| padib said: Lastly, Wii U is not less interesting than Wii 2. The U is actually a 2 in roman numerals. There's nothing wrong with Wii U. |
... you don't actually believe that U is a 2 in roman numerals, do you? The letter U didn't exist in the roman alphabet. U is just a modified V, and would also have the value of 5.
For those who assert that "Wii U" is a bad name... I disagree. It's not the best name, but "Wii 2" wouldn't have been all that much better. The failure by Nintendo wasn't naming it Wii U, it was making proper use of the name and actually selling it as a solid name. They did that with Wii - they turned what started as a pee joke into a real brand. With the Wii U, they acted like the new name didn't need to be sold to people, and so most people didn't get what it was.
Which was also why the Wii U itself didn't take off. Just as Nintendo didn't sell the name to people, they also didn't sell them on the system. They did a massive push with the Wii prior to launch. Before the Wii U launch... they pretty much did nothing. And to me, that was the big mistake.
As for the question of making a brand... to be honest, I actually think Nintendo has failed to realise that their biggest and strongest brand is "Nintendo". Their biggest mistake with the Wii was not keeping it as the "Nintendo Wii" in terms of selling the system. Everyone, every parent, knows what a "Nintendo" is. Many will refer to it as a "Nintendo" irrespective of which system it is, even competitor systems. They should be leveraging that. Note that the NES was more often referred to as "the Nintendo", and the SNES as "the Super Nintendo". I do think "Wii" itself was a good idea (I think they missed some opportunities in the advertising that could come from playing off "we", like "we are the champions"), but I think it could have been tied to the "Nintendo" name more.
