Comment by giobox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giobox | Hacker News Reader

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> Nintendo has always been going strong, knows exactly WTF they're doing, executes with precision more or less, and is pretty much always successful

Perhaps, but I'd definitely class the Wii U as a misstep - sold poorly and clearly wasn't the right device for the market at that time. I really don't think Nintendo was sure at all what it was doing with the Wii U.

I've seen some theories that the reason the Switch has been so great is that given the relative failure of the Wii U they didn't have time to screw up the Switch with the usual supply of badly implemented software features that Nintendo have a bad habit of doing. Unlike the Wii, 3DS etc there is no step counters, web browsers, virtual console, streaming services, audio recorder, pointless low quality stereo cameras etc at launch on Switch - just a simple, lean focus on fun games. The 3DS and Wii were especially bad for pointless built in extra software. I'd honestly be perfectly happy with my Switch if none of those features, perhaps with the exception of Virtual Console, ever come back.

I also love how Nintendo are really embracing the indie game community with the Switch, a pleasant surprise given the less than brilliant relationship Nintendo has had there in the past.

And Wii U would have succeeded, had they called it something else. Most people were like, oh a "Wii"? Got one already, check, keep browsing for Christmas presents...

Agreed. It wasn't until about a year after it was released that I realized it was a different system. It seemed like a new controller for the original Wii.

Product differentiation was a big problem for Wii U. At one point a friend of mine asked me how much a Wii would sell for, this was well after the Wii U launch. I asked "Wii or Wii U" and she said "What's a Wii U?". The Wii U Gamepad failed at delivering the play however you want, whenever you want, experience that the Switch successfully executed on. It was the right direction but the implementation wasn't quite useful enough. I wouldn't have bought a Switch if I couldn't play it as a handheld, for example.

Also true, but my main point was that they even managed to miss the people who always buy the latest and greatest gadget for their grandchildren. Free money. On the table.

Yup. Scumbags broke into my house and stole my Wii-U (among other things). Insurance kept quoting me for a Wii... Had to correct them on numerous occasions.

Interesting argument, but it doesn't explain how MS and especially Sony get away with it every few years.

The Xbox and PlayStation appeal to a different audience, one more in tune with how gaming works. The Wii appealed heavily to non-gamers.

PlayStation is easy. One, two, three, four. Not hard to tell the difference. Xbox is a bit stranger, but still easy to tell apart because against its numbered and we’re used to numbered things being different from each other.

But Microsoft is headed down a Wii U-like path with the Xbox One... even as a gamer (who admittedly doesn’t own an Xbox), I have no idea if the Xbox One S is newer than the Xbox One X or what the difference actually is, and it’s not intuitive that the Xbox One S is actually appreciably different than the Xbox One other than being smaller.

Sony may find themselves in a similar pickle if people stop buying PlayStation 4 games because they’re unsure if they work on their PlayStation 4 Pro Or vice versa.

At this point I'd argue Sony/MS are like the General Electric of the gaming industry - a huge whale making a ton of products used by the industry at large, but not products anyone thinks are actually that innovative or interesting. The PS4 basically wins almost by default given the size of the installed base, and it has the titles a sizable slice of the market care about.

I hardly play any video games. When I heard about the Xbox One X, I figured it was the successor to the Xbox One like the Wii U is the successor to the Wii, but I found out that it's actually a high-end version of the Xbox One. It can be confusing!

> I'd honestly be perfectly happy with my Switch if none of those features, perhaps with the exception of Virtual Console, ever come back.

Perhaps? Man, the virtual console is a major draw for me. I only have a few games on it, but I view it as integral to the device. Every Nintendo platform needs a way to play the first four Super Mario titles, the early Zeldas, Metroid and Super Metroid at a minimum.

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