buy it you don't need to lie to yourself to make you feel better about your purchase

The biggest factor of Nintendo matching/better the specs than their competitors would be cost?..wouldnt' it?..I mean Nintendo can't actually sell that the amount of loss that MS/Sony can do, (can they? or they just won't?)..so even if they do match the specs/better it, Nintendo system would be very expensive..then people would be saying "omg that's so expensive..screw that" ...Im going for MS/Sony.. :P