| Pemalite said: Power/Graphics had no bearing on the WiiU's success or failure. |
So much of a console's success is the "it" factor. People don't really talk about that much, but it's true. Wii-U was seen by many as uncool and not worth their time. Switch was the opposite. For whatever reason, it was suddenly the trendy thing to own and thus... victory.
On a similar note, I can vividly remember how before Nintendo took the Wii to its first E3, everyone was making fun of it online. In every forum apart from Nintendo fan sites, people were mocking the thing. You mean to tell me it's no more powerful than a freakin' Gamecube? Are you kidding me? It's got motion controls, not normal controllers? Oh, God, what a joke! And then, when the gates of that E3 opened, we all saw these videos of hundreds of gamers literally bull-rushing over one another to get to the kiosks... and the rest is history.
I won't say it's necessarily marketing alone, but there is a certain element to that that can make or break a console. Yes, it needs to be good in its own right and have great games, but without the "it" thing, there will be no success. You have to have it. The Switch has it, the Wii-U did not.
