Miyamoto explains the shift away from casuals.

[dark_gh0st_b0y]

teigaga said:

RolStoppable said:
Wow, this is big news. Finally a crystal-clear admission that the Wii U was never intended to be a follow-up to the Wii. I mean, anyone who was able to put the pieces together already knew that, but for a lot of people this will come as a surprise.

It's also interesting how much contempt Miyamoto has for the Wii owner who didn't "upgrade" to his beloved 3D Mario and the like. Then he continues by displaying immense denial when he says that Nintendo doesn't need to make games that are different from the ones they made in the eighth generation. Nintendo's financials suggest otherwise.

But its kind of clear that it was. It was just supposed to be more in the middle ground then the wii. The Gamepad is first and foremost a gimmick that was supposed to appeal to casuals but not alienate the core. If they were going for the core audience as their main demographic I don't think they would have launched the system with 2D mario and Nintendo land or been pushing titles like wii fit U and Wii U karaoke... All clearly an attempt to swoom the wii's casual audience. Nor would they have released a system so far behind the PS4 and Xbox One. Miyamoto may have been done with casual audiences from a while back but I don't think Nintendo designed the wii U with the core in mind. If they did they would probably be fairing a lot better then they are.

I have to agree with teigaga, the WiiU was clearly an upgrade towards what made the Wii popular, the casual audience

they knew the Wii was lacking most of the core audience, so the WiiU was kind of an attempt to improve or balance that, close the margin while keeping casuals the top priority, core was never the main target with the WiiU


I like Miyamoto's way of looking at things on this one, really, they did their job, they expanded the audience, even if that audience now betrayed Nintendo and found fun on the smartphones, gen 7 was the most successful, sales where really high, all three consoles had a big audience

gen 8 is nowhere close, maybe casuals found love on the smartphones and will never look back, maybe they will?

of course it's a bad idea to change tactics mid-way, at least they can save what can still be saved...
you cannnot do much for core gamers with an ''outdated hardware'' console, and so many features missing :/