Generation is off to a lousy start!

[Astrosmasher1]

[QUOTE=Weekend_Warrior]The Wii U can't even compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360, let alone the PS4 and Xbox One. At this point,  I'd actually be surprised if it ever outsells the Gamecube at 21.74 million.[/QUOTE]
I think you will find that the Wii U is this generations Atari Jaguar.  It made a lot of good noises but then was totally outclassed by the competition.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=Vexer]4 million sales is hardly what i'd call "selling poorly".[/QUOTE]

I should say selling relatively poorly. At the current pace, unless it moves a bunch this month, it will have sold 50% what the PS4 does. As relative sales are what matter early on (if you only have limited resources, where do you put them as a third party) that would be poor relative to the main competition.

Now, if we're going by history, yes, it is doing pretty good. But, this was supposed to be the generation that justified the whole division, so selling half the PS4 would not make them happy at all. It'd probably get investors remembering the time the original Xbox and Gamecube combined ended a generation at less than half the sales of the PS2.

[Segatarious1]

MS and Sony both copied Nintendo Wii software wholesale. And that helped crash the casual game market, along with the extreme price implosion brought on by the mobile market.

So, we are left here, today, with the so called 'hardcore' game market.

When did we first hear the term 'hardcore gamer' ad naseum? When it was invented to blast the successful Wii for being 'casual' despite Sony enjoying amazing 'casual' success with PS1 and Ps2. Nintendo has weathered negative media bias since the N64 days, relentless, regardless if their products were doing poor or very well.

I admit I was and am surprised by both the depth and the continuation of the Xbox One fall out - these are the same people who happily embraced - following the lead of the game media - every negative pay wall, advertising, dlc, hidden costs, etc and etc MS has dumped and made standard into hardcore gaming. Nintendo has never gotten widespread credit for keeping their ecosystem so game buyer friendly and completed projects friendly. At best, they get back handed compliments. Even the bottom feeder fan sites like Nintendolife follow this example. This is the same media stream that insists game are an artistic product - especially in the story telling medium - without even one credible example to back up their claims. Their reality is almost completely created and controlled by corporate PR, spin and advertising dollars. There is legitimate blow back, now and again, yes, but you never know where or when it will rise up.

I stand by my statements. Although it is impossible to predict every situation with 100% accuracy, there are consistent and well defined trends, and the tail wags the dog, and these prejudices and inconsistencies are woven deep in the mid of Joe Gamer, or Angry Joe, or whatever they call themselves.

[Vexer1]

Don't really see how Angry Joe has "prejudices" or "inconsistencies"

The temr hardcore gamer has been around at least since the PS1 came out, also there was no "crash" in the casual gaming market

Gaming can be "artistic" and there are plenty of "redible" examples, just cause you say it isn't dosen't make it so.

[HardcoreSadism1]

[QUOTE=Segatarious]

MS and Sony both copied Nintendo Wii software wholesale. And that helped crash the casual game market, along with the extreme price implosion brought on by the mobile market.

So, we are left here, today, with the so called 'hardcore' game market.

[/QUOTE]

I'll never understand your vitriolic hatred towards 'Western Gaming', as if the category were exclusive to purely mainstream games.

[Segatarious1]

[QUOTE=HardcoreSadism][QUOTE=Segatarious]

MS and Sony both copied Nintendo Wii software wholesale. And that helped crash the casual game market, along with the extreme price implosion brought on by the mobile market.

So, we are left here, today, with the so called 'hardcore' game market.

[/QUOTE]

I'll never understand your vitriolic hatred towards 'Western Gaming', as if the category were exclusive to purely mainstream games.[/QUOTE]

Western Gaming -

-emphasis on graphics over any thing else, except story.
-emphaisis on story and cut scenes in games, consistently of poor and generic quality. (I suppose Japan invented this, at least on consoles, but they are way behind now, Capcom and Square)
-'dudebro' story matter - violence, violence, violence, fanboyism of hero - or antihero; most ussually, post apocalyptic generica, nudity, exploitative sex, comic book, then violence again.
-pay full price for game, then pay for online play, then play for DLC, then put up with advertising on top of that.
-typical blah game play, often unpolished, at least in places, never criticised, because the game look so good, and oh my, what a story!

Western gaming is big budget PC gaming, all the negatives of PC gaming have come to roost on consoles, with none of the positices of PC gaming. A walled garden of excess and gratuity. It did not used to be this way. Sony used to have a Nintendo model of consoles, and today they have a MS model, this is undeniable - that is the western hardcore gaming influence of the Xbox 360 era.

The fact that people reject the existence of this negative reality, and defend the precense of these drastic changes only bolsters my theory.

[HardcoreSadism1]

Oh go back to your moldy cave in Brooklyn, or Coffee Shop in Brooklyn.

No one really cares, dramatic/cinematic flare has been experimented on since the NES/Genesis era. Don't get me started with the SEGA CD and 3D0 which makes your rant come off as a hipster lyrical.

[PSX1]

In one sense, I agree, Critic.  But at the same time, I think every generation starts out this slowly.  It's very rare to have a killer app worth buying the system for this early into the console's life.  A couple examples include Halo with the original Xbox and Super Mario 64 with the N64... but, even with those consoles, the rest of their library was weak for awhile after launch.  I'd say the fairest time to start expecting consoles to truly start replacing the previous generation would be around the 2nd Christmas season (i.e., the end of this year).

For example, I just hopped on gamerankings.com to check out where we stood at this time last generation.  At this point in the Xbox 360's life (launched Nov. 2005), the top 3 games were Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, followed by Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Call of Duty 2 -- none of those games were exclusive to the 360.  It wasn't until the fall of 2006 that the first killer app, Gears of War, came out.  For the PS3, the top 3 games were Oblivion, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Virtua Fighter 5.  For the fall of 2007, must-have games like Uncharted and Call of Duty 4 came out.  Six months into the Nintendo Wii's life (launched Nov. 2006), the top 3 highest-rated games were Zelda: Twilight Princess, followed more distantly by Super Paper Mario and WarioWare: Smooth Moves.  It wasn't until the fall of 2007 that games like Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy came out (by comparison, the Wii U, with its head-start this gen, had Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World for its second fall season).

If you recall, the 360 was also dealing with its Red Rings of Death disaster at the time, and the PS3 launch was marred with a number of problems, especially its prohibitive pricing, that kept it from meeting its potential and keeping up with the 360 for at least the first 2 to 3 years.  The Wii, meanwhile, took the lead by bringing something fresh to the table -- everyone from hardcore gamers to hardcore grandmas had to get their hands on Wii Sports -- but otherwise the system suffered from a desperate lack of interesting titles to keep gamers interested when the thrill of Wii Bowling faded.  At that time, the top console for serious gaming was still the PS2.  I do agree that this generation has been slightly weaker, but I think history tends to show that this is normal and things should improve soon.  If it still sucks this bad by winter, though, then I'm with you.

[ActRaiser1]

[QUOTE=Astrosmasher][QUOTE=Weekend_Warrior]The Wii U can't even compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360, let alone the PS4 and Xbox One. At this point,  I'd actually be surprised if it ever outsells the Gamecube at 21.74 million.[/QUOTE]
I think you will find that the Wii U is this generations Atari Jaguar.  It made a lot of good noises but then was totally outclassed by the competition.[/QUOTE]

Or Dreamcast!  

High quality 3rd party ports

Low amount of sludge and shovelware.  Those games go to the more popular consoles to get the biggest return on investment.  The Wii has a sea of crap games.  It's nice that the Wii U might actually be a console of quality games before it rides off into the sunset.

[ActRaiser1]

[QUOTE=Segatarious]

The fact that people reject the existence of this negative reality, and defend the precense of these drastic changes only bolsters my theory.[/QUOTE]

So, if I'm reading the above correctly if one has a different opinion, it only bolsters your opinion more.

That pretty much explains everything...