Can Nintendo save themselves from themselves?

[Doctor Oak]

It's been an insightful day for Nintendo fans. First Nintendo announced that starting with New Super Mario Bros. 2 in August, they'll be selling first party 3DS and Wii U games online in their respective digital storesalongside their physical retail copies from the day of release. Later, someone at Ubisoft gave the entire Wii U game away alongside confirming the existence of the recently heavily rumoured sequel to Rayman Origins - Rayman Legends - by leaking a trailer for the Wii U version of the game online.

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[precita]

Nah, I think Nintendo just got lucky with the Wii. Most likely they're going to get Gamecube'd again, (as in, the system will still have high quality first party games, but will likely not sell as well as it should), this time around.

Likewise if the Wii-U is ONLY as powerful as the PS3/360, what happens in the next few years when the PS4 and the next Xbox come out? Then once again Nintendo's console will be underpowered compared to the competition, and once again third parties will move on to the more powerful console.

At this point its obvious Nintendo is just going to keep being Nintendo. They have never had good third party support since the Super Nintendo days, the N64/Gamecube/Wii all had a terrible library outside of first party titles and a select few third party exclusives. On top of that the Japanese game industry as a whole is failing and falling behind western devs.

Like most people, my view on Nintendo back in 2006 is very different to what it is now in 2012. While the Wii-U will likely be successful, I definitely don't see it being the hit the Wii was and they're just going to screw themselves over again once Sony and Microsoft come out with their next consoles in 2013.

 

[Linkachu]

Likewise if the Wii-U is ONLY as powerful as the PS3/360, what happens in the next few years when the PS4 and the next Xbox come out? Then once again Nintendo's console will be underpowered compared to the competition, and once again third parties will move on to the more powerful console.

DoctorOak once made a fair point regarding the graphical power of Wii U. Regardless of how powerful the Wii U ends up being, it'll still be a full 1080p HD console. As long as the Wii U controller can properly emulate the gameplay of the most notable 3rd party games it won't be as large a gap as Wii (which lacked HD) was compared to PS3/360. Plus Wii U isn't going to look all jagged and fugly on our newfangled TVs.

What matters most is if the price matches the quality. If Nintendo thinks they can sell this console at an uber high price simply because it uses the tablet controller they're going to be making a huge mistake. I think it should come in around $300 US, possibly up to $350 US max. Anything more than that would be ridiculous. The fact that Ninty is being so secretive about its final price (ie. not sharing it at this year's E3) makes me a bit wary of what it'll actually be considering what happened with 3DS.