I visited the Trafford Centre in Manchester, UK, before Chrsitmas. Game had relocated and opened a store double the size of their old store. Yet in the process of moving to a store twice the size they chose to reduce the Nintendo content to about 20 percent of its shelf space. Most of this space was handed to used Wii stock, but even this was cut in half from that stock's shelf-space in the old smaller store. New Wii U games had two shelves of about 3 foot each in length and these were far from full. Basically, it is clear, these shops stock what sells. Shelf space with Wii U stock is simply not profitable enough for them to hand over that space too that stock. This is depressing for those of us that think the Wii U is terribly misunderstood and gets a lot of undeserved bad press. I see the kids of friends and family who have PS4s and Xbox Ones at home when they play Splatoon, Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros. in same room co-op and so on and Nintendo still nail it in ways Microsoft and Sony can only dream of. But, and this is key for me, their marketing of the Wii U has been a disaster. Take a look at the questions under EVERY Wii U game on Amazon and you will see someone asking if it will work on their Wii. Even now, nearly approaching four years after release. Each one of these people is a person that is unaware there is current generation (post Wii) Nintendo system. Part of the problem is naming, part of it is lack of high street presence, and part of it is that they simply cannot slug it out in the marketing department with Sony and Microsoft.
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Re: Reaction: Nintendo Titles Miss the UK Top 40 Once Again
I visited the Trafford Centre in Manchester, UK, before Chrsitmas. Game had relocated and opened a store double the size of their old store. Yet in the process of moving to a store twice the size they chose to reduce the Nintendo content to about 20 percent of its shelf space. Most of this space was handed to used Wii stock, but even this was cut in half from that stock's shelf-space in the old smaller store. New Wii U games had two shelves of about 3 foot each in length and these were far from full.
Basically, it is clear, these shops stock what sells. Shelf space with Wii U stock is simply not profitable enough for them to hand over that space too that stock.
This is depressing for those of us that think the Wii U is terribly misunderstood and gets a lot of undeserved bad press. I see the kids of friends and family who have PS4s and Xbox Ones at home when they play Splatoon, Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros. in same room co-op and so on and Nintendo still nail it in ways Microsoft and Sony can only dream of. But, and this is key for me, their marketing of the Wii U has been a disaster. Take a look at the questions under EVERY Wii U game on Amazon and you will see someone asking if it will work on their Wii. Even now, nearly approaching four years after release. Each one of these people is a person that is unaware there is current generation (post Wii) Nintendo system.
Part of the problem is naming, part of it is lack of high street presence, and part of it is that they simply cannot slug it out in the marketing department with Sony and Microsoft.