The name alone was stupid. Nintendoland sounds dorky. In the very least they should have called Wii Land or something that people would think was building off Wii Sports. But they should have just launched with Wii Sports 3 and promoted that Wii was back, this time in HD. The golf ball demo on the pad screen would get people's attention.

I think both of those are dead ends. If they had launched with Wii Sports 3 then people would've said "why did they just do the same thing over again? Everyone already has Wii Sports, they needed something new".

They should've just launched more towards core players and taken the freaking 2 year period they had from giving out dev kits (early 2010) to make sure they had a big Metroid Prime/Uncharted/Mario Galaxy/Zelda/Halo level title ready for launch or soon there after.

Betting on another Wii Sports like phenomenon to cover up all their other shortcomings was a stupid idea to begin with. It's like mismanaging your financials, but hoping to win the lottery twice to make up for it. Wii Sports was the right product for fall 2006, but trying to repeat the formula for 2012 was a flawed strategy to begin with.

Nintendo Land as a concept (Mii based mini-games tied to Nintendo theme park attractions) would've been a huge hit on the Wii 3-4 years ago.

Nintendo was painfully slow to recoginize that the mini-game/casual fad had fizzled out. Aside from the Just Dance craze, which likely has maybe this year before it flickers out as well.

Even Kinect Sports 2 saw a huge drop off from the first one, and Microsoft's attempt to make a Star Wars mini-game-a-thon with the Kinect Star Wars game largely flopped despite them making a hardware bundle for it and positioning it as a major game.

I agree it needed a major, flahsy, core title, but a Wii Sports 3 pack-in could have stirred some nice memories for those that enjoyed Wii Sports a few years ago.  NSMBU was too casual to be core, NL too core to be casual for launch.

I think you underestimate the fun of Wii Sports.  It was a fad, yes, but it was still genuinely fun.  I have fond memories of playing it, and nostalgia can be a powerful factor for many people.  A fresh take on Wii SPorts could be a solid draw even though it is no longer as novel.

Guitar Hero was a lot of fun too. How many people want to play that now? People are tired of the mini-game formula period I think, it was evident already when you saw things like Wii Party not selling anywhere close to Wii Sports/Fit and even below Mario Party and also even on MS' side of the fence, Kinect Sports 2 dissapointed.

It's not Wii Sports, for sure. It's not nearly as revolutionary or as popular.

But Nintendo Land is the superior game, with deeper, more satisfying gameplay and better replay value.

So I, personally, am glad Nintendo made it. But I'm also hoping for a Wii Sports sequel somewhere down the line.

I think Nintendoland is sooooo much better then Wii Sports.... but I'm more of a main stream gamer, and it would never have the same cross over appeal as sports.

Guitar Hero is dead right now, but that doesn't mean if you brought something new to the table you could re-start interest in the music genre.  Just Dance is huge right now and continues to be.  It's now being anualized as JD 2013.  A fresh take on Wii Sports incorporating the Gamepad as a golf ball, or as the view of the pitcher, or with all new sports, beautiful graphics and a fresh marketing campaign could be a big hit.  People love going back to old ideas when they're given a fresh coat of paint.  I bet right now if you came up with a new way to play guitar hero... with maybe a much improved inovative guitar controller and a new theme... let's say it was based on country music... it would be a big hit, at least in the US.

But imagine consumer confussion if that would happen. 80% of people would think that it is a game for the Wii, or maybe the new Wii tablet peripheral. That wouldn't be a good idea.

The Wii U didn't need Nintendo Land, and it didn't need Wii Sports. The system needed decent, fun games, not gimmicky demos.

As fun as it was to play, Wii sports was basically a demo. And for that system, it was fine, because motion-controls was pretty new tech. It made sense to introduce people to this new way of playing with a demo that showed how it worked.

With the Wii U, people already know how to use touch controls, so there was no need for a demo. And they didn't need a whole game in order to show off a gameplay mechanic, as they did in Nintendo Land. They didn't NEED another Wii sports, and they didn't NEED Nintendo Land.

What they did need was some quality first-party titles people would want to buy AT LAUNCH, not 10-12 months afterward. Something that showed off what the system could do, but wasn't based entirely on a gimmick. The fact they won't have anything like that for something like a YEAR or more after the system launched just goes to show how much Nintendo completely wasted their head start.