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Well I had an idea: what if there was a way to present persuasive messages concisely to consumers everywhere? Like through the TV and YouTube? Kinda like those whatchamacallits that car manufacturers use...commercials! Oh...wait.
Seriously, this never seems to be mentioned and it irks me. Even more so people who say things like "Nintendo's been trying to force feed Metroid down people's throats." No, they haven't! They've sat on their laurels and put the games out with next to no marketing or worse, bad marketing.
Look at PS4 and its advertising campaign: it informs the consumer what the PS4 is, presents it in a desirable light, and associates it with a number of games released and upcoming. The Wii U, on the other hand, has next to no advertising anywhere most of the time, has had commercials present it in an undesirable light, and some commercials are miserably uninformative. It's not the name; if Microsoft can sell the Xbox One, Nintendo can sell the Wii U. Nintendo's marketing is their single greatest weakness, has been since halfway through the N64 era.
Nintendo needs to diversify, this is true. But they do have a number of games that could be made desirable in the eyes of consumers through good marketing. Obviously, they need excellent advertising to try and convert new fans to their core (Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash, so on), but they can also use advertising to push their young and new IP.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a science-fantasy open world RPG. Scifi is big, open world is very big, rpg is pretty big; any "marketing specialist" who can't make this game look desirable through marketing should be fired.
Metroid Prime series is a sci-fi first person shooter adventure game. Again, nearly every word of that screams "marketable." Any marketing guy who can't make a good ad for this needs to be fired.
These are just examples of two of the ones I think are underdeveloped. Seriously, many of Nintendo's franchises are so under-advertised that it's a miracle they are even profitable. Some of their big ones are released so subtly you would think they were indie titles (Metroid Prime 3, F-Zero GX, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Last Story are some standouts). Past numbers in a vacuum are not good barometers of present potential; you have to consider factors surrounding the numbers.
The truth of the matter is that until Nintendo's marketing department in the US and Europe get their house in order, nothing will help. The Wii U could be twice as powerful and have third party support but the effects would be negligible if their marketing was just as abysmal as it has been. Now it has improved since April but they still have a ways to go. If they did a $50 price cut and sold 3mil Wii U's between now and January 1st, that would be $150mil or so potential lost revenue (or $100mil maybe if you account for increase due to reduced price). I would rather they take a third of that (or half the $100mil) and put that into an aggressive marketing campaign.
Until Nintendo improves their marketing, they'll always have problems. Marketing brings in new fans and improves your general reputation; shoot look at the improvement in sales for Elder Scrolls between Morrowind and Oblivion and Oblivion to Skyrim. That's and extreme case, but you get the point.
Edit: HOLY CRAP that's a wall of text. What a way to make an entrance xD
