Not only did the PlayStation 4 outsell the Xbox One in its first weekend by about 100000 units in the UK, it completely obliterated the Wii U.
The numbers are even bleaker for Nintendo – its year of Wii U sales have now been trounced in a weekend by both next-gen machines. More people bought a PS4 and a copy of Knack over the weekend than bought a Wii U at any point over the past year and new release Super Mario 3D World.
If not even a Mario game can save a Nintendo console, you know something’s up. People, Nintendo is in deep, deep trouble.
I’d really like the Steambox to become a console which sells (if the console is marketed).
This console is a big opportunity to see Linux gaming improve, maybe the only one.
Given the huge sales in the established consoles I suspect the Steambox will end up being too little, too late.
Could products and companies please stop obliteration or destroying each other?
If something gets obliterated it’s gone, gone forever. Expect nothing that gets “obliterated” in recent times in the media has actually gone missing.
The obliteration refers to the Wii U, not Nintendo.
I know, but I was talking in general. Surf the media sites and it’s not that hard to find an article stating this obliterated that or that destroyed this.
The hyperbole has become media fashion, but it’s not something I enjoy and I don’t think it adds anything to the story apart from making it seem more sensational than it actually is.
The PS4 can outsell the Wii-U by a wide margin or even a huge one, but nothing got obliterated.
Except your faith in online media.
After the all the NSA, our own European secret services, governments, the financial institutes, nuclear power plants, European Union, food industry, clothes industry, pharmaceutical industry, well any industry, fellow countrymen and other stuff it’s hard to have faith in anything these days.
The success of the PS4 launch is to be expected. I recently had a business lunch with a Sony (Playstation) executive. He explained it very clearly.
A lot of media considers this to be the last console generation, but Sony’s view on the industry is that all the fragmentation and casual gaming boom that started with the Wii and iOS devices less than a decade ago, were actually entry points for new players that will, in the long term look for more complex and compelling experiences.
About Nintendo, the 3DS is a cash cow and must have device at this point, but their development process for big budget games (WiiU) is what is getting them in trouble.
I’m not really much of a gamer anymore, but if I were, the Wii-U would be a no-brainer this holiday:
http://reviewlagoon.com/the-next-gen-console-wars-the-ultimate-ques…
If not for hyperbole and exaggerations how else would you get any readers?
Titties, has worked for many years.
If you take obliteration literally, then yes, your smug attitude would be correct.
However, I expect our readers to be smarter than that, and realise full well it’s a perfectly accurate figure of speech when the PS4 sells more consoles in two days than the Wii U has sold in a year. If that’s not obliteration, I don’t know what is.
But what does “obliteration” add to the story? It doesn’t say anything about the actual numbers, something the actual numbers actually do. They are meaningful, hyperboles are not.
To obliterate would suggest Wii-U consoles were destroyed or the Wii-U and PS4 were in the same room participating in a sales competition.
For the reader it’s interesting to know the numbers and much more important how these numbers came to be. Why did people buy so many PS4s as soon as the could? Why aren’t so many people buying a Wii-U?
That’s what we want to know, not what hyperbole would be appropriate.
Are you seriously arguing that I should not use figures of speech?
If so, sorry. I will not comply with your wish. OSNews is a fun hobby, not a clinical, cold, distant, boring surgical assessment. I’ve seen you use a million far more emotionally laden terms to describe Samsung and Google.
Edited 2013-12-02 17:52 UTC
I was just voicing my opinion. It’s hard to say anything without you getting upset and starting personal attacks.
Maybe you tried to obliterate me.
It’s just sad that’s these days it’s “cool” to follow the herd.
How is any of what I said a personal attack?
Genuinely curious.
I was voicing my opinion about hyperboles in the general media, with obviously this article as the direct reason. My reason to object to them is that they are not necessary and, IMHO, do not make the story more clear, but in fact the opposite. I would have gone for “dwarf” or “overshadows”, but not “obliterate” as nothing went away or missing. The Wii-U sales that were made in the past aren’t undone.
To me it seems you dismiss my opinion on alleged “emotionally laden term” to describe Google and Samsung. I am not aware of any made and any terms I used to describe those companies are probably, well most likely (meaning almost certainly), based on facts. But as you quoted none it’s hard to judge or explain them.
Look, I don’t get upset or angry when you use hyperboles. If you like ’em use ’em. My comment was just my free opinion and you can take it or leave it. We’ll still be best friends.
That’s fine! And as a reply, I stated that I like the way I write, and that it’s not going to change. That’s all.
So, I still fail to see where there’s a personal attack – in whatever direction.
I just can’t help but think that this is Nintendo’s fault. The advertising campaign for the WiiU might as well have not existed in the first place. I always thought the Wii and WiiU were cool consoles, but I never really had any friends that wanted to play them with me.
It almost seems like they take their IPs that people have known for decades more seriously than actually competing with Sony and Microsoft. In my eyes, Nintendo just isn’t ‘cool’ anymore. They used to stand for the clean, robust standard in console gaming, but now they are more of the bargain basement option for people that want a box to collect dust.
I’m actually interested in getting a Wii U in order to play some Wii games JRPGs that I missed and play some of the new classic Mario titles… but every time I think about buying one, I remember several things which immediately turn me off:
* The controller – I’ve used one, and it’s definitely a step back in controller design. It’s neither comfortable, nor is the concept compelling, requiring you to constantly divert your attention to the second smaller screen in your hand. The fact that playing older Wii games requires you to own and use a Wii controller is bad as well. The fact that these devices are still powered by AA batteries is ridiculous.
* No online accounts – In this day and age, the fact that Nintendo still doesn’t have a single, unified login for users to purchase and carry-over their digital purchases is simply unacceptable.
* Disk storage – If I WERE going to purchase digital games, this one would be a killer. My PS4 has 500GB that I easily upgraded to 1TB. The fact that the WiiU only has 32 GB is ridiculous.
* Price – Of course, this one is getting better and may soon become a non-factor. The same can’t be said for the others.
These key points just amount to more hassle than I’m willing to go through just in order to play a handful of games.
I just wanted to point out that Xbox 360 and Xbox One both have controllers which are powered by the AA batteries. And yes, it’s ridiculous.
I agree on each point. Some of the JRPG’s on the Wii made the system worth having (last story, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of The New World). However, it just irritates me that each iteration of their consoles since the Gamecube makes certain critical aspects look like a gimmick. I care about as much as having a tablet and motion controls for a controller as much as I care for teaching a goldfish Korean. Again, I think these are cool, but not really groundbreaking, or worthwhile.
I wish for more GOOD exclusive games to come to Nintendo consoles. Their handheld market has always been solid, but I can’t hook those systems up to my 60in LCD.
Nintendo, stop taking risks with your hardware, and start taking risks with a new IP/franchise. Attract people to your console. Most people don’t care about mind-bending new controllers as much as having good games.
I don’t mean to advocate piracy but dolphin is quite a fine gamecube and wii emulator. I’m not sure its worth buying the actual hardware anymore, just get the disks and grab rips to play.
Plus it can do native (or higher than wii) res and games look far better on it than on the wii. You do need a beefy cpu (it is emulating a PPC cpu). It also supports WiiMotes so it is no different than playing on a Wii.
Some games do chug, but most run acceptably.
There is one nice point that is often overlooked on Wii U that i want to add to this list:
* Nintendo’s insistence on proprietary disk formats. With other consoles of that generation, i have a fully capable blu-ray player.
It’s amazing to hear that the WiiU, and somewhat heartening to hear that only the WiiU, is doing that poorly. Unfortunately the other comparisons are meaningless; during launch window scarcity, these numbers are literally just how many were distributed to the UK. PS4’s lead speaks highly of its production and distribution efficiency, but says nothing of its longevity or overall demand.
Well, If Nintendo cannot sell enough consoles despite not being production limited.
One has to wonder how many consoles Sony and MS might have sold had they not been limited. Some analysts seem to project that there will be supply limits all the way to March. Sony Predicts it will sell 5M up to March. That is more than The WiiU has sold to Date.
you know people been saying nintendo is on its way out now for years. i can’t believe people still publish this hyperbole! on an os news site even! they’re entirely different markets. nintendo sitll has buckets of cash. they’re going nowhere any time soon. it would been expected that ps4 would outself wii u. anybody could had predicted that. people are annoyed that the wii u is what the wii should of had been. there is no upscaling of previous wii games so that sucks. other than that, i am waiting on zelda, as in original content zelda not a gamecube remake. problem is, publishers wont make games unless the console is selling and people wont buy a system until there’s a good library-hence the catch 22. though now it is HD, why bother getting a game on the wii u when you can get the same game on a ps4/xbox. it is the first party games people want and nintendo needs to start making games. that is their biggest problem.
It’s not necessarily the first-party games that most people want. Yes, maybe some people are content with playing the 50th Mario game in succession, but I’m not. I speak for a group of people that want good games, regardless of who makes them, with controls that aren’t batshit insane to operate. I like Mario – I really do. I think it stands for some of the highest quality in game development, but there’s only so much time that can be spent smashing little mushroom-headed baddies. Nintendo needs to evolve and grow-up with the group of people that supported them. Nostalgia only gets you so far.
* Sounds and looks like a peripheral for the Wii not a console. Confused many people. Especially as the remotes are the same, but the tablet thing is not.
* People bought Wii’s like they buy monopoly and scrabble. Once to bring out at parties. I don’t see them buying again.
* Wii U is as or less powerful than a PS3 or 360. It’s support from publishers has been hand me down old gen games. Right now there is no point developing an old gen game when the PS4 and X-One seem to be shifting.
* The UK has a vastly different gaming history than Japan or America. Our 80s and early 90s games machines were the ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga and other micro computers. There was a window from around 1992-96 when the SNES did get popular, but the Megadrive was equally popular. There are people like myself with no nostalgia or love for Nintendo (despite many attempts to get on the wagon).
So they brought a confusingly titled product to a market that had already been met to people with no rose tinted specs for their product.
has a “nostalgia” market in US and Japan (where also mobile gaming is a huge thing), that’s why they can get away with re-releasing the same old mario/zelda/pokemon crap each generation. Other than that and maybe some casual entertainment for kids/grandparents they don’t have a lot going for them.
Edited 2013-12-02 17:36 UTC
Nintendo’s console business (excluding handhelds) went into immediate decline after the NES, only perking up again with the Wii. All the intervening consoles — even the SNES — sold at least 10 million less than their predecessors.
Its true they seem to be gunning for a new low with the WiiU, but they’ll bounce back again. Eventually.
even with not great numbers the gamecube was still profitable. that was a well designed and balanced console. Nintendo seems to have serious problems with 3rd party developers.
Nintendo has deep pockets, and is doing well with mobile gaming, it doesn’t mean that the company isn’t in trouble. They could release a basic WiiU bundle for 150 USD, and I’d still be hard-pressed to make a decision toward buying it. I just don’t see much interest for the console out there, outside of hardcore Nintendo fans that HAVE to buy every Nintendo console.
It was released too late, with too little and confusing advertisement, and nothing really made people step back and say, “Wow, I have to have this.”. At least not like MS and Sony have done in the past.
Yes, proprietary disc formats haven’t done much for them, but I don’t think it has really hurt them, either. That’s their brand of copy protection. I truly believe the thing that really hurt them was wanting to keep console gaming into the living room, when console gaming was ready to evolve and step onto the Internet. Dreamcast’s online features were a huge seller for the console, and it has only gotten better over time.
Say what you will about the Dreamcast’s demise, but it was a beautiful console, way ahead of it’s time. Even to this day, I believe that if it were able to playback DVD movies, it would have held-up nicely against the PS2.
1. Barely updated its specs from the Wii (the Wii has poor specs to begin with)
2. It replaced the Wii key advantage those Wands with a large bulky controller.
Nintendo is just getting further behind. Which is sad.
Wiimotes can still be used, and I’d say that the hardware advancements to the Wii U from the original Wii are pretty substantial.
I believe the actual winner of the console wars is AMD.
Wii U GPU – AMD
PS4 GPU and CPU – AMD
XOne GPU and CPU – AMD
…for my young kids. There are plenty of Wii titles to choose from, but really nothing exciting beyond that. I don’t really regret the purchase, but I am pretty amazed at the slow rate of game adoption on the platform.
Wii U games cost $$$ (in my world at least). $40 dollars for a kids game is one thing, but $60 per game is ridiculous (especially when $2 tablet games can be just as entertaining for them).
Does Nintendo care? or need to care? As long as the Wii U is profitable. Nintendo don’t need to worry about selling a few consoles. If they only sold 5 consoles but they made more money back on them then they spent developing/marketing/selling them, then that’s a good deal for Nintendo. This is sort of like how people were saying that Apple is getting destroyed by Microsoft because they aren’t 90%+ of the market.
Edited 2013-12-02 20:26 UTC
If I had to buy one console, it probably would be Wii. Mostly because they are not PS4 or Xbox. But I’m not a console gamer, so I suppose I don’t count.
I wish Nintendo would develop their titles for Steam. But that’s probably hoping for too much.
I suppose as long as Nintendo is making money, they could care less how many consoles they sell. But at some point it will matter. Lets hope its not too little too late by that point.
Nintendo put themselves precisely in this position as soon as they announced the original Wii. It was that point in which they said they were focusing on casual gamers rather than the hardcore gamers. However, there are several issues they didn’t take into account before making this incredibly short-sighted decision:
– Casual gamers are fickle and will switch to another platform such as tablets or Facebook games at the drop of a hat
– Since casual gamers do not focus as much on graphics, it was going to be much harder to convince them to buy a new console
– When the hardcore gamers moved on to other consoles, they weren’t going to look back
– When the hardcore gamers moved on, many of the major third-party publishers didn’t bother releasing their titles on the Wii
– The Wii focused on party games and completely missed the boat on online gaming
While Nintendo still has billions in the bank to fund their next step, they have a big uphill battle to fight. Console gamers have given up on Nintendo and so have the publishers. Nintendo now needs to convince both sides that they can produce a console that gamers will buy and publishers can sell large quantities of games. At this point, the market has almost been reset. Just like BlackBerry lost marketshare and developers after iOS and Android disrupted the market, Nintendo is practically starting from square one – without gamers and publishers.
The simple fact is that if things could be like they were and Nintendo could make a console with substantial power and gain enough third-party developers back that I could own a single system and get all of the AAA games the other consoles have AND Nintendo titles, I would easily go with Nintendo’s console. Unfortunately, Nintendo is still chasing gimmicks such as tablet controllers. Nintendo: get back to your roots and produce a console for gamers with no gimmicks and content for older gamers (you know, the ones you got addicted to games back in the 80s).
both get back to their roots and exploit obvious opportunity. Sony and MS seem to both be in for grabbing more control. To me that means being indi friendly and more network able, perhaps even allowing people to run their own servers. Screw the EA type money grabs. They will get sales of first party titles if people buy the consoles. Nintendo doesn’t have to have the fastest hardware but it also shouldn’t be offensively slow like the wii was.
Huh? Nintendo has always been known for being control freaks when it comes to their platforms.
pretty much means they will crash and burn with their eyes wideopen.
“People, Nintendo is in deep, deep trouble.”
Please try to keep the sensationalism to a minimum.
You must be new here
When WiiU was first announced, it came around the time when mainstream gamers had lost their remaining enthusiasm for motion-control in their games. Then Nintendo promised us that touch-screens would open up new and exciting gaming experiences. It seems like they wanted to go put the DS experience on the big-screen TV, without realizing that mobile games have important differences from console games.
The WiiU launch was weak, and none of the new games seemed like a big step up from what we had on Wii. Things are a little better now with Wind Waker HD and Super Mario 3D World, but it’s doubtful that two games can turn around a console’s fortunes.
I have both a PS3 and a WiiU; when a game comes out for both platforms I usually pick the PS3 version. With the graphics being roughly equal, the PS3 versions tend to get released first and go on sale faster than the WiiU versions. While WiiU can handle ports of PS3 and XBOX360 games, it’s doubtful that PS4 or XBone games will get ported because WiiU lags so far behind in performance.
The only glimmer of hope for WiiU right now is that Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros WiiU will get people to flock towards WiiU after a console price cut. It definitely seemed like Mario Kart Wii sold a lot of consoles back in 2008. But the lack of third-party developers will ensure that WiiU will be for Nintendo fans only. A two-screen console is an unsalable gimmick, and it’s hard to see Nintendo producing another console after WiiU.
how often will people continue to buy nintendo hardware only to play only a handful of exclusives? I wouldn’t be surprised if people looked at their gathering-dust-Wii and decided not to buy another meh nintendo platform.
Edited 2013-12-04 03:17 UTC
As a BSD guy, I am really happy to see them using the FreeBSD kernel and giving the proper credit.