Is the Wii U Slated To Arrive Too Soon?
With Microsoft and Sony holding back on the release of their next generation consoles, is Nintendo jumping the gun by announcing that Wii U will be globally available this holiday season? There’s almost no chance of that we will be seeing either the Xbox 720 or the PlayStation 4 until 2013 at the earliest (possibly 2014 or later)—so what does Nintendo hope to gain through their early timing? How could the early release of the Wii U impact their sales?
Remember when the Xbox 360 came out? That was a year earlier than the PlayStation 3 release, and it played out well for Microsoft. It let Microsoft take the lead on their sales and in some ways define the market for new consoles. Nintendo probably has a similar aim with their early release, which was confirmed during an investor meeting. Not only will the console be released by the holiday season, but it will also be unveiled at E3.
As of right now, the current generation Wii is a bit behind the current generation Xbox and PlayStation, which has made things hard on Nintendo. It makes sense for them to want to finally catch up and get a leg up on the competition. What could the drawbacks of the early release be? One drawback is that Nintendo won’t have as much time to develop the console and take advantage of new technology. As such, the Wii U may not be as amazing as the eventual Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4. But by then Nintendo will have reaped a lot of profits—and probably continued to develop the Wii U. So perhaps the early release makes sense regardless. Even though the decision will come with some drawbacks, it should offer Nintendo a chance to get back in the game, as it were.
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