Soundwave said:
The problem with the Wii U is people don't want it. Explain to me why a casual gamer would want a Wii U when they the 2-3 hours a week/max that they may want to play video games can now be occupied easily by their phone and tablet? With $0 games versus $50-$60 games? Take away the casuals and all the Wii is another GameCube or N64 at best. It's just not an exciting or interesting product unless you must, must, must play Nintendo franchise on the television, which is a small group of people. |
I completely disagree that sales of Wii would be Cube levels without casuals. At least if you mean "soccer moms and grandpas" by casuals. There were many core gamers like myself that had sworn off Nintendo when the purple toy came out, but when the slick new Wii came out we couldn't resist it. It was stylish. It haf a cool new way to play games (let's be honest, every core gamer was imagining swinging a lightsaber). It had the groundbreaking Virtual Console allowing us to play all of the old Nintendo games from our youth. And it had wicked new versions of Mario and Zelda.
If you pop into any independent game store you'll see Yoshi plushies, Mushroom t-shirts and numerous Nintendo themed crap. Core gamers love some retro Nintendo. Wii offered a perfect storm of fresh gameplay and retro appeal wrapped up in a cutting edge Apple-like design. With pricey competition offering HD as it's main selling point but most gamers nit yet having HDTVs and with almost everyone avoiding GameCube and hungry for some Nintendo content, Wii was a can't miss product.
Sure, the "non-gamers" and Wii Fit crowd probably boosted sales by about 30+ million, but the main success was offering something fun and innovative that the mainstream gamer could enjoy at a time they were ready to walse down Nintendo memory lane and they were pissed at Sony for price gouging.
And there in lies the problem of Wii U. Not exciting. Not innovative. People had Wiis, so they aren't hungry for the retro Nintendo experience. They styling is cutting edge...for 2006. The games are derivative. And the competition has strong, well-priced offerings. Combined with a mainstream gamer who may have felt Wii was vastly inferior to the new PS360 they picked up a few years later and Nintendo needed another system that was shock and awe, not evolutionary.
Hopefully this is what noobie President means.
