Is Wii U having an identity crisis?

Wii U has a plethora of games for consumers to choose from on launch. There’s something for everyone – for the casual gamers there’s Nintendo Land and the like and for the more core gamers there are titles such as Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

However, according to one analyst Nintendo shouldn’t try too hard to break into the core gaming market - it should instead opt to do its own thing. In an interview with NowGamer, Jesse Divnich of EEDAR spoke of his worry that the Wii U is “in an awkward place with its identity”.

On one side of the coin, Nintendo has done an excellent job at messaging to the casual and mainstream audience. They've done enough to convince the mainstream that the Wii U is a worthy upgrade to the Wii. On the other side, Nintendo and the third-parties are still trying to pitch the Wii U as delivering a core experience.

Don't get me wrong, all the core launch titles play beautifully; however, the problem is that gamers don't want a core experience on the Wii U. There is already two systems that satisfy the core experience.

Divnich believes Nintendo should position the Wii U in the same way it did with the Wii rather than try to muscle in on the core gamer market that has been dominated by Sony and Microsoft for a number of years:

Nintendo has always operated at their own pace. It has worked well for them and I don't think the Wii U is a scenario where Nintendo was rushing to market. There will be issues, however, if Nintendo attempts to compete with Sony and Microsoft at their own game (again, delivering core experiences, superior online services, etc.

With several third-party titles on Wii U already, and with many more to come, it seems Nintendo has its heart set on capturing some core gamers with its new console. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo really can tempt the users of other consoles to invest in Wii U.

What do you think? Are Nintendo right to offer something for the core audience as well as the casual gamers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

[source nowgamer.com]