QUOTE | “I think we are right at that tipping point where we have a lot of great content that is about to be released for [the Wii U] that’s going to tempt gamers into buying the system.” — Scott Moffitt, EVP of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America, talking about how the Wii U is about to have a 3DS-like turnaround.
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “This is going to take off like wildfire… within some number of years, almost every household out there will be enjoying VR.” — Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, talking about the company’s move into publishing games.
QUOTE | “It would be disingenuous for me to sit here and say, ‘we will never have an issue again,’ because that would mean we were never going to push the boundaries again. And I don’t want to be that company.” — EA CEO Andrew Wilson, talking about the launch problems of Battlefield 4.
QUOTE | “The people who say they’re not doing anything new, well, why don’t they make the same amount of money by doing nothing new as well?” — Dr Reiner Knizia, award-winning designer of over 500 games, talking about why King Digital and its Candy Crush Saga game fascinate him.
STAT | 52 per cent — Amount US physical retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories increased in May over last year, according to NPD; this was driven by releases like Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8.
QUOTE | “You don’t really get a successful project unless you’re able to build a community around you based on trust.” — Cindy Au, VP of community for Kickstarter, talking about the impact of Kickstarter on gaming.
QUOTE | “Listening is really the key for us. It’s been a journey over the last year… we have gotten real focused.” — Matt Booty, GM of Redmond Game Studios for Microsoft, talking about how the company has changed its approach to the Xbox One.
STAT | 268 — Number of people paid by Cloud Imperium to work on Star Citizen; the game has now raised over $US46 million dollars from a community of 400,000 players.
QUOTE | “I think that’s actually the biggest star to help provide great content to Vita going forward.” — Sony worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida referring to the indie scene and talking about why we’ll see fewer dedicated first-party games on the PS Vita.
STAT | $US28.9 billion — Amount of revenue that the mobile game market will bring in by 2016, according to a Juniper Research study; this is 38 per cent larger than 2014, and represents about one quarter of the total game market.
Top image via Shutterstock
Comments
8 responses to “This Week In The Business: Turn The Wii U Around”
As happy as I am about the Wii U finally getting taken seriously I think you’ll want to wait three months before saying it’s a tipping point. Nintendo put on a hell of a show and for the next month or two it’ll feel like there’s a lot happening on the Nintendo front, but they’re still Nintendo and releases will still be as slow as they need to be in order to release such high quality games. As long as their consoles rely heavily on first and second party games, which with the Wii U’s hardware is pretty likely, there will always be dry patches.
Moooore like Wii U turn!
Amirite? …guys?
I actually forgot that the 3DS struggled early on too. I think the Wii U will definitely pick up some pace with all the games out now (and coming out soon), but I don’t think it’ll ever be as big as the Wii or 3DS. Still completely happy with my purchase though, I bought it for great exclusive games and that’s what I’m getting.
I almost fell of my seat. Kotaku running positive Nintendo press, now how about you run some on the XBONE struggling.
If you turn WiiU around, it’ll be UiiW which is an even worse name though at least doesn’t sound like a university dedicated to urine…
Don’t forget all the eShop, VC and indie titles. The Wii U already has a lot of these and a lot coming out that all combined with the major releases will tempt many. Yes, Mario Kart 8, Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong and Lego City Undercover might not be enough to tempt people, but when you add stuff like Earthbound, Super Metroid, Little Inferno and all the Lego and CoD games with dual screen local multiplayer to all the top Nintendo releases there’s already a lot to keep people entertained for a year non-stop.
Just on that, I picked up a WiiU on the weekend, it came with a free download from a selection of games.
Is Pikmin any good?
I’d love an article on the Top Ten Wii-U games a new owner should consider getting.
Pikmin is great. Put it this way, you will have no buyers remorse gettig it guaranteed.
All the Mario’s and Zelda’s!
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/release-date/available/wii-u/metascore
GOT. TO. FEEL. PERCUSSION!