As far as I can see the only difference between a gimmick and an innovation is whether you like it or not.

Some truth in what you say. However, I do think Nintendo has been innovative. That said, innovation does not always pay off. The Atari Jaguar was the world's first 64-bit system. You know how "well" that did! Nintendo also had the Virtual Boy. I thought that was quite innovative, but destined to fail. The 3DS is the first system I know of that allows for 3D graphics without the use of glasses. Nintendo obviously did not produce the 3D technology, but they are the first to apply it to a video game system (or any such portable device as far as I know). So I think it's safe to say they are quite innovative. That said, I also agree that they are often behind industry standards. I'm guessing Nintendo was pushing for cartridges when the world was moving to CDs because of pirating issues. They have also been behind the times in terms of graphics, although that is not such a terrible thing in my book (I'll take fun over pretty graphics any day). I think their biggest mistake with the Wii U is simply not having enough "good" games. I think their pad is innovative, but again, innovation and success don't always go hand-in-hand. Like many, I think Nintendo should drop the pad and lower the price. Most importantly, produce more games. A Zelda remake just does not do it for me. Also, speaking of behind the times, and I've said this many times, Nintendo never uses voice in their games. Some people think this is minor, I think it's a big deal and shows how arrogant Nintendo can be. Could you imagine if the next Halo, Uncharted, or whatever series came out with their next installment and the dialogue was all text?! People would trash the game just for that! But, in Nintendo's case, people seem to overlook it with lame excuses such as "oh, it's a Zelda game"... so what! I really think these "little" issues are part of Nintendo's bigger problem.

I love Nintendo games, but I think Nintendo badly miscalculated with the Wii U from a hardware perspective. It's fine if Nintendo wants to cede the hardcore gamers to Sony and Microsoft, but if it wants to be the family console, it has to release a family friendly device, and the Wii U is so not that. It has an archaic, consumer-unfriendly user account system, an expensive, complicated controller, minimal storage space with no easy way to upgrade (sorry, adding an external HDD is not "easy" for families), a confusing name, and a too-high price tag.

The family market is dominated by Apple's devices with robust account systems and very cheap or free games. The traditional path to console acceptance in the household is to make a device that appeals to the high-end, hardcore user since they will advocate to it get in the living room. The Wii didn't need this approach because it was truly new and captured the hearts and minds of the non-gamer audience. That audience has moved on to smartphones and tablets. They won't come back to consoles until something wows them the way the Wii did, and that kind of lightning rarely strikes twice.

At this point, I see little chance of Nintendo being able to "save" the Wii U. It's likely the company will have to double down on hardcore Nintendo fans and just keep them happy with Nintendo games until it can release a new platform in 2016 or 2017. If it can manage 20 million units over the Wii U's life by giving Nintendo fans great games, that will be good enough even if the market judges the system as a failure. But Nintendo must be good to its fans -- it will need them to advocate for the new platform. First and foremost, the user account system must be fixed. After that, cross-buy and a subscription-based all you can eat Virtual Console service should come next. The GameCube met a similar fate, but at least it had some third party support throughout its life. The Wii U is unlikely to have much if any outside of indies going forward, so it will be all up to Nintendo to make people care.

As for Nintendo's next platform, I think its best bet is to merge its handheld and console lines into one device that can be played as a handheld or as a console. Basically, a handheld system with a TV-dock and separate controller for when you want to game on the TV. Alternatively, Nintendo could stick with the two lines model but have them both run a single OS and account system to make the transition from console to portable seamless. Regardless what it does, it will be interesting. Nintendo is often at its most creative when it's backed into a corner, so I'm looking forward to how it will respond to the changing market.

Yeah, we got the 64 DD, GBA connectivity, remote controls, a tablet for a controller and an exercise board.

My prediction...Iwata is gone within a year and hopefully someone with the business and gaming smarts comes in and gives Nintendo a swift kick in the ass.

When picking up the Wii U, I figured to myself "well even in a worst case scenario, it'll be a box to play Nintendo console games this generation."  Looks like worst case scenario has arrived.  I guess I'm really not terribly bothered by it since I'm one of those funny people who just plays games for all kinds of hardware and tries to stay out of the stupid "X SUUUUUCKS AND Y RUUUUULES" fanboyism that pervades the internet.  I'll definitely get at least a PS4 down the road and I'll be jumping on the Vita train as soon as the Vita TV launches in some form here. For now as far as the Wii U goes, it's had a year and has some pretty freaking awesome games out for it.  I'm glad that I have the thing because Nintendo still has a corner of the software market that NOBODY ELSE DOES (anymore????). 

All that said, Nintendo's complacency has not served it well.  They'd better damn well have some kind of plan, because their current position is pretty unenviable.  I mean, their war chest is ENORMOUS so they can survive taking several big blows, but something's gotta change if they want to survive a rapidly changing market.  I have mixed feelings about it, too, because of all the Japanese development studios, they're really the ONLY one (except maybe Atlus?) that I really still see as putting out things I'm dying to play.  If they change TOO much, they'll no longer have that difference that makes me interested in the first place.  I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it - I do NOT want them to exit the hardware business because that decimated the Sega that I loved when it happened.

Speaking of Sega, a quick count shows that I've reached half the number of Wii U games that I own for the Saturn or the Dreamcast.  Even if the thing only lasts another year's worth of new games - as long as their quality stays where this year's releases have been - I'll consider it a worthwhile console in my collection.  If it dies early, it dies early, but like other "failed" consoles I own all I care about are the experiences that I get from it during its short life.

Oh, and Rein, you're more than free to dislike the innovations that Nintendo has made in recent times, but it's really hard to take the argument seriously when you say things that they do differently are not innovative.  I mean, heck, the definition of innovation IS "something new or different introduced."  Just because you don't LIKE touch screen gaming or motion control doesn't mean that Nintendo didn't play a major role in their popularization.  Most motion control outside of a few very notable exceptions ended up being terrible, but that doesn't mean they didn't inspire Move and Kinect!

I like this idea very, very much.  I felt like Sony keeps ALMOST getting to that point with their portables, but not quite being what I want (the PSP 2000 and 3000 output to a TINY BOX on the screen, the PSP Go is... the PSP Go, and the Vita has gotten a TV box and not just a simple TV out).  With handheld gaming now the home of a lot of the type of games I used to like to play on consoles, I'd love to just merge those two things so I have a choice as to where I get to play them!

Joe, I'm not trolling you at all, but I have to ask seriously...What games are you referring to? I got the 2 Marios down, I'll throw in Super Luigi for the heck of it, Sonic Lost World looks like a nice pickup at some point, Nintendoland looks okay as a freebie (I haven't opened mine yet) and...uh, that's it. At least if we're talking exclusives (I never count multi-platform games, probably why we disagree on the GC library a lot). Are you counting the Wind Waker remake?

And Saturn (at least in the US), I'll grant you that. But Dreamcast had a better first year than most consoles had lifespans, although I think you REALLY had to like fighters (especially Capcom fighters) to get the most out of it. And I'm not taking stuff like Quake or the sports games into account.

And just because Sony and Microsoft ripped off Nintendo's motion controls doesn't make any of the three a particularly good idea. One could argue making Kinect mandatory gives Microsoft a distinct disadvantage in this generation, as it jacks the price up for a worthless peripheral.

The Wonderful 101.

Worth the price of a Wii U alone.

Ha, okay you got me there. That game has some serious style (although various youtube comments mirrored my thoughts about it resembling Viewtiful Joe quite a bit). Looks like it's worth a shot.

It's worth nothing that the "remote controls" and "exercise board" you mention as negatives were both enormously successful in the marketplace and made Nintendo a ton of money. Not every idea is a hit, but those two more than made up for the 64DD and GBA connectivity fumbles. Who's to say Nintendo's next innovation won't make up for the gamepad fumble?

They made money on them, sure, but with who? Middle-aged women? Grandmas? People too lazy to go to the gym? This is also the same audience the Wii U has completely failed to capture. Certainly no one I know that is even remotely (yuk yuk) serious about gaming cares about these.

If push came to shove, I'd gladly prefer Nintendo to go bankrupt and die off than continue to exist as a gimmicky peripheral pushing company that targets middle aged moms that can't go to the gym. They were dangerously close to being just that during the Wii years.

put every single older game up on virtual console for download.  EVERY SINGLE ONE.  this will make them money and make people very happy.

Are you suggesting that these demographics and the success found within them don't count, because you and your friends aren't among them? I also find it strange that you mock these demographics, which you apparently believe don't have a rightful place in Nintendo's consumer base, and then immediately chide Nintendo for failing to capture them again.

I am shocked by how many times I've read "I hope Nintendo dies" (paraphrasing) in this thread; I personally left that sort of animosity in the schoolyard. Generally speaking, if I dislike a company or become disenchanted with one, I just stop paying attention to it; I don't thirst for its blood. I truly can't understand the feeling behind "I'd rather them go bankrupt than cater to an audience that's not me."

I had a lot of fun playing Wii (altogether probably more than with my PS3 so far).  A lot of that time was spent with people who normally weren't that big into games and a good part of it was with games that had some motion controls.

If Nintendo can appeal to audiences outside of traditional gamers and can appease their fans as well I don't see the problem.  Goldfish, I think your affinity for old-school games (particularly high-precision fighters) has you somewhat further on the anti-Wii extreme than most.

The main difference with Wii U (aside from the changing market) is the hardware feature/gimmick they've bet the platform on doesn't especially appeal to any audience and is pricing their hardware higher than it should be for fans who just want to play Nintendo games.

This is the exact same thing I've been thinking.  Nintendo will be loathe to lose their two-platform revenue stream but better to leverage their success in handheld gaming into a single successful platform while they can.  Handheld computing power keeps growing, Nintendo don't care for high-spec, resource-intensive development anyway, and going with a single affordably priced platform would allow them to focus on what they do best, which is making games.

I stand by what I said...If Nintendo wants to go after people that aren't serious about gaming with stuff like motion control and exercise boards (and I specifically said IF that's the ONLY thing they end up doing, which it isn't, but it came dangerously close to that in the Wii era), they can go bye bye for all I care because that would mean they're long dead anyway. They pumped out enough real games during the Wii era that this didn't happen. Granted, a few required stupid things like wiggling the controller for onscreen movement, but it was nice seeing 2D make a semi-comback all the same (I can't hate on the fact that the best Wii U launch title was a console 2D platformer). I think it's just beautiful, bitter irony that they went on to lose all the casual gamers they acquired to tablet, internet and phone gaming and $1 downloadable crap games (as opposed to full priced crap games)

I've also said the same thing about Sony and Microsoft about Move and Kinect...if they were to become the focus of either company's videogame agenda, I'd rather they just pack up and go home instead of littering the videogame market with junk. If 14 year old girls jumping around to Just Dance is the future of videogaming, I want no part of it.

So chill out, I gave a hypothetical situation regarding Nintendo's demise, which hasn't happened yet and is highly unlikely. And essentially, yes, I am saying those demographics don't count. They definitely aren't counting now for the Wii U, they're too busy playing Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga.

It seems to me that your definition of both gaming and ("serious") gamers is very narrow, and that you tend to reject change and embrace rigidity ("2D comeback good, motion controls bad"). What constitutes a video game has broadened in scope; it still includes everything we've known and loved, and expanded to include things that appeal to others as well. For my part, I too am not enticed by most of these new concepts, but I still fail to see why said expansion is a bad or threatening thing. By now, karaoke singing games, pretend guitar playing games, exercising games, and candy crushing games have been long established, but as best I can tell, they haven't prevented the kind of games I love from being produced. The former is produced alongside the latter, not in place of.

What is clear is that trying to appeal solely to one camp of gamers and rejecting another isn't going to be a winning strategy. The notion that Nintendo going after "casual" gamers "mean(s) they're long dead anyway" seems very short-sighted. At this point, not going after them is a self-defeating move, as would neglecting "serious" gamers. I wouldn't say I'd flown off the handle in the first place, but it's hard to "chill out" when you brazenly assert that people who like things you dislike don't count. Whether you agree or not doesn't change the reality of the situation, though; they're part of the fold, and an important component of any console's strategy.

Go look at your nearest shelf of Wii games for sale and tell me what you see. FOR THE MOST PART (not counting the handful of good games) I see crappily made games that are horribly overpriced in exchange for the 10-15 minutes of entertainment they offer. These games have now been replaced by cheaper or even free alternatives, so they can no longer be counted as a source of revenue. So no, they don't count anymore. Not all are Nintendo games, but they certainly didn't stop 3rd parties from dumping this garbage onto the console and effectively drowning it.

Now look at the handful of good games, the Mario Galaxies, the Kirby's, DKC Returns, the small handful of good 3rd party games that were actually released, etc (I'll even give you controversial ones like Other M, Brawl and Skyward Sword...Kirby's Yarn might be stretching it though) and count how many there are. Nintendo didn't exactly flood the market with quality software over the past 7 years. They need more of the games in THIS paragraph, not the ones in the first paragraph. Nintendo is getting pissy because people won't pay the same $30-$50 for motion-controlled mini game compilations and they're losing money as a result. That is a GOOD thing to me. Hopefully it will force them to up their quality and their quality standards.

You're not going to change my mind on this. I would seriously advise you to stop attempting it, as you're wasting keystrokes. This isn't exactly a new position I'm expressing.

That's true of every console. The longer the lifespan, the more true that becomes. You can't tell me with a straight face that any Sony or Microsoft console library doesn't have a similar crap:gold ratio, especially if you discount multi-platform games.

My goal isn't to change your mind, it's to express my views in response to your own.

Actually, staggering releases makes more money, because the more "new" there is, the more they will be in the forefront of people's mind.
That said, they should be releasing them at a much greater rate than they are.

You're right, I can't. There were a lot of games put out this past generation I just don't have much of an interest in and outside of fighters, guitar games (I've always appreciated the old school mentality of these, not to mention the music) and Xbox Live re-releases, my own library is quite limited. I never once implied that Sony or Microsoft were better off than Nintendo in that regard. But I'm rather handicapped, because so many first person shooters all look the same to me, I'm not fit to judge their quality (not to mention the fact that most Japanese developers slept through last generation) Your typical minigame compilation, on the other hand, 5-10 minutes is all I need (if that) to tell whether it's junk or not. Usually an instore demo is more than enough.

In a twist of irony, I would have to say the Wii has more exclusive games worth playing than either PS3 or 360 did last generation, once all the crap (or being politically correct, "games I'm not interested in") is filtered out. And as hard as I am on Nintendo, I haven't once given Sony the benefit of the doubt, due to the fact that they botched their launch by pricing PS3 far too high (the only reason I went with 360). They probably helped Nintendo out of the gates as much as having Zelda as a launch title did. This time around, there isn't a $350 price difference between the two. That is probably also hurting Nintendo. Sony got smart, Microsoft and Nintendo got dumber (although $300 for the Wii U with the two New Mario/Luigi games is much better than a 360 with a Kinect)

Also remember...You're talking to someone who's primarily a retro gamer that favors the 8, 16 and 32 bit eras.

Believe it or not, so are you!

True.

This.  very much this.  I know they have to reconfigure the game for the gamepad and the controls, but they should have a dedicated team pumping these out.

It's funny how the argument here a it casual vs serious gamers is a direct parallel to the argument made on WoW forums every single day.

Whatever position you take and whatever kind of player you are doesn't change the fact that companies would not be successful if it wasn't for both parties.

I feel like if Nintendo can open up third party development to not be as restrictive and suffocating it would help. I'd also like to see it support mobile/portable area better than it currently does. The whole being able to play ps4 games anywhere with a wifi connection and a vita is -huge-, if Nintendo could implement something similar for mobile platforms that would help a lot. And maybe make the virtual console cross platform and start putting them on mobile/portable devices.

I don't know... looking at a rack of used Wii games it seems awfully easy to pick out the shovelware compared to the PS3 and 360 racks....

Has anyone here been hearing about the Wii Fusion rumors...? Supposedly some website has specs for this new console or something. If I was Nintendo I'd smush those rumors are hard and fast as I could cause new console talk is the last thing the WiiU needs.