Narrow minded? Really?!?! You still bent on the Wii U name or proclaiming they don't have any games. The Xbox One is a more idiotic name than Wii U, yet that didn't hinder sales, did it? Nintendo introduced it's premier franchises in 2013 yet that didn't spur consoles sales either, did it? What's the PS4/Xbox got for games...some upgraded PS3/360 release and a few awful new titles. That didn't stop a holiday frenzy that eclipsed an entire year of Wii U sales.
The tablet controller is expensive...it keeps the system cost too high for consumers. Who pays top dollar for an outdated system with a clumsy and unnecessary controller? Does Nintendo even offer an option for a system without the tablet controller? NO!
If Nintendo, drops the tablet controller, puts in one or two pro controllers and sells the system for $199 or less. Sales of the system will pick up. People who want to play Mario and Zelda, but don't want the tablet controller will begin buying the system. Nintendo will begin to sell more games. I'd even wager that if Nintendo rolled out such a system tomorrow, they'd at least double they consoles moved by this time next year.
What's Nintendo got to lose by my suggestion? They are already getting pummeled. No, it's better to keep going the course of the Titanic isn't it?
Nintendo's Wii U offering just isn't up to par with the PS4/XBone. The Kinect blows Nintendo's motion controller out of the water. Nintendo banked on the touchscreen controller gimmick and it's an utter flop. (NOTE: I understand some people like the touch screen controller, but you are a minority). In order to make money Nintendo has to shift consoles to sell games. Therefore the Wii U requires a radical change.
The original Wii sold well, due to it's motion control novelty and the fact that it was way cheaper than the PS3/360. If Nintendo wants to salvage the Wii U, it must make the tablet controller optional, because frankly the masses aren't interested in looking at a second screen to play games. The tablet controller is expensive. It forces Nintendo to sell the Wii U at a price higher than the market wants to bear. The Wii U needs to get to $200 or less. A standard controller would allow that. Throwing in a second standard controller would make the Wii U more appealing to families...who don't want to have to buy loads of accessories in one package.
It's not the games or the names that's preventing the Wii U from selling, its the tablet controller. I'd even bet the tablet controller is a major driving force keeping third party developers from making games for the system. Yeah the Wii U may not be as special without it...but if Nintendo doesn't do something drastic to save it's bottom line in this generation...there may not be anything special about Nintendo in the near future.
@BrassBullet I don't agree. With server based games you are limited to internet connection speeds and streaming games will not run as smoothly as local games. Server down times are horrible to wait through. Console games may go through a period of correction, if Sony/MS try to force this future upon us. You'll here "gaming is dead" banter for a period of time, until someone comes along with another home console system to dispel the myth.
The other aspect of console games is their physical nature. You can't really wrap a cyber game for Christmas. A gift card just isn't the same as a physical product to a pre-teen.
Lastly, not everyone wants to play games online. There is a market for single player games...even for people who mostly prefer online games like WoW or COD. Sometimes it's just fun and more relaxing to experience a good game without having to deal with nitwits.
Games aren't the reason. Some of their biggest names failed to spur sales. Yet everyone keeps proclaiming they need more games and it'll sell. They have more games and exclusives than either the PS4 or XBone right now. Here's a clue...it's not the games. It's not the name either. If people were the morons some of you claim them to be...nobody would be buying the original Xbox (i.e. XBone).
The Wii U is on par with the 360 and PS3, but the price is not. Nintendo needs to sell the Wii U at half the price of PS4/XBone. Teens/adults tend to buy/want the Sony/MS consoles and the Wii U tends to be for the "kids." You won't get parents to buy the Wii U at a $300 price point. Nintendo can't compete with Sony/MS until they offer something with the power of the PS4/XBone.
The most obvious thing to do is eliminate the touchscreen controller and get in a real gaming controller (not the remote control shaped thing of the Wii). Better yet throw in two controllers and a game. Then sell the Wii U for $199. Make the touchpad controller an optional accessory. The touchpad isn't something I want. It's a gimmick that's failed.
Feel free to look it up. Charities in America only need to donate 15% of the money they collect to the cause they supposedly represent. CEOs of charities are amongst the highest paid positions in America. Your "free" blood donations are sold to hospitals for $150/pint. It takes about $10-$20 to test/store the blood. It's likely, that your donation to your favorite charity supports the lifestyle of a CEO more than it does to forward your cause. Sure everyone wants to see a cure for cancer... but no one ever speaks out about the waste. The waste won't stop until people stop mindlessly throwing money at something.
As stated, sure it's nice EA donated $1.65 million dollars to a charity. Sure we should be happy about it. Sadly, we are not, because ultimately the donation is lie. Charities provide kickbacks to the donors and tax shelters for the donating company. Some EA CEO got a roundabout check from this donation. The charity gave a huge bonus to their CEO and a handful of researchers got a few scraps. Further, EA didn't really donate their money and they profited far in excess of the money they donated.
@gralsean16 I don't buy video games to support cancer research. I don't buy gasoline to support cancer research. I don't buy food to support cancer research. Catch the drift?
Feedbackula's supposition that cancer research is more important than video games is ridiculous. People paid for video games that work, they didn't pay for cancer research from EA. You don't just go into a store and say, here's $60 for cancer research...I don't need/want a video game.
If you want to make a donation to cancer research, you can do it yourself. Call up the charity of your choice and make a donation. If you don't want to, don't worry, the government will tax you and do it for you instead.
After you make your donation, you can go around and feel all high and mighty. Maybe you'll sleep better at night knowing that 85% of you donation, doesn't even go to funding the charity you want. Yeah, that's right, the money is siphoned off to pay other non-essential things not even related charity...especially with the Red Cross.
I'm not keen on these cross-generational games. They were designed for the older system...all they really tend to have is a higher graphics resolution. If you were worried about the graphics resolution you'd probably have purchased the PC version. This is just a BS way for console manufacturers to boast about their launch line-up.
Also, I don't understand the exclusive content for PS owners but the shaft for Xbox owners. If you're going to make exclusive content just make the whole game exclusive. Why slight content from Xbox owners...they pay the same as the PS owners. It was really irritating buying games on the Xbox only to find out (when reading help guides) that I'm missing significant portions of the game.
And the caveat is, the default setting for the Xbox will be to provide the biometric data. At least half, if not more, of the consumers won't realize it's monitoring them or even how to turn it off. Frankly, I don't want a device that caters to marketing, I want a device that caters to games. I don't like the big brother aspect of the new Xbox, and as of right now I don't plan to buy one. I really want this Orwellian device to fail miserably, so future consoles don't incorporate these horrible ideas.
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