At last, the season is coming where Nintendo will finally be putting out strong titles in a attempt to turn around Wii U's clear failure. I know I'm personally excited for the Wind Waker HD deluxe console to come out on 9/20/13, but before things in Wii U's future gets brighter, lets go back and look at where the troubles began for Nintendo.
7. The 2011 Tsunami and Meltdown
Lets be fair. The 2011 Tsunami was a terrible tragedy for Japan, with damage estimated up in the 30 billions. It didn't help that it coincided in the release of the 3DS, massively dropping potential sales, down to a crawl, while stiffening Nintendo's ability to release quality products in a timely manner.
The Tsunami was one big disaster, but stemming from it was the Fukushima Nuclear meltdown, that still plagues Japan as a constant crisis to this day as the workers tirelessly still attempt to contain the never ending radiation leaks that has led to 83,000 civilians to evacuate the surrounding areas.
6. The 3DS
How could the 3DS be a cause to the Wii U's flop? Its thanks to the previous mentioned disaster. The 3DS sales suffered in wake of the disaster, and so did Nintendos ability to produce quality products in a timely manner, forcing teams working on the Wii U to rush into the 3DS's aid. The 3DS launch was of such high disaster, Nintendo was forced for the first time in history to sell a console at a loss, bringing the price down from roughly $250 to $180.
With Nintendo's focus on the 3DS, sadly the lineup for the Wii U suffered countless delays, but rather than delay the console as well, Nintendo went along with its initial launch date, for better, or in this case, for worse.
5. Lack of 3rd party control
Aliens Colonial Marines, Crysis 3, and Metro the Last Light, all formerly announced titles for the Wii U that had their Wii U release canceled. In addition, Rayman Legends, which was formerly promised as a Wii U exclusive went multiplication. These aren't isolated incidents, 3rd party producers all around are turning their noses up at the Wii U due to its staggering sales... from the lack of 3rd party support. Yes, just like with the Wii, the Wii U has failed to interest the 3rd party producers, and exclusives.
Why is that? Well this one has quite a few factors to it. With the Wii U rushed out in 2012 before more than a handful of games could be produced, led to slow consumer adoption. Nintendo went on record to state that the near non-existent first party was in due to giving 3rd party developers time to make sales, as with the Wii's launch, developers were upset that Nintendo hogged the market share.
Still, 3rd party developers are up in arms about sales on the Wii U being low, which often entails figures from games such as Mass Effect 3, retailing at the full sale price where at the same time they launched the trilogy collection on the other consoles. It's little question that a inferior port of a old game, will stagger in sales, but with the low sales of the Wii U, there's more to the lack of such sales than simply that.
4. Lack of Value
When Nintendo released their first console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, they created a strong sense of VALUE with the product. With it came a game, and a onslaught of accessories that made one feel that they were indeed getting their money's worth, with a trendy design to catch peoples attention. Well, trendy for the time.
With the Wii U, we've seen little comparison with the current generation competition, and many wonder if it's even better than current generation consoles. Well, it is, but consumers have little faith after the Wii being so far behind, that this console wont do the same once the rest of the big next generation consoles come out. While it came out with a "Deluxe" set and a basic, it was immediately clear the Basic set was worth far less than the $50 saved, leading to massive recalls by Nintendo.
3. Over saturation of the Market
Oculus Rift, Ouya, Gamestick, Piston, Nvideo Project Shield. These are the rival consoles hitting this generation by storm, and that's not even counting Nintendos direct competitors, with their X Box One, and Playstation 4. That's a total of 7, read that, SEVEN guaranteed consoles to be out there this generation, with words of more on the way. With tablets and smartphones featuring video games as well, people are increasingly less inclined to purchase a dedicated gaming console.
2. Poor Naming
Wii U, a very undiscriptive title that on first hearing, one might assume it's nothing more than a upgrade or extension to the current Wii, and at a market price of $300 to $350, that's a hard sale. Yes, you can say “Technically, it's only $299.99” and to you I say, you're an idiot. Yes, after tax that's worth 0.07th of a penny you saved, but I'll be frank to you, they round to the nearest penny, and 0.07th of a penny wont save you a penny in most cases.
1. Advertising
Coupled with naming that can leave the less informed confused, is nintendo's terrible performance with advertising this generation. While this list is in no particular order, this was by far the worst blunder Nintendo made this generation. How many of you have seen a advertisement for a Wii U, when you had seen one for a Wii? I know short of personally searching on youtube for their advertisements, I had never seen a Wii U ad. It's almost as if it doesn’t exist, and without a library more than 2 games to talk about nearing a year on in, it might as well not exist yet.
Their blunder for advertisements doesn’t end at the lack of advertisements unless you're a dedicated fan actively SEARCHING for them, nor their poor excuse of advertising by sending a message on people's Wii's to explain the Wii U is more than just a upgrade that no one cares about (while not giving any reason to be excited for one). Their blunder comes into the advertisements themselves.
When you saw the Wii's advertisements, they had a INCREDIBLY catchy and memorable one. Two Japanese business men drive in on a sports car to a family's home, and says “Wii would like to play.” Followed by a montage of them and the family having a immensely fun time with the controller and playing games together.
What about the Wii U advertisements? All the ones I seen thus far just has a theme song from the game playing, while you watch a person playing it on the tablet controller. While there are commercials that do more than that, I've yet to see one get me remotely as excited as the Wii's advertisements did, most bringing me nothing more than a yawn from me.
While this doesn't mean the end of the Wii U, Nintendo has a long struggle ahead to pull back from the launch disaster, and to regain the markets faith. If you disagree with any I said, or think there were stronger factors to consider, please feel free to leave a message.
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