A lot of people are upset Nintendo abandoned the hardcore audience with the Wii, and now Nintendo is trying to get them back with the Wii U.
In fact, the Wii U should have once again focused on the Blue Ocean strategy that the Wii did. The argument is that a lot of those non-gamers went on smartphones. This is true, but I think Nintendo could have still been successful with that audience if they tried. The reason the non-gamers started to abandon the Wii brand is BECAUSE of Nintendo. Wii Sports Resort came out 3 years after the Wii and was a hit; but after that Nintendo didn't release anything. Just Dance kept it alive with the non-gamers but no Wii Sports after 2009; no Wii Fit; no Big Brain Academy, etc. etc. Nintendo basically was done after 2009 for some reason.
The hardcore gamers abandoned Nintendo in droves. During the N64 and GameCube era the sales were so bad Nintendo had no choice but to find a new audience. The problem is, they tried to go back to the audience that rejected the N64 and GC - the result is the Wii U has pretty much failed miserably (hasn't even reached Dreamcast sales yet).
If Nintendo wants to turn the Wii U around, it needs to focus on the Blue Ocean strategy again. It can be done. The 3DS is hugely popular with females for example (like the DS). 56% of Animal Crossing: New Leaf players are female
Nintendo needs to start pumping out games like Professor Layton, Nintendogs, Wii Fit, Just Dance, Animal Crossing, Tomadachi Life, Style Savvy, etc. etc. (not necessarily these franchises but SIMILAR) to try and at least attempt to get back some of their blue ocean audience. Nintendo needs to stop focusing on an audience that is ignoring them and start focusing on the ones that didn't.
What do you guys think?
TL;DR VERSION: Nintendo should focus on non-gamers like they did with the Wii. Nintendo stopped doing that around 2009 and the result is the Wii U has sold far below expectations. This is because the typical hardcore gamer does not care much about Nintendo franchises, or not enough to buy a console for them.
