… And Nintendo’s latest console has sold half as much as Sega’s console swan song.
This information comes from MCV writer Ben Parfitt “DreamCast completed it’s global roll-out by November 1999 and was discontinued in March 2001. Technically it was released a year earlier than that in Japan, but even when you remove Japanese DreamCast sales altogether (2.8m out of 10.6m) Wii U sales still lower.”
Back in 1999 Sega first released the Dreamcast to a very lukewarm reception in North America and just a year and five months later it was discontinued due to a lack of interest mainly because of the rise of the Playstation 2 and the recently announced Gamecube. Of course, after Sega’s withdrawal from the console market left the space for Xbox to rise from the ashes.
It’s not too late for the Wii U to come out of limbo and with E3 around the corner Nintendo will hopefully drop a bombshell of an announcement, but if their presentation is as disappointing as it has been in previous years then the Wii U is in a real predicament.
So what do you think Nintendo needs to do to remedy this situation?
I have 30+ games for my Dreamcast. So far I only have 12 games for my Wii U and while some are awesome, some are merely average, like Game and Wario and Nintendo Land.
Of course if I added some eShop games into the mix my tally of games would be much higher, but those games aren't system sellers. And Nintendo fans tell me not to be concerned with how well the system sells, just enjoy the games, and they are right mostly, but we have little to no decent 3rd party games coming, and most of the ones we have had were old or missing features or had graphical issues. And Nintendos first party efforts while decent and occasionally brilliant, have been far too far and few between to make it any easier on a Nintendo fan like me.
So, I believe there is no hope for Wii U other than a massive price cut, and a whole heap of games that should have come out in the systems first year. If the Dreamcast and Gamecube have outsold the Wii U at this point in their lives, then there really isn't any more they can do other than make some quality games like MK8 and SSB and hope that they sell enough too cover costs of the system being phased out while they wait and release something else.
This E3 will show us how dead the Wii U is. Last year was the unsuccessful relaunch of the Wii U after the year befores failed attempt to hype up the actual launch. They can't try to do the same thing again. I don't think a tiny video of the next Zelda game is going to make a difference in this day and age like it used to.
Where are the fighting games? Where are the racing games? Where are the action games besides Lego? Where are the RPGs? Where are the MMORPGs?
I have loved playing my Wii U, but it will forever be the console that should have, because it had so much potential. The Dreamcast on the other hand exceeded my expectations at the time with online gaming via dial up even, excellent games in almost every genre, plus a fairly constant stream of awesome games always coming until it was put to rest. The Wii U has months and months and months wait between big games and when we get them we find the selling point of the console, the Gamepad, gets largely ignored.
We won't see a new system at this e3, or one get announced. What we will get is some ludicrously positive PR spin on a hopeless situation, with Nintendo hoping to WIN e3 by showing a lame 5 second clip of the new Zelda that will come out at the end of the Wii U's life to hopeless sales and they will expect us to lap it up. Nope. Not this time.
Isn't the Wii U exactly what I said it would be when it launched? It's killing the company. I'm stunned fanboys continue to defend it.
And MK8 launches with Watch Dogs. Good luck with that.