Nintendo's stock price has slumped to its lowest level in five years in the wake of yesterday's Wii U announcement, with analysts questioning whether the Wii's success can be repeated by its successor.
Bloomberg reports that Nintendo's stock tumbled 5.7 per cent to ¥16,930 per share at the close of trading today in Osaka. More than 2.2 million shares were traded, more than three times the six-month daily average of 720,000.
Yusuke Tsunoda, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities, said that Nintendo's failure to show any games running on the system - in-game footage shown during the conference was taken from PS3 and Xbox 360 games - or reveal a price or release date was behind the slump in market confidence.
"There were high expectations from the new version of the Wii and this fell far short," Tsunoda said. "People had expected to see something more at a big event like E3, but there really wasn't anything more than what's already [been] reported."
Announced yesterday during Nintendo's E3 conference, the Wii U controller features a 6.2 inch touchscreen, and allows for play to be stopped on a big screen and resumed on the small screen. Company president Satoru Iwata said the new console was intended to keep hold of a market considerably expanded by the Wii, while also wooing core gamers.
"As an industry, what we haven't yet achieved is a game platform that is equally satisfying for all players," he said. "This is exactly what we intend to create with our new home platform...It will let everyone see games in a different way."
A host of thirdparties have already enthused about Wii U, with Ubisoft working on two brand new IPs as well as ports of Ghost Recon online, Rabbids and Assassin's Creed for the platform. Nintendo plans to release Wii U in 2012.
Source: Bloomberg
Comments
6At least investors have some sense.
I'm shocked Nintendo hasn't received more critisism regarding Wii U and their E3 presentation.
The lack of any Wii U 1st party games on display, not even the revealing of first party titles in development, must be a first. Iwata said on stage that he would like to see SSBros made for the system but the team has not started work on it -why even mention it then? Then it's revealed that the 3rd party game footage was not of Wii U software but is 360/PS3/PC footage. All these things, and the fact that they have changed the controller layout in the last few months (positioning of the analogue nubs is different to what developers were shown earlier this year) all scream that this sytstem is being revealed too early.
I might have missed it, but I didn't see Activision declaring support, nor many Japanese publishers.
Nintendo says they will launch sometime after April 1st next year. That's 10-17 months away. Does Nintendo realise how long it takes to make current gen games?
The Nintendo conference had a stunning lack of new games revealed for their other platforms as well!
I love Nintendo games and was really looking forward to hearing about their new system, but boy was I disapointed.
By the time Battlefield3 and the like hit the WiiU, Xbox & PS3 users would have had their fill of the games.
Nintendo said that they were going after the hardcore, but without an online solution I fail to see how they will be able to capture them.
What's to stop Sony from turn the PSV into WiiU contoller for the PS3?
Update.
Turns out Nintendo isn't taking online serious enough. WiiU dosen't have a Ethernet jack and can only connect by Wi-Fi, which we all know causes lag.
http://uk.gizmodo.com/5810113/this-is-the-wii-u-console-in-my-ink+stained-hands
In fairness the Wii U shown at E3 is a prototype. There will be probably be more modifications made to the hardware as it is more than a year away from launch. And if Nintendo weren't taking online seriously I doubt they would have such strong third-party support.
Well spoken solypsis.
Predicting the future is as hard for stock holders as it is for the rest of us.
The U makes much more sense to me than the Wii did. Putting a touch screen on the controller is obviously a smart move. On the other hand, the new controller will probably alienate the more casual among Nintendo's new customers and the fact that you can only connect one to the console might break the social appeal that the Wii had.
But at least the name is much less awkward...