Wii-U is killing Nintendo

[Grauniad]

I guess apart from the Mario franchises, there isn't really much in Nintendo's stable - and I'm saying this as a Wii owner.

Now it turns out that Nintendo has slashed their forecast for how many units they're hoping to sell by a massive 70% down to 2.8 million from an earlier, hoped for 9 million units. This estimate is for sales from April 2013 to March 2014, so we're pretty far along the way, and I'm guessing Nontendo[sic] has been looking into this abyss for a while and hoping that Christmas sales would bring a miracle. Since that hasn't happened, they're telling investors the bad news now.

3DS sales is also taking a massive hit, dropping from a hoped-for 18 million units to a now-expected 13.5 million.

Of course, this is going straight to their bottom line, with them now expecting a loss of almost US$240 million as opposed to almost double that amount in profit last year.

Stick around. If Nintendo can't pull a rabbit out of a hat, you're in a prime position to see the venerable gaming company becoming history.

http://www.dailytech.com/Nintendo+Slashes+Wii+U+Sales+Forecast+by+69+Percent/article34157.htm

[Flabort]

Well, that's disappointing.
I'm greatly enjoying my Wii U, and many of the games I have. It's a huge hit at parties (One of Nintendo's strongest areas), and I have greatly enjoyed many of the side features as well (such as using the Gamepad as the TV remote).
Pikmin 3 was as awesome as promised, and while not as long as I thought it might be, it was very satisfying to play through.
And of course, it has the most potential in it's GPU that any Nintendo system has ever had.

My one gripe would be the price of most downloadable content, and how much people argue over the Gamepad when I bring my system+games over.

I won't be very happy should they collapse... where will I get my non-gory non-swearing video games if they bow out? I mean, Microsoft has games like Chainsaw Lolipop, and Sony has BMXXX. Both extreme ends of the spectrums, but basically not many games fall on the acceptable side of either line in those two companies for me... Yes, I grew up rather sheltered, but I enjoy "fun", not "f**k".

[knucracker]

Sega anyone?

[Flabort]

Sega anyone?

The game that took me the longest to find again after my parents got rid of it ( :'():
Dark Wizard, Sega CD.

Or did you mean, this is similar to the way that Sega killed themselves with a console that was ahead of it's time and poorly made as a result?

[knucracker]

That...
Nintendo's main value is in their game franchises.  Their hardware day's are numbered.  They will become a game software company, downsize, and get out of the hardware business... at least that is the path they are on right now.

[Kingo]

What really sunk Nintendo was the plethora of DS variants they invested heavily in.
Of course, Nintendo is in its own world in terms of games. That's why they have hung on.

[hbarudi]

NO! The Nintendo 3DS is one of the best handheld consoles of all time, the sony playstation portable has so many versions and incompatibilities that I would prefer 3DS and even normal DS over the sony hndheld gaming stuff.