Topic: Why is no one buying the Wii U?

For a more serious answer, I dont know why, I mean its cheaper, has good 1st party games, has Cod for the fanboys, and actually is innovative. So srry nintendo that Cod took over your fans.

And what's your point? Its still better than the 360 and Wii's lineup! What does it matter if some of those games are sequels. How many sequels are coming to the next-gen platforms! Some of the most anticipated games on the Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4 are sequels! What, sequels suddenly don't count?

The PS3 still has a very strong lineup, and is getting several noteworthy games this year. Maybe you could make the argument that its weaker than the lineup in previous years, but its still a system that's still very much alive and getting good support!(Like the PS2 before it)

Its much better compared to the Wii which kinda fizzled out, and the 360 which Microsoft has lost all interest with and seems to avoid pulling the trigger only because they don't want to anger millions of 360 owners and they can still make some money off the platform.

That's completely ridiculous. Word of mouth can only get you so far. This isn't the 1700s or whenever there were only like two choices anyway and everybody spoke to everybody else face to face. Now there are a million choices and people tend to get their information from sources such as TV and computers, not other people.

All Nintendo can do is advertise its product and hope it sells enough. Not beg or demand.

Of course, Nintendo has always been awful at the whole 'advertising' dealio.

There are a glut of products for every application and who can say which one is the best?

Everyone can. Opinions are magical, yet frustrating. Stupid, even.

I actually saw a really good Game Theory trilogy that said gamers don't WANT innovation. It was interesting!

Part one: Game Theory: Wii U is the New Virtual Boy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1p7W5dmBE
Part two: Game Theory: Are Gamers Killing Video Games? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q
Part three: Game Theory: Flappy Bird, PewDiePie, and Pasta Sauce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyXcr6sDRtw

I think you could some it up with Steve Jobs: "A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
That is a two part statment in this case. Nintendo has to "show" us, meaning getting the word out, creating buzz, advertisement etc.
Nintendo has to make sure that the product they put on display, they spent money on advertising, is something people can get into, even or especially if they didn't know they would.
I feel hard pressed to say, that Nintendo is doing a good job either way right now.

Interesting just watched them and ... well I basically followed the same train of thought, including the same Jobs quote apparently. Great minds ... I guess

Edit: I wasn't really aware Nintendo is causing so much trouble for trendsetters/opinion leaders (I'm not gonna use ***-tubers, since they themselves are just a temporary symptom of a larger social phenomenon) out there. As a social scientist I can only agree with the assessement that this can most certainly have crippling effect. Studies for this go back more than a hundered years to the very root of sociology ifself. It's a well established mechanism and I guess if Nintendo is really screwing these types hard enough, that also explains a large part of the problem, keeping in mind that any complex phenomenon is never ever explained by a single cause, but the last couple of pages in this thread are full of other causes clearly also factoring in.

2nd edit: This brings up the most baffling of questions. Everyone who ever came into contact with marketing or any form of social sciences is aware of this phenomenon. That's as basic an understanding as the principle that individual often behave quite differently in a group setting than they would be when isolated. If Nintendo is really screwing up there, how is that even possible, do they have 000 people with basic education on this issue in their ranks Oo

Except they backpedaled from that pretty quickly. Like more than half a year ago. They literally have released videos with major Youtube channels.

I think he got confused or wrote the script for these videos in June or something.

@Ralek85
The whole YouTube thing has been blow way out of proportion. A lot of people don't actually know what their YouTube policies are, so sone are scared to make Nintendo videos

I think the whole main reason it's not selling is simple; the GamePad has less appeal than motion controls did. Really. As much as Nintendo loves it, asymmetric gameplay just doesn't interest people in the same way, and isn't seen as 'exciting' for most non gamers.

The games too I guess. Yeah they're good, but for the most part, every game Nintendo released in the first half of the system's lifespan had something that put people off buying it, whether that's only niche appeal, a terrible art style, ideas that already failed in the Gamecube era or nothing too new and different from the last installment. But hey, Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros ought to change that.

@DefHalan @kkslider5552000 Well like I said I honestly don't know. I'm not big on the gaming channels on youtube gaming channels. I prefer to do my own gaming. I know I read something about Nintendo's policies a couple month back but didn't pay too much attention to it. So you are saying it is not really affecting Nintendo's publicity on youtube ? Because that would have been a pretty darn good explanation why there is so little "buzz"/"momentum" .. call it what you want, for the WiiU, which of course translates into poor sales (Not ignoring the already discussed factors of a somewhat different nature).
I'm too lazy too browse youtube right now to see what those guys are covering and what not, so I'd have to rely on someone else's estimation. Keep in mind of course, that if there is a perception that covering Nintendo products may cause trouble, this will have a detrimental effect on it's own, even if it is not necessarily true.
But the whole discussion gave me an idea, I should check if there is any statistical data available that also accounts for gaming-specific variables, like e.g. awarness of Wii U, time spent reading news site/ watching youtuble channels and so on ... I would really love to test some statisical modells if I had the data to see how much some of the variables we discussed in this thread really factor in in the end. Also having some hard numbers on the relevance of factors like group pressure, opinion leader,s relative deprivation etc. would be pretty handy for future discussions on a topic like this I imagine they hold true accross the board, meaning that they still would provide a good framework for any future consolewars
There probably already has been some research into this, I will check on this at least.

You know what I think? This is just a hunch, but I think in like ten years or so the Wii U is going to be a very popular retro console, sort of like "Why didn't we appreciate it then?" kind of deal. And the games we have right now (W101, DK:TF, Pikmin 3, etc) will hold up very well and people will still be playing them. And this is not something I see for the current crop of games on the other two consoles.

I just think the major Youtubers don't care about Wii U either for the most part. At least the REALLY big ones. Because most of them became big when Wii's momentum was dead and people were playing anything else. And handheld games are not frequently what people watch or make videos for (tougher to record, potentially illegal to record from what I've heard, all that stuff).

Quite honestly Nintendo's failures are almost deserved for how they treated the Wii at that point, that is still the dumbest thing they did.

@Ralek85
I realize that PS4 and Xbox One have a bit better physics, but claiming that gameplay hasn't improved from 6th gen to 7th gen is practically being blind, and you didn't even know Battlefield 4 was on Xbox 360, so the whole discussion was kind of nonsensical.

@kkslider5552000 Well that's quite possible. I think maybe the Wii U is just not "cool" these days ... not "indie game" cool and not "look at that next gen graFiX" cool and not "hardcore like Demon Souls" cool ... or any other kind of current "cool" anyways. Maybe that will change with the right game and set of circumstances, the funny thing is that a game that changes that perception doesn't have to be a big seller itself. It could just as well be a something that gets the ball rolling ,make people talk about, create some perception that interesting things are happening on the system ...
@Lobster Not so sure in regards to Pikmin and DK, but for the overall system I could see that happen, depending on how some of the sleeper hits are shaping up. It wouldn't be a kind fate though. In the end it doesn'T matter to me personally, if the System is like 200€/300$ I'd say I'd be happy if I got about 10 really great games out of it, that I couldn't get anywhere else. That would be enough for me for one. For Nintendo ... I'm not worried in general, maybe they will decide to go with one platform only in the future, maybe they will go developer/publisher only, maybe they will learn form their mistakes and pull a second Wii on us with their next console. The games itself will not go away. And in the end, that is all that matters, if I end up playing the next Zelda on Playstation ... I could think of worse things than that.

@Ralek85

Yeah Sony is trying things with the Vita; no doubt about that, it's just that nobody cares. Still. You listed a bunch more recent games, using the word 'lots of' which I remember you pinning me down for in a previous post and I remain unconvinced just like you did with me.

The truth of the matter is that the Vita's only gaming experience is with PS Plus. Can you imagine the state Nintendo would be in if it had nothing to offer except for it's Virtual Console library? Not even the Wii U is in such a desperate situation. Infact there can be no doubt that in terms of exclusives ( I don't know how many of your 'lots of' list are exclusives) the Vita is an even more dire straight than the Wii U. I guess people are still waiting for the 'Bioshock Vita' exclusive that never arrived, and well, pretty much everything else it promised.

And yeah, using the Vita as a controller I'm sure will turn out to be a lovely experience, providing there will not be a drop of lag throughout; which is not a guarantee; and of course that being the case all you are essentially paying for is a rather expensive, separate controller.

Having said all that, comparing a handheld to a home console; it's a little unfair. My point is that it's so difficult to get everything right, all the time, juggling seperate consoles/strategies/departments all at the same time; and it's clear that Nintendo have struggled with the move to HD and all the rest of it, as well as managing it vs managing the 3DS. But my point is that Sony is having the same issue. All Sony handhelds have failed miserably compared to the Nintendo counterparts. All Nintendo home consoles have failed miserably in comparison to Sony.

Sony have pulled out god knows how many rabbits out of the hat with the Vita and yet no-one is batting eyelids. If Nintendo pulled more fingers out than a toddler looking for farts it would not guarantee to work either.

What will help both cases of failure is GAMES.

This nails it. I keep hearing people say that it's just marketing, and the Gamepad makes the system amazing. But if that were the case, there would be massive hype for the system. Instead the hype was nowhere close to what the Wii, PS4, or even the XBDone were.

But there are a few other flaws.
1. Major OS shortcomings, many of which Nintendo did well in previous consoles
2. Worst 3rd party support in Nintendo history
3. Lack of games that actually demonstrate why the Gamepad is necessary to the system.
4. The price
5. Lack of Power
6. Utterly abysmal marketing
7. Horrible 1st Party launch and launch window lineup.

In the UK (as I'm sure many people on the site will know for obvious reasons), abysmal marketing can also be summed up as 'no marketing whatsoever'. Which just adds to the console's misery even more, because hey, if no one knows it exists or what games are out, then even a console with a good selling point is gonna be kind of doomed.

@Wonkers To be fair what I said was "I have to say I got mine just like 2 months ago and there is quite a variety of also partly unique experiences to be found on it: Tearaway, Danganronpa 1(/2), Ys Celceta, PERSONA4Golden (must have), Gravity, Uncharted, OlliOlli, TxK and also upcoming stuff like Freedom Wars and Tales of ... to name just a few." I didn't use "lots of" for good reason because I think it would be misleading at this point. I think most good games on Vita are exclusives actually. Sure OlliOlli is not longer one, and P4G is a fancy remake (incredibley good game, and by itself almost worth the price of admission though), but the rest I named are.
I'm aware that most people don't care, I said as much, but still, like you put it: "Sony is trying" and despite what people say there is real value with the Vita, even more so if you use it in conjunction with PS+ and a PS3/4. Sony managed to create a ecosystem that enforces its respective parts. I got quite a few games on my PS4 just because I bought them on PS3, like the beautiful Flower for example, or Motherload and other, the same is true for Vita. Things just kinda mesh with Playstation right now. When I turned on my Vita I just downloaded the games I already had for it, thanks to cross-buy and PS+ without any additional investment.
I didn't mean to say, this alone will work miracles, but it does matter.
Nintendo fails at this. It took them forever to create a unified wallet for it's two systems. It's just hard these days to take them seriously. Their ecosystem just feels outdated, sorry if this sounds harsh, but it comes down to so many things. I want to give you one example that is frustrating: So region-lock ... as a EU customer, who cares about Atlus games, you have to import a console or you get screwed right ? This leaves you with the issue of how to get the actual games. You could import them which means delivery cost, duties and double-taxation. Also I'm not a big fan of game carts on a mobile device. A reasonable option would be then to go digital, just what I did in fact. Right around the time I got my 3DS NoA obviously decided that it no longer wanted to serve customers on the e-shop who were using international credit cards. For a moment upon reading this I thought I was kinda screwed. Luckily Nintendo Canada didn't follow suit. If they ever decided to do so, I don't know if I would bother with the 3DS anymore, I'd have to pay a premium for some prepaid codes on the web, and I would probably just be too pissed to bother anyway. My money is as good as anyones'.
This is all bad enough as it is, but you might say Sony did the same thing in regards to payment options. Yes, yes they did, but even so there is still a crucial difference. You can still use an european console to make purchases in the U.S. and thanks to Sony's cooperation with Amazon, it's as easy as it gets to buy games or prepaid credit for use with your U.S. account. Nintendo actually makes it hard for me to give them my money, not just to justify giving it to them, but to actually make a transaction. Nintendo makes me jumb through hoopes, I wonder why that is. And please don't say something along the lines of ... well f*** you europeans, just learn to deal with it. ^^
A point I completely forgot to mention earlier, but adds to my whole "value" proposition is that Sony actually allows you to activate your content on several systems (4 now 2). I will not go into detail, why this is a great thing, but I think you catch my drift anyways.... let me just say this, the sales culture of the psn, ps+, international accounts and sharing work together quite well.
I agree on your final point that Sony hasn't managed success on both fronts either, but again, they are actually creating a "bigger picture" here, I believe strongly that this will pay off in the future. Surely games, like you say, matter alot, but I cannot help but think that Sony is spinning a web with it's rather deeply integrated platforms (PS3/4/Vita/PSP/PS-App/PS+) that is going to serve them really, really, really well in the future. Frankly I don't see neither Nintendo nor Microsoft realizing yet how deeply invested customers are becoming with Sony's mutli-platform brand, I'm afraid it will be a rather rude awakening.
It's reminiscent in some ways of the product culture of Google or think Apple. Apple also managed to bridge the gap of hardware generations by tying people into their ecosystem, with Appstore and iTunes. iTunes also turned into a rude awakening when the music industry realized how dependent they became on Apple and Apple was not shy in leveraging the situation to press as much blood out of them as possible. I'm aware it's not a perfect comparsion, but I still helps to illustrate my point. You hook people, you get them invested in your platform, you enhance the platform, you diversify the platform .. suddenly it's not just an ipod, its an iphone, its an imac, its an appletv and so on, suddenly its not just music, its movies, its television series, its apps, its games .... at some point people amassed so much digital value within your ecosystems, that they feel very little incentive to jump ship even if at any given time, there might be another piece of hardware available that is cheaper, better designed, more powerful or whatever. It's a common theme these days, one Nintendo has not pick up on either. Big surprise there ... :-/

Edit: Sorry I forgot to address your comments about the 2nd controller issue. Well it depends alot on your lan/wifi environment. The range is rather limited and the omission of L2 and R2 buttons can be a bit of hurdle. But it does work, for some games better for some less o. But don't forget, it's just an optional feature, like being able to use your 3DS as a second WiiU gamepad by default would be just that. It will not be perfect in any given situation, but it just again adds a little bit of value, and is to be honest just fun to play around with for some time, or if another friend drops buy and you haven't gotten around to spend yet another 50€ (that's like a 1/3 vita) on yet another controller, that most of the time, does nothing but sit there gathering dust. More importantly though,I'm repeating myself I know, it creates a strong impression that Sony tries to integrate their platform, that there is some kind of plan, that makes them all come together. I mean, they do, you can even use the vita as a 2nd screen similar to the Wii U gamepad. Again it is not revolutionary, but it works, its free and it offers plenty of potential for future applications should anyone care to take advantage of them.

@wonkers this is the list of vita exclusives that have released or are confirmed to release this year

Toukiden, dagganrompa 1 and 2, neptunia rebirth and pp, freedom wars, senran kagura shinovi versus, and im missing some. Those may not be the biggest names but thats more exclusives than the wii u number wise

@ferthepoet Yes you missed a few, but I mean it's easy enough to google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_Vita-only_...
Wii U: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wii_U-only_games
According to wiki then, and just going by the numbers: Vita - 53 Wii U - 29, make of that what you will.

Edit: Just for funs' sake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_4_games Wiki puts the PS4 at 28. So yeah that makes for a draw with the Wii U, if you want to crunch numbers that is ^^