Nintendo pandered too much to their fans in the Wii U era

[Mnementh]

Cerebralbore101 said:

Mnementh said:

Oh, man I disagree with a lot of this.

3D-sidescrollers are old-school hardcore games. They were what made up classic 8-bit-consoles lineup. Sure, these games can be casualized a bit, and NSMB did this a lot, but basically they aren't what draws casuals into the platform, NSMB is what a casual plays after he had his fill of Just Dance. Tropical Freeze is not casual at all, it is classic hardcore-platformer. Yoshi is in between, but didn't move much from a formula it had since ages.

You say most casuals wound up not liking the Wii in the long run, and you can't be more wrong. Nintendo just stopped to make games for them. Practically instantly. As the platform wasn't supported anymore by casual-friendly games, the sales dwindled. But the casuals didn't go anywhere. As is illustrated by the sales of Just Dance. The sales of the game stayed big even after years, and although it released on basically everything the Wii was the platform it always sold most (until Switch). And many point out just Dance sales dwindled. Yes, sure they did. It was the only game released on a platform which otherwise had nothing. It didn't change the formula. You can bet your ass, that more and more of the casual gamers gave up and moved on. But if they just disliked the Wii, they would've picked up the game on other platforms and the sales on Wii would've fallen much more abruptly. But they dwindled slowly, as the user-base was ignored over years. Think about it for a moment. You want to play a certain sort of game, and you get exactly one game a year, which is basically the same each year. Would you stay six years? Probably not, but a surprising high number did just that. The casual gamers didn't flee from the Wii, they were just ignored.

WiiU didn't emulate the iPad at all. Maybe it was a try, I can't understand it. But it doesn't work like an iPad at all. You can take the iPad wherever you want, and that is the basic appeal. And this is exactly which the WiiU gamepad cannot. So no, no iPad appeal. Just notice how the Switch actually can do that, what the WiiU-gamepad could not. Also the iPad-crowd and the Wii casuals shouldn't be lumped together. The Wii casuals were gamers, that liked to combine moving themself with gaming. The iPad-gamers are people that want to take the device everywhere. There may be overlap between the groups, but they aren't the same.

And with Switch Nintendo targeted way bigger groups than the classic Nintendo hardcore. Again, this time they actually built a machine that has the basic iPad appeal. But they moved way beyond what the classic Nintendo hardcore wants. With Zelda and Mario both they switched into the Open World craze. They built games that have a broad appeal for many groups.

I can't say that I completely agree with the OP though either. As the WiiU-ports show, the games can have a bigger audience than they had on WiiU. With the Switch though they filled the holes in the WiiU library regarding broad appeal and presented it on a desirable device.

Eh, I think the 2D sidescrollers are aimed at lapsed gamers who used to play hardcore games back during the NES/SNES era, but are now what I would consider casuals. Tropical Freeze was hard, but not as hard as DKCR. They softened it up a bit for the kids this time around. 

Maybe casual Wii owners liked the Wii enough to keep it and buy Just Dance every year. But for some reason they never bothered to pick up a Wii U. My best guess to explain this is that Just Dance players will play it on whatever platform is cheapest, since they only play 1-2 games a year. And Wii was the cheapest system to play it on at the time. And it had motion controls right out of the box. So for many Just Dance fans the Wii version was the best version (since it had motion controls), and the cheapest option. I mean, imagine you are a Soccer Mom wanting to play Just Dance. Your kids are always on the 360/PS3, and you don't want to shell out the money for a Kinect, or PS Move. Why not just use the Wii you already have, or pay the measly $99?

I agree completely that the Wii U failed to emulate the iPad. But they tried. That's why so many games had touch controls, shoehorned in. Nintendo thought the appeal of the iPad was the touch screen. It wasn't. The appeal of the iPad was the portability like you said. 

Going towards Open Worlds with Zelda/Mario is very much a hardcore gamer move IMO. And I can't find a single oldschool hardcore Nintendo fan that has ever complained about it for either franchise. Can you? 

Ding, ding, ding, ding, yes, motion controls right out of the box is the correct answer. I doubt the price is the main argument here, but motion controls are key.

I also doubt the motion gamers were only willing to buy one or two games a year. They basically had only Just Dance later in the lifecycle. Early on games like NSMBWii and Mario Kart Wii though sold record numbers. I mean Mario Kart Wii sold freaking 35 million copies. That's already more than 10 million more than Mario Kart DS, which was itself on wildly successful platform. Mario Kart 7 on 3DS barely reaches 15M, 20 million less than the Wii game. New Super Mario Bros Wii is only one million behind the DS game NSMB. Both are only beaten by the original Super Mario Bros. These record numbers are not possible, if you assume the gamers drawn in by the motion controls didn't buy other games - they obviously picked up Kart and NSMB. They were willing to purchase more than two games a year. Only Nintendo abandoned the motion gamers and the Wii, and so the sales were not fulfilled and the Wii-sales cut short by at least 20M. A freaking Nintendo move.

This is also the reason I not yet say the Switch will go past 100M. If Nintendo again pulls a Wii and drops support after 2019, than the Switch cannot fulfill it's potential. I don't even see Nintendo tapping into the full potential of the Switch by now. Motion gaming for instance is very possible on Switch and a new Switch Sports Resort would surely sell 20-30M. But Nintendo doesn't do it. Third parties try: Just Dance and Sports Party by Ubisoft, Go vacation by Namco and Hyper Sports R by Konami ... but attracting a new userbase means selling the console, you need to advertise console and game together - which is difficult for 3rd-parties. Nintendo has to draw in the userbase, and I don't see them doing it.