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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why did the WiiU fail?

binary solo on 12 June 2017
Darashiva said:
Nintendo did a horrible job at both marketing the system, and on designing it. The hardware itself was fine, but the dual screen concept was handled very poorly from the beginning. And pretty much everything that's already been mentioned here. Apart from bringing a decent number of very good 1st party titles to the console, Nintendo just made bad decisions with the system from the very beginning.

The hardware itself could have been better (more powerful) for the same price tag if Nintendo had not erroneously thought a gampad would be a major selling point. Or the same hardware power without a gamepad would have had a significantly lower price.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

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binary solo on 12 June 2017
Azuren said:
SvennoJ said:

Watching my kids play, the WiiU still gets the most attention. Even lego games that we have on both ps4 and WiiU (I'm a bit impulsive sometimes when it comes to sales...) they prefer to play on the WiiU. It runs slower, but the gamepad is the differentiator. Especially since they both get to play on a full screen instead of splitscreen. And it's not just lego games, my 5 year old is actually getting quite good in Fast Racing Neo.

It seems kind of a step back that the Switch can't beam to the dock for multiplayer. Or for one playing on the pad while the other watches along on the tv. Plus since it doesn't have youtube etc (yet) means it's still largely ignored in favor of the gamepad.

Was the price too high? The name too confusing? Or simply a lack of games?
What I like about the gamepad is that it's always near the console, never have to look far for it because of the limited range. It's a hassle sometimes, yet it's never been lost!

Last I checked, it was a combination of the name and the marketing. Most people didn't even know it was a new console.

I would say a good 50% of Wii owners knew very well at that it was a new console. It's just that a little over 10% of Wii owners were actually interested in what the new console had to offer.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

trent44 on 12 June 2017

If the Wii U had been named the Wii 2/Nintendostation/Anything that would make it clear it was not a Wii add-on, and they had launched it at $250 with a game, and they had quadruple the third party games, and they had a decent marketing effort, etc.

It would have only helped so much, selling about 30 million consoles lifetime.

That is how bad the concept was.

Nintendo themselves never made much use of the gamepad, third party developers saw it as a mini map dump space.

And, only having one per console hampered anyone desiring to share the same experience with someone. (i.e the gamepad pad player would have to do the chores, seen as the lesser role while everyone else played the more fun role… or vice versa depending on the game.)

Wii U was destined to fail by design (or because of design rather), but it is what Nintendo needed to truly push them to create a home console and handheld console as a single device.

And they are better for it now, even if getting third party back is taking a bit of work (i.e. having arguably the absolute best 1st year lineup in console history).



Jumpin on 12 June 2017

Easy, lack of a killer app.

Secondly, the system isn't very appealing. it lacked the sleekness. It didn't look like something you wanted to own.

Wii was successful because it was both sleek and had multiple killer apps.

 

Nintendo is back to form with the Switch, though. It's definitely a good thing they pulled the plug early on the Wii U, despite what those silly naysayers said. The Switch is essentially what a real Wii successor looks like. Wii U was more like, as people said, GameCube v2.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Magnus on 12 June 2017
Mr.GameCrazy said:
Magnus said:
Wii U was weaker than 360 and PS3 and costed $350 at launch, with a single price drop at $300. Unless they got rid of the gamepad and cut price to under $200 it was never going to work.

Pretty suee the Wii U was more powerful than both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Where did you hear that it's weaker?

Wii U CPU was weaker so it 3rd party ports ran worse on Wii U than on 360 and PS3. And Breath of the Wild has mayor slowdown with far fewer NPCs than GTA5.