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

By the "New Wii", did he perchance end up with the Wii Mini? Why they released that thing just in time to confuse people even more right at Christmas is mystifying. Walking around the stores during the holidays I would often see a stack of Wii's, a stack of Wii U's, and a stack of Wii Minis all bunched up together on an endcap. Every time I saw that I just wanted to facepalm. Wii Mini should have come out years ago, not at all, or at least not during Wii U's major Holiday period.

1st post nails it.

I think you're reading too much into it.

The fact is that the Wii was still selling ok for a long while after the "fad" period. It was only 2012, the year that the Wii U launched, when the Wii finally lost enough momentum to fall bellow the PS3/360 significantly. Maintaining 2x sales over your competition for four years straight is a little bit more than 'fad'. Things like Tamagochi and Furby died in almost the same year they were created. I mean the "hardcore" might have considered it a fad but the "hardcore" were calling it a fad the day it rolled out the factory.

Using your logic the XBox brand is just as much of a burden. The 360 was selling pretty well but nobody can seem to convince people to buy the new one. As soon as the XBOne was out 360 sales plumeted and their new one is being outsold by about 2x. Maybe the XBox 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.

Less than what? The $99 Xbox 360 still requires you to subscribe for 2 years of Xbox Live($120), and there's only 4GB. You mights as well go used or buy an 8th gen machine.

I'm just saying that the new machine is more worth your money, because you might as well have bought the 4GB Xbox 360 in 2010. Your money is worth more by buying the new machine.

The reason I made the comparison of the Wii to things like Tomogochi, Tai Bo, etc. is because it really caught the interest of people who previously never cared about video games at all, aka everyone's parents & grandparents. My mom thought it was going to help her lose weight, my grandma thought it would help with her tennis skills. Eventually they got burned by shovelware too many times / bored with the novelty, and in the closet it went.

I'm not sure the XBox brand has ever really jumped outside of the basic appeal of a typical video game entertainment console. I would say the Xbox brand is a burden, in that it carries with it, at least for me, an identity of "shooters, sports, & expensive online fees," and thus I automatically assume the XBone is going to be mostly the same. I haven't been keeping up with either of Microsoft's system sales numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't do as well this go 'round. Sony has managed to keep a pretty impeccable reputation through out these last few generations & learned from their previous mistakes, giving them quite the advantage, since both of their game releases will be largely very similar.

Funnily enough, I have a family friend who refers to the 3ds in that way; she always asks him what he is playing on his Nintendo. XD

I think the WiiU has confused a lot of people. But I don't think the brand itself ruined it. Nintendo just handled it poorly & made everyone confused before the system even launched. If they would have made it clear that the WiiU was a whole new system, made the systems design a lot different from the Wii's, had better adverts etc. they wouldn't be in this situation right now.

I always liked the "Nintendo Revolution" name. Sounds awesome. Their next system definitely needs to ditch the Wii name though.

Like I said earlier, the Wii will eventually phase out and this will no longer be a problem.

The damaged has already been done though.

The Wii U is a bad name but that alone shouldn't matter.

I'd argue that it's more of a case of every console having a shelf life. The Wii eventually faded away in the same way that the SNES and PS2 did. Not because people got bored of it or were over the general idea of it but more because there was something new. What was the last Wii game that you had to buy? Skyward Sword right? 2011. What else was there in 2011 for the Wii that made a splash? Just Dance? Skylanders? That's why it burned out. Especially when the 360 + Kinect was doing new and interesting things. People moved on. 2011? First year that the Wii was outsold by the PS3 or 360.

The Wii brand is an asset, it would have been ridiculous for Nintendo not to use it. The problem is that the people who did want to move on had more than enough time to grab a PS3 or 360. And now, what does the Wii U do that's "Wii" like? They turned into a console for people who love Nintendo rather than a console that appeals to the mass market. Which I'm more than happy with.... but it ain't a Wii.

If people are stuck in the past, perhaps. They said it was a new machine with powerful graphics. People just aren't listening.

People had the same problem from DS to 3DS, and maybe PSP to PS Vita. Once people realize something new exists, they don't dwelve into the past to retain an opinion that they had, prior to new information they may have gathered, unless they have a problem understanding things.

Wii U is a bad name. They should have called it the Super Wii, instead. It is not wrong on their part for wanting to keep the Wii brand after selling over 100 millions of consoles last generation, but with the current name so many people still don't get that Wii U is Wii 2.0. The existence of Wii Mini doesn't help that either.

It's not just confusion due to the name ("Is the Wii-U a new system?"), but the negative connotation that the 'Wii' name carries for a lot of people.
That the Wii was for kids, a gimmick, a fad, something they played for a month then stuck in the closet, didn't have a lot of good games, shovelware, etc. Granted, many people did enjoy the Wii, but its not even debatable that it went out with a whimper and left a lot of buyers disappointed too.

If someone felt they got burned by buying the original Wii, do you think they are going to spend money on something called the Wii-U? Of course not, because the name puts them off before they even know anything about the new system. Hence why we will never see something called a Virtual Boy 2....

Comparing Wii to the Virtual Boy is a big stretch, but I get your point. I always forget about the VB. Years ago, I bought one at Blockbuster for $30 bucks. It came with Mario Tennis and WaterWorld. My buddy and I took turns playing it for a good few hours until we both got piercing headaches. I also had the "VR" helmet for the Genesis at one point (won it off a kid in poker). It was essentially a mini television RIGHT in front of your yes. Terrible headaches as well. I finally had to throw the helmet out after sparks starting flying from it and smoke was billowing out of the vent on the side. I wasn't even aware this was happening as I was wearing it, my dad had to rush in and pull it off and throw it in the bathtub. hahaha.

I wasn't comparing the Wii to the Virtual Boy, I only brought up it's name in terms of branding. The name 'Virtual Boy' is off putting to consumers who know what it stands for (failure, a bad product), and if Nintendo ever released a new device and called it the Virtual Boy 2, it would be DOA.
Same goes for the 'Wii' name, not to that extreme obviously, but it still leaves a bad taste in many consumers mouths that makes them hesitant or uninterested in buying another Wii branded console.

I think some people are forgetting that the Wii had the same "negative connotations" at the peak of its success. People were ranting about how they "don't use their Wii anymore" and that they had sold it before Galaxy was out. This at a time when with no price cuts at all and not much content outside of Zelda and Wii Sports it was still flying out of stores. So I wouldn't put too much weight into that.

What I do value in the idea of the Wii brand is that if I asked my Dad "hey, want to play some golf/bowling?" to this day he'll still be up for it. The problem isn't that he had a bad experience with the Wii, the problem is that people like my Dad don't care about Mario at 1080p. The Kart and Smash crowds? Well sure, they also have fond memories of the Wii. However they also have fond memories of the SNES, N64 or GC. They also can't get Smash or Kart on Wii U yet.

@ gage_wolf, it was a regular Wii. i think he was probably unaware of the wii u bc he didn'teven know what a 3ds was. i was more disappointed than my stepson, so that'swhy we ended up with one. i was disappointedin the number of games at the time, but figured they would be releasing more soon. took a little longer than i thought, but was pleased with collectionby the time w101 and rayman came out.

I agree that the Wii continued to sell extremely well for quite a long time and as I have said in other threads I feel this is because it was the budget friendly and family friendly alternative console. The success of the Wii was due largely to the motion control fad and initially but it continued past that as well. Unfortunately both of those things that helped the Wii be a smashing success are lacking for the Wii U. It is more expensive than the Wii ever was even when Wii had extremely high demand and budget consumers are not going to write that off that increased cost as inflation when making a purchasing decision and the family friendly aspect is improving but is also hurt by the lack of third party support. The other problem for Wii U related to these points is that all the people who bought the Wii because of these reasons (and those reasons are basically the difference between Gamecube sales and Wii sales) are not the type of people who are going to be motivated to upgrade to a new system soley for better graphics and features. That is another problem in general: A new system normally sells based on the amazing new things it can do that the old system could not. The gamepad has been an unsuccessful gimmic with the general consumer and the console was seen generally as about the same graphically as consoles that came out last generation. No one is compelled to upgrade to the Wii U from the Wii unless they are the hardcore Nintendo fans chomping at the bit to finally get there beloved franchises in HD for the first time after missing out on that entirely last gen. That is why it sales are similar to the gamecube, because generally its the same group of people who are the only ones compelled to buy it.

The Sony and Microsoft fans are generally the core gamers who are willing to pay premium for the best system with the best graphics. Getting them to upgrade is much easier than convincing casuals and budget minded family gamers to upgrade