Topic: What Did Nintendo do Right/Wrong with the Wii U?

The only thing I think to myself that is wrong with the Wii U is that Nintendo gave the 3DS a great great year.

..huh?

The Wii U received divided support from Nintendo. It's a fact, so much of a fact that you could eat it and feel full:S ..whatever that means, anyway. The real question is not wether Nintendo should have made a different console or if they should quit consoles, but rather: Can Nintendo fully support two gaming systems in this age of modern and detailed gaming?

The Wii U was down and the 3DS was up. This wasn't just luck. It was Nintendo supporting an Animal crossing and pokemon launch year which they needed to go as good as possible to get the brand up to full steam to drive the hardware life cycle. Wii U HD development was a beast on Nintendo's comparatively small development studios when you look at western third party publisher's set ups. Iwata ain't laying no one off because they operate a minimum capacity of employees that are paid well enough working for Nintendo to dedicate a lot of their time to making games which Nintendo makes up for having fewer employees (see Aonuma, Sakurai comments about work load this year).

This year they bolstered production by contracting third party developers and hiring some. But then you have guys like Sakurai who are not satisfied with the "temp" work and go on to just take on the work load himself.

In short, Nintendo is adjusting to a modern and detailed age of game development while keeping its usual trim payroll. The Wii U has suffered a lack of attention from its creator and the consumers noticed (or didn't notice because of the slack) and sales suffered.

So? The Wii U will fulfill Nintendo's sales goals when they can give it as much support as they ever have given to a console and perhaps a bit more
like they've had to do with their handheld this generation. Undivided support from the brilliant company that Nintendo is will see their consoles now and in the future to good success.

And I stress undivided. Cuz maybe then they will have things to actually market.

@2Sang Just going to say that the highest attach rate game for the PS4 is Call of Duty Ghosts.

I don't want to be "that guy," but by these results, it stands to say that Ghosts is a reason to spend another $400-$500 on gaming equipment when it's available on the PS3 and 360 as well? I don't buy that.

So... Yeah.

But they also have some seriously amazing games. Wii u's #1 game is a rehash too (despite the squirrel powerup being kinda fun).
If Nintendo could produce mature content like heavy rain and uncharted, it would be amazing. I know it's against their usual formula, but why not tap into both markets? Besides they already have zombiu.

There's also the fact that the complaints about PC gaming that used to be thrown from console gamers don't really apply anymore. It used to be that consoles at launch were significantly more powerful than their PC counterparts at the same price. It also used to be a simpler experience where you'd just buy a game on console, put it in your machine and go.

The current gen console experience has you going out and buying a game or maybe downloading it. Then you have to sit and wait while the game installs. Following that you are definitely going to have to wait again for a patch to download so that the game-breaking bug doesn't get you. All so you can play a game on a machine that at launch is about equal in power to a PC counterpart. Worse yet you're compelled to buy it mostly so you can play the third party games that also exist on PC.

And people buy into that so they can play a poorly reviewed CoD. I mean it may not be the "popular" or "cool" opinion and it may not be translating into sales but at least going Wii U + PC gets you the best overall experience.

Biggest mistake was creating a system with a unique controller that added a huge amount to the price of the system and then not creating any games to take advantage of it.

The Wii had Wii Sports, Mario Kart, Just Dance, Wii Play etc. to justify the unique controller. The Wii U has Nintendoland (which is fun but hardly essential) and a few tacked on features in games that would run fine on any other console. So it's a more expensive PS360 with a weaker selection of games and a unique feature that isn't used in a compelling way.

So what Nintendo did wrong is to do what they wanted and not just follow what others are doing?

I'm sure all of those people with other gaming set ups would enjoy knowing they're missing out on skywake's 'best overall experience'. lol

I think sometimes we forget people enjoy MS and Sony exclusives more than Nintendo's. Crazy and imaginable I know.

Good-
Easy to use tablet.Love Second screen gaming.
backwards compatible, if your into that sort of thing.
Innovative games like pikmin Lego city.Yet they are too few and far inbetween.
Gaming experiences that engage with fun like 3d world, G&W
Bad-
Questionable marketing.I mostly see commercials only recently on abc family network.
Vc console trickling the games. What are they waiting for? Gamecube games on HD console seems too logical.
Year of Luigi,When it should have been year of wiiu not famicons 35th anniversary...sigh
Lack of games. Enough said.
E3 hype on games 2 Years away...What happened to Yoshi?
Lack of 2nd Gamepad support. And for that matter ,no way of buying a gamepad if this one craps out.I called nintendo cs today because my 2 year old has my buttons sticking.Since Im a day one adopter,Im not under warranty. They charge 95$ for a repair/cleaning. Then only extend warranty on gamepad...
We need our own playstation plus type system..

Nintendo's marketing and messaging were both off for the good part of last year. I still think the massaging is a bit hakey but its much better than where it was this time last year.

I think a lot of people ignore rival console exclusives no matter who you are a fan of. In my personal opinion majority of people have been ignoring Nintendo for way too long and need to open their eyes a bit, but same could be said about Nintendo fans

Frankly I don't care what they think and I don't expect them to care what I think. I was just saying that the hardware, cost and "experience" arguments that once existed are dead. The fact is the PS4 and XBOne are more like a PC than their predecessors were and the PC gaming experience is becoming more and more like a console gaming experience. Same with the Wii U GamePad argument, how is the GamePad a bad idea if Vita-Streaming and NVidia Shield are not? People can't be taken seriously if they have a go at one while being perfectly fine with the idea of the other.

If people enjoy Sony/MS exclusives more than Nintendo's or those on PC then more power to them. Just don't expect me to buy the arguments people might have once had with regards to the "better experience" without the exclusives. The reality is we're buying into PCs and GamePads on all platforms.

That's basically what they already did with the Wii U. EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. still have licenses to put games on the system. The only thing keeping those devs from porting or creating a game is actually using the dev kit.

Those companies are handling most of their plans for anything Wii U related from a business perspective more than anything else. I think EA ultimately made the right decision to hold off on Wii U until it makes business sense. I would guess from some point of views, that EA made the better decision in comparison to Activision or Ubisoft with Wii U support. All I'm getting from EA's take, is that they'll only support Wii U when it benefits them, AND the consumer. As of now, Wii U owners that are buying 7th gen ports are getting alot of criticism that they have a "weaker" version of a game. In some ways, this is true, but it's better than nothing. That's where EA's decision to hold off until it's more "worth it" makes sense. It's just a shame that Activision and Ubisoft can't support the Wii U as much as they probably could, without putting "real" versions of games out there. CoD: Ghosts is probably a pretty big loss to Activision right now. That wouldn't be the case if it was just as good as the Xbox One and PS4 version, but this is taking the perspective that CoD is worth having as a big title in the first place.

IIRC, some teams from EA didn't even touch their Wii U dev kit the last time they said anything.

To justify this as a response to the OP. I think Nintendo allowing developers to have more choice in system development is a good thing. Some devs can't justify supporting the Wii U, while others feel inclined to, regardless of its current state in the latter. Ubisoft and Activision supported the system regardless of it's status, so I think EA made the right decision. Not keeping communication with 3rd parties can either benefit them, or cripple them, and that's why I think it's important that Nintendo doesn't always try to shove their system as an option into their faces. It's ultimately not Nintendo's decision, and that is in itself, a kind of freedom.

As i see it, Nintendo made first big mistake already with the Wii, when they went all in with motion controls & other console makers took the stage with HD.

Yeah, Wii U is HD now, but i knew it was always gonna be a hard sale for people who already in 2006 was stepping in the "HD World" of games. Nintendo became arrogant & they are now paying for it. Also the lack of online strategy with no account based system downloads, no friendslists that are standard practice everywhere else etc. Its really hard to get excited about Nintendo anymore and i find it sad as i've been a big fan of them since the NES days.

this is essentially factually wrong

I agree. Nintendo did a good a job having motion control. Even smart devices have motion control, so I do see that as being essential in what makes a system now adays. Sony and Microsoft have motion, so this statement holds no value. To a lesser extent, even the camera in the GamePad is an important feature. It keeps Nintendo from losing potential software that requires at least SOME FORM of a camera.

Wii had motion, Xbox 360 and PS3 had HD, now they all have both.

All you got to do is think along the lines that you have that motion control outside of the actual screen that would other wise be constrained with in the same device that has the screen(on a 3DS or smart device), that's why it's important that the GamePad has it, as well.

Right, Nintendo's biggest mistake was creating one of the best selling consoles of all time by appealing to a new market. Don't hear people throwing that accusation at Sony about their PS2 or PS3 nor do you hear it about the 3DS. Those have all followed market broadening machines that appealed to the non-core gamer of the time.

Wii is arguably the most mainstream success Nintendo has ever had (or at least on par with the NES days), anyone who thinks Nintendo has any reason to regret that is insane.

Or I could just compare GCN and Wii sales and call it a day.

SHAMOAN'D

The name, too early and hardware - also, not talking to developers at all, only expecting them to jump right in on the hype train

Did right:

Made a new system
Made some good games for it (Mario 3D World and Pikmin 3 among them)
Is making other good games for it (DKC Tropical Freeze, Smash Bros 4, Mario Kart 8, a new Zelda title, etc)
Improved their account system to remove friend codes and have something more convenient than 'all games are tied to one console forever'.
Made the system HD

Did wrong:

The marketing, especially in the UK. No advertising in some areas, poorly done advertising in others and a lack of effort in general caused no one to care about the system or understand what it even is.
The name, which should have been more than 'Wii with an extra letter after the name'.
A lack of good launch titles, which makes me think they should have saved its release until a bit later when they had a line up of games planned out.
Made the hardware too underpowered/different, which was a result of trying to be 'first' rather than waiting to see what competitors had lined up.
Didn't do enough to attract third party support