If Software sells Hardware why Wii U flopped

[Bofferbrauer2]

The Wii U flopped for several reasons:

1. Software: The Wii U launched with around 30 games, but almost all of them late and pretty shoddy ports, which on top of that were in general also more expensive than the same games on the PS360. In other words, there was almost nothing worth buying early on - and since Nintendo had to promise to give third party publishers free reign early on to get them back into the boat, there was also nothing from Nintendo in sight that was really worth buying. And since there was nothing new coming out for the consoles in the first couple month, sales practically stopped and the third party publishers jumped ship as soon as PS4/XBO were announced, some even earlier. Only Ubisoft stayed with Nintendo, and that loyalty is probably the reason why we have a crossover title between Mario and the Raving Rabbits on the Switch.

2. The name and shape of the console: The Wii U didn't sound all that different from the Wii, and it not being numbered meant that many confused it early on with just being a tablet add-on for the Wii - and for that it seemed way too expensive. The fact that the shape of the console very closely followed the Wii didn't help clearing up the confusion, either, and on the packaging the extended length of the Wii U compared to the Wii, which could have revealed to people that it was in fact a new console and not just an addon, got covered up with the Wii U Gamepad.

3. Reveal and marketing: Not once during the Wii U reveal was the word console uttered, and it only showed the capabilities of the new Gamepad, but nothing much about it's increased performance or anything in that direction. And the marketing of the Wii U until 2014 can best be described as moronic, and seemingly did it's best to appeal to nobody.

4. No more momentum: After Nintendo did it's best to get the confusion cleared up, bring some great games to the system and switch it's marketing around, the damage was already long done and couldn't be reversed anymore. Reveals, releases and price cut tend to have an increase in a certain percentage range and not absolute numbers. But if your baseline is absolutely shit, even an increase of 100% in sales is still shit. A bit less shitty, but still shit. It also didn't help that the publishers (for whom Nintendo created the console and for whom they stayed out early on) didn't come back to the system, expect Ubisoft who never really left.

Tl;dr: Nintendo has some real killer games on the Wii U. but they were too few and far between and all the damage to the system and it's reputation from the first year simply couldn't be undone with all those releases anymore.

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 18 January 2021