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Topic: Theory: Wii U was a throw-away console until Switch was ready

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Nateisawesomeo

By the end of the Wii and beginning of the Wii U Nintendo was in a dire situation being unable to compete in the arms war Sony and Microsoft were mounting against one another. As a company who has in the past admitted they were not good at competing in the fields that their rivals have prospered in, they knew they couldn’t put out just another console. Nintendo as a company is not good at following trends but instead are great at disruption. For the next battle ahead Nintendo could not go toe to toe but at the same time could not play the disrupt game. That is not to say they did not have many tricks under their sleeves. That’s where the Switch 0.5 is introduced; the Wii U.

I say Switch 0.5 instead of Wii 2.0, as others would put it, because I believe it’s more fitting to say the Wii U is more akin to Switch than it is the Wii. It was a concept that played more to Nintendo’s disruption strategy than it was just a Wii upgrade. The idea was there; to be free from the TV, play where you want, HD graphics and a slew of third parties and indies. The problem was price and technology. Price point wasn’t there and technology hadn’t caught up with what they wanted to do.

So what do they to do until they got where they wanted to be? Stall. Business as usual on a yearly bases. They let out the Wii U and pretended this is where the future was when it was only a stop. In October 2009, Miyamoto said that Nintendo had no concrete plans about its next console, but thought that the new system would continue to feature motion controls and also expected its interface to be "more compact" and cheaper. The Wii U is not “more compact” than the Wii. In 2010, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé commented that he felt "confident the Wii home entertainment console has a very long life in front of it" and declared that a successor would not be launched in the near future. In less than 2 years the Wii U was out to a successful launch, but a very dismal run.

There was so much criticism over the Wii U regarding it’s poor identity. The casuals were unable distinguish which console was which, or what even the Wii U was. Was it a game pad accessory or was it a brand new console? Then there was the very lack of advertisement. Think back to the Wii and Switch marketing and compare it to the Wii U. Nintendo has received criticism on the Wii U’s marketing or lack thereof. When the Wii was given a budget of 200 million dollars for a whole year of advertisement. “We would like to play”, was a rallying cry for the console that was played to almost nausea. The Switch marketing too was more vast in size than the Wii U. Super bowl commericials, John Cena endorsing the product, in the Nickelodeon kids Choice awards, and for goodness sakes We Bear bears. The Wii U did not receive this kind of love.

To me there two are situations that present themselves regarding the Wii U. The first is that Nintendo were the incompetent company that didn’t know how to market their product. They were the company that didn’t know how to distinguish one console from another. The most enigmatic hardware and software developers are also the most inapt players in the game for 4 years.

Or the second: was it that Nintendo could not come out and plainly say they did have a great console full of ideas and very innovative, but we cannot bring it out until 4 years from now. Until then continue to buy a half developed console which will be concluded years later when both technology and price point have been reached.

Just a thought.

Nateisawesomeo

Eel

Yeah, sorry but no serious company actually wants failure.

Specially not when it's as unremarkable as the WiiU's.

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Nateisawesomeo

Tsurii wrote:

"Hey guys, know what's a good idea? Let's dump millions, nah billions of money into R&D for a concept we have zero faith in and development of games for that system. Just for the heck of it. Sounds fun, eh?"

Let's play Nintendo booker. So we're Nintendo and we're coming from a 120+ DS hardware and 100+ million Wii sells. PS4 and xbox are on the horizon and honestly, we have nothing. Let's go ahead and build this filler. We build all if not most of our hardware to sell at a profit. Let's also remain conservative. Let's make 8 million wii u for the first fiscal year and if it sells out, fine. We're happy about that. If we don't sell all 8 mill, we stop building, we keep selling and coming out with games and make back our money with software. Also, because we don't have the tech and price point for what we really want, let's put more money into R&D which will eventually trickle into what console we want to make anyways. We act like business as usual and let things play out as we continue to build into our real goal, which is the switch. We take a hit on the market, but we will weather the storm. 3DS is starting to catch steam, lets focus on that with great games and continuosly pour more great games to the 3ds so as breaking even. We also have our side projects, ie smartphones and other business dealings(universal theme park, possibly movies and TV). In 4 to 5 years, we will have an infrastructure that will have built up on this filler console and nobody would be the wiser. Believe me, most will consider our moves in this 4 to 5 years crazy and inept, rather than a cold and precise plan to further the company in that time. Late game is a thing.

Nateisawesomeo

Nateisawesomeo

Meowpheel wrote:

Yeah, sorry but no serious company actually wants failure.

Specially not when it's as unremarkable as the WiiU's.

You're right. They don't want failure. Let's not say they're throwing wii u under the bus, but instead they want to use this as a bridge. Look at all the wii u games being ported on to Switch. Mario Kart delux, Splatoon 2, Smash when it's announce and we all know it will be, probably mario maker, probably more Wii u games. That's like saying "let's put mario kart double dash on the wii. Or Luigi's Mansion on the Wii." Look, I'm not saying I"m right, but you're saying you rule it out completely? This is Nintendo who are masters of double speak. You honestly don't think they're capable of doing this?

Nateisawesomeo

Octane

No. Just no. Selling a filler console sounds more incompetent than what they actually tried with the Wii U.

Octane

19Robb92

Haha, this is extremely far fetched. Ockham's razor etc.

Companies fail at launching new products all the time, Nintendo is hardly any different.

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Sisilly_G

There may be some truth to this when you consider the lack of marketing and Nintendo never really harnessing the console to its full potential (remember when they said that two Gamepads would eventually be supported?).

I certainly don't think that it was intentional, but I think Nintendo resigned themselves to the fact that the Wii U was a failure pretty early on in its short life. It's probably fairer to say that it was a modest success given that it had a small but loyal userbase.

Edited on by Sisilly_G

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Luffymcduck

It was a filler that lasted longer than Naruto fillers combined. Actually I'm not too sure about that as I've only read the manga...

Still had quite a few quality titles worth my money and time.

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SLIGEACH_EIRE

Or maybe the Switch is a filler until the next generation of home consoles begin. Nintendo were desperate for profits and threw the Switch out the door before it was even fully ready. They wanted a boost before their end of year profits were announced and BOTW couldn't wait any longer. The Switch's first real must have is Super Mario Odyssey and that's coming 8 months after launch, the rest of the games have been largely(read not all) Wii U ports and glorified ports. They're not ready with Virtual console, apps, a browser, their online subscription, their voice chat is messy. They've clearly got a plan for themes, but again, not ready. I think Nintendo are beyond paranoid about piracy and until they've figured out everything themselves, they're not going to leave any door or window ajar for would be hackers.

Edit: I don't think the Switch is a throwaway but I think Nintendo have a couple of contingency plans just in case. And I believe the Switch is ultimately a 3DS replacement.

Edited on by SLIGEACH_EIRE

SLIGEACH_EIRE

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kobashi100

Nintendo after 12 - 18 months of the Wii U life time reliased the Wii U was a failure and basically decided they couldn't kill it that early and simply decided that that they would spend as little as possible and just ride it out.

The switch is Nintendo learning from its mistakes and accepting that at this current stage they cannot compete with the competition in the home console market.

Nintendo couldn't risk having another failed console like the Wii U and GameCube.

kobashi100

kkslider5552000

I also like making ridiculous theories that have no basis in reality!

No, no, the Wii U clearly existed because they had some ideas for asymmetrical multiplayer and saw the rising success of tablets and wanted to be to tablets was the PS2 was to DVD. Also, it came out a year earlier than the other 2 because they wanted a head start and Wii sales had plummeted.

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LzWinky

Or it genuinely failed to impress anybody and Nintendo genuinely failed to sell the thing.

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FX102A

Okay I haven't read the OP in full yet but whilst I don't believe Nintendo sent the Wii U out to fail, I do sometimes feel it created it as a placeholder console. Something that combined something popular at the time (tablets) with a vision they had (the amalgamation of home console and portable console gaming). However the technology wasn't entirely there to produce the product and the costs they were truly aiming for.

History had shown that 3 almost identical consoles can't all succeed and after the Sixth Generation, Nintendo were the most likely to fail if they tried to go on par with the competitors. They needed something unique, something that would attract other console owners by offering unique experiences. Unfortunately, what they went for in the Wii U failed to attract a wide enough audience.

Whilst they did design the Wii U to be a potential success, faith may have been a little lacklustre from the start and perhaps did their best to keep development costs, etc under control to ensure the hit wouldn't be too great should it fail.

All just theoretical of course.

Regardless, at the very least it was a good experiment and likely offered a learning experience to Nintendo.

Edited on by FX102A

FX102A

kobashi100

it was definitely more then just a throw away console. Iwata said himself that if it would be a failure if it hit the same numbers as the GC. As it sold less it was a complete disaster.

Don't get it twisted. Nintendo honestly thought it was gonna be some huge success.

The idea that Nintendo treated the Wii U as some kind of test is pure madness.

The good thing is that they reliased it was disaster and quit before wasting more money on a device that nobody wanted.

People say they should have spent more in marketing etc etc. They should look at the crazy amounts of money MS spent on marketing the surface RT or Rim on the BlackBerry.

Millions spent and didn't change a damn thing.

Edited on by kobashi100

kobashi100

KingMike

Wasn't Blackberry quite popular for awhile?
I can't remember when but I'm guessing before iPhones took off.

Now, a throwaway would be like the GBC. They were already making the GBA, GBC was a filler to keep the competition away.
And Virtual Boy. Arguable if it was a throwaway or just Nintendo deciding to bite on mid-90s gimmicky tech blitz.

And that is probably where Wii U will end up in 10 years. A collectible like the VB. Now a VB console, especially in working condition, is rather valuable, whereas 10 and definitely 15 years ago it was not. And if GamePads working becomes an issue in 10 years, it could be similar to VB failure problems.

KingMike

Luna_110

Hahaha, no.

You know something of business? You really think they're going to send a console out there to die, losing a lot of money in the process, hurting the brand power a lot and outright murdering the Wii brand, and destroying relations with third parties even more than they already were?

Just, no.

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SMEXIZELDAMAN

All of Nintendo's video games and consoles are throwaway products put forth for the sole purpose of acquiring enough funds to hold them over until they make the next big breakthrough in hanafuda card development.

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KryptoniteKrunch

It can be argued that Wii U was a step in the hybrid console direction, but a throwaway console?! LOL no.

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