davyK wrote:

I would be more surprised if they weren't working on the next gen - I'm sure Sony and Microsoft are too.

Yup. There's always some R&D going into the next box, whatever the company. Not everything becomen reality, though. Work began on the Xbox Two and PlayStation 5, I would wager, the exact second the One and 4 had their hardware finalised.

Comparing a 'disaster' to an even bigger 'disaster' doesn't quite work though.

After E3 I'm a lot more confident in Wii U -- Nintendo did the right thing and showed that they are committed to the platform, so you rarely hear the sort of worries that it'll be abandoned as you did beforehand. I don't think it'll do better than the GameCube did in the long run, though, and I think Nintendo knows this: a lot of the upcoming software seems to be focused on fans and there's little out there that's mainstream or aimed at a wider audience on the way.

Amiibo is also a smart way to get Smash Bros. purchasers to spend more than £40/$60 on the game, so Nintendo's making the most of a bad situation here. Does pain me though when I think that Xenoblade Chronicles X won't get the sales it deserves though, especially when its predecessor was shunned or dismissed by many for "being on the Wii". Sigh.

As for Vita, it's doing well in Japan at least, but it's still gone from small to small -- the market for retail Vita titles has really shrunk too, with it now being smaller than the market for *original* DS games in the UK -- since the last post in this thread, and Sony's clearly not committed to the platform in the west right now, with it receiving fairly low cost indie ports and a few original indie gems. Which are great, but indie games -- especially those which you can play on every platform under the sun -- don't sell handhelds, and Remote Play hasn't been the killer app (sales wise) for Vita that some made it out to be.