Christine Arrington, the Senior Games Analyst at IHS Electronics & Media (NYSE: IHS), told Benzinga that she realized that Wii U was in trouble when she became an unofficial secret shopper.
For all of the really lousy, subjective and just immature criticisms I've seen thrown at this console, this one in particular actually seems sound and logical.
Fact is the Wii U was marketed similarly to the Wii and now has generated consumer confusion. Many people don't realize what the point is or that it's even a new product and that much Nintendo has only themselves to blame. I think it's salvageable, but Nintendo better do something with it and quickly.
Or ya know the way Nintendo was not ready in anyway shape or form to release a new console and here we are 1 year later almost and there are STILL very few games worth playing, like less than 5.....On top of that real consumers don't go for the buy it now please and wait till 2014 for games, they want to know what they can buy right NOW with the console not just ooh mommy pays my bills so I'll buy this now and just wait for good games
You give me slack for bringing up the Wii U but here you go doing the same thing with the X1 and the PS4 lol. Something tells me those two consoles have you worried ;)
As for this article the Wii U has an identity crises plain and simple. Just who is Nintendo catering this console to? The casual games aren't selling and the "hardcore" games aren't either. Total marketing failure on Nintendo's part. ;)
lol_wut, unlike you I am not attacking the consoles.
He is accutly attacking pointing out a suppored flaw with the Wii U, but if what he is saying is true, then the PS4 and Xboxone would be in even worse shape.
My comment had a point. The point is that reasons he listed are not a "Nintendo" problem. No console launches with a library of 100's of AAA games on it.
HD development takes time. I've said this for a long time.
Its because Iwata was envious and jealous of Activision's profit so he put Nintendo's fortunes in jeopardy by going after the CoD crowd instead of sticking with its tried and true Kidtendo image with the casuals.
Let me tell you a short story of the Nintendog and his Reflection
Im not surprised of this. I knew this was the case ever since all the Wii U selling problems started. I am now going to prove a point that you cant argue against:
Like around a 2 week or so ago, Nintendo reached out to Tesco (A huge market store in England). Nintendo reached out to them to get the word spread about their new console the Wii U.
Notice anything else? The sales just came out of the week ending OCT 5, 1 DAY AFTER THE RELEASE OF LEGEND OF ZELDA WIND WAKER HD. Guess what? The amount of Wii U's sold in Europe went up 685%. That week, Nintendo sold around 33K Wii U's. Thats not it. LOZ: WWHD was released only two days of that week.
See the pattern? Nintendo + Tesco + Exclusive (REMAKE!) = 30k Wii U's in two days!
Notice anything else? Around 300K LoZ: WWHD physical copies were sold. Only PHYSICAL!
Wii u isn't marketed similarly to the wii at all. Wii had tons of commercials. Nintendo did tours to promote the Wii. Nintendo was making sure that every corner of the world would know about it.
With the Wii U Nintendo was simply expecting people to jump ship based on the Wiis success. Same with Sony and the PS3.
Read my comment again. At what point was I complimenting Nintendo or downplaying Sony/Microsoft's consoles? I feel sorry for the brain-dead retards that agreed with your comment.
@ChickeyCantor
I was saying it was marketed similarly to the Wii AT LAUNCH. I'm not sure Nintendo really knows how to approach it now. But yes, software-wise the console definitely has a promising year ahead of it.
"There should have been a Wii Sports-type game that let everybody get it,"
Nintendo Land??
Btw this is just stupid, just show the people the gamepad and some gameplay where you use the touchscreen to interact with stuff. -->"Wow the possibilities". Problem solved.
Or a scene whit asynchronous gameplay, where one person has information that only he can see on the gamepad, while the others watch the regular game on the TV.
I mean on paper it should be much harder to advertise the XB1 to mass market. It costs alot, has basically the same controller as the 360, no downwards compatibility, its a huge box and by a glance the games look exactly the same... Who would want that when you can have the slim 360? Try explaining them that because of the new cpu structure its easier to develop for and because its multicore APU and has 8gb of ram the polygon count is up and post processing is on a new level. Good luck.
This is a huge point. Pc are sold off specs also and if specs end up being the selling point then they will encounter a similar problem much like win8. Sony and ms will have to stop making the ps3 and x360 or suffer from devs milking last gen. There is less of a tech r and d cost with supporting the older systems or even the wiiu, which dev kit can cost as low as an asus gaming laptop on the low end or a gaming desktop on the high end plus it comes with a full featured dev tool for free.
plus im thinking the free model will come back to haunt them. Many games will simply not get bought with in the first year. Ps4 and xbone dev is going to be pretty expensive.
Also wii Sports preloaded could fix a lot wii fit preloaded can fix a lot, then add in nintendo land with online support and with mii verse you have a great package to show off the wiiu. Even if these are only rental games a hge boost would happen. Its simple gamers love free.
Yeah but with PCs it makes sense to have good specs. PC games are almost always scalable. So if you have better specs you get something out of that. To a certain point of course. If you have a 1080p monitor/TV it doesnt make sense to have a PC that would run 1440p.
Buying or marketing a Console because of specs though thats something I will never understand. I buy my consoles because of the special experience. The PS4 is competing directly with my gaming PC. It just does the same thing as the system I already have with different exclusives. Its limited but costs a little less. Nintendo is doing everything right for my situation. I never thought one second about replacing or competing anything when I bought my Wii. I just wanted a different experience. And I got it. Same with the WiiU.
There is a lot of costumer confusion with the Wii U. My gf has a Wii and she asked me what's the difference between the Wii and Wii U. I then explained to her that that's the reason the Wii U is struggling; the casuals don't know the difference.
There's a big difference between average consumers not knowing the difference between a Wii and Wii U from ads and a salesperson who isn't educated enough in their field to relay accurate information about something they're trying to sell.
I do agree that Nintendo is still struggling with communicating what Wii U is to retailers and consumers, and it shows. It will no doubt continue to hurt Wii U this holiday season. Nintendo didn't even give The Wonderful 101 or Wind Waker HD a TV ads here in the US, let alone one for the official Wii U price cut. It's baffling decision. I realize Nintendo of America has a budget to work with, but when your home console is struggling to do well in terms of hardware and software sales, then you need to promote it more. This holiday season is crucial for the console ,and Nintendo's just not stepping up t othe plate. The software is already out yet no one is buying it. Pikmin 3 probably didn't even sell 200k copies in the States, Wonderful 101 apparently bombed hard, and Ubisoft reported that Splinter Cell and Rayman didn't sell as well as they expected. The damage has already been done for 2014, it makes you wonder if Wii U's third party support will be just a bad or worse than this year's, especially if Ubisoft is forced to reduce its software support for it because of the consistently poor sales of its 2012 and 2013 titles.
Nintendo has done a terrible job marketing the wii U to date- and if anyone knows who/what was the target demo for the Wii U I would love to know- It seems Nintendo does not know either- I bought it for my Son on his 7th B-day at launch- but most of the few games aimed at kids/families were delayed by many months- He ended up playing Wii games on his Wii U far more than Wi U games- I even let him play Darksiders II and knowingly bought 2 low kids games just so he could use his b day present over the following months- because there was so little content available for him - Now a year later there should be enough good Family games by the end of this month so that he can finally get full use out of it -
For 11 months Nintendo did not target the young gamer and Family gamers (not w games available anyway) It seems obvious they did not target the "hardcore" gamer nor the casuals they targeted w the Wii-
So who did Nintendo target and who are they targeting now, next year etc. IMO for the next 4-6 months (baring more major delays) there should be plenty of good games for the young and family gamer on the Wii U- but beyond 6+/- months we could have a drought as bad as the 1st 3 quarters of 2013 if the 3rd parties stay away and Ubi drops support (both highly possible if not probable) And I get the feeling that Nintendo is still struggling to produce games for the Wii U at a steady enough clip to keep things interesting after Spring 2014 (short of 2 or 3 big games like Zelda and Xenoblade sequal)
the target of nintendo wiiu is the nintendo fanboys,mothers and fathers what buys toys to theirs childrens,and when nintendo make the real price drop of wiiu,the people what not have the money to buy a ps4 and xbox one.
This is something I said myself. The more savvy consumer or gamer knew the WiiU was another console. Even though a lot of N4G posters said it was a controller add on. I remember those days.
But anyways, Nintendo should have named it something completely new. I know Nintendo probably thought that their casual base would recognize the name Wii and invest in it, but the "U" part is probably what confused most. U doesn't signify an upgrade or any kind of next step.
But then again neither does the Xbox One...
But at least the X1 looks different and has been advertised as such. The Wii looks awfully similar to the original Wii.
Its not the name! Most of the blame is on marketing in general and games. I actually found Wii U as a great name. Wii as in its the successor, and U as in unity. We + U = Wii U. I can see the name catching on like the original Wii. I like the name. I cant think of a better name at the moment.
The WiiU is actually a pretty impressive console. It's suffering from the same thing the Vita is though. There is a lack of must have games that show what the system can do. The second screen is a very, very cool feature. I'd love to see the accessory controller finally released and of course supported.
What Nintendo needs to do is STOP WII support;if they can they should recall all systems that are still on market,and start a full swing advertise for the Wii U picking up MARIO 3D WORLD!
For all of the really lousy, subjective and just immature criticisms I've seen thrown at this console, this one in particular actually seems sound and logical.
Fact is the Wii U was marketed similarly to the Wii and now has generated consumer confusion. Many people don't realize what the point is or that it's even a new product and that much Nintendo has only themselves to blame. I think it's salvageable, but Nintendo better do something with it and quickly.
The Wii U is in a horrible position right now, They need to advertise it more
"There should have been a Wii Sports-type game that let everybody get it,"
Nintendo Land??
Btw this is just stupid, just show the people the gamepad and some gameplay where you use the touchscreen to interact with stuff. -->"Wow the possibilities". Problem solved.
Or a scene whit asynchronous gameplay, where one person has information that only he can see on the gamepad, while the others watch the regular game on the TV.
I mean on paper it should be much harder to advertise the XB1 to mass market. It costs alot, has basically the same controller as the 360, no downwards compatibility, its a huge box and by a glance the games look exactly the same... Who would want that when you can have the slim 360?
Try explaining them that because of the new cpu structure its easier to develop for and because its multicore APU and has 8gb of ram the polygon count is up and post processing is on a new level. Good luck.
There is a lot of costumer confusion with the Wii U. My gf has a Wii and she asked me what's the difference between the Wii and Wii U. I then explained to her that that's the reason the Wii U is struggling; the casuals don't know the difference.
There's a big difference between average consumers not knowing the difference between a Wii and Wii U from ads and a salesperson who isn't educated enough in their field to relay accurate information about something they're trying to sell.