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Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Media's Misreporting of the Wii U's Production Into Next Year

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A destructive exercise by the media.

All over the media yesterday was this story: JAPANESE FINANCIAL PUBLISHER NIKKEI REPORTS NINTENDO TO STOP WII U PRODUCTION THIS YEAR. It spread not only through the gaming media, but also the mainstream media. No one waited for Nintendo to give a response to this rumour, or as Reuters put it,
Nintendo could not immediately be reached for comment.” 

That's journalism-speak for “We're going to make up whatever we want, and if the Nintendo press person is on their lunch break or done with their job for the day when we phone call them, then we'll publish the story.” It's the tactic used by sleaze-balls. (If you look for its use on KoopaTV, you won't find it, because we actually have some semblance of integrity.)

Why is it sleazy? Because not all of those media outlets that reported the Nikkei report passed on Nintendo's response made hours later

The Nikkei report did not come from within our company. The company plans to continue production through and beyond the next fiscal year.”
If you're wondering, Nintendo's fiscal year (FY 2015) ends March 2016, and then the next fiscal year (FY 2016) ends March 2017.

For example, I linked Reuters saying that Wii U production will be stopped. Reuters is a mainstream media financial news wire. Their content is syndicated across thousands of other outlets. Reuters is pretty trusted by people making financial decisions, like stock-trading. So, where is the Reuters story featuring Nintendo's response?


Reuters Nintendo Wii U Nikkei report without response production stop
The last story they have about Nintendo is the “Nintendo to stop production” Nikkei report.
You can check this link to see if they ever update the truth.

It doesn't exist. Believe me, I waited for it. That's why this article is published so late in the day.

So here we have this issue where it's widely reported that Nintendo is going to stop producing the Wii U in 2016. Nintendo responds within hours, stating this is not true. The response is not edited into the original stories, and the response is not made its own article. Therefore, there are many people out there who will read the original misreported story sourced from Nikkei, and significantly less people out there who will read the corrected story sourced from Nintendo itself.

This is how rumours and distortion spreads, folks. Shoddy and selective journalism.

You cannot trust the mainstream media, and you also cannot trust a lot of alternative media sources. A lot of those guys rely on clickbait and have absolutely no journalistic integrity.

You can trust KoopaTV, though. We have a very long and strong reputation for the truth. ...It's one of our buzzwords.

As for the story's substance, I have no doubt that Nintendo will produce less Wii Us in Fiscal Year 2017 than Fiscal Year 2016, and those will be less than Fiscal Year 2015. There's a strong chance that if you wanted to buy a Wii U, you would've done so already. It's a good console and one I recommend.

Producing less (or, producing to demand) gives a totally different signal than ceasing production entirely. The demand for Wii Us is still above zero! Nintendo may be able to give the Wii U its five years in the sun. In addition, ceasing production does not mean stopping support. For example, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (for Wii and DS) continued an entire year and a half after the Wii U came out, though a lot of people thought it was too soon. Meanwhile, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was released on the GameCube after the Wii was released, and the Wii itself didn't stop production until 2013 in most areas.

On the other hand, it's important to note that just because a Nintendo representative says something, that something is not always true. Shigeru Miyamoto blatantly lied when he said there were no plans for a 3DS hardware revision — mere days before the 3DS XL was announced.

All Nintendo has to do to prove Nikkei wrong is to produce the last batch of Wii Us in April 2017. I think they can manage that.



Ludwig hates reporting on rumours, but he's a little more okay with reporting on how rumours are reported by others. He distrusts the media and believes that you should too. Please support KoopaTV in its quest for truth and levity for the videogame industry!


Ludwig has tried to compile a list of good and bad media sources for information here.
A lot of those alternative Nintendo fan site sources exposed themselves as untrustworthy when they reported that Bill Trinen left Nintendo, when he was really just joking.
Reuters finally reported on Wii U production on April 27, to go along with other news. They never corrected the original story.
Once again, the media is reporting Wii U production will end this year, with their magic date being November 4. It's wrong.
There is plenty of FAKE NEWS with the Wii U's successor, the Nintendo Switch, and attempts to have it have a hardware revision.
Nintendo put out a direct statement combatting that FAKE NEWS.

6 comments :

  1. Don't you just love cover-ups made by the news media? Or maybe they aren't well informed on the matter? Either way, both are terrible ways on reporting "news".

    Also, I caught a typo! "..., though a lot of people though it was too soon."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh there should totally be a 't' there.

      See, I can't imagine that they wouldn't know by now. (Reuters STILL hasn't done anything with Nintendo's statement.) So... I guess it HAS to be a cover-up? I don't know any other option.

      Delete
    2. The media just a bias against Nintendo at the moment, as Nintendo is the only one of the relevant console manufacturers to not pay them off to sing praises for the console.

      There's a reason they have NEVER talked about the Wii U seriously all generation long, despite how great games like Splatoon and Mario Maker are proving themselves to be.

      Delete
    3. Holy shit Reuters still hasn't written anything about Nintendo's response.

      And I've been using KoopaTV's Twitter account to harass them.

      At this point, Nintendo should start paying them off. They'd get a positive return on their investment.

      Delete
    4. Not worth it. Nintendo's actual customers aren't paying attention to sources like this. They're paying attention to official Nintendo media, like Miiverse, Nintendo Directs, and eventually My Nintendo. To these people, the product doesn't exist until it's on store shelves.

      Delete
    5. Well, that doesn't bode well for the amount of people that fall under Nintendo's actual customers.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arl3ACzJCBI
      March's Nintendo Direct is at sub-700,000 views!

      There's a large base — no idea how large — that would get news from mainstream media. Probably the same folks who don't learn things exist until they see an in-store display and think, “oh that's cool.”

      One of Nintendo's jobs is to deliver value to stockholders. It's hard to be in control of your own destiny with that when the financial news is reporting misinformation and people react to your stock based on that.

      But yeah, I have a similar philosophy where I'm just not caring about secondary sources. They've proven themselves unreliable.

      Delete

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