5th January 2014, 11:06 AM
We have that, it's called the 3DS.
Frankly, I've been having great fun on my Wii U, and I can say this: Rayman Legends really puts that second screen to use. NintendoLand does as well, being a collection of mini-games more engaging than the Wii Sports collections.
All said, it doesn't appear to have been doing very well. It certainly is no Virtual Boy, but yeah, it's becoming clear that Nintendo is going to be a third tier this gen. What can I say in their defense? Well, unlike Sega, Nintendo isn't trailing a constant stream of failed consoles (the Genesis did well in the US, but bombed in Japan, and the Saturn did well in Japan, but bombed in the US). Nintendo came off one of the most successful consoles ever with the Wii, and the 3DS is selling like crazy at this point. I think Nintendo is sitting in a good enough position that the Wii U will last an entire generation even at Dreamcast level sales.
That said, I suspect that in the next generation, Nintendo will call off this "make the consoles only as strong as the last generation" design that they started with the Wii. They may decide that the only way to compete is to make a console as expensive and powerful as their competition (like how the Gamecube and every system before that was in the same league as the systems it sold alongside). The Wii U gamepad is incredibly bulky, but frankly not too overwhelmingly big. It is surprisingly light for the size and I've not had much of an issue, but taking away analog triggers was a big mistake I think. They'll have to undo that in the next generation.
All I can say is Nintendo has at least embraced online in a way we haven't seen before. There's work to be done, but if they have to spend a whole generation getting that sorted out, it'll be worth it. At any rate, I don't think that this generation is going to "kill" Nintendo, any more than the utter failure of the Vita will "kill" Sony. What would kill them is a combined failed launch of both a portable system and a home console, right after a generation of a failed console.
Frankly, I've been having great fun on my Wii U, and I can say this: Rayman Legends really puts that second screen to use. NintendoLand does as well, being a collection of mini-games more engaging than the Wii Sports collections.
All said, it doesn't appear to have been doing very well. It certainly is no Virtual Boy, but yeah, it's becoming clear that Nintendo is going to be a third tier this gen. What can I say in their defense? Well, unlike Sega, Nintendo isn't trailing a constant stream of failed consoles (the Genesis did well in the US, but bombed in Japan, and the Saturn did well in Japan, but bombed in the US). Nintendo came off one of the most successful consoles ever with the Wii, and the 3DS is selling like crazy at this point. I think Nintendo is sitting in a good enough position that the Wii U will last an entire generation even at Dreamcast level sales.
That said, I suspect that in the next generation, Nintendo will call off this "make the consoles only as strong as the last generation" design that they started with the Wii. They may decide that the only way to compete is to make a console as expensive and powerful as their competition (like how the Gamecube and every system before that was in the same league as the systems it sold alongside). The Wii U gamepad is incredibly bulky, but frankly not too overwhelmingly big. It is surprisingly light for the size and I've not had much of an issue, but taking away analog triggers was a big mistake I think. They'll have to undo that in the next generation.
All I can say is Nintendo has at least embraced online in a way we haven't seen before. There's work to be done, but if they have to spend a whole generation getting that sorted out, it'll be worth it. At any rate, I don't think that this generation is going to "kill" Nintendo, any more than the utter failure of the Vita will "kill" Sony. What would kill them is a combined failed launch of both a portable system and a home console, right after a generation of a failed console.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)