The Wii U had a 12-month headstart on the other next-gen consoles, but both the Xbox One and PS4 broke its entire lifetime sales record in a matter of days.
On the face of it, 2013 would appear to have been something of an annus horribilis for Nintendo – at least in terms of its home console business. Its forecast for 9 million Wii U sales for the fiscal year now looks hopelessly optimistic: with less than four months to go it has currently sold 4.3 million units, while the current rate of sales suggest it won’t come close to that early estimate. From April to June inclusively, the Wii U sold 160,000 units globally. During the same period, it was outsold by its predecessor, a console Nintendo hadn’t released a first-party game for in a year. Currently, it is tracking lower than the second-year sales for the GameCube and Sega’s ill-fated Dreamcast, while in the UK it suffered the ignominy of having its lifetime sales overtaken by the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 within two weeks. A year on from launch, and Nintendo has utterly squandered its head-start.
The reasons were simple: confused messaging and poor, or often non-existent, marketing. Updates to expanded audience favourites in the form of Wii Sports Club and Wii Fit U were inexplicably released as download-only software. The latter has since had a physical release, but hasn’t troubled the charts, unlike its successful forerunner, while the low member count of the regional clubs in the former suggest take-up has been worryingly low. Nintendo had high hopes for Super Mario 3D World, but it was embarrassingly outsold by Sony’s mediocre Knack at launch, though it will likely have a much longer tail. And while its disappointing sales could be attributed to underperforming hardware, releasing the game in the same week as the arrival of new consoles demonstrates a troubling naivety – and it was far from Nintendo’s only poor business decision this year.
Elsewhere, it seems that almost every month has seen analysts and industry veterans alike line up to stick the boot in, with many suggesting Nintendo should leave the hardware business. Regardless of their somewhat myopic comments – that not only ignore the rise of 3DS, which we’ll come to shortly, but the successes of the previous generation, not to mention Nintendo’s still healthy bank balance – Iwata’s next investor meeting will likely be an uncomfortable one for the under-fire president. Particularly so, given the substantial shortfall between reality and Nintendo’s hopes.
The Wii U’s gamepad has been criticised as an often gimmicky addition to games that fails to make up for the Wii U’s chronic lack of third-party titles.
What’s more, third parties are abandoning Wii U in droves. One of the most anticipated third-party releases, Rayman Legends, was delayed so that it could be ported to other formats – much to the chagrin of creator Michael Ancel. And this from Ubisoft, still one of Nintendo’s strongest third-party allies. FIFA 14 marked the first time in over a decade that the series hadn’t launched on a currently available Nintendo console; indeed, EA currently has no games in development for Wii U at all. And while the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution arrived in new-and-improved form, it’s hard to imagine anyone buying a console for a slightly enhanced version of a two-year-old game.
Nintendo simply doesn’t have the manpower to support Wii U alone. Already it has struggled to keep a steady enough flow of releases, not least because it has only recent encountered the difficulties in producing HD games in a timely fashion, a problem most developers were wrestling with a generation ago. Gunpei Yokoi’s philosophy of “lateral thinking with withered technology” may have served Nintendo well during the Wii and DS era, but the Wii U GamePad is a shaky hook, and no one’s biting. With fickle casual players having long since moved on, it’s now serving an army of Nintendo loyalists, along with families who game regularly, but no one else. It’s not as if the console audience isn’t there anymore – record-breaking starts for both PS4 and Xbone certainly suggest otherwise – but few are even considering Wii U as a second console. It simply doesn’t have enough games.
And yet its first-party output has been as strong as ever. In time, Pikmin 3 may well become known as one of Miyamoto’s best-ever games: it’s a beautifully tuned refinement of the first two games, with a delightful, engaging campaign and a compulsively brilliant mission mode that makes it two games in one. Likewise, Wii Sports Club and Wii Fit U are fine adjustments to existing templates. Super Mario 3D World is a front-runner for game of the year, while many were enraptured all over again by the HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Nintendo could certainly do with some fresh IP, though it could hardly be forgiven for relying on old standards when anything new it attempts struggles for attention. Burdened with a steep learning curve, Platinum’s The Wonderful 101 was nevertheless a bright, hyperactive delight, yet it tanked horribly at retail.
While the negative attention has been focused on the Wii U, the 3DS has been selling enough units to comfortably prop up the company’s hardware division single-handed.
So what can it do? A price cut seems out of the question given that Nintendo still claims not to be profiting on hardware. It has released several bundles that offer greater value, but one that is exclusive to Nintendo’s own online store tells its own story, highlighting an increasing reliance on its most beloved mascot. A Mario-themed controller, hat and three Mario games – one admittedly with his brother in the starring role – might go some way to explaining the lower than anticipated sales of 3D World. Perhaps some players are finally suffering from Mario fatigue. Nintendo will quietly be hoping that its raft of first-party titles for the first half of next year will begin to steady the ship. The likes of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2 and the new Super Smash Bros. – not to mention Monolith Soft’s mysterious X and the promise of a new Zelda – may just be enough to sway those tempted to invest once the volume of quality titles is too significant to ignore, though at present that feels like an optimistic standpoint.
Of course, focusing on Wii U is to tell only half the story, because in the last 12 months the 3DS has become arguably the most essential piece of hardware to own. After a sticky start to life, the handheld is flying off shelves, if not quite living up to the phenomenal sales of its predecessor. Yet 2013 saw critical hit after critical hit, from the bucolic Animal Crossing: New Leaf to the brilliant Fire Emblem: Awakening, Luigi’s Mansion 2 to Monster Hunter 3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds comfortably surpassed modest early expectations to become one of the finest entries in the series to date, as Pokémon X and Y invited a new generation of players to catch ‘em all, only this time in 3D.
Commercially, then, it may not have been Nintendo’s most enjoyable period, but the consistently high quality of its first-party titles made 2013 perhaps one of the strongest years for software it’s ever had. Whatever 2014 holds in store, if the same can be said in 12 months’ time, then those who’ve kept faith with Nintendo will reap the benefits – even if they arrive too late to prevent the man in charge of this ailing giant from being encouraged to fall on his sword.
The post State of Play 2013: Embattled Nintendo endures a difficult year, despite critical acclaim appeared first on Edge Online.
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