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JWeinCom on 02 January 2020
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RolStoppable said:
JWeinCom said:

Looking up the numbers, I may have to concede that it's a weaker IP overall.  I was pretty surprised that apparently Maker 2 didn't sell as well as NSMBU Switch.  Although, I don't necessarily think that would have translated directly to Wii U sales.  There are some games with broad appeal that tend to sell well when they're on a console that sells well, but don't necessarily move hardware.  For instance, Smash sold significantly worse than NSMB on the Wii, but on the Switch sold about on par despite not being bundled nearly as much, which would indicate that despite being a weaker IP in terms of overall sales, it's more of a system seller.  I think the uniqueness of Mario Maker would have made Wii U more.  

As for screens, I never said you needed two screens.  You needed a touch screen which was one of the features the Gamepad added.  Switch does that and more, and is obviously a far stronger concept than the Wii U, but that doesn't mean the Wii U couldn't have had more appeal than it did.  I actually do think Mario Maker works marginally better on the Wii U though.

I don't follow your logic that SSB is more of a system seller than SMB. Especially because in the Wii U's case no IP could sell the console despite proven track records of being able to sell hardware. A fair conclusion would be that people who like SSB are proportionally more likely to buy bad Nintendo consoles than fans of other Nintendo IPs. I mean, SSB did well on the GC too.

You are free to believe that Super Mario Maker as a launch title would have made the Wii U sell more, but the important question is if it had been by a significant amount that lifted the Wii U out of failure status. I expect that you would answer that question with a clear "no" and that should also answer the question of whether the concept of the Wii U was salvageable or not. In early 2014 Shigeru Miyamoto got a direct order from Satoru Iwata to create Wii U games that prove the value of the Gamepad. Super Mario Maker, Star Fox Zero and a couple of tech demos that weren't turned into finished games was the best he could come up with.

I remind you that Miyamoto was the person who insisted on the Gamepad when the console was conceived. The sad reality is that there was no coherent and cohesive plan behind that hardware decision. Ideas from the GC to GBA connectivity were built into Nintendo Land and that was largely seen as sufficient to sell people on the multi-screen concept. That's why the pipeline for proof of concept software was virtually empty after the launch of the Wii U.

Obviously Super Mario Maker alone wouldn't have singlehandedly saved the Wii U. Wasn't trying to argue that, cause that'd be stupid.  The basic point I was trying to make is this.  If we could think of ways that the Wii U could have sold better (for instance Mario Maker at launch), then we can't claim that the actual sales reflected the full potential of the Wii U concept.  

Of course, the fact that a remake of NSMBU is selling better than Mario Maker 2 does throw a wrench in my logic.  Even as someone who liked NSMBU a lot that surprises me.  

As for Miyamoto, I feel that actually supports my point.  Firstly, I don't he did half bad all things considered.  Mario Maker was a decent hit.  Based on the sales bump from its launch, it contributed towards at least 100,000 Wii U sales. Which isn't bad for a single title.  And, I think it would have been more impactful if the Wii U wasn't already covered in the stench of failure.  Star Fox Zero doesn't seem to have had an impact.  But for two years one hit doesn't seem bad.  Especially since Star Fox was on a short dev cycle and was partially farmed out to another developer.

The bigger issue is this.  Miyamoto got that order in 2014?  Doesn't that kind of scream wtf to you?  Wasn't that the kind of conversation that really should have happened around 2010 at the latest?  Why didn't he have something ready (like Mario Maker) to show off the Gamepad at launch?  Shouldn't some other developers have had similar marching orders (if they did their output doesn't show it)?  

 Maybe all of Nintendo's devs could have been working their hardest to make the Gamepad an attractive concept and it still would have tanked just as bad or even worse.  But since the effort was so obviously bungled, we can't really say how much appeal the concept had.

As for the system seller and smash stuff, it makes sense in my head, but I can't quite make it make sense in writing, so I'm going to have to just concede that for now.