"Not a great game range" ? That's debatable. Sure, for people who do not enjoy Nintendo's franchises there's really nothing to see there, but for those who do the Wii U does have some great games already. But yeah, third-party support is horrible on the Wii U, just like every Nintendo console (i'm not including portables here, which do have a pretty damn good third-party support) after the SNES.

Now, about the Wii U itself. Well, i don't think it's dead, but i'm pretty sure it can't compete with the PS4/Xbox One in any possible way (the PS4 has already sold more than the Wii U did, but the PS4 was launched one year after the Wii U). I think Nintendo needs to adapt to modern standards if they want to stay in the hardware business. Take a look at Nintendo's online structure, for example. There's no way it can compete with the PSN or Live, Nintendo is really lagging behind when it comes to online features.

They also need to gather more third-party support. Nintendo can't keep a console just with its own franchises, they need to open their eye and approach more publishers/developers. I also think that Nintendo needs to focus more on the hardcore gamer rather than gimmicks (like the Wii Board thing) and casual games (like Wii U Sports). The casual gamers have already moved to the mobile market by now. The Wii U Gamepad just didn't "catch" on like the Wiimote did.

Eh, I'm not too worried for Nintendo. They have great exclusive franchises ( Zelda, Mario + its many spin-offs, Metroid... ) and a very loyal fanbase. Even without 3rd party support, they could probably survive solely on their exclusive franchises, if they successfully revived some of the older ones. How about a new F-Zero or Pilot Wings game? They used to have dozens of exclusive RPGs and Adventures, too, during the 16-Bit era, but I'm not sure if Nintendo presently holds the rights to any of those.

Personally I still intend to purchase my own Wii U some time during the next few months. Even at this point there's at least about half a dozen games I'm interested in. And here's hoping Nintendo will get their shit together and release ( or at least announce ) some more strong exclusives this year, 1st party or otherwise.

As for Nintendo quitting the console business altogether, I'm not sure how desirable that really is. While it would be convenient to have Nintendo titles available on PC ( preferably DRM-free -- yeah, right ) I do believe Nintendo are a much needed motor for innovation, especially for new gaming hardware and input devices. Just look at Microsoft and Sony; their idea of innovation is to add some more kawrrs and gee-bees to their new consoles, and that's about it. The design of the Playstation and especially its controller has hardly changed at all, for what... 15 - 20 years? Nintendo may have a tendency to come up with weird concepts, and sometimes those fail and will be forgotten, but at least they still make an effort and take the risk to try something new.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. The Dreamcast failed not because of the console itself, which did achieve decent sales in the US. The Dreamcast failed because Sega had already lost too much money on their failed products (Saturn, 32X, Sega CD) and horrible business decisions (like releasing the Saturn 5 months earlier than expected, not making a proper Sonic game for it, the ongoing battle between Sega of America and Sega of Japan, releasing an add-on for the Genesis months before the Saturn, the HUGE costs of making Shenmue, among others).

The Dreamcast itself was a great console, it failed because Sega was already bleeding money when it was released. You can't compare the situation of Sega when they dropped the Dreamcast with Nintendo's current position. Even though the Wii U sales have been disappointing, Nintendo is still a pretty healthy company and has the portable market to keep it going.
That's exactly what i feel. Out of the big 3, Nintendo is the only company that tries to make original concepts instead of more powerful carbon copies of previous consoles (like Microsoft and Sony).

Nintendo fans already get a pretty good selection of games as you said. As for non-Nintendo typical games, there's Zombie U, The Wonderful 101 ( OK, maybe that's sort of Nintendo ), Deus Ex: HR ( supposedly the best console version of the game ), and then there's Bayonetta 2, Wii-U exclusive as far as I know. Anything else? I'm not really including older cross-platform releases, such as Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty or whatever.

I also read about a sequel to Eternal Darkness, but that one seems to be currently stuck in development limbo. A shame, that -- would have been a true must-have and system seller, imho.

Anyhow, I don't think they even intended to directly compete with Sony and MS. They always try to find their own niche, and with the DS or the original Wii that worked out very well. Maybe the new Wii just needs some more time, and more games and programs to really take advantage of its unique features.

That's true. And i think that the fact that Nintendo didn't even make a press-conference at the last E3 (and made another Nintendo Direct episode instead) kind of symbolizes that they don't care about going head to head against Sony or Microsoft.

I would be fine with Nintendo being the underdog with it's loyal customer base, cheap consoles and amazing first-party games. The problem is that this isn't what shareholders think. Nintendo has been under heavy pressure from shareholders lately to get into the mobile market, at least according to a report i read some weeks ago on Eurogamer. I would love if Nintendo kept their current style, my fear is that shareholders are not gamers, they just want the most money they can possibly get and this goes against Nintendo's core values.

Shrug. All i know is they havnt released anything for it that appeals to me. But then the wii never really released much that appealed to me and the wiis sales were considered to be a big success.

I've stopped caring about all the punditry on Nintendo and Wii U. I own one and have a lot of games to play. I'm happy with it.

What about the exclusivity of Bayonetta 2? What happened with that? I thought it was going to be the Wii U's big system seller.

It's coming. They released a trailer 1 or 2 months ago.

Its still exclusive, but look at what Sanic exclusivity did for the Wii-U. If Sonic can't even push units in Nintendo's own bubble, you're in trouble.

I feel like there's always a solid 30 million or so Nintendo fanboys who will buy any Nintendo machine eventually, because they must have all the Nintendo games. Half of that 30 million works in games journalism, by the way.

Nintendo will be fine.

I think their handheld devices are fine, the consoles on the other hand are a different matter entirely, if the profit isn't up enough for investors, I'm sure Nintendo will become a 3rd party developer for the remaining console forces. Nintendo can't beat MS and Sony in terms of hardware prowess, so they have to rely on killer AAA titles which the Wii U isn't quite generating. For you Nintendo fanboys out there, don't fret, if Sony and MS price newer consoles much higher than they are, they won't be able to absorb the loses either.

I'd say this is the beginning of the end for Nintendo. They're not exactly in the same shoes as Sega was, but people in the western market have started to lose interests. I suspect what will happen is they may continue to release system inside Japan, and just ignore the western market for a while. Then probably switch to a third party.

I don't think they'll develop for the PC, as amazing as that would be though. In fact if Nintendo embraced emulation on the PC they would make a healthy market for themselves.

When it comes to the PS4 and Xbone, they are different from their predecessors in that they were built with cost-effectiveness in mind, rather than to be spearheads for the respective companies. In Sony's case, the PS1, PS2, and PS3 served to make their formats more popular.

With the mass-production of CDs, it probably cut down the cost through sheer economy of scale - those CDs helped sell Walkmans and music, in addition to offering greater capacity for videogames. Using DVDs for the PS2 granted the ability to play both games and movies on that console, which made the format become popular. Considering that Sony has movie studios, this moved more merchandise for their movie and game divisions. Finally we got the Blu-Ray, which I understand to be developed and backed by Sony. Through defeating the HD-DVD, this standard allowed the Blu-Ray Disc Association to essentially tax anyone who sold their media on Blu-Rays. Microsoft included, due to the Blu-Ray drive that is utilized by the Xbone.

Now the PS4 is a different beast for Sony, because it doesn't have to push any standards. As such, the console isn't built with bleeding edge technology, drastically improving the limitations on mass production and pricing. Both Sony and Microsoft sold their previous consoles at a loss, but this generation may very well result in a profit from each console sold.*


*Microsoft will have to stop bundling the Kinect with the Xbone, however. That thing apparently adds about $100 to the price tag.

To be honest it's the newer console with the best games at the moment. PS4 and XBOXONE have nothing in my opinion except for their name. If you have a good computer their isn't much reason to buy one. Sure their might be coming good games but the same can be said about WIIU (their will be a new Zelda, metroid, bayonetta 2, ...).

There was no reason whatsoever for a new generation but somehow people believed it was time. As long as it can not render 95% of the games with a framerate of 60 at 1080p: there is no improvement. The big games are not impressive: titanfall, infamous are a let down and I really think watch dogs will be mediocre as well. But I think my opinion in this matter is a minority. I see no reason whatsoever to own a xboxone or ps4 in this year and I do not think there will be one next year. Most of the good games will also be available on pc.