If they can't release the new console at a reasonable price point for the very modest performance increase you'll get then no, it isn't time for a release. I've got a feeling M$ and Sony are going to see this. I know when the 360 was released you couldn't find one... I strolled into my local Kmart the other day and they still had their entire stock of Xbones remaining. Ditto at my local Walmart..... So they aren't selling out either, it isn't just the Wii U (which is actually selling pretty well now.)
Mind you they have to be released sometime, but that doesn't mean you have to buy them yet.
PC gaming is pretty much dead except for those unique genres that are better suited for the pc. If you look at the xbox/ps2 generation, virtually nothing worth mentioning was released for the pc... if anything the 360 SAVED pc gaming. The fact that absolutely nobody makes AAA pc exclusives anymore (with the exception of WOW and those games) is kind of proof of that. The "PC master race" was a thing of the early to mid 90's when pcs were dramatically more powerful than game consoles... this just isn't the case anymore.
Nintendo did the smart approach because their console is the cheapest and yet it is actually a graphically competitive this time around as well. Now that the only alternatives are a 400 dollar console and 500 dollar console, neither of which even come with a game to play, the wii u is going to pick up steam, especially for the younger generations. You must have an odd or biased perspective because in an generation with a mandatory Kinect and the other two companies talking more about media streaming and smart glass and vita functionality, and tv interconnectivity I've got to think that the Wii U is the most practical and least gimmicky console of the three. It plays games.... all of it's heavily advertised features compliment gaming. Yes it has a touch screen on the controller... which is very practical once you spend some time with it. I know Pikmin 3 would be virtually unplayable without it and the nunchuck/wiimote combo and it's quite a conservative game.
I mean the DS and the "doomed" 3DS (LOL idiot reactionists) have two screens and they sell circles around any gaming system, so it's only logical to give their home console a second screen to tap into that sort of gameplay.
Regardless of this, thus far the cheapest console of a generation always wins the war. Sometimes they start off with slow sales, sometimes they explode like the Wii, and sometimes they just have steady consistent sales, but thus far they always win.
I'm not trying to bash your opinion... but you did ask why... so I'm telling you.
No that's cool, I enjoy the discussion! It's interesting seeing how opinions differ. However!
First off, I still totally agree there's little point buying the consoles now, though it's not so much because I think the consoles are expensive. If you take a look at the following page, you can see that, adjusted for inflation, the current console prices are really pretty reasonable:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/are-the-ps4-and-xbox-one-really-that-expensive-historically/(How insane is it to think that an Intellivision costs the equivalent of $850??). Besides, you won't see either of the new consoles releases reach their full potential for probably a few years, so why
not wait for a price drop? (Note that the PS4 is currently only $50 more than the Wii U.)
Second, the "PC gaming is dead" argument has been thrown around for so long now I don't even know when it started; yet look at a company like Steam. You could hardly say that's a company that's not doing well for itself, least of all when it wants to bring a "PC console" into the living room now; PC gaming must have legs if they intend to do that, surely. I'm not saying it's as big s consoles - of course not - but it's not something publishers will be ignoring. Not forgetting that the x86 architecture of the latest consoles apparently lends itself much more to cross-platform development and makes developing a hell of a lot easier for consoles AND PC (something that may arguably kill the future of the console off, if this article is to be believed -
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/172221-the-ps4-and-xbox-one-how-this-generations-homogeneity-could-kill-the-game-console). The PS3 was famously nightmarish to develop for for a long while until presumably developers got the hang of it, and is why most games made for both consoles never really looked much better than they should have on the technically superior PS3 (capabilities-wise, that is). But in short, PCs certainly aren't the master race they once were, but nor are they a market worth ignoring, least of all with the current indie scene and Steams Greenlight program providing a relatively easy way into the industry for new developers.
Third, the Wii U really isn't that cheap for what it purports to do (talking of "modest" increases, it really isn't that much of a step up from what the 360 and PS3 were capable of, just as the Wii was barely a souped up GAmecube), and that second screen hasn't really been used to its full capability by anyone aside from Nintendo. Apparently the Wii U has sold less consoles in a year than Sony and Microsoft did in 48 hours. If the following article is to believed, even the new release of (yet another, if apparently amazing) Mario game hasn't helped all that much:
http://bgr.com/2013/11/21/wii-u-sales-analysis/(Note the 600,000 Mario game units in that article refer to the New Super Mario Bros game, not the latest release).
I'm sure the Wii U touch pad can do some amazing things, and the idea of taking it into another room to carry on your game is great (if really just a luxury), but it's not really revolutionising gaming either. And if the Vita and SmartGlass end up being used for much the same functionality then nor is it even that unique a selling point any more. Sony and Microsoft are clearly doing these things to compete with Nintendo, but frankly if they succeed then at what point does that Wii U touchpad become a device seller, something Nintendo seem to be hedging their bets on given how much prominence it's given? Besides all this, the cynic in me looks at the Wii U and thinks: "Did Nintendo just see how well the iPad was doing and think they'd capitalise on some of that that tablet-buzz??"
The Wii U needs to rely on the relatively uninformed family/children market to do as well as its predecessor, and if they can sort there marketing strategy out then it can definitely be huge. But it's a bit of a confused mess at the moment and fundamentally not doing as well as its predecessor did (
http://www.gengame.net/2013/12/reggie-fils-aime-consumer-confusion-over-wii-u-has-been-largely-addressed/). And there must be thousands of people who never owned a console and now have a Wii collecting dust after they bought it amidst all the media hype one Christmas and then never did anything on it beyond play Wii Sports (still the best-"selling" game on that device simply because it was bundled with the console -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Wii).
I'm really not trying to sound biased - I actually want a Wii U! (but then I want
all the consoles) - this is just what I've made of the whole situation over the last year or so. My opinion of it isn't so much bias as canvassing opinions from various new feeds and seeing what sort of stories keep popping up.
Just a quick point about the DS/3DS - the DS certainly sold super well, but I see most people on my commute into work playing on an iPhone/Android these days. I'll be interested to see how portable console gaming fares in the future! (I sure hope it survives - iPhone gaming is massively lacking for my tastes.)
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