This week, upon browsing video-game blogs, I began to notice that in comment sections relating to WiiU news, comments along the lines of ‘Nintendo should drop the WiiU and develop a competitor to the Xbox1 and PS4’ were surprisingly prevelant, given that this was a thought that had not once occured to me. Some of these comments were undoubtedly the work of the internet trolls (akin to the Christmas fairies but far more numerous and toxic), but some were not. Some even seemed to come from people claiming to be Nintendo fans. This is surprising, as it is hard to see how anyone can think this is a good idea. Indeed, its hard to find much of an upside at all.
I find it hard to believe that Nintendo will go down this route. There are just too many downsides to that course of action. Most obviously, this move would be a huge slap in the face to people who had already invested in a WiiU and were perfectly happy with their machine. How would you feel if you had just forked out for a new console only to find out that it was being dropped because the company wasn’t happy with it? Now, I’m not claiming that Nintendo are above slapping their customers in the face (they aren’t; who else got a 3DS on release onlyfor the XL to be released shortly after?) but the alienation of customers that this would create is not something that Nintendo can afford right now.
Financially, dropping the WiiU would make little sense. There are many big, first party titles which are already in the late development stage. To drop the WiiU would force them to either halt or delay these games and re-develop them for a new console, which is time consuming and costly, or release them anyway. But who would buy them after the console had been officially dropped? Why not just wait for their iterations on the new super console that people are apparently asking for?
On that note, its all very well saying that Nintendo should develop a more powerful console to take on the new Microsoft and Sony releases, but we all know that its not that simple. Developing a console to a good standard from concept to release takes a huge amount of time and money,and by the time this could be completed the Xbox1 and PS4 would be hugely entrenched, so sales of the new console would not be guaranteed to be good or anywhere near the volume of sales that the current gen consoles will rack-up. A powerful machine is also not really that useful for the kind of games that Nintendo want to make. ‘I really want to see every bead of sweat on Mario’s face when he kills another Goomba’ said no-one ever. The reason that Nintendo haven’t ever gone for the most powerful system capabilities is because they don’t really want to. It isn’t their style and they don’t need it. Graphical capabilities are not the reason that people want to buy Nintendo products. Not to mention the huge undercut of confidence in Nintendo as a company if they decide to drop their console after only just over a year.
These calls to drop the WiiU make no sense and seem to be coming from a tiny minority of people. So why write this blog entry? Well, mostly just because I’m astonished that this argument is ever put forward at all. Lets hope this sets things straight, eh?
The Inverse Look 
I don’t think nintendo are going to drop the Wii U. Chiefly because they still have a huge supply of consoles for people to buy and they can’t let that investment go.
I do think that the sales are worrying for Nintendo. That two new consoles can outsell your year old console in one week means that things are only likely to get worse for nintendo unless they change something. Adding trophies and a subscription service list PS+ would bring a lot of new customers. It’s all well and good bringing out great exclusives but if Knack outsells your flagship game then things need to change.
I agree with you on this. While I don’t think that Nintendo is really in their best element as a hardware designer, they only just released the WiiU and so I feel they have an obligation to support the thing for a few more years – especially in light of the lack of 3rd party support it will be getting. In 2-3 years from now, I think it’d be good to see Ninty moving to a software development model for “lounge room” consoles as a third part for Sony and Microsoft, while maintaining it’s handhelds.
Definitely agree, man. The Wii U isn’t failing because it’s not as powerful as the PS4 or Xbox One, it’s failing because it doesn’t have the killer apps yet. I don’t know if there’s still time to get first place, but I don’t think Nintendo needs to win this battle, especially after winning the previous gen. They just need to survive, in my opinion, while working on the next gen console.