General Nintendo sales/business discussion topic (previously: The Wii U Thread)

[Conando]

It's still just 2014. Nintendo is vague to a fault. It's part of their design philosophy of giving devs as long as they want.

[Candescence]

The fact that Mario natively runs at 720p is proof of this.

Except 1080p sure as hell ain't standard in the new gen, and won't be. Developers are more than happy to sacrifice both framerate and resolution for new bells and whistles, which is depressing. At least Mario 3D World runs at a smooth 60fps.

 

 

Having the next console use 86x hardware is all fine and dandy, but the next Nintendo console still needs something unique hardware-wise that can make itself stand out from its competitors in a positive way. As I previously mentioned, I don't see cause to justify any purchase of the PS4 or XBone when a good gaming PC can play the vast majority of both their libraries, has an existing library of thousands of titles, and can do so much more without even needing to pay for any online service. As underpowered as the Wii U is (and the gap is much more close relatively than last gen), its 'gimmicky' controller is much more traditional than the Wii's, it just has a touch screen in the middle that has some really cool uses, especially off-tv play, not to mention a whole bunch of exclusive games that aren't really like anything else on the market. A good chunk of the Wii U's problem was that it had a poor launch and was marketed very poorly. The Kinect added onto the Xbone's price tag as well, and yet it's functionally worthless for actual games, but it didn't stop people from buying the system.

 

Long story short, I want Nintendo to do something that both third-parties and consumers alike will jump on that neither its competitors or the PC platform can do, something that can genuinely enrich the experience of playing games. A cost-effective overhaul of the standard controller that offers more functionality without sacrificing comfort, ala the Steam Controller, is a start. seriously, buttons on the back of the controller where the middle finger rests, how the hell did it take Valve to come up with such an ingenious idea?

 

For the next console, they could offer a variant of the standard controller much like the Wii U gamepad, except optional, mainly for off-TV stuff and optional asymmetrical gameplay. Probably would have to make it cost-effective, though.

[Solkia]

That's not an excuse to just let everyone forget the game exists. Screenshots, demos, trailers, anything to keep the interest alive.

[Conando]

I thought they've been bringing it up at every Nintendo Direct.

[MegasonicZX]

Yeah, but besides that one gameplay video at E3 that is really all we've really gotten of the game besides its initial teaser trailer and with the game supposedly releasing this year it would be great to see something new for it to get people hyped and hopefully get some more interest for it.

 

Honestly, I do like how nintendo doesn't like to put everything out on the table throughout the year, but it would be great if we could see more of their other titles besides stuff that everyones already pretty excited for (SSB, MK, etc.).

[Autosaver]

Nintendo does a direct once a month. It's kind of funny because I always see people complaining that Nintendo doesn't talk about their titles but then a Direct comes up the next week and reveals everything. People complaining about Bayonetta 2 lack of news honestly reminds me of W101 news. I'm pretty sure W101 had its own direct, I could see the same happening to Bayonetta 2.

 

Also, Donkey Kong is coming out soon. There WILL be a Wii U software direct coming soon. Trust me.
 

[Milo]

Can we just wait till MK8 and smash 4 to come out before we hit the "panic" button?

 

So I assume the recent sales reports of the Wii U performing poorly overall during the holiday season and Nintendo revising it's Wii U sales forecasts isn't a reason to hit the panic button?

 

Also, if Super Mario 3D World, despite being one of the most acclaimed titles of the year, sold much less then expected during the holiday season (as well as other past Killer Apps like Wonderful 101 and Pikmin 3), why does anyone think Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8 have a better chance?

[Salamander]

I think it's pretty obvious that Yarn Yoshi and SMT X Fire Emblem were announced very, very early.  The latter appeared to exist as just a single piece of promotional art; the former, some very basic demo footage and a few pieces of concept art.  They announced them way early to reassure people that "Yes, there are great games for Wii U coming!", but it was actually too early and Nintendo are still in exactly the same position as they were a year ago.  Except hopefully by now those games are considerably more developed.  Actually, Hyrule Warriors looked like it was in a pretty basic state, too.  Wouldn't expect to hear anything about that for a while.

 

If there is a January Direct, I'd agree that top priority would be to show us the things we haven't seen since last January.  I think it'd be poor form to leave us in the lurch for a year.  I respect Nintendo's decision to generally not show things off until they're quite a way into development, but occasional reminders and updates would be both sensible and courteous.  For me, they don't even need to be substantial.  A screenshot or even some new concept art every couple of months, maybe.  I'll give them this, they haven't actually announced Zelda U yet, so I'm fine with not hearing anything about it.

[Marcello]

I wonder how things are with SMTxFE. Like, did the SEGA buyout of Atlus complicate things? I know SEGA and Nintendo are cool, but surely they'd have to redo some contracts and stuff, right?

[Sami]

Except 1080p sure as hell ain't standard in the new gen, and won't be. Developers are more than happy to sacrifice both framerate and resolution for new bells and whistles, which is depressing. At least Mario 3D World runs at a smooth 60fps. Having the next console use 86x hardware is all fine and dandy, but the next Nintendo console still needs something unique hardware-wise that can make itself stand out from its competitors in a positive way. As I previously mentioned, I don't see cause to justify any purchase of the PS4 or XBone when a good gaming PC can play the vast majority of both their libraries, has an existing library of thousands of titles, and can do so much more without even needing to pay for any online service. As underpowered as the Wii U is (and the gap is much more close relatively than last gen), its 'gimmicky' controller is much more traditional than the Wii's, it just has a touch screen in the middle that has some really cool uses, especially off-tv play, not to mention a whole bunch of exclusive games that aren't really like anything else on the market. A good chunk of the Wii U's problem was that it had a poor launch and was marketed very poorly. The Kinect added onto the Xbone's price tag as well, and yet it's functionally worthless for actual games, but it didn't stop people from buying the system. Long story short, I want Nintendo to do something that both third-parties and consumers alike will jump on that neither its competitors or the PC platform can do, something that can genuinely enrich the experience of playing games. A cost-effective overhaul of the standard controller that offers more functionality without sacrificing comfort, ala the Steam Controller, is a start. seriously, buttons on the back of the controller where the middle finger rests, how the hell did it take Valve to come up with such an ingenious idea? For the next console, they could offer a variant of the standard controller much like the Wii U gamepad, except optional, mainly for off-TV stuff and optional asymmetrical gameplay. Probably would have to make it cost-effective, though.

1080p absolutely is the standard if you're a PS4 owner, actually. Only Battlefield is an exception to this, running instead at 900p. Regardless, both the PS4 and Xbox One could handle 1080p/60fps on every Wii U game without breaking a sweat anyway. Hell, Tomb Raider shocked me by running at 1080p/60fps on the PS4 with TressFX on. You don't actually mean to suggest that Mario and Donkey Kong are actually graphically intensive enough to logically have to be at that resolution in this day and age? The entire point anyway is that the system is a generation behind in specs, which isn't something that can be debated. More power to you if you don't think it matters, but the sales charts seem to disagree. Also, why exactly does Nintendo need a magical gimmick hook? This is a notion that's baffled me since people first started saying it years ago. You don't think Nintendo's first party games are good enough to be a hook in and of themselves? Its a strategy that seems to work great for Sony and Microsoft, so why can't Nintendo do this, exactly? Nintendo needs hardware that is desirable, just like that of their competitors. This will allow their games to flourish and speak for themselves rather than be chained to undesirable hardware that hardly anyone wants to buy or develop for. Power isn't the factor that decides the winner, third party support is. Bizarrely designed hardware unique from the competition will not receive that support, and this is the problem Nintendo has brought upon themselves for decades now. The N64 was undesirable to developers as a result of it's lack of a disc drive, costing them that generation. The GameCube had it's own awful proprietary format as well as a controller without nearly enough inputs, making many games impossible to port without having to use multiple discs and rewriting the entire control scheme. Nintendo hasn't made a system like the one I'm talking about before, and that's exactly why each subsequent console's sales have been lower than the previous with the exception of the Wii. They are a competent software developer and if they can release a system that is designed competently without major strings attached it will do them plenty of good. Being silly special snowflakes is what got them into this hole in the first place. They should be smarter than that.

[Dobkeratops]

Also, why exactly does Nintendo need a magical gimmick hook? This is a notion that's baffled me since people first started saying it years ago. You don't think Nintendo's first party games are good enough to be a hook in and of themselves? Its a strategy that seems to work great for Sony and Microsoft, so why can't Nintendo do this, exactly?

 

The "innovation" gimmick stems from the marketing and delusionary fanboy arguments of the Wii generation. In truth there's absolutely no need of one.

 

Case in point: the SNES, aka the best system Nintendo has ever done. That one was just a more powerful NES and enjoyed fantastic commercial success and a vast library of quality first and third party games.

 

Less pandering to casuals with one shot fads and more cementing a solid foundation Nintendo pls.

[Remynaka]

Except 1080p sure as hell ain't standard in the new gen, and won't be. Developers are more than happy to sacrifice both framerate and resolution for new bells and whistles, which is depressing. At least Mario 3D World runs at a smooth 60fps.

 

 

Having the next console use 86x hardware is all fine and dandy, but the next Nintendo console still needs something unique hardware-wise that can make itself stand out from its competitors in a positive way. As I previously mentioned, I don't see cause to justify any purchase of the PS4 or XBone when a good gaming PC can play the vast majority of both their libraries, has an existing library of thousands of titles, and can do so much more without even needing to pay for any online service. As underpowered as the Wii U is (and the gap is much more close relatively than last gen), its 'gimmicky' controller is much more traditional than the Wii's, it just has a touch screen in the middle that has some really cool uses, especially off-tv play, not to mention a whole bunch of exclusive games that aren't really like anything else on the market. A good chunk of the Wii U's problem was that it had a poor launch and was marketed very poorly. The Kinect added onto the Xbone's price tag as well, and yet it's functionally worthless for actual games, but it didn't stop people from buying the system.

 

Long story short, I want Nintendo to do something that both third-parties and consumers alike will jump on that neither its competitors or the PC platform can do, something that can genuinely enrich the experience of playing games. A cost-effective overhaul of the standard controller that offers more functionality without sacrificing comfort, ala the Steam Controller, is a start. seriously, buttons on the back of the controller where the middle finger rests, how the hell did it take Valve to come up with such an ingenious idea?

 

For the next console, they could offer a variant of the standard controller much like the Wii U gamepad, except optional, mainly for off-TV stuff and optional asymmetrical gameplay. Probably would have to make it cost-effective, though.

 

 

 

  1080p is seriously the standard this gen. Every game on the PS4 is 1080p but one, so that's not an excuse and never will be for now on. And adding ANOTHER useless add-on instead of making hardware 3rd party can get behind is the very reason - save the Wii - doomed them in the first place. They need to get back in the race of providing powerful hardware that rivals the others AND show that they are the system to develop for. The Wii-U is NOT that system, and never will be seeing as it's 2 gens behind what some devs are saying is STILL not enough power. Seriously if some devs are saying the PS4 and Xbox one aren't enough at times what chance does a system that can't match last gen hope to do? 

[Sami]

To be fair, it's only really one generation behind. The GPU is better than the PS3/360's, but the CPU is crap and bottleneck's the system as a result, so it's somewhere in that zone depending on whether the game engine is more CPU or GPU intensive.

[Remynaka]

 Ah. I got a little confused on that bit, I was thinking both the CPU and the GPU were behind the PS3's. I keep seeing this rumor pop up everywhere and I'm finding a very hard time thinking it's just a rumor. Why would such big sites report on it if there isn't some truth to it? Unless it's for hits only and less about the actual news.  

 

 

 The rumor I'm taking about is the Fusion or whatever. 

[Marcello]

In the rumour the "Fusion" was a handheld. The "Terminal" was the home console and was more powerful than the PS4.

Not that it matters, it was obviously fake.

[Sami]

The author of the article actually doesn't even know who his "source" was and how he got such detailed information, lol. The specs themselves were also ridiculous and stuff like "CODENAME JUMPMAN" just have it away. It's not really worth thinking about haha.

[SuperLink]

I feel like all my points are just misunderstood or misread so I don't see much point in writing much more (alas).

 

If Nintendo can create a cutting-edge system with all the bells and whistles of others like multimedia features n stuff and still have a sustainable profit then by all means go for it.

 

(my point is that they probably can't, things are much more expensive than they were in the SNES days). Every cutting edge system on the market makes huge losses. I'm not talking just $50-100, I'm talking hundreds, for every system sold like PS3 and One, something Sony and MS can afford because of their diversity. Nintendo don't have a chance competing there unless they do everything their competitors are doing (like you guys want), MORE (to actually get attention), and actually manage to sell the thing (which is another ballgame entirely especially when people already have what they want on the market)

 

Make no mistake, you are not the market. People on forums seem to love the Gamecube, it had all these great games from Nintendo and variety and it was super powerful, they long for the days where Nintendo made powerful stuff with good games like the Gamecube but people seem to forget..

 

Even at a cheap-ass price it didn't sell at all, Nintendo made big losses on it. No one bought it, no amount of "core" ideology helped it get mainstream attention, Nintendo's kiddy stigma was too ingrained. Sure some of you guys might buy "Nintendo Dream Machine" but the majority of people would not. They would be content buying Sony's next console, one that is easier to put faith in and has a more powerful brand name. You love it, I love it, most of the world doesn't care.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible for this dream machine to exist, I'm saying it wouldn't be successful because there's no space for it on the market, it would have to be ridiculously priced to turn even profits, and if that was priced lower AND Nintendo bought out tons of third party support for games that probably won't even sell on their system do you have any idea how much money Nintendo would lose chasing a gamble like that?

 

It makes absolutely no business sense, Sony and Microsoft know just as well as Nintendo that aiming for the same audience makes it more difficult to sell. Why do you think the PS2 got more attention than GC and Xbox? It already had the attention, GC and Xbox came along, did nothing new, and devs were far more content to just keep supporting the obvious winner.

 

I've said my piece, the point is:

• Sony and MS are spending far more on their systems than Nintendo ever did on the SNES, and their losses are far bigger
• Nintendo didn't need to try to get third parties on SNES, third parties went there because there was no better choice (so getting them back means paying out the ass - even more money spent on this "dream venture")
• All companies have reputations, Nintendo's won't change just because a console comes along looking like a core venture, the system would come out, people would sceptically buy the new PlayStation instead, third party releases on the Nintendo would crash and burn, Nintendo would be pouring more money than ever into a console that isn't successful

There is far more to success than power and you're kidding yourselves if you think Sony and MS don't know that, they each have their own market and there's no space there for Nintendo. You, the active few who regularly talk about games online, would be fuckin all over that, I would too, but you have to recognise we are a sheer minority. If there weren't enough of us to make the N64 and GC a success despite their power, core games and cheap prices, then there sure as hell won't be enough of us to stop Nintendo from losing it all on a pointlessly risky venture like that. Gamers who talk about stuff on the net make up a fraction of console and software sales, this is made really dam obvious by the fact that practically no one on the internet thought much of the Wii or Xbox One and yet they both sold hella wella, most of the world buys what they can see, at a glance, makes sense and sounds cool.

 

I can't make it much more obvious how much this wouldn't work. I'm not defending Nintendo's ~casual~ approach, I'm contesting the bizarre notion that having a forefront runner in power would make it a success (cause that worked so well for the Master System, Game Gear, Jaguar and Xbox), you aren't keeping the structure of the market and economy of the industry in mind when you think about how awesome it would be. There is so much more to selling a console than that and Nintendo can't suddenly drop the decades old "kiddy" image and take a place as a powerhouse where there's no mainstream demand for another one. That.. makes no sense. Having too many systems that did the same things and caused market confusion is one of the primary causes of the 1983 crash, if the average consumer has a choice of too many things that offer the same ideas, they'll just go with nothing.

[Patticus]

Nintendo made big losses on it [the GCN].

 

Really? I was under the impression that the thing was making a profit if not from the start, then from about a year to 18 months in. Sure it only sold 20-22m units globally and it didn't add warehouses of gold bullion to their coffers, but it didn't burn a hole in Nintendo's pockets either. More than anything it taught the company that having a powerful console and good looking games doesn't necessarily transfer over to sales. That, it can be argued, lead directly to the decision to focus on input devices and how they can improve player experiences, over creating powerhouse consoles. From that thought process, we got the DS and its progeny, and the Wii with its progeny.

 

Possibly.

 

 

Nintendo's upper echelons are really out of touch with western gaming tastes. As much as I love the games the company puts out, if it's going to carry on not having third party support and not giving a crap about it, then it needs to fill in all of the genre gaps on its platforms itself, or bring in its few third party buddies to do that, and in that I think there is great potential for some amazing new franchises. Shame it doesn't even seem to give a flying fuck about those genre gaps.

[SuperLink]

Overall, the GameCube business was profitable thanks to the sales of first party software. If we were to speak specifically on hardware, the GameCube was not very profitable, and that’s partially because Nintendo was regularly forced to slash the price to stay competitive. Unlike the Wii, which made a profit per unit sold on day one, the GameCube lost money on each unit sold. But when you compare GameCube’s losses to the Xbox’s losses, the GameCube’s losses seem very insignificant and minor for the most part.

On August 31st, 2001, one month before GameCube’s launch, Peter Main told an interviewer, “We expect to incur a small loss on the GameCube hardware initially, and you’re right that it hasn’t been our habit in the past but we expect it to turn okay early next year.” That same year, Merrill Lynch said Nintendo would lose 2350 Yen (£14) on every GameCube sold, but it was a small amount compared to how much money other consoles were losing.

Only six months after the North American launch, the GameCube would receive a price cut to $150. On May 20th, 2002, Nintendo’s George Harrison told USA Today, “At about $149, Nintendo will roughly break even on sales of each GameCube,” Harrison said. “The company has kept manufacturing costs lower by not offering an installed DVD player on the GameCube like its rival consoles.”

One year later, the sales of GameCube would reach a new low, and they were cutting into Nintendo’s profitability. On November 2003, Nintendo reported a $26 million loss in the first half of its fiscal year due to weak sales of its GameCube console. Sales were estimated at roughly $2 billion, and Nintendo blamed the strengthening of the yen for hurting overseas income. Investors became worried that Nintendo was having trouble getting rid of its excessive inventory of GameCube consoles before Christmas.

Toward the end of 2004, Japanese newspaper, Kabushiki Shimbun, revealed that Nintendo was losing ¥20 billion ($180.8m) each year on Nintendo hardware. Because of these losses, the company decided to reduce that loss by reusing production plants for future hardware.

http://www.dromble.com/2014/01/07/dolphin-tale-story-of-gamecube/

So not gigantic losses, but this was thanks to the lack of multimedia capabilities.. a loss they certainly wouldn't be able to avoid if they attempted to compete with the consoles that do do that. Again, Sony and MS can afford big losses, Nintendo can't. Wii U's losses aren't as big as the PS3's, yet everyone spells doom and gloom for Nintendo because if their game division loses its money that's it, it doesn't have anything else. The fact that Sony and MS lose so much money with each console sold is only ok for them because it's them.

 

EDIT: Look if you want me to believe Nintendo can realistically do something like this and succeed..

 

Prove to me that it's possible/reasonable to make a high-end console with all the multimedia bells and whistles, paid third party support, at a reasonable price sceptical people will pay for, that does something eye-catching the average consumer will care about, that won't sell at a huge loss. What's their angle? What do they have that the opposition doesn't? (and I don't mean first party games, you don't buy a £400 system for Mario and Zelda if you aren't willing to buy a £200 for them, variety didn't save the powerful Gamecube either)

 

Please prove it to me. If you can't then you may aswell admit it's not financially viable for Nintendo to pursue that kind of system.

[PSI Wind]

Personally, I'd rather have 60 FPS to be the standard this gen, not 1080p. We can see that even the Xbone and PS4 can't run all games at 60 FPS 1080p.

[Remynaka]

 Hmm so what can or should they do? It sounds like they are doomed either way, as you're correct. They DON'T have the power or money to shrug off losses like Sony and Mircosoft, and losing it's money is way more worrysome to Nintendo then the other two. So what can they do? I only say make better hardware because then 3rd party would be more welcoming, but you do bring up a good point about cost and selling the units. The other only option is for them to expect VERY low sales on their product until they are able to upgrade their hardware. While they are waiting they slowly grow on their products now. Fix whatever issues is hurting the current tech and move on. Those are the only options I see that they can do. 

[SuperLink]

Their options are to do more affordable devices with variety like they do with their handhelds, maybe a system that capitalises on the strength of Nintendo history by instantly offering tons of games from older systems for cheap, and to be honest the lack of third party support can be solved to an extent through buying it, which I think they should do. Third parties don't like Nintendo, but more than hardware difficulty this is because:

• their games don't sell on Nintendo
• Nintendo aren't super nice to them

Now the PS3 is tough to develop for but it didn't stop third parties, probably because Sony actively pursued their help, and a lot of Japanese games don't sell on 360 but they're on 360 anyway because Microsoft wants some of that pie, developers being paid and assisted by console devs means a win win for them. If Nintendo were more active in pursuing third party relations as opposed to their current tactic of sitting around waiting for third parties to make the first move (how it worked back then, but not anymore), things would probably be better there but it'll take a while to undo the damage.

 

They aren't doomed either way, but they can't afford to be cutting edge anymore because since the days where they were at the forefront, multimedia companies with huge worldwide profits have joined the fray and upped the bar to heights game-only developers can't reach in terms of hardware development.

[Sami]

Then they may as well give up and go third party, because there's no other consistent market for them to go for.

What you are essentially telling me, if I'm not misreading, is that there's no room for Nintendo to compete in the traditional gaming market. You're saying that Microsoft and Sony have more money, and therefore it's okay for Nintendo to not even try.

What audience would you suggest they aim for, then? Casuals? Just children? Fine, then. They can try to create budget machines in the future aimed at kids and families alone. No stupid gimmicks that drive up the price, no time or resources towards wasted trying to grab at the core audience, etc.

They can't try to stick their fingers in every pie anymore.

Oh, and the PS4 and Xbox One both sell at roughly $50 losses, same as Wii U. The PS4 recoups the loss with the purchase of just one or two games, to say nothing of the $50 they get per year from PS Plus subscriptions. Microsoft is also close to the break even point, with both systems projecting to start making profits in the near future (especially the PS4, which was built with parts that will more steeply depreciate in cost over time). The Wii U is not different.

I'm going to repeat this in a new paragraph as it bears repeating - the Wii U is not different from the PS4 and Xbox One. All three are selling at a loss of $50-$100. All three. Including the Wii U.

The problem with the Wii U is that that money went to the wrong place - a gimmicky controller nobody wanted as opposed to specs that could have satisfied an enormous thirst for a graphical leap.

Personally, I'd rather have 60 FPS to be the standard this gen, not 1080p. We can see that even the Xbone and PS4 can't run all games at 60 FPS 1080p.

60 FPS will never be the standard on anything other than PC. And trust me, on a 1080p screen it's much better to have that then 60 FPS -

[SuperLink]

Then they may as well give up and go third party, because there's no other consistent market for them to go for.

What you are essentially telling me, if I'm not misreading, is that there's no room for Nintendo to compete in the traditional gaming market. You're saying that Microsoft and Sony have more money, and therefore it's okay for Nintendo to not even try.

What audience would you suggest they aim for, then? Casuals? Just children? Fine, then. They can try to create budget machines in the future aimed at kids and families alone. No stupid gimmicks that drive up the price, no time or resources towards wasted trying to grab at the core audience, etc.

The market is ever-changing and so are the consumers. A system can sometimes do with even a pointless gimmick to get it attention, for example the 3DS' gimmick wasn't a game changer or a big seller, but it was easy to explain to consumers, "3D handheld traditional gaming", it had its angle and eventually became a success once it was affordable enough. Sometimes a gimmick is literally just to get it attention, so it has something to explain. The Wii U does, but it's anything but easy to explain, and that's the main reason it failed.

 

The thing is, the 3DS is "aimed" at families and young people but it was popular enough to grab a wider audience, and I think that's the kind of thing successful Nintendo systems will accomplish. It's a good starting point that not many people aim for, there's space for them there. I feel like they're trying to do the handheld thing with their home consoles but it just hasn't worked in any kind of long-term sustainable way yet because it's much harder to market the uniqueness of a thing when there are two strong competitors.

 

Oh, and the PS4 and Xbox One both sell at roughly $50 losses, same as Wii U. The PS4 recoups the loss with the purchase of just one or two games, to say nothing of the $50 they get per year from PS Plus subscriptions. Microsoft is also close to the break even point, with both systems projecting to start making profits in the near future (especially the PS4, which was built with parts that will more steeply depreciate in cost over time). The Wii U is not different.

I'm going to repeat this in a new paragraph as it bears repeating - the Wii U is not different from the PS4 and Xbox One. All three are selling at a loss of $50-$100. All three. Including the Wii U.

The problem with the Wii U is that that money went to the wrong place - a gimmicky controller nobody wanted as opposed to specs that could have satisfied an enormous thirst for a graphical leap.

Do you have a source for those loss figures? The systems are very expensive and I can't really imagine people buying a Nintendo system at a price that high considering their reputation, but if the PS4 and One really do only make the same kind of losses as the Wii U I'll say uncle.

 

I personally don't think it would sell very well like the Gamecube, but if they can avoid having bigger losses than the Wii U then by all means they can go for it.

[Sami]

The PS4 costs $381 to produce - http://press.ihs.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media/sony-nears-breakeven-point-playstation-4-hardware-costs The Xbox One costs $471 to produce - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/205750/Xbox_One_teardown_Its_close_to_breakeven_just_like_PS4.php The Wii U was close to the break even point before the price cut, but still short somewhere between $10-$30 - http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20130620232009_Nintendo_It_Is_Not_Easy_to_Cut_Price_of_Wii_U.html Like I said, they're losing that money anyway. Before anyone misinterprets this, by the way, extra costs such as shipping are not factored into those prices, which is why Sony and Microsoft are still short of their break even points. They'll reach them soon though. Sony especially. They have a lot to gain from the PS4's hardware over the next few years. Wii U, ironically, is going to be the hardest to make money off of. That Gamepad's not getting any cheaper.