Can Microsoft and Sony Beat Nintendo's Royal Flush of Exclusives This Holiday Season?

With the recent announcement of the Xbox One launching at a retailer near you, the gaming community is currently debating whether to pick up a PS4 or an Xbox One, two next-gen consoles most definitely coming out this holiday season. In most news articles talking about next-gen consoles, the Wii U is basically non-existent. Its launch sales were abysmal with only 3.45 million units sold during its launch window and sprinkled with paltry third party support from major American game publishers, EA and Activision. Confidence and optimism for this 150 year old Japanese gaming giant looks grim and the mainstream public is practically begging Nintendo to abandon hardware and simply become a third-party game publisher (in the way of Sega). While Satoru Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo, admits that Wii U sales have not met expectations.

However, I think the general public and many critics have been quick to discount the Wii U as a next-gen console. I personally think Nintendo is happy to have the Xbox One and the PS4 pitted against each other because Nintendo knows that its first party games will sell systems and its Nintendo Directs create its own PR environment to announce its product and service updates. In short laying Nintendo will be laying low until they reveal their Royal Flush of first and third party exclusives (and not to mention their first 3DS Pokemon titles, Pokemon X and Pokemon Y which will definitely boost sales of the 3DS this holiday season with no competition in the handheld market).

The Wii U technologically speaking is completely different in comparison to the Xbox One and PS4. It does not yet offer cloud computing, but may do so in the future, a lesser amount of hard drive storage and RAM compared to its other two competitors, USB 2.0, and is the only “next-gen” console to offer traditional backwards compatibility. (The PS4 may utilize its cloud-gaming service, Gaikai, to play old PS3, PS2, and PSN games, but will most likely have to be reprogrammed for the PS4 platform.) The Xbox One and the PS4 are requiring new peripherals that players will have to purchase while the Wii U is utilizing the Wii’s Wii Motes and nun-chucks.Microsoft at its core is a tech company specializing in interactive technologies. What the Wii U may lack in raw power and advanced hardware specs, it makes up for in creative uses of its second screen and asymmetric gameplay catered toward a living room with multiple participants and diverges from the singular experiences that Microsoft and Sony will be offering.

Each of these three companies sees the battle for the living room quite differently and is evident in the design and features of their consoles. For Nintendo, the Wii U is catered towards families and children and involves multiple people sharing the TV in the living room at one time. The idea of off-screen play involves two people; one who is watching TV and the other one who is playing a game on the Wii U Gamepad. When one person’s gameplay experience differs on the Wii U Gamepad in comparison to other people looking at the action on the TV screen, it again involves multiple parties. If your parents want to watch a movie on the big screen in the living room and you want to continue your game, you can extend that living room experience on your Gamepad. With the Wii U, it’s focus is more on complimenting and enhancing the living room experience rather than taking it over like the PS4 and Xbox One plan to do.

For Microsoft, they view the living room as a singular experience meaning that only one person is actively utilizing the space. When you use voice commands for the Kinect One, multiple people can’t speak to it at the same time or else it can’t comprehend your commands. If you’re watching a basketball game, the Xbox One can show you updates to your fantasy stats in real time. While I think this feature is cool for the basketball aficionado, if you have other people watching fantasy sports, it might detract from the living room experience. The Kinect sold well in the Europe and in the Americas because living rooms are much more spacious and the Kinect needs a lot of space to make the most out its full body motion capture capabilities, but had its challenges in Asia because people’s living rooms tend to be smaller. It would not be surprising if the Xbox One doesn’t sell well in Asia after bullying its way into Asia with the original Xbox with mixed success.

For Sony, their goal is to create the most beautiful entertainment experience with raw hardware and graphics power. If anything, they currently are creating a development environment that is more friendly to PC game publishers to encourage a larger game library for the life of the system and will utilize their connections with third-party Japanese game developers to create a solid lineup of exclusives for the PS4. Sony hopes to utilize a lesser version of Nintendo’s off-screen play with the PS Vita and they’ve been promoting the heck out of it to try and get it into your hands by tempting players with free game downloads and PlayStation Plus perks. Shuhei Yoshida, Sony’s president of Worldwide Studios has even stated that all PS4 games must support the PS Vita’s remote play streaming (though I’m not sure who would want to pay an extra $200-$250 just to play PS4 games on a handheld). One of the most compelling features is the ability to play games while it’s downloading and to share gameplay content to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media apps. I foresee this as a very niche feature as people usually only want to see quality and interesting content which typically comes from a small percentage of players. (For instance, only 10% of YouTube users actually upload content compared to the 90% who consume it.)

Both the PS4 and the Xbox One are competing in the same space whereas the Wii U is playing in its own sandbox (however big that is). The PS4 and the Xbox One will be launching this holiday season and it will be likely that most consumers who want a next gen conosle will have to make a decision between one or the other. Both systems while different, will probably offer the same games on both consoles and if there any upcoming exclusives for each of these consoles, the Xbox One will probably have a First Person Shooter exclusive and Sony will release an exclusive RPG of some sort. The Xbox generally speaking has been a first person shooter console and has typically attracted PC gamers and the PlayStation has historically leveraged its strong ties with Japanese game publishers, something Microsoft doesn’t necessarily have. Both Sony and Microsoft will be showing off their best gaming catalog at E3 to build consumer buzz and anticipation for the holiday season. The Wii U is expected to have an extremely robust library full of first and third party exclusives that might surprisingly sway users to purchase it.

You see, as much flak as Nintendo gets for having weak sales and lack of compelling games at launch, it basically got a head start a year in advance before Sony and Microsoft. Sure, there weren’t any great games at the time of launch, but a solid amount of people still purchased it simply because of Nintendo’s branding power. It’s had time to provide system updates and to make the Wii U a better product as a whole without any competition. The exclusive Wii U games are coming: Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, Sonic the Hedgehog: Lost World, Super Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, and a new Super Mario World game are enough to be system sellers come Christmas time. There’s a reason why Iwata made the executive decision to merge the handheld and console R&D divisions probably speed up the development of their games for release this winter. It will be interesting to see if Sony and Microsoft will reveal a hand at E3 that can beat Nintendo’s royal flush of first and third party exclusives and it would not surprise me if the Wii U has more success this holiday season than the last even with the increased competition from Sony and Microsoft.