Topic: Is the Wii brand in conflict with Nintendo's potential branding power?

The little article on NL just popped up that shows what looks to be the Master Sword in inFamous: Second Son, and I think I remember there being a rupee in another big non-Nintendo franchise game recently (can't remember the game). Obviously, Nintendo's influence on gaming and pop culture is broad and deep, but seeing these little things here and there reminds me just how much people love Nintendo and it's franchises. And yet that "love" doesn't necessarily equate to people actually buying or playing Nintendo games anymore. I know a guy who named his kid Ganon for pete's sake, and he's not interested in the Wii U. Aside from the confusing Wii / Wii U marketing debacle... Do you guys think the "Wii" branding, as a whole, is corroding Nintendo's potential branding power? Or do you still see it as a good thing?

If you could rename the Wii U, what would you call it?

I do. Marketing is all about association and the Wii U is associated too much with the wii. When a gamer thinks Wii they think

• Shovelware
• Underpowered
• Annoying control scheme
• Kiddy
• Terrible Online functionalit

All these things work against Nintendo as a brand. With the launch of their new console they could have let go of all those negative things and start afresh. Unfortunately, they thought the good outweighed the bad with the Wii's brand and decided to use Wii to associate people with Wii U. That went wrong quickly. And now they're in trouble with their home console. They should have built a new brand which used Nintendo more extensively, like in the SNES days.

The game you're thinking of, is Splintercell, IIRC.

I think Wii U is a perfectly fine name. People recognize the name, and all consumers really need to know is that it's a continuation of the appeal that Wii brought. I see the GamePad as bringing an important feature to the table(touch), and it's still compatible with Wii remotes.

Since Wii remotes are still compatible, from a hardware point of view, it's makes complete sense to reuse the same brand. Wii was a continuation of GCN, technically, but it really had something new. We might as well wish that the Wii was called the Game Rectangle. That's literally how simple these names are, IMO. Even Xbox is just named after DirectX, then Playstation is a play station. Go figure.

Thus far, people unbelievably think Wii U is a Wii with a touch screen(it goes farther than that), another crowd is comparing it to Xbox 360 and PS3 while still realizing it's the new Nintendo console, then the last group understands that it's a new console and doesn't necessarily draw comparisons between the Wii and Wii U(besides inherent ones) or Xbox 360 and PS3.

In the end, I think the Wii branding is more beneficial, than harmful, because it's a familar brand that "casual" gamers/device users will automatically recognize by name, alone. Aside from that, we shouldn't really be basing out opinions on a name, anyway, IMO.

Brand names don't mean much anymore... You'd think with how popular the PSBOX was last gen that they should have sold to 40 million+ MicroSony fanboys by now just because of their brand name

The only thing people need to know is that if they want to play "current Nintendo console game" then they need a Wii U. I suspect that the number of people who think the Wii U is a controller is very small or they might wonder why they cannot buy this controller separately! The only thing really keeping people away from the Wii/Wii U is not really wanting to play Nintendo games that much.

You might as well tell me that the only reason I don't want to get a PS4 or and XBOX ONE is because those brands equate to boring black boxes with boring software libraries in my mind - hang on, you might be on to something there!

The DS and Wii branding are fine for this gen. The software will have to sell these consoles at this point until the next gen of real cross-compatible devices comes out from nintendo. Expect all new branding at that point possibly highlighting the unity between them.

It certainly will be refreshing to from a marketing perspective to be rid of the Wii/DS titled devices.

Well, based on the examples you provided in the second quote, the name is horrible and confusing to consumers.

I still think that they should have called it Super Wii. and no I don't think that the Wii branding is corroding Nintendo's branding power I feel that having a subtle name change like Wii U creates confusion which can be avoided easily if it was called Wii 2 or Super Wii.

I think whatever Nintendo does next, they need to drop the Wii brand going forward.

As someone else stated above, to a lot of consumers 'Wii' represents shovelware, a fad, wasted money, and a children's toy. If people felt they got burned by purchasing the first Wii, they are likely going to steer clear of the Wii-U (which they have been), and will most certainly skip a 'Wii 3'.

Why would they have? You change your branding when the branding failed to stick. The SNES kept the NES branding, the N64 kept "Nintendo" prominently in the branding. The GameBoy was the GameBoy right up until the DS and even the VirtualBoy borrowed a lot of that branding. And what are the other guys doing? Playstation has been Playstation since the start, XBox is still XBox.

They just came off the back of what was the most most successful platform not named Playstation 2 ever. Of course they kept the branding!

They should have kept the Wii branding if their new console would deliver the same as the Wii did. Nintendo tried to use the branding while adressing more of a different audience, the hardcore gamer. It is much more difficult to change a brand and it's links than to create a new one, that's where it went wrong. I think if they would have continued the Wii's course with the Wii U they would have failed just as much because casuals are still satisfied with Wii.
Changing the name completely would have attracted gamers that weren't atracted to Wii in the first place, or grew away from it. Now they're stuck with a brand that doesn't fit with half it's target audience.

They should just call it The Miyamoto. Has a nice ring to it. n_n

and it hurt them alot due to how the original Wii was branded. its weird that this is the only consumer eletronic brand in recent history that has fell so hard.

I definitely agree that the gamer (Sony/Microsoft/PC) looks at the Wii brand in this way. It is exacerbated by the Wii going out with a whimper it's last couple of years. Those things are mystifying to Nintendo I feel because the Wii was the most successful home console they have ever had so how in the world could it have a negative brand image? The success of the Wii however was tied so strongly to the motion control gimmic being such an hugely popular fad for a period of time, unfortuanately the positive associations of that brand are tied to that time period and I don't think it is even helping with non-gamer crowd either in the current market. If Wii U would have come out 2 years earlier it may have had some success capitalizing on the Wii brand but when it launched the Wii brand I don't think did anything to help it and probably did something to hurt it.

It still makes sense since it is fully backwards compatible and uses Wii controllers and accessories to keep the brand name. This is one of my favorite things about the console and is a hugely consumer friendly move by Nintendo.

That's why I find this whole thing fascinating. The total reversal of fortune from the Wii to the Wii U. Obviously there are a lot of factors involved, but it occurred to me that maybe the "Wii" branding is playing a large role in people collective shrugging their shoulders. There are a lot of cases when the masses become obsessed with something, ala a "fad", and then tend to become bored / move on to the next big thing & collectively drop that fad HARD, and then the brands associated with that fad become kind of a exiled joke. Tai-Bo, Crocs, Tomogatchi, color changing shirts, VHS movies, etc. Maybe the Wii is the new "roller blading", people toss it in the closet, laugh at the times they had with it, but acknowledge that they never really care to do it again. And there is no way you're getting them to buy a new one.

The WIi wasn't a fad per say, but it comes down Nintendo not being a competent enough company to captialize on its success when it started to wane down. It comes from the fact that Nintendo stupidly see's its self as a toy company instead of a consumer electronics company. The Wii to Wii U transition is pretty notable just by looking at the hardware designs of the two consoles.

The Wii had so many damn add-on's that its no wonder people thought and still think the gamepad was an add-on. Than all the niche style games that the WIi was known for have either gone handheld only or can be found on DD platforms leaving the Wii U without a big selling pint for even the niche crowd. So now its only selling to Nintendo fanboys and the gamers who will buy it as a nintendo box.

In time once the Wii fades out, more casuals will buy the Wii U. Many originally thought the 3DS was another DS, but that was set aside once the original DS was discontinued.

I don't get why everyone (consumers/publishers/etc.) expect something to sell right away and don't even consider sales later in time.

Just call it a "Nintendo". That's what everyone calls it anyway... >.>

The Wii has been faded away for about four years now. Its not about selling right away but its been a slow start compared to the other two consoles.

The name itself isn't horrible, though, and it DOES provide brand recognition. You might as well say Xbox One or PS4 need different names. Also, I saw plenty of Xbox 360s get sold, instead of Xbox One's, because people didn't understand that was a new thing, either.

I do think there will be a name change, next gen. but I have no idea why and what. My guess is that the Wii remote will finally be succeeded by another motion controller. They can't just get rid of the Wii remote, or even the GamePad, anymore.