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[Poimandres]

I agree.

I also feel it shoulda released in 2006.

IMO the GC shoulda been the Wii and the Wii shoulda been the Wii U. If that would have happened Nintendo would have the home console market on lock. At the least they would be in a better position today as far as mindshare.

Did the controller technology used in the Wii even exist back then?!

Anyway, I also think the Wii U would have been more successful if it was released even a year earlier. Personally, I think doubling down and building on the Wiiimote would have been a good approach, but who can really say for sure?

 

[Cwarrior]

I remember when the Wiiu was unvield at E3 the crowd was confused, gaming the press,the non-gaming press and the friggen Hardcore gamers where confued if this was really a new console. they focused on the controlled which had the same design sense as the previous console the wii which it looked like it could be a peripheral for it.

After the disaster & confusion of the WIIU unveling at E3, Nintendo should have done something drastic to fix that but Nope they did nothing but fumble around trying communicate to people.

 

[MisterR]

Nintendo is in a bind. They can't afford to make a powerful console to compete with MS and Sony. They haven't had strong 3rd party support in a long time. I feel like their biggest strength is nostalgia. If their gimmick could be a Netflix like service of their back catalog. That would be their best chance for success.

 

[Terrell]

This going to be another one of those threads where people fail to understand that the thread title is highly flawed, isn't it???

I had to skip to the last page because of all of the traditional "this FUCKING company" claptrap.

Even with the incorrect thread title I'm sure they had high expectations for it by it keeping that Wii name while at the same time targeting the tablet market in a way I wouldn't be surprised if the plan was for it to be a Wii like success. But since op got the title wrong any discussion will be hand waved away.

I wonder what the plan and the market demographic for the nx will be

Incorrect title or not I don't think anyone at Nintendo expected the WiiU to perform quite as it did in any case.

I don't think you can intimate a sales rep's enthusiasm for general as being more than it is. If I know anything about sales reps, they're ALWAYS trying to polish a turd, even when their co-workers know better.

It's just as likely that Nintendo was looking at the market situation and tried to make the best of where they stood with it, knowing it was too late to go back to the drawing board.

Thinking about it, I don't think that Miyamoto actually made the predition, but I think he may have played a huge part in Wii U's hardware and was told to back off as a result. It's not like they could fire the man himself, after all. Nintendo isn't Konami.

He didn't. The GamePad appears to be the brainchild of Katsuya Eguchi, more than any other. He was its champion at the start of the generation. Miyamoto just took it upon himself to justify its utility when Eguchi wasn't up to the task.

I know the common narrative is that the Wii brand was dead when Wii U launched, but going by my own experiences, I don't think this was the case. As late as 2012, the retirement home I was working at still had Wii bowling nights every week. I also still saw Wii games being played at parties all the time (primarily Brawl, NSMB Wii, MK Wii, and Just Dance). And whenever I stepped foot in a GameStop, parents were still coming in and buying Wii games, even after the Wii U launched (I remember overhearing a parent coming in asking for Mario Kart for the Wii, even after MK8 had come out)

I honestly think casuals were actually too satisfied with the Wii, so much so that they saw no need to pay $300+ for a new box (if they actually managed to figure out that it was, in fact, a new box, and not an addon, lol). The Wii already did what they wanted, and better graphics are not a selling point to them. On top of that, it had a confusing new controller that effectively negated what was so special about the Wii to them (motion controls).

It's not an unsound theory of the situation. Casual consumers aren't well-known for iterative purchasing habits, much like people who aren't fashion-conscious don't go shopping unless it's required because their favourite sweater has fallen apart.

 

[anothertech]

Well, 9 out of 10 of my friends upgraded to the WiiU. That's a 90% attach rate right there...

 

[Dremark]

They should have some sort of drug testing policy at Nintendo. Maybe not for everyone, but at least for the guy who said that.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Well, 9 out of 10 of my friends upgraded to the WiiU. That's a 90% attach rate right there...

Lmao

 

[jackal27]

Sad excuse for a company.

Yes. One man WOULD be a sad excuse for a company.

 

[jroc74]

Did the controller technology used in the Wii even exist back then?!

Anyway, I also think the Wii U would have been more successful if it was released even a year earlier. Personally, I think doubling down and building on the Wiiimote would have been a good approach, but who can really say for sure?

I dont think it did...just talking as if an alternate reality woulda happened.

 

[Jubenhimer]

What Nintendo should also do in the future is to make sure they create a cohesive brand ecosystem. I think the problem with the Wii and to a lesser extent, the DS, was that people didn't associate those brands with Nintendo. As someone pointed out earlier, casuals weren't loyal to the Wii a brand, they were loyal to it as a product. To them, the Wii U just looked like an expensive add-on in the form of an ugly tablet. Better Graphics weren't a selling point, and neither were rehashed Wii content. The Wii does everything they wanted, there is no need for them to upgrade.

Nintendo's mistake was banking on the Wii audience to upgrade to Wii U based on the name alone. This backfired as all it really did, was drove them away. Nintendo needs to get these people to be loyal, not to a product, but to a brand. They need to make Nintendo a cohesive ecosystem of products and services, where one product can carry to the next. My Nintendo will play a part in this, as will their mobile games and other ventures, but the NX, or the OS that NX will run, needs to be the glue that holds everything together.

 

[The Maverick]

People keep trying to blame this on one man, which only makes Nintendo look even more dumb. If you're willing to bet your entire company on the forecast of one person, you deserve what you get. Of course, it actually took a collaborative effort from top down to get Nintendo to the irrelevance that they currently reside.

 

[Skittzo0413]

People keep trying to blame this on one man, which only makes Nintendo look even more dumb. If you're willing to bet your entire company on the forecast of one person, you deserve what you get. Of course, it actually took a collaborative effort from top down to get Nintendo to the irrelevance that they currently reside.

What makes you think their official forecast had anything to do with what this one sales rep said?

Also as others have mentioned, sales reps are supposed to talk up the product, even internally. That's literally their job description- try to find out what about the product presented to you is appealing and then both determine how to market these features and predict how well this marketing will sell the console.

We only have anecdotal evidence about this "100 million" projection so we really don't know how serious people at Nintendo were taking it. Not that this excuses the Wii U's performance or anything like that, just trying to make sure people realize what this quote actually means.

 

[Morfeo]

Nintendo is in a bind. They can't afford to make a powerful console to compete with MS and Sony. They haven't had strong 3rd party support in a long time. I feel like their biggest strength is nostalgia. If their gimmick could be a Netflix like service of their back catalog. That would be their best chance for success.

Nostalgia doesnt get them that much, because the valuation of pixelated games are so low these days when similar-looking games can be had for free on many other plattforms. Their biggest strengths are 1) the quality of their software and 2) their uniqueness. This last is a double edged sword though (as the Wii U shows).