TheMisterManGuy said:
I think what was ultimately the Wii U and to a lesser extent the 3DS' failure was that Nintendo didn't focus on new or unique experiences for those consoles. Wii U in particular was especially bad with this. It felt like Nintendo was coasting too much on their past successes, failing to realise the entire gaming landscape was changing. Brain Training and Puppy Taming aren't going to wow people twice, 3D or otherwise, especially when similar experiences can now be found elsewhere on smartphones. It often felt like they were pandering too much to the Nintendo base and nostalgia that they didn't realize that there was a broader market to explore outside their bubble. I think Iwata knew Nintendo had lost its way during this era when they were conceiving the Switch, and wanted to re-focus the company back to fresh, and unique ideas only they can offer. The Switch is a return to form in that regard, with unique and innovative ideas not just for Mario and Zelda, but also new creations that only the Switch can really give justice to. 1-2 Switch, ARMS, Snipperclips, Nintendo Labo, you won't find stuff like this on any iOS or Android device. I'm hoping the Switch can mark another return to the creative and weird Nintendo i missed from the DS days. |
Great post!
You highlight some good points, and that’s when nintendo was repeating some of their old strategies they were going head to head against people who had taken their ideas and developed than further along than Nintendo did themselves in the 3DS and (especially) the Wii U era.
While the Wii U carried some unique concepts, though, it wasn’t quite what people wanted. A console with a separate screen capable of offscreen play - what people wanted was to take their favourite games on the go - but Wii U didn’t have that capability, Nintendo instead offered us assymetric gameplay... not a concept that is so much confusing to grasp, but one whose concept is difficult to imagine as being very fun or fair.
While I’m speculating based on anecdotal info here, I’ll go ahead - Wii U ended being Nintendo’s lowest multiplayer console of all time; I wouldn’t be surprised if the amount of time people played multiplayer on Mario Kart Wii alone not only exceeded the combined total of all multiplayer game time on Wii U, but exceeded it multiple times over. The big issue is the Wii was a 1-player console, Nintendo never got around to having a proper multiplayer setup... if you wanted to play you had to either use old controllers or through an online connection - which is even close to as fun or as big of an attraction on Nintendo games as the local multiplayer. Local multiplayer is almost synonymous with Nintendo.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
