How doomed is Nintendo?

[A Black Falcon]

Actually the Wii U is selling behind the Gamecube's pace at the moment, at least in the US (and worldwide too I think). At this rate it'll be Nintendo's worst-selling home console. The sales of this November and December will be key for that, though... November sales are announced later this week, so we'll see!

I agree that there is no endless growth and expectations for the Wii U were probably too high, but to go from the #1 system of the generation to this, Nintendo obviously messed up somewhere. There are lots of theories about what they should have done instead, of course, but what they did do hasn't gone too well... but since they turned around the 3DS and still have sizable cash reserves, yes, Nintendo isn't going under anytime soon. Also they're probably going to make money this year; 2012 is the only year they lost money in their history. They did lose a lot of money last year, but things are going a little better this year... here's hoping December Wii U sales are good! Or at least not terrible.


As for the 3DS, its success has shown that yes, there is still a market for a dedicated handheld. Because of the rise of smartphones and tablets the system is nowhere remotely near DS sales numbers -- those tens of millions of casual gamers who got 3DSes are satisfied with phones/tablets now, clearly -- but the market for real games on handhelds is still there, for sure, and that's a very good thing. We need to continue to have things that are better than free-to-play-with-microtransactions junk on portables!