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Dulfite on 15 July 2021
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Captain_Yuri said:
Dulfite said:

Wii U did not prove that. Wii U was the most misunderstood device in modern gaming history. The vast, vast majority of people didn't even know it existed or didn't know it was a console. I had a hardcore gaming friend of mine convinced (to the point of arguing it) that it was just a controller for the Wii. If even hardcore gamers were confused, then casuals really were confused or didn't know what it was. It's failures proves nothing about the power of Nintendo software and proves absolutely the significant of bad branding and bad marketing. GameCube doesn't count either, as Nintendo's popularity hadn't grown into what it is today prior to the Wii. I'm convinced 90% of the gaming community thinks the successor to the Wii was the Switch and wondered why it took so long for Nintendo to make a new device, being completely unaware that the Wii U ever existed.

And for the record, I flippin' loved the Wii U and I think many of its features are superior to Switch, but Nintendo did a terrible job communicating what Wii U was to the market.

Sure but if it was the only one off, I'd agree. But together with the N64 and GC? I'd disagree. But regardless, I am not going to derail the thread by continue in that path.

The point I am trying to make is, there is plenty of appeal in getting a portable handheld that allows you to play Xbox, Sony and other third party games on the go. Sure it costs more but there are also plenty of reasons to get it as well. The switch will always be special and it will always sell far more than this ever will. But I think the Steam Deck will have it's own market.

That was part of my point, it was a one off. 

NES sold 62 million. SNES sold 49 million. N64 sold 33 million. GC sold 22 million. Sure, the N64 and GC dropped off from NES and SNES, but Nintendo had been on a downward trajectory and even then, the gap between NES and GC was only 40 million. Then we had Wii crack 100 million in (a gain of 80 million over its predecessor and 40 million over the previously best selling Nintendo device). This was their massive leap forward in market awareness. Everyone and their grandmas knew who Nintendo was because of the Wii and DS. Then they come out with their next device, with more multimedia features than Wii, one of their biggest power jumps ever, first time Nintendo HD games, brand new gyro controls but still can use Wii motes on it, backwards compatibility with Wii, Miiverse, and more features that made it a huge leap forward to people and it only sells 14 million. Branding and marketing doomed it. I knew that the moment they announced the stupid name of the fantastic device that it was doomed. Wii U name is probably top 5 dumbest decisions made in the history of gaming.

And you could be right about the Steam Deck. It's appealing to me somewhat, but almost all pc games I like to play with mouse/keyboard and prefer a much larger screen with more refresh rates.