I've heard rumblings that some think the writing's on the wall for the Wii U after StarFox Zero. Should we take Nintendo's "close to the chest" approach for this year's E3 as them just being secretive as usual, or do you think they really don't have much more Wii U stuff after this year?

I'm hoping they were just being overly cautious, because the Wii U still feels like a pretty young system. It's only been out for 2 years and 8 months--it should be hitting its stride by this point! By comparison, here's where other Nintendo consoles were after about 2.5 years post-release...

NES: It was 1987. Super Mario Bros. TWO hadn't come out yet, much less Mario 3. Contra 1 wasn't out yet. Zelda 2, Lolo 1, Ninja Turtles 1 were pretty far away. Dr. Mario, Kirby's Adventure, Dragon Warrior 2 and Castlevania 3 weren't even close! Mega Man ONE had just come out.

SNES: It was 1993/early 1994. Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI, the first DKC, Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, Kirby Super Star were all in the future.

N64: 1999. No Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Tooie, Paper Mario, Conker, Harvest Moon 64.

GCN: 2004. Hadn't yet gotten...uh, Prime 2 and Resident Evil 4? Okay, GCN's last couple years were pretty lame.

Wii: 2009. A good year that included stuff like Little King's Story and Rune Factory Frontier. On the horizon was Galaxy 2, Red Steel 2, Monster Hunter Tri, GoldenEye, DKC Returns, and Kirby's Epic Yarn. And Other M!

The point is, it's too early for this system to keel over and whimper out! I don't want to see NX in 2016--a four-year cycle is painfully short for new hardware, and I like my Wii U. Do you think the end is approaching for Nintendo's all-too-young system?

I'm still not sure what a roundtable is.

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I'm not so sure about having two of them dominating the controller (though it may be better for PC games, which Valve is focused on), but I would sure as hell rather have one of those pads than a second analog stick. Valve deserves credit here.

Of course, people who are afraid of new ideas are already shunning the controller before even trying it.

Did the Wii U ever wind up? I can say that as a staunch Nintendo fan. Let things fizzle, I say. Let the Wii U wind down to a point where the world forgets about it. It's Nintendo's most forgettable system, despite some truly stellar experiences. It would be a waste to have top talent work further on Wii U, when such efforts would be better suited making the next system the best it can, and should be. Here's to N7 in early 2017!

@Hinph

Yea I can totally see the appeal of one conservative company that keeps things the way people like them now. But do we really need two that do practically the exact same things?

Doubtful they will have any other big games come out or they would have shared those details at E3,

I don't even think they should bother with the NX ,

They should become a 3rd Party developer and make games for the Ps4 & Xbox witch already have a 30 million + User base. (after xmas this year will more likely be 40 million User-base)

as for hand held, they have started making the move to make games for Mobiles, and i don't think it will be to long before they move to smart-phones only , Why invest millions into Tech when most smart-phones are already capable of running.

"The number of smartphone users worldwide will surpass 2 billion in 2016, according to new figures from eMarketer—after nearly getting there in 2015. Next year, there will be over 1.91 billion smartphone users across the globe, a figure that will increase another 12.6% to near 2.16 billion in 2016. - See more at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/2-Billion-Consumers-Worldwide-Smartphones-by-2016"

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/2-Billion-Consumers-Worldwide-Smartphones-by-2016/1011694

I blame Shadow Link.

I lol'ed.

@pho6os

As much as I would like to play Nintendo games on hardware I prefer the company just has way too much money and potential to make more to not try to make hardware that would be received better. If Nintendo was hemorrhaging money continuously for years and was on a string of console failures then it would be plausible. Currently though it's not a realistic turn of events.

What I do find interesting is that Nintendo is in a tight spot that seems to only be getting tighter. It will be extremely interesting to see how they navigate this situation and some of the decisions they've made already like making games for smartphones and getting involved with QoL technology are curveballs that make you wonder where they will end up.

My worry, pretty much from the day the Game Pad was revealed, was that the Wii U would become Nintendo's version of the Sega Saturn. By which I mean, it'll be such a misstep that it doesn't really matter that the console that comes after it will fix all its problems.

The quickest way to make that worry a reality is to shorten the life of the console. I'm a huge Nintendo fan and even I would give pause to the idea of buying a new console if there's no guarantee the damn thing is going to ever build a reasonable library. If we're looking at Wii U 2, I might simply stick to my classic library of games until the prices start coming down.

That said, the Wii U has had more to recommend it than the Saturn, right now. I sense its reputation has gotten a bit of a boost, recently, with games like Tropical Freeze, MK8, SSBWU and Splatoon. I hear people talk about wanting to get one, eventually. So that's good. But new consoles sell on a combination of potential and piggy-backing on the reputation the console-maker forged during the last generation. The NX is going to have to have a hell of a lot of potential if this is all we're getting out of the Wii U.

I never felt the Wii U was Nintendo's Dreamcast. But the NX sure could be.

@kriswright

I still think we could see a price drop this holiday. I may be wrong but I don't think they tend to announce those at E3. That might help sell it to some of those people you mention. And unless they've got a sure fire hit on their hands, I agree they should focus on staying in the good graces of fans and curious onlookers.

What made the Saturn so bad anyway? I mean I realize it didn't get a lot of the big PSX games, but were there other things I'm not aware of? Having owned a Genesis, I was planning on asking for one at some point until I played Mario 64 and it changed everything. Kind of funny how unaware of console stuff I was back then and how quickly that changed once I got an N64 and started rabidly following Nintendo sites.

@kriswright

Dreamcast makes me sad, because Sega really did do everything right with that system. In its short life, it actually sold more units than the Wii U has even yet to reach, and third parties were supporting it and making a profit. If Sega wasn't in such a financial pit, it's possible that the system could have had a full life and reached an installed base close to what Xbox and Gamecube reached, but they just couldn't risk the entire future of their company on it... I kind of wish they did, because they would be better off dead than in their current state if you ask me. Did you guys see the other day when the man single-handedly responsible for killing the quality of Sega games promised to start making quality games? Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.

@Jargon

I guess Saturn was really difficult to develop for and favored 2D games in an era when 3D was clearly the fad, and it was also $100 more than PlayStation... I think once Sony wooed over the likes of Squaresoft and Enix, it was over for Sega. It didn't help that two years after launch, somebody high in the company announced that "Saturn is not our future" and they were, indeed, already developing the Dreamcast. The system was actually doing a lot better in Japan, so those consumers no doubt felt burnt by this...

The president of Sega of America, who is the guy responsible for making the Genesis a success and keeping Sega alive in general, saw the disaster of the Saturn coming and tried very hard to steer their company in the right direction by either working as partners with Sony (who wanted a strong software partner rather than releasing a console alone) or developing a better next-gen system with Silicon Graphics (the tech that ultimately became the N64). The arrogant Japanese executives weren't having any of either of those plans and went ahead with Saturn.

@Hinph

The other big mistake of the Saturn, which isn't duplicated by the Wii U, was the bizarre decision to not expand on SEGA's existing IP. So there's no Sonic game, for instance. Can you imagine Nintendo releasing a console without Mario? That's nuts. On the upside, it gave room for Nights and Panzer Dragoon. But, man, it just felt like SEGA wasn't even trying.

@Zero

I didn't invite him here. I know his views.

We'll have to see if Paul Anka's guarantee is worth the piano it was played on.

@kriswright

Yeah, good point. I've got to respect Sega for always trying out new IP, but if there was any time to play it safe, that was it.

Oh yeah, they pissed off retailers too by suddenly deciding to release the system early to get a leg on Sony and shipping out tens of thousands of units to select retailers without any notification. KB Toys was so pissed that they dropped Sega products.

Simultaneously alienate publishers, fans, and retailers? You're gonna have a bad time!

Hinph said:

@kriswright It didn't help that two years after launch, somebody high in the company announced that "Saturn is not our future" and they were, indeed, already developing the Dreamcast. The system was actually doing a lot better in Japan, so those consumers no doubt felt burnt by this...

And that's basically the problem with the speculation about the early death of the Wii U. Nintendo is way too disciplined to outright say something stupid like that, but if that's the subtext customers start to get from Nintendo... well, same difference.

Yeah, I always watched those Michael Pachter episodes with my mouth practically agape when he used to suggest that Nintendo abandon the Wii U right away... has this guy paid any attention to the history of this industry at all?

Do you guys think that four years is really too short though? The original Xbox was only around for four years before it was replaced by the 360, and Microsoft somehow got a complete pass for their opportunistic behavior there. I don't recall anybody really complaining about that. It seems like another one of those situations where people are extra critical and abusive towards Nintendo. I guess social media wasn't quite as big back then and it would have been isolated to us geeks on gaming forums anyway though... I can definitely already see all of the stupid angry comments on Facebook, Youtube, and Reddit stirring up a rabble, so Nintendo does have to be pretty careful here.

Maybe the NX will be different enough that it can have a third pillar sort of feel and some continued minor support of the Wii U can keep some of that negativity at bay. If NX is an exciting enough product and it isn't super expensive, I can see people being a lot more forgiving in general.

I think Nintendo might kind of be shooting themselves in the foot here if the NX is a 2017 product by not just saying so, because the rumors of a 2016 successor have already started to spread, and it is going to increasingly hurt potential Wii U sales. Of course, announcing that it is a 2016 product without a proper reveal would be even more harmful, and maybe that is the actual case.

@Hinph

I think the difference with OG Xbox was that it had full 3rd party support, a large & diverse library, and most of the time the best versions of multiplatform games. So it was considered a success by most, esp. considering it was MS's first attempt to break into the home console market. Killing it early was a calculated move by MS to get a leg up on Sony for the upcoming console cycle, a move that largely worked when you look at the final numbers from last gen.

In contrast, Nintendo potentially killing Wii U support is a more damning move reflecting the console's under-performance and lack of software support worldwide. I think that's a different message than what MS was doing with OG Xbox, which most consider a success. Thus the free pass for MS vs. the potential jeers with Nintendo for torpedoing Wii U.

@New Forms

Yeah, I can see that. It looks more like surrender in Nintendo's case rather than "our work is done here, onto the next thing!" in Microsoft's case.

It's times like these where I wish the Wii U had a serial port and the NX was something like...



edit: I shouldn't be so vague. I'd love if the NX was an expansion onto the WiiU. Not a different media reader but a piece of hardware that functioned uniquely but worked with the Wii U.

@Abdooooo

It's the NX, not the 32X!

@Hinph

But I want my Wii U to live on forever!!!