Weak sales for Wii U

[AJCopland]

Only $100,000 per-month is less than 20 to 30 peoples wages per-month. Got more than people to pay than you're bringing in? Then they're losing month every month.

That's just simple maths, everyone complains about it being a profit driven and greedy industry but if you can't pay people then the company goes bust... then everyone complains about how they were too stupid to manage their finances.

The Wii-U is also quite weak, quirky hardware, extra tablet interface that demands more development and possibly gameplay changes to use well. That takes more peoples time and thus costs more money. It means that you have to spend more to develop your title for it so you've now got three choices:
1: You release on multiple platforms but spend a bit extra on doing some extra feature for Wii-U?
2: You release on Wii-U only, designing for the tablet and other changes, really push that angle and hope that there's enough of them to recoup the cost (which aren't appreciably lower despite only being for 1 console)?
3: Ignore the Wii-U and sell on the Xbox360 & PS3 which already have huge installed player base, you already have the tech' for and you know you don't have to make any effort to change the controls etc.

Everyone's choosing #3 because choosing #2 would be financial suicide, and now they're ditching option #1 too because there's just not enough of them being sold to make it financially viable.

[AJCopland]

He said they were making a profit of $100,000 per month - not bringing in $100,000 in revenue.
 
Wii-U was a gamble, and it looks like it will not pay off. System is tanking and will continue to tank, and Nintendo will likely start writing titles for Xbox and/or Playstation and/or mobile devices.

Kind of irrelevant though, if that same team of 20 to 30 people could be working on something bringing you in a lot more, what would you pick?

You'd sell your little $100k a week support service to another company that hasn't got anything better and then you'd focus on the better paid work. It's not greed it's just about keeping your company afloat because my point was that $100k a week sounds like a lot until you realise it wouldn't keep your company afloat for even one whole week once support and ancillary staff, rent, power, equipment etc is all factored in.

40,000 console sales a month in the USA for the Wii-U just means it's a tiny market that companies won't recap there costs in, so they're all dropping it. I know because my company has even though our engine kinda supports it.