This is something Ive been thinking about lately.   As most of you know I wasn't thrilled with the Launch games for the Wii U but have loved the stuff they announced at Nintendo Direct recently.  It looks to me like Nintendo is really ramping up their efforts and are building some great software.

But is this all a little too late?  Did Nintendo miss a huge opportunity to really drive a large install base early against the next gen systems?   I cant help but think Ninty shouldve had more large scale software available or announced for the early days of the system.  As we know the Playstation 4 is due to be announced this month and the next Xbox very soon after that.  It seems like there's a very real chance the announcement s could steal some thunder the Wii U was starting to gain.

This is NOT a Wii U doom thread but do you feel Nintendo could've done a better job of building a strong opening library and user base to give the a huge jump start on Sony / ME

I don't think so. Microsoft had a lot of early success with the 1 year launch before Ps3/Wii, but lost steam down the road. Time will only tell if it was a good decision for Nintendo.

Well, they certainly overestimated New Super Mario Bros U.



Can't say they didn't try their best though since they are developing their games as fast as they can. The alternative to the current situation was to wait another year.

I think your missing the question.  The year head start was an awesome idea but could they have done more with it to give them a bigger install base

Yup you're right. They took the year head start for granted. Weak launch line up that wasn't persuading people who have a PS3/360 to get the Wii U. Tons of ports of third party games that were already available on the PS3/360 and they were available months before the Wii U came out. Third party devs haven't been friendly to them. 

Edit - I also want to add that even though they have some big games announced I think it won't have as much of an impact as they would have if they were launch titles. Because both Microsoft and Sony are planning on releasing next gen console information soon I think this will steal some of the hype away from Nintendo's upcoming games such as the new Smash Bros. This is not to say they won't have an impact on the Wii U's sales but I think it would have been better if they introduced a big game like Smash Bros at launch where Nintendo would have had no competition from other next gen consoles.

To be honest, the fact that several of the dates of the launch window games got pushed back and were NOT focused more towards the first two months of release, I feel, hurt the potential for the Wii U. However, I don't know how much of a choice they had unless they wanted to cut short the development times for some of the games.

I think the Wii U proved more than anything else that Mario alone is not enough to move consoles, and that Nintendo management really has no idea what they are doing anymore.

I wouldn't really say that.  3,000,000 units sold in the time the Wii U has been out isn't that bad, it's just nowhere near what they expected (or what others expected).  It is also CURRENTLY not having much going for it as no games are being released (at least, no big ones).

Pretty much. They looked at the bad 3DS launch and came to the conclusion that no Mario was the problem and figured that was all they needed to do.

They're just not a very nuanced management group.

It's actually under 2 million sold. 3 million would be what they shipped, which is probably going to be sitting on store shelves for a while.