chakkra said:
I agree with you that the Wii U would have sold a little better if the name was different, but I do not believe that the name and marketing are the main reasons why the console has sold so little so far. Why not? Well, let's review the Wii for a moment. Who bought the Wii? Tentatively speaking I think the Wii market can be divided in 4 different groups: 1st) Fans of Nintendo games that always buy any console launched by the company. 2nd) Dedicated gamers who always buy more than one console and that saw the Nintendo console as the perfect secondary console. 3rd) New players (or parents of new players). In this category we also have parents, uncles, older brothers etc, who decided to buy the Wii for their children, nephews, little brothers etc, because: a) It was the cheapest option, and b) The Nintendo games are more suitable for the entire family. 4th) Finally we have the casual crowd. All those people who felt for the motion control novelty. Now, I could very well believe that people from the 3rd and 4th group do not know what a Wii U is yet, but it is very hard for me to imagine that all Nintendo fans and all the dedicated gamers do not know about it 18 months later. I just can't imagine that. Now, what remains to consider is how many people fall into the 1st and 2nd group? Obviously it is impossible to say but, I'd say maybe 30 to 40 percent would be a reasonable number. So we would be talking about 30 to 40 millions of people. Nearly 40 millions of people who should already know very well what a Wii U is. And finally there is the question of how many people from the 3rd and 4th group would buy the console if they knew about it? And this is a very difficult question to answer because the Wii had two things that the Wii U does not have: and that is novelty and low price. I mean I think we can all agree that for a father, uncle, older brother, etc. it is much easier to give a $200-250 gift than a $300-350 one. And about the novelty aspect.. Well, as much as Nintendo fans love their Gamepad (and I like it too) I think we can all I agree that there is not much there to attract a casual gamer (and make him expend $300-350). Sooooo.. to summarize, yes, I do agree that a different name would have helped a little, but the impact wouldn't have been that much in the grand scheme of things (maybe 20-30 more sales?) |
I strongly agree with that. To summarize, in term of novelty, cost, concept, accessibility, timing, the Wii was an exceptional product, and the Wii U failed (and I think it was very difficult) to be a Wii 2, not just in term of name. I hope it can be a Gamecube 2 in term of excellent games (give me fzero...) !
