The Wii U's Name Isn't The Problem

[Mythmaker1]

Chark said:

I'm not saying the casual market is dumb, but uniformed and it yeilds the same results. If they don't know about the product or think it is something else then it won't sell. It's the informed ones, the savvy consumer, the core gamer and Nintendo fans that are buying the Wii U. That is not enough to sell a large number of Wii U's. Nintendo more than likely reduced its appeal to core gamers with the Wii and is repeating that trend with the Wii U, despite their attempt otherwise. Their system is low powered to what their competition will be offering and is only slightly more powered than the PS3 and 360. The disparity in the last gen caused 3rd party support issues. All of this caused a portion of the core market to avoid Nintendo. Loyaltists aside, a decent chunk of core gamers are hesitant about the Wii U. That mixed with a bad attempt to market to casual consumers results in low sales. In some regards the Vita is having similar issues addressing itself to the market.

It is uninformed, certainly, but not uninformed enough to result in the outcome you're suggesting. The only way for a consumer to know enough about the Wii U to confuse it for a Nintendo accessory, and yet remain ignorant of its actual nature, would be that they were so averse to the idea of a touchscreen for their Nintendo system that it wouldn't matter.

No reasonable person could mistake a Wii U for a Wii accessory if they went to a store to buy one; if the front of the box didn't tip you off, the back of the box sure would. And that's assuming you went to the store blindly, without bother to look  up anything about this device you presumably heard about erroneously from word-of-mouth.

So what sort of person would know enough about the Wii U to think it's a peripheral for the Wii system that they presumably already own, have no interest in a touchscreen controller for that system, and yet still want a Wii U? "Touchscreen gaming on a Nintendo console? I'm completely uninterested unless it's in HD."