Was the Wii a fad?

[Gamerace]

Wii was not a fad, but it sales were largely driven by fads. Wii Sports was a fad. Wii Fit was a fad (I even called it that pre-launch but predicted it'd be one mother of a fad - correctly).

The problem was the third year: Wii Music - FAIL. Animal Crossing: City Folk - FAIL. If done right both of these had the potential to be HUGE with casual gamers. Wii Music had ironically, too much depth and too little. If you didn't take the time to master it, it was a noise maker. If you did, it was still far too limited to truly pay off. If Animal Cross had tied into online and social media properly, it could have feed off Farmville frenzy. But Nintendo played this one just plain lazily or perhaps just stupidly. A huge missed opportunity.

Without a hit in the third year it was up to Wii Sports Resort to save the stalling Wii. But ultimately WSR was more of the same (if better) on a system over-saturated with mini-game/sport collections. And WM+ saw virtually no support: Tiger Woods was awesome, Grand Slam good. Red Steel 2 - Nice proof of concept but an unacceptable, half-assed action/FPS (no multi-player, ridiculous loading times, repetitive gameplay, no online). Beyond that - nothing of note until the far too play Zelda:SS

Forth Year: Wii Party - Really? While a great party game that was hardly going to reignite interest in Wii. Donkey Kong Country Returns - Far too hard for casual players. Metriod:oM - Not even on casuals radar and based by core, Epic Yarn - So sweet, even I - a Kirby fanboy - nearly gagged to death playing it. Nintendo is saved by Just Dance and Zumba Fitness. But now Kinect is Out and HOT. Hype for Wii is dead. Oh and for that Sony thing too.

Fifth Year: Wii Play Motion - Really?? Just... sad. Another Kirby, Zelda: SS (finally). Lingering Just Dance/Zumba popularity only thing powering Wii sales.

So, no, that a fad, but a fad driven machine that Nintendo hit two out of the park on and then proceded to strike out. Which is why Nintendo is hoping to keep core happy with WiiU so fad-hits are bonus, not mandatory. Motion wasn't a fad as it's still alive on all three systems (and all handhelds including iOS/Android) and almost certainly all next-gen systems too.