Nirvana_Nut85 said:
To address the first part of your response: New Design: Apple has proven that is irrelevant Interent Buzz: The name plays apart of that as well as poor marketing A Powerful Product: Substantially more powerful than it's predecessor Good Ads: Agreed, as I said marketing plays a significant role Different Games: Have you even tried the Wii U? New Games At Launch: Substantially more than PS4 Customer wanting product: Again poor marketing resulted in lack of consumer knowledge I'm delusional? You obviously do not have a grasp on the basis of how marketing works. A poorly named product that does not clarify to the customer that it is a different product than it's predecessor is not going to acheive awareness and sales with the casual consumer. Simply naming the Wii U "Wii 2" would have allowed for substantially higher sales (I'd estimate the ltd would be around 12 million at this point) and led to a lot less confusion. Hell, even major news networks (CNN) ran storys about hte Wii U being an add on. People are not going to pay $349 for an add on. I find it amusing that you do not believe the naming of a product matters. Why do you think companies like Sony, Apple, Samsung do so for alot of their electronic devices when releasing a predecessor? Because it's easier for the casual consumer (which is a large basis of Nintendo's base) to be aware that it is different from the previous entry. If Nintendo wanted to continue the Wii name, they should have used numerals until the third or fourth iteration before changing it to something like Wii U. |
You are very biased in your answer to make irrevelant a lot of things. And it's easy for you, because I didn't write a mandatory list, it's just a list of points that I think make a product new for customers, and Nintendo failed them all. No company can afford that.
Apple doesn't prove a new design is irrevelant, they prove they can afford to keep the same design because they do better in other area (like screen definition, not just better than previous model, but better than competition), have a fanboy (happy customers) base big enough, a design already among the best, and massive ads and buzz.
Being more powerful than a very outdated model is not enough. Powerful means more powerful or at the same power range than other products. Again, it's not mandatory, and there are lot of examples of products selling with an agressive pricing, appealing new features (like the Wii). The problem is selling a product more expensive and not significantly better than what competion is selling for 7 years.
I do think if the client is interested, the naming doesn't really matters. Iphone S, xperia Z/T/T2/whatever, Geforce 4200 GTX, Intel Xeon E5-2650, DS instead of GB 2 or 3, Bravia (EX645, etc)... and XBox One (wtf, one) proves it. And you can buzz without a good naming/title, youtube is proving that everyday, twits doesn't even have titles. I do think that if the client have the slightest interest in the product, especially granted they are 120 millions, there is so many hardcore fans and news about a new product, Wii U, with a U added to Wii, is enough to be understandable and generate buzz.
The client understand if he is motivated, if moving a wiimote seems fun, it's easy to market, the client talk about it, the client buy it, the client shows it, and it become a 120 million user market. If the Wii U sells 4 or 5 time less than the Wii, it's a fundamental problem. And I will tell you my opinion : for now, a new controller is not a new and hot thing, and is not so much a selling factor (Kinect proves it, Sony not marketing too much about camera and all proves it), using a sort of toy version of a tablet to play on the TV doesn't seem fun, and that's why it's hard to market as fun. A lot of the Wii customers just forgot about their Wii they use once in a while with friends, and don't see a point in a new version, ask one of your casual friend if he want a new Wii.
