What Happened, Nintendo? How to Turn Around the Floundering Wii U

Mario, Zelda, and Kirby. Ahh, the good old days.  Remember when you sat in front of your TV screen — controller in your hand, on your last life, while pushing through the level?  All good memories.  Some games still have this effect.  As I am 26, all I have been doing lately is remembering.  This is what brought me to Nintendo…

What happened to Nintendo?

I know that Nintendo has not gone to the wayside — they are making money after all. Nintendo has offered new purchasable StreetPass games that have already proven to be very popular.  Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told the Japanese site, Tokyo Keizai Online, that in the month since the games’ release, approximately $4 million in profit has already been generated.

On the other side, the Wii U is in dire straights.

The games are not developing on the Wii U, and they are leaving out features that will be on other platforms.  Most recently, Batman: Arkham Origins multiplayer and Splinter Cell: Blacklist offline co-op.  The Wii U is hemorrhaging money.  In the latest report, only 160,000 consoles were sold around the world over the three month period, bringing the total to 3.61 million.  This quarter saw the total first-party software sales for the console only amount to 1,030,000 units for the Wii U.  Is Nintendo blind to this?  Do they even care?  Nintendo sounds like a girl I used to date; she was beautiful but she did not take care of herself. Enough about my love life, let’s get back to the point: the Wii U is in trouble.    

The Wii is outpacing the Wii U — this is the main problem for Nintendo.  

In my humble opinion, there is only one way they can stop this.  Bring out the big guns: Zelda, Metroid, and Star Fox.  The only way the Wii U demand is going to pick up is with a steady flow of strong titles — and that isn’t going to come from third parties.  That creek needs to become a flowing river, or else just dry up.

Another way I believe they can do this is through old 8-Bit games.  It would seem you could make money from these faster as opposed to the newer, next-gen, games.  Not to knock these new games, but I do love the older games.  They were simplistic.  All you need to do is have updated sprite graphics, some HD, and better animation.  How much could it really cost?  $1,000,000 is chump change to Nintendo for a remake of Punch-out.  I would want a straight up 8-Bit version of Punch-Out — I would pay 10 bucks for that.  Look at the game company Capcom. They made an 8-Bit version of the Mega-Man series, and it is the greatest game ever. They updated it!

Take note Nintendo, this is how you do it.

Other independent game companies are taking note of this trend.  Some of the games that I have played and seen are Super Meat-boy, Terraria, and Joe Danger.  If you make something for the fans, they will respond.  Q-Games made some great games with Pixeljunk such as, Shooter 1&2 and Pixeljunk HD.  Just update some of those classic games.  Who here would not like a updated Metroid 8-Bit game, or a Zelda game while we wait for the next-gen game to come out?  It should not take the whole of Nintendo to make the games.  I know they had just released most of these games on the shops, but they should make a direct sequel to the older games.  I would even like an Excitebike or an Ice Climber sequel! The NES Remix is a fun distraction, but it did not create the excitement that The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds created. 

The Wii U needs some first party titles.  

Third-party titles are going to motivate some, but not in the numbers that Nintendo needs.  Is Nintendo in trouble?  No.  But it is impossible not to deny that the Wii U needs jumpstart, like a stalled car in the winter.  If Nintendo does not do something, it will get harder to climb out of this pit.

I really want Nintendo to get up and fight with Sony and Microsoft.  I just don’t know if they can do it in time.  

So, what do you think?  How can Nintendo rise up again?  Answer in the comments below.  This is your friendly neighborhood MXAGhost writer… Signing off for now.

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