[QUOTE="Sepewrath"][QUOTE="Haziqonfire"]I'm planning to wait a year - that way more titles are available on the console. But, that plan I have never works so we'll see lol.[/QUOTE] I never quite grasped that concept to he honest. You wait a year in hopes that a bunch of good games come out, its unlikely that you will pick up all those games. Many of those games will simply be put in the backlog, never to be seen again as the next wave of good games come out. I say if you see say three games at launch you want to play, pull the trigger. [/QUOTE]

It's because of threads like this why I don't think the Wii U's chances are as great as many people around here like to believe they are. Here we have several members the vocal, dedicated gaming community, the ones Nintendo appears to be building the Wii U heaviliy around, already saying that they will be waiting months, if not a whole year before buying the console and/or waiting for the system to get a price drop... and its price hasn't even been announced yet!

Forget about certain games being put in backlog for a moment. If this thread is an indication of the Wii U's first year, the chances of it getting those "next wave of games" are going to fall like a stone. The Wii U has next-to-no chance of being relevant if its first year ends up being a major disappointment, and there's just as much reason to expect this to be the case as there is to expect the Wii U to do well. I just can't help but think '3DS launch' when I see this, and Nintendo's margin of error are not nearly as high for the Wii U as it was for the 3DS.

Personally speaking, I have no interests in getting a Wii U at the moment, regardless of what happened at E3. I just picked up an HD system last year and between that and the Wii, I'm in no hurry to buy the Wii U and what will likely be a very limited selection of appealing titles. Furthermore, Nintendo still hasn't convinced me of its new direction yet; I'm still waiting for them (or someone else) to give me a reason to take the 3DS more seriously than I currently do.

[QUOTE="Sepewrath"]I've noticed some say they were going to buy it at launch and some say that they could be convinced. I don't know what you think others believe about its chances at success, but I don't see any indication of its fortunes in either direction. You said that yourself, it could rise, it could fall or it could just hover somewhere in the middle. But I would have to disagree with you about the first year, the PS3 was a failure in its first year, the DS didn't exactly get off to a flying start in its first year. A system can recover from a slow start, even for the Vita right now, its not the end of the world; just like the 3DS most recently proved. Compelling price and compelling software at any point can change a systems fortunes, especially Nintendo with their first party. [spoiler] cue the "What about GC response?" :P [/spoiler] Don't read until after response. [/QUOTE]

The spoiler thing kinda doesn't work when I'm planning on quoting you. :P Don't worry, though, as the GCN wasn't even on my mind until I saw your comment. I'd actually say that its launch was decent, but as a whole, it was lacking appeal to the majority of gamers at the time. That's not to say that the GCN's launch couldn't have been better, but it's neither here or there at the moment, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not dismissing those that ARE planning to buy it, but that's almost a given with any console. Even the PS3, in spite of its rough start, had those kind of consumers. Still, you'd had to believe that Nintendo would want the dedicated gamer market to be behind the Wii U out of the gate, especially considering that Nintendo's going through all of this effort to pander to the demands of the HD-gaming audience. I don't think anyone at Nintendo would feel too crazy if they saw about half of a forums' thread talking about waiting a year and/or for a price drop before they'd buy the Wii U at this point.

Out of the systems you mentioned that got off the slow starts, only the DS stands out as a system that didn't suffer any profound consequences, and the DS really suffered from supply shortages on Nintendo's part more than anything else, not from an actual bad launch. The other two examples are systems that the Wii U simply can't follow. For starters, in spite of the Wii's success, Nintendo simply doesn't have control of the console market the way Sony did prior to the PS3's launch nor the dominance that the GameBoy line and the DS had with the portable market. Plus, considering that we have no idea when the next wave of next-gen systems will be coming out, Nintendo has to establish the Wii U as soon as it can to prevent the system from being overshadowed once Sony/Microsoft's consoles arrive. Last, but certainly not least, a bad launch will no doubt affect software sales, which will affect the system's ability to move certain titles, which will affect how the system is seen from that point on from both developers and gamers. A bad launch would just create a vicious cycle that will extremely tough for the system to overcome, I feel.

I'm not saying that the Wii U can't recover from a bad start (I will say that I don't like its chances, though...), nor am I even saying that it will get off to one at the time being. I actually do think this depends on a lot what Nintendo does show when it's finally time for them to spill the beans about the system. That's why I find it shocking to see those who seem to be supporters of the console already say that they will wait it out until the state of the Wii U's software and/or price improves. I just don't think the Wii U's window is nearly as wide for Nintendo to wait it out for 8-12 months or make a big 3DS-like price drop before it starts seeing sales take off.

[QUOTE="meetroid8"]Online forums aren't at all representative of the market as a whole. It doesn't matter what anyone here says or does, it'll have very little impact on the over all success of the system.[/QUOTE]

Trust me, I know all too well your statement to be true. I've myself have said that those of us who discuss these sorts of things on gaming forums are part of a very vocal, yet very small minority, especially concerning Nintendo-related products. The success of the Wii, as well as the success and failures of many of its most talked about games, is clear proof of this sentiment.

My point is still more hypothetical than anything else, since at the moment, we have no clue as to what content the Wii U will have that's catered towards the mass-market, let alone the impact that such content will even have. If I was to base it on Nintendo's last two systems, though, the Wii and 3DS, it means that Nintendo could either set the gaming world ablaze once again or be forced to do something else drastic to make sure that the system even obtains a respectable userbase. Long story short, it's a 50-50 at this point whether or not the Wii U will become that next mainstream hit, but given Nintendo's total lack of talk in regards to the 5-85 market since the system's announcement, I don't think it's ever to reach the Wii's level of appeal. Furthermore, there is a reason why Nintendo has called the Wii's successor the "Wii U," and I just find it very ironic that Nintendo's doing just about everything "right" at this point to attract the "U" part of its system's hopeful market, only to see half of them already holding back without even waiting for Nintendo's E3 showing, which will more than likely be catered almost exclusively to them.

If Nintendo wanted just the mass market success, it could be developing more Wii games at this point. However, much like with the 3DS, it's clear that Nintendo has set its sights on a more conventional market this time around (at least by this industry's current standards), so obviously, the perception of the Wii U via online forums and the like take on a rather different light than it did with the Wii and DS. That's still not to say that threads like this determines the Wii U's fate in any manner, but I feel that it just sends a bad message people to already be waiting it out before getting the system.

[QUOTE="Sepewrath"]

lol you have to start paraphrasing my friend. But I actually have to disagree with you this point. I just recently went back and watched Nintendo's conference from last year. And at second glance, without the hype surrounding the announcement, it was a lackluster unveiling of the Wii U. To have half the forum saying they want it despite that, is actually a pretty good sign. They literally showed nothing and at second glance, I could see how people became confused over whether it was a new system or the controller was just add on for the Wii. They got attention with literally nothing but a sizzle reel of 360 footage and developers talking about not even design concepts. A big showing this year, actual Wii U games, actual software concepts, actual details on a more than capable online infrastructure and I think they'll be a good spot.

And while the PS3 didn't recover Sony's market position, I would say it definitely recovered as it was looking like a VB like failure waiting to happen. The DS dominated more than the Game Boy ever did. And that is saying a lot considering the Game Boy had no real competition as opposed to the DS with the PSP. Being in all Nintendo would never make the mistake Sony did and create hardware that will break them if its not successful out the gate, I think Nintendo can live with a less than Wii like start.

[/QUOTE]

Lol, I would, but after I'm done making a statement, I really don't care about going back and making adjustments. :P That said, I will try to be more mindful of that from here on out. Maybe...

Anyways, in more recent months, I really haven't seen anything but hype and excitement about the Wii U and its possibilites. How else do you explain all of the rumors that seem to circulate by the day? Considering all of the flak Nintendo has received for not making the Wii its counterpart to the other HD systems on the market, the whole idea of the Wii U has appeared to be something of a beacon to many. Who knows? Maybe I've just been hanging around this board too much, but based on all the threads that I've seen, I'm just a bit surprised to see as many "wait and see" Wii U owners as I've seen so far.

I'm sure if Sony could turn back time, it certainly wouldn't have handled the PS3 in the way that it did. Even if the system has seen better days since its launch, that's possibly something the Playstation brand will never recover from. I'm not saying that the Wii U's launch will bethat damaging if it starts off badly, but I do feel that because of the Wii's success and the way that it was obtained, it will still be a big blow. As for the DS, shortages aside, I never thought it had a bad launch to begin with. The 3DS, on the other hand, did suffer from a launch that has produced similar consequences as the PS3, albeit not quite as severe, so it's not too unreasonable to think Nintendo can't make a bad move with the Wii U, especially when following a very similar strategy.

[QUOTE="Sepewrath"]

I think is unreasonable to think that, it would literally mean the boys and girls in Japan are as dense as they come. I doubt they would still be around if that was the case. The mistakes of the 3DS is not something that happened 2 generations ago, where recent success could breed over confidence, this happened not even a full year ago. I doubt even Sony after 6+ years will make the same mistake with their console.

The Vita is a big example, they still went overboard with the tech, but they tried to go consumer friendly with the price. Nintendo knows that they have to find the right balance with the price and they need those killer apps at launch. If I know this and you know this, I'm sure they do as well. Even with the late comer ports like Arkham City and Darksiders II, I don't think the launch will be lacking. Who knows what will happen outside the launch window, but I think the launch will be solid and cover a wide range of software.

[/QUOTE]

It has little to do with being dense, really. Truth is that no one can truly predict a successful gaming launch. Sure, you can make a system's price more consumer-friendly and/or release a particular lineup of games, but it all depends on the consumers' current interest level in that console and its selection. Not to mention that gen has produced numerous systems that have resulted into either massive losses of revenue, lackluster hardware/software sales, or a combination of the two. Since it has been the nature to focus almost exclusively on hardware lately, the risks of having a bad go at things at launch and beyond have increased. The only true exceptions to this have been the Wii and DS, but they've also followed a very different philosophy when it comes to the gaming experience they were creating, so they almost don't apply to this conversation.

Nintendo also isn't immune to being arrogant or short-sighted towards the average person's expectations of a gaming system, hence why the 3DS launched the way that it did, even in spite of the launch that the PS3 had. In this tech-obsessed industry, it's really not too hard to fall into the trap of one-upsmanship in terms of horsepower, graphical prowess, bells and whistles, etc. and lose sight of what the everyday person really wants. And this is not something that has just happened the past six years, as you've had systems in the 16 and 32/64-bit era that made the mistake of trying to use bar-pushing hardware to make a splash. In any case, even if Nintendo believes or evenknows that it has learned from prior mistakes with the 3DS' launch, the Wii U's success will be based just as much, if not more, on the decisions that Nintendo was making with the system well before the 3DS even hit the market. The average person won't care if Nintendo's taken time to learn from previous systems' shortcomings at launch, but what the Wii U will have enough at launch to justify a purchase, which remains to be seen.