Gadgetory

(upbeat music) - Four years ago, if you told someone, "Hey, pretty soon Nintendo's gonna release a brand new system, they're gonna reclaim the top spot, and they're gonna be the big company everyone pays attention to." They'd probably think you were a little crazy. And the reason for that is because when it comes to mainline systems, Nintendo's had a bit of a history of rough patches, either because things just didn't sell well or even if they sold well, there was an image problem happening at the same time. The history of problems really started with the N64. I mean, the NES and SNES, big successes for Nintendo. Sure, SEGA scared them a little bit with the Genesis, but at the end of the day, the SNES won out. But, the Genesis opened up a lot of doors that other companies started to realize ways they could take Nintendo down. (fast-paced 8-bit music) - [Announcer] Knockout! - And it started with the PlayStation. To begin with, the N64 lost out to the original PlayStation by 70 million units. To put that in perspective, the original NES sold 60 million units, so they lost by more systems than their first huge successful console sold originally. That's crazy, and there's a couple different reasons why this happened. First off, the PlayStation came out to market first. They were the first system to also start adopting using CD-ROMs over more specialized cartridge designs. And following the footsteps of the Sega Genesis, they accepted releasing a lot more games that were aimed at adult audiences, instead of keeping the vast majority of games kid-friendly. (commercial song) - And just to highlight how much sticking with cartridges hurt the N64, despite what a lot of people might remember, looking back on the games that were released on those two systems, the N64 was the more powerful system by quite a bit. It's just that cartridges couldn't really hold very much data compared to CD-ROMs, not to mention games on CD-ROMs could have multiple disks, and the system was designed in such a way that it was very awkward to develop for, so a lot of third-party companies just didn't really want to deal with it and instead moved over to Sony. So, N64 lost out to PlayStation, but, hey, they have another chance with the GameCube. Awesome thing, right? Super Smash Melee, Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine, great first-party titles. Metroid even came back. It sold even worse, by a lot. It not only failed to meet the same sales as the N64, but this also happened to be the same generation where the PlayStation 2 was one of the historically biggest successes in gaming ever, with a comparison of the PlayStation 2 selling 150 million units, and the GameCube at about 22. - [Announcer] Continue? - And the reasons for this are basically the same as what was happening on the N64. Any kind third-party support Nintendo had was basically all leaving for PlayStation on the PS2 and even for Microsoft on the Xbox, which also outsold the GameCube though not nearly by as much. There's also the issue again of the format they used. They finally moved away from carts over disks, but it was their own proprietary disks which couldn't carry nearly the same amount of info as the DVD that their opponents were using. So, again, games were super limited, and it was even that same situation where the GameCube is actually the most powerful (mumbles) generation. No one cared, because no games were really actually making use of that power compared to what we were seeing on the PS2 or Xbox. It's at this point that Nintendo take a step back and think, "Okay, what are we doing wrong here? Because we're not really interested in making the kinds of more adult games that our opponents are getting popular for." They didn't want to do something like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty. What can we do that still stays true to our brand? And that's where they took a very big risk with the Wii. (fast-paced electronic music) On paper, the Wii was a bit of a weird pitch, especially for when it was coming out. First off, the name was a little ridiculous, so much so members (mumbles) couldn't really take it seriously. It relied on motion controls, with controllers that were still a remote. Very few button compared to traditional controllers. And to top all that off while it was more powerful than its predecessor the Gamecube, it paled in comparison to what the PS3 and Xbox 360 were capable of. In fact it's the only system from its generation that did not support HDMI and tapped out at 480P. Despite all this though the system actually sold pretty well in fact it was actually the top selling system of its generation by quite a bit. And there's a few reasons why this happened. First off, while it wasn't nearly as powerful as its competitors it was also a lot cheaper to produce and as a result sold for a lot cheaper as well. At launch the Wii sold for $250 whereas a 360, an entry one was $300, and the PS4 was all the way up there with the 5 and $600 bundles which that was their own other problem to deal with. So it was a much more affordable option for people to be able to go for. On top of that while the motion controls might have seemed like a bit of a gimmick to people that were used to traditional games it ended up being a massive door to open to people that traditionally didn't really play games. 'Cause it's a lot easier to sell someone on the idea of hey, grab this remote and swing it like a tennis racket than to be like, hey, hold this controller hold R, then press A, then you have to press this. It was just a much easier concept to get people into gaming so they were able to have all their longterm Nintendo fans that bought the system right away and bring in a whole other audience that just wasn't buying systems yet. (classical music) Now while it sold great for Nintendo this did come at a price and I would argue that there were some detrimental effects to what the Wii was as a system. And a large part of that is the image it had amongst the more traditional gaming audience and what kind of support they were seeing from third parties. Now Nintendo already had a rift with third parties like we were saying before, but it got even worse with the Wii because even though the system was selling well and companies were interested in bringing games to it, it didn't really matter because they couldn't make truly multi platform games for it. If they tried they would have a game that would look great on 360, great on PS3, and then a Wii version that cut out a lot of content and looked awkward and just simply would not sell. And as for their image well because there wasn't a lot of third party support there was still a lot of random terrible shovel ware that just ended up being placed on the system. And Nintendo's own first party games while great kept very focused on this concept of being family friendly stuff with only a couple exceptions here and there. This alongside the rise of smartphones and mobile games started this whole debate that people started having of what true gamers actually play. Which is a hornet's nest on fire I'm not gonna actually deconstruct right now. But the point is there were a lot of people that just didn't take people who played on the Wii very seriously. - [Announcer] Tool selection. - Still clearly for audiences at large the Wii was a huge success. So much so that you could see their competition at the time trying to get in on the same kind of deal. Where Microsoft used the Kinect that did okay at first and then there was the forced bundling and the Xbox One which we all saw how that ended. And PlaySation did the PlayStation Move which got dropped pretty quickly but then came back to life kind of in the form of being controllers for PS VR. The fallout from all of this though could be heavily felt when the Wii U happened. Where the Wii was one of Nintendo's biggest successes the Wii U was one of its biggest failures. A large reason for that is because people didn't really get what it was. Thanks to maintaining the same branding of calling it the Wii U and focusing heavily on the tablet aspect of the system a lot of people just simply didn't realize that this is actually a new system. To this day you can still find people who will think the Wii U was just the tablet aspect and that it was an add on to the Wii and not an entirely new, more powerful system. So with all this awkward momentum coming into the Wii U how is it that the switch ended up being the big success that it now is? I think it's important to know that while Nintendo was having some issues with their main line systems, whether that's because of sales or an image problem or anything like that, at the same time their portables were doing great. And I think this is one of the factors that played into Nintendo's decision of how to approach their next system after the Wii U. Especially because it was kind of a very immediate follow up after seeing what was happening with that system. And the entire reason why the Switch ended up taking off as well as it did is 'cause I think it did a great job of balancing all of the different strengths that Nintendo had had in the past. It incorporated the convenience of the portability their handheld systems had into a mainline system which also acted as a way to kind of counter balance the argument of power. Previously when someone would look at the Wii or Wii U they would think well yeah, that's a lot less powerful than what the competition has. And while that is still true about the Switch, people are much more forgiving about it because it's giving you something that looks good on a TV but also looks great on the go. And like with the Wii in incorporates an idea that is unique, innovative and interesting, and very easily translates by just showing someone. With the Wii you just show them, hey, look you take the Wii, you do this. With the Switch you show this concept of hey, joy cons take them off, it's now a controller. Hey, put it on the stock, now it's on your TV. It's a very visual element that translates easily to people that don't need a full explanation of what it does that's so special. And I think one of the most important things to have happened both by intent on Nintendo's part and from other people just saying hey, the Switch is doing great we should get on that is the return of true third party support. There is so much more third party games coming to the Switch. Traditionally there's always been a very strong stance of, well this is the kind of stuff we want associated with our brand, this is what we want to allow and now allow in our system. With the Switch they do not care anymore. It's something we've been seeing consistently with a lot of games getting poured into the system where Nintendo is even taking a very strong stance now of not allowing censoring of games on their system. There are games coming out that have censored content on PS4 and not on Switch. That is insane to think about, but it shows a very large dedication on Nintendo's part now to just allow people to make what they want on the Switch, and it shows. I think it goes without saying that a very large part of their success too is thanks to the fact that they made sure they had strong launch titles from big name Nintendo franchises right away. We had Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild at launch, and the year after we got Super Mario Odyssey. So they're making sure that all those big games that people associate with Nintendo actually have a strong presence right away, and it helps that both those games ended up being really good. This all led to the Switch having amazing sales, and while it's kind of hard to compare it to the Xbox One and PS4 because it came out so many years later, the trajectory of the sales they've had over the first couple years is extremely fast. Much faster than the Xbox One and competes with the PS4 when you have to also balance with the fact that because it came out so much later in the year it doesn't have as many holidays at the same time. The Switch ended up being this breath of fresh air that I think Nintendo really needed. And as someone who grew up in a Nintendo household and stuck by them with each and every system I gotta say I'm super happy to see it. I'm not sure where they're gonna go next but I'm curious to see where.