Nintendo's plan to quietly kill off the Wii U

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-s-plan-to-quietly-kill-the-wii-u/1100-6418177/

I made a topic earlier about me wanting to get a wii u, and it was met with a lot of hostility because I was afraid that the wii u will be killed off, I did a little research and found this article directly from Gamespot. So guys please don't say it won't happen because it definitely can. I predict that Nintendo might release another new console fairly soon, and have all Wii U games playable on it so it won't completely abandon the fans. Since the Wii U only sold 5 million units, they might offer a trade in program for the new console.

I would be very happy if they released a true competitor to ps4 and xbox one. As long as they didn't abandon current wiiu owners.

Stop it. The article is speculation. Clickbait that's become all too common on Gamespot.

Nintendo isn't Sega. They know too well that abandoning the Wii U would do more harm than good. Shafting Wii U owners who shelled out money for the system would assassinate consumer confidence in their most loyal fanbase. Sega dropped support for one band-aid solution after the next until developers and customers no longer believed in the brand. A trade in program for Wii U would only compound the problem, as that would drive up Nintendo's losses on top of giving their loyal customers the impression that the company won't give a major home console support for a full lifetime. Their best option is to ride out this gen, supporting it with 1st party gems to satisfy current customers and attempt to attract newcomers. They need to carefully plan their next console, not regurgitate one out the door.

Backwards compatibility is possible, but it is likely that Nintendo's next platform won't share CPU architecture similarities with Wii U; making the capability a messy process.

I just want a Wii U to be honest, it looks like an incredibly 'fun' console that doesn't take itself too seriously, and i like that. and y'know, mariokart 8 is a thing so it's pretty much an insant buy for me at that point!

yes mk8 is tons of fun, but at the end of the day Nintendo is a business, a business on the stock exchange, and if my degree in economics taught me anything its that corporations' ONLY goal is to make their shareholders money. It ceases to exist otherwise. Nintendo better start pumping out some big games to turn this ship around.

It's an opinion piece and the author isn't really known for the greatest opinions. I think I'm just looking at all the games announced for the system that are coming in the future, and I mean if that's Nintendo's way of letting something fade out of existence silently then they're doing a fairly poor job at it. The article was just filled with speculations on the future without any real evidence that this is the case except DS was the third pillar once.

I soooo wish G4's Judgement Day would come back. Victor Lucas and Tommy Tallarico were the best

It won't happen anytime soon. New console in fall 2016 at the earliest. Guys you have to understand that ending the Wii U in 2014 or 2015 would do far more damage to the company and consumer perception of them than anything else.

put the new thread button down. nobody is panicking but you.

Nintendo saved the 3DS after it had a really poor start, and now it is by far the most appealing current-gen system.

Doing the same thing to the Wii U would be far less expensive and risky than killing it off. I doubt it will ever sell as much as the other consoles, but it doesn't really need to do that. It just needs to become a profitable system.

of course they're going to kill it off it happens to all consoles, so expect to see a new one between 2017 to 2020

@KBFloYd: You really need to stop the cross platform discussion in here.

WiiU really needs to just die. I don't know who ever thought a white, Hasbro iPad with a name that sounds like an ambulance siren would be a good idea, but it wasn't then ,and it isn't now. Nintendo needs to accept their **** up, release a GOOD console, and move on. The WiiU is never going to compete in this climate, not when its competing against a Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PSVita, and its own handheld. Not a damn chance.

Damn, who posted those five deleted comments?

@KBFloYd: The OP is not in clear violation of any rules. Almost every single one of your posts in reply to it, however, are. If you think the claims he makes are erroneous, feel free to say why. I understand you think he has a less than pure motivation for posting the article, (I'm keeping an eye on this) but it is an article from this very website, and it's topical to the subject of this forum.

Cross platform discussion and (currently) baseless accusations of trolling are disruptive and will not be allowed, so please refrain from continuing to do that.

EDIT: If you have anything further to say, divert it to a PM please. Let's stop keeping this bumped to the top of the page.

The Nintendo forum is starting to become the message board equivalent of Fallujah. Who says Nintendo's for kids?

@IMAHAPYHIPPO: The same kids who say Trtix are for kids!

I don't seem to agree with McShea on most things, and Nintendo's QOL is a big unknown.

But,

I don't believe that new hardware is what Nintendo needs to increase profits. Software sells hardware and we have not yet seen:

Nintendo;s take on a 3D open world game. Nintendo could still garner support from the gaming community should they be able to wow them with a well constructed game. Imagine a massive open world Zelda or Metroid game, or a Star Fox adventure where Fox could jump in a spaceship and dogfight or fly to any number of planets to explore.

A console Pokemon following the Skylanders model. Players could unlock characters and areas based on Pokemon figures sold separately.

A new IP. Every console is only one killer app away from success. Nintendo has not yet found theirs for the Wii U, but they could still produce one.

People panic that lack of 3rd party support is sinking the Wii U, but I would argue that 3rd parties are dying. Yes, COD, Assassin's Creed, and a few others do sell well, but development costs are increasing and sales of fringe games are decreasing. Yes, 3rd parties support other platforms, but the numbers of developers are declining, the genres are narrowing, and diversity of gameplay disappearing.

Enter independent devs. The Wii U could actually become a haven for Indie games as Wii U users buy downloadable games to fill the void between Nintendo releases. The Unity engine and web dev tools could help make the Wii U a go to platform for independent developers.

Taken together, reports of the death of the Wii U may have been greatly exaggerated.

If they spend majority of time this E3 - Nintendo Direct talking about QoL & 3DS ...& very little time with nothing new on Wii U - 1 or 2 new games..the rest are their unrelease Wii U games from launch..then yea..they are killing it off. If they pull something & show alot of new games on Wii U (not unrelease titles that's been mention/shown at Wii U launch)..then yea maybe not. :P

I'm still trying to decipher what the whole Quality of Life thing is, is it a way for the Wii U to improve your quality of life? Or is it a whole new device or service to do so? And I honestly don't think the Wii U is underpowered for the kinds of games they make, X from Monolith looks great, as long as mario looks good then they fine. I just think they should have named it the Wii 2, and advertised it some more. Their core audience is mostly casuals and they don't know that nintendo has a new home console out.

I don't see Nintendo killing off the Wii-U, it would just hurt them in the long run and might even ruin their namesake among some of their fans. Later this year and hopefully 2015 is when the Wii-U gets the love it needs.

Im sorry, but not enough people even know about the Wii U for them to ruin their namesake, I'm sure out of the 5 million or so consoles they sold, maybe 3 million of them are die hard fans who will buy another nintendo console the second it's released. They just need a new name, more power, more advertising.

Enough people know about the Wii U, they just don't see it worth buying at the moment, and if Nintendo does kill it off early, even more people will be hesitant on jumping on a new console because they will worry about it being killed off early as well. Even the most die hard fans can easily lose trust from Nintendo if Nintendo does not have confidence on their own console. They just have to accept their mistakes and hopefully learn from them.

Yes, they do need more advertising, but it's too early for a new name or more power. The only thing that can save a console is by supporting it with high quality exclusive games. The 3DS also had a rough start, but it picked up momentum when most of Nintendo's resources went to 3DS games. Unfortunately that resulted in a lack of support for the Wii U's launch, but Nintendo can still turn things around. Aside from poor marketing during launch, the biggest issue Nintendo is facing is pumping out new games. Nintendo used the same hardware for over a decade and were not prepared for HD development, whereas other companies have been making games on similar hardware since 2007. It takes them more time to develop high quality games and they don't even have enough third party support to cushion the gaps between major releases. Nintendo is mostly on their own and killing off the Wii U now and introducing a more powerful console this early will only make it much more difficult for them to develop games at a rapid rate.

They dont have to kil off the Wii U, but a HDMI to HDTV adapter for the 3DS would be great!!!

@ps4hasnogames Sorry but it seems like you dont have good gaming common sense.

If they can do something really great with the gamepad for Fatal Frame, like use it as a camera obscura then I'd appreciate the system more. As of now I find the gamepad a waste of time. It's great as a diversion from gaming more than an asset. I use it mostly for Miiverse and nothing else regarding actual gaming since I got the Pro Controller. I don't think they need a newer more powerful system, they just need to get the great games out there. They apparently can't rely on the traditional Mario, Zelda etc, fans to keep this thing afloat. If they do release Fatal Frame, maybe an exclusive RE and things like that it should help, but if the sales keep tanking then what else can they do but pull the plug and try something else?

I can imagine them getting to rock bottom and having the release the next HD Zelda free with a new bundle for $200 just to get somebody, anybody to buy the thing.