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Wow. Ok, so, Nintendo's quarterly financial report just came out, and Wii U Is looking kind of, well, um, yeah, good luck with that. So it's time for another of Ket's massive why-the-fuck-did-he-write-all-this-crap threads.
To summarise, In the past quarter (April, May, June) the Wii U managed to ship a grand total of 160k units...
Japan: 90k
Americas (North/South): 60k
Other (Europe, Asia, Australia, Rest of the World): 10k (!!!)
Bearing in mind that this is a newly launched console, not one that's already been on the market for several years. For comparison's sake, the 3DS shipped 1.4 million in those same 3 months.
So what the hell has gone wrong?! Here's my thoughts.
1) Name
2) Power
3) Price
4) Audience
5) Gimmick
6) Games
Or as I like to refer it as: Everything. Let's take a more in-depth look, shall we?
1) Name
What were they thinking!? It sounds like a god damn accessory.
The "Wii" name was never amazing in the first place, but it got people to take notice because of it being such an unconventional name. They sold almost a hundred million Wiis, but only the tiniest fraction of those people can be considered "gamers". That's just how the Wii rolled, it was a fancy new gimmick that took off and was bought by millions upon millions of casuals who know absolutely nothing about games or the industry.
So they wanted to launch a new, better, more powerful, console. Can't blame them! They need a name for it that will inspire these same people (who do not follow the industry) to run out and get the next best thing. So what did they call it?
Wii U.
This is now a world where people are used to Playstation 2s and 3s. A world where people rush out and pay insane prices to buy the new iPad 2, and iPhone 5, because it's clearly the new and improved version, and they wouldn't want to be caught with the inferior product. But what the hell is a Wii U? It's a Wii something, but it sure doesn't sound like a Wii 2. Sounds like an upgrade or accessory to a console people already own and has been sitting gathering dust under their TV for the past 4 years, who cares about that old thing anymore.
The alternative is you give the product a whole new fancy name entirely, and get people's attention by telling them the next best thing is this thing you've never heard of before, but it's made by that company you like, so it must be good. People get curious and at least wonder what it is.
As corny as it would have sounded, calling it Wii Too would have been a way better option than a freaking letter U.
2) Power
So here's the thing. What Nintendo has released is, for all intents and purposes, basically a PS3/360.
It's actually technically more powerful, simply for being newer hardware. Quite a lot newer, in fact, the PS3 and 360 are about 8 years old now. But it's close enough to the PS3/360 that it might as well be parity with them.
At first this might sound like a good thing. Nintendo can finally get multi-platform games on their console, because their hardware has parity with the other consoles. Until now, releasing a Wii version basically meant you needed to develop a whole new version of the game, which simply wasn't a financially good idea. But now their console will have all the same multi-platform games, the Wii U will win out on it's famously superior first-party Nintendo library. Right?
Not so. See, the problem is that everybody already OWNS either a 360 or a PS3, or even both. Why do they need a third console that just plays the same stuff? Had the Wii U been released alongside the 360 and PS3 5-6 years ago, it would have been a really strong contender for the market. But right now only the people who already buy everything are going to bother.
And then there's that shadow looming on the horizon. The Xbox One and PS4 are slowly making their way here, and those two consoles are looking to be a huge generational leap of almost 10x in power, graphics, and features. Buying the Wii U is going to be like buying a PS3 when the PS4 is out.
Too little, too late.
3) Price
And this follows on from the previous point. The Wii U is too expensive for what it is.
It's $350 for the decent one that actually has disk space. The PS3 and 360 are both around $200-250 now, that's quite a large gap for a console that has roughly the same amount of features and power.
And lets not forget, the PS4 is looming on the horizon, and people know this. How much does a PS4 cost? $400. $50 more. Oh dear.
Word is that the large cost increase is coming from the cost of the game pad. It's a large thing that basically equates to a cheap tablet. It probably costs them around $80-100 to pack that thing in. But does it bring enough to the table to make it worth it? Hmm, I'm not so sure.
4) Audience
Who is the Wii U's audience, really?
Well, it seems to me that Nintendo's intention was for the Wii U to ride on the success of the Wii. They want that casual audience that swept up the Wii like hotcakes a generation ago. Because of that, Nintendo has opted to somewhat shun it's loyal fanbase, in favour of trying to replicate the success it had last time.
Their choice was to make another somewhat-underpowered machine, with a cool gimmick to hook people. Of course, this time their gimmick is actually more expensive than the competition, so it immediately loses that point.
Those hundred million people who bought the Wii. Who are they? The casuals, that is. They're your average family who aren't really into video games, but they're into family friendly fun and accessible entertainment. When the Wii came out, it was new and exciting, nothing had done motion controls before. Word got around in such a way that the Wii was basically a "fad", it was a toy that let you play tennis and bowling by actually swinging your arms around. That was new and cool, and suddenly everyone wanted one. These people weren't really catered for in the market, they didn't want to play videogames, so when the Wii came along and offered them something new, they lapped it up.
But what's different now compared to when the Wii first came out? Oh yes, tablets and smartphones.
Ah yeah, the realm of the casuals have moved on. Their needs are now catered to by tablets and smartphones. Instant access to small bites of entertainment whenever they want it, for minimal pricing.
They don't really need a video game system now, it doesn't interest them. At least, not without some kind of new gimmick to get their attention. Something they've not seen before. Something they don't already have! You know, something that's not just a tablet...
5) Gimmick
But as long as the new gimmick is something attractive, people will want to come try it, right?
Well, ideally yes, but Nintendo's gamepad idea is simply nothing new or impressive. It's just a tablet. A cheap one at that, using a non-multitouch resistive screen instead of a capacitive one. But it's still "just a tablet" in the eyes of the average consumer. Casuals already own these now, much better and more expensive ones, in fact. This "gimmick" is frankly nothing new.
For those who don't know the difference, a "resistive" screen is the kind that requires you to use a stylus or your fingernail or something to register presses. Whereas as "capacitive" screen is the kind that your phones and tablets use to work really nicely with your fingers and register multiple taps and swipes. Using a resistive screen is pretty cheap, and really hinders "casual" use.
The only thing it really does that people like is work as an off-tv screen when somebody else is using your actual TV or you can't otherwise get at your TV right that moment. Plenty of people who love the idea they can play their game handheld on the toilet or something, but isn't this what we have handhelds for?
Not even Nintendo themselves make proper use of the game pad. Very few of their own games use it for anything more than the usual item/map/status screen everybody uses the DS bottom screen for. This is not additive to gameplay, or frankly even convenient. Why should you have to look down to find that stuff out when it could be shown on the TV.
Compared to motion controls, which was quite literally the new best thing at the time, the gamepad is poorly thought out. Basically, Nintendo's new "gimmick" is just that, a gimmick, and this time, people aren't falling for it.
6) Games
Put simply, where are they?
Nintendo released the Wii U with more than a years head start on the new generation of consoles, and they have completely squandered it.
Not every system launches with a great line up, but they usually make sure there's at least one real system seller among it, some game EVERYBODY *needs* to own. Instead, we've had rehashes of old titles (New Mario Bros U), historically niche titles (Pikmin 3), and a whole slew of mediocre third party stuff (ZombiU). Everything else is either multi-platform, or random casual stuff nobody really buys. This is not good.
Where's a new Mario Galaxy? Nowhere to be found. New 3D Zelda? Not announced. Metroid? Nope. Mario Kart?! Yes! Great! When?! 2014?! After PS4 and XBO are out?! WHHHYYYYY.
Did Nintendo actually learn anything from the 3DS?! You can't just release a system, at a high price, with no games that interest people, and just expect everyone to rush out and buy it anyway! Frankly I'm amazed they managed to turn the 3DS around, because even that had a rocky start, but a quick $100 price drop and lots of really good games on the horizon gave it a healthy recovery.
Can Nintendo do the same with the Wii U? I'm not certain a simple $100 price drop is going to do it this time...
Finally
And this is hardly an exhaustive list of all the things wrong with Wii U. It's just a list of the things that are adding together to help it become the next Dreamcast. Though, as far as I know, even the Dreamcast sold quite well, it hit 10 million sold. The Wii U? I'm not so sure.
Nintendo and the Wii U still have lots of other problems. Problems it simply should not have. It's online infrastructure is still laughable. They have an account system now, but it's locked to the console that made the account, you can't just "log in" with that account in other places. It also still has a frighteningly bad digital ownership policy: Purchases are tied to the console, not an account. Lose the console or have it break? Everything is gone.
They've had 7-8 years to watch and copy what Xbox Live and PSN do. How did they mess this one up?
The Wii U's OS is also notoriously bad, and I've noticed this same problem with my 3DS. There's no harmony moving between different parts of the OS. When you select to open something like the settings app, there's a massive 30 second wait while it loads it. Why? It's just a bunch of icons.
My 3DS gives me a little flashing notification that a friend has come online, but can I see it? No. Instead, I have to pause my game by hitting the Home button, wait 5 seconds for the OS home screen to become responsive, click the friends app, wait 10 or so seconds for THAT to load, and only then can I scroll through my friends, one person at a time, until I can see who it MIGHT have been that just came online. Course, after doing all that, I can't actually send them a message or anything. If I want to do that, I need to completely quit my game, and load up Swapnote instead. Which also takes about 2-3 minutes, ugh.
And the Nintendo eShop?! Good lord, this thing is atrocious. I made another post about this crap some time ago so I won't cover it all again, but jeez. You want to have a store on a handheld, go look at an iPhone or even a Vita or something. It needs to be extremely quick and responsive to get around.
Again, this is stuff that doesn't really hurt the Wii U's core adoption problems, but I think it further illustrates that, for some reason, Nintendo really doesn't seem to be aware of what's going on in the world around them. They don't seem to be paying attention to the market, their competitors, or even their audience. Nintendo just do their own thing, even if everyone moved on ahead of them 4-5 years ago, and it's starting to bite them hard.
It's nice to think that 6-12 months down the line, Nintendo will have released their core titles and people will be rushing out to buy a Wii U. I'd like to come back to this thread in two years time when I happily own a Wii U and many of it's great games. But the reality is that the PS4 and Xbox One hit this Christmas, and once they do, the Wii U's days are possibly severely numbered.
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