Possible Reasons For Failure
Here are some of the reasons that those in
the gaming industry have come up with to explain why the Wii U has
unceremoniously tanked.
Confused name: The original Wii name wasn't
well received, but what's a Wii U? Whatever the answer to that is, the public
didn't understand, and Nintendo made little effort to educate them.
Confused interface: Admittedly you'd have
to buy one to experience this, but many have pointed out that there isn't a
common visual thread that runs through the Wii U system. Many of the sub
systems, such as Miverse and Group Chat, work completely differently to each
other, supporting the suggestion that they were developed in isolation and not
as part of a unified solution.
Confused
name: The original Wii name wasn't well received, but what's a Wii U?
Nintendo Land: The original Wii came with
Wii Sports, which was an instant hit. But the Wii U Premium pack comes with Nintendo
Land, which was described by one reviewer as a 'showcase' rather than an actual
game. While it does a good job of explaining all the new features of the
controller, it's not something that most garners will return to on a regular
basis. Nintendo bosses later admitted that the lack of early Wii U first-party
titles was a 'strategy' that few outside the company could fathom.
Casual garners: This is a hangover from the
Wii, but people who bought the Wii U aren't hardcore garners who play every
day. They're more likely to be those who like an occasional game, perhaps with
their family around. Because of that, and their console legacy, the Wii U game
selection is made up almost entirely of kid-friendly titles, few of which would
attract those that bought Bioshock Infinite (four million copies sold at
launch).
The GamePad: I've seen some very unkind
comments referring to the toy maker 'Fisher Price' when describing the GamePad,
but the impression that this is a very small and cheap tablet is hard to
ignore. Its battery life of just 3.5 hours is also not something you can easily
forget if you play for longer than that. The idea that you can use it for game
supporting information is somewhat kyboshed by human kind's inability to look
both down and forward simultaneously.
The
idea that you can use it for game supporting information is somewhat kyboshed
by human kind's inability to look both down and forward simultaneously.
Lack of third-party developers: Initially
the Wii U relied on having the full selection of compatible Wii titles, with a
few exclusive titles in the mix. Since then, though, the number of Wii U
specific titles hasn't grown massively, and a few developers have openly
derided the system. The low point came in May, when EA revealed that it had no
Wii U specific titles in 'development, and a software engineer at EA Sports'
Canada studio described the console on Twitter as 'crap'.
A more diplomatic EA representative put in
this way: "EA has a strong partnership and an active agreement with
Nintendo to develop games for the Wii U. Last year we released Mass Effect 3
and several of our EA Sports titles on that platform. So far, we have not
announced any new titles for Wii U this year, but that does not preclude more
games in the future."
EA isn't the only developer to have shunned
the Wii U, and this comes on the back of a decline in the number of general Wii
titles being produced.
For developers, the Wii U represents a
classic catch-22, because with small numbers (relatively) of consoles there
isn't a substantial market for Wii U specific titles, and without those games,
Nintendo won't see many more.
Developers would rather sell to a known
market (Xbox 360 and PS3) than chance having a minor hit on the Wii U for the
same amount of effort. Currently, a Wii U title that sells more than 1,000
copies in the UK will be number one in the charts, which fully reveals the
sorry state of software sales.
EA
isn't the only developer to have shunned the Wii U, and this comes on the back
of a decline in the number of general Wii titles being produced.
The Xbox One Reaction
When new console hardware is announced,
it's always an issue for existing hardware, as people generally want the latest
and best. Therefore, many had contested that once the Xbox One (as it ended up
being called) and the PS4 came out of the shadows the Wii U would have a
steeper uphill struggle than it was already experiencing.
However, after the Xbox One announcement,
which most observers consider as being horribly botched, the sales of the Wii U
got a major boost. Prior to that presentation, the Wii U was slumming at nearly
400th on the Amazon Movers & Shakers in PC & Video Games list, before
jumping dramatically to 40th!
That surge was rather short lived, from
what I can ascertain, as the Black Wii U is currently ranked back at 428, and
the 8GB white model is 628.
This move confused many people, mostly
because some Nintendo fans posted stories that sales had increased 875%, when
only its popularity at Amazon actually had, and the actual sales increase was
much, much less.
So a few people vented their frustration
with Microsoft by buying a Wii U, but it's hardly an about- turn, and whatever
it was now seems to be over.
Where From Here?
Unless you think that the Xbox one reaction
will last, the future seems uncertain for Nintendo and the Wii U.
If there's a chink of light for Nintendo,
other than the curious boost that Microsoft seemed determined to give it, then
it's that the Japanese Yen has declined markedly against the dollar since
Christmas. This enables Nintendo to drop the price of the Wii U without it
actually impacting on the profitability by the same degree.
Unless
you think that the Xbox one reaction will last, the future seems uncertain for
Nintendo and the Wii U.
The snag with doing that is that the
console is already perceived by many as having failed, and making it much
cheaper would paint it as heading to the bargain bin.
Aiming for modest 5.5 million sales and
hitting only 3.45 million is a big miss for Nintendo and massively calls into
question its ambition to move nine million units by March 2014.
Nintendo is hoping that a series of well
publicized first-party games will somehow ride to the rescue of the Wii U, but
I'm not sure if new Starfox, Zelda, Mario and Blast Corps games can resurrect
this console. Nintendo will be showing these at E3, alongside whatever
innovations Microsoft and Sony have brought along to wow the crowd.
Given that the 3DS is still selling well,
the temptation for Nintendo is that it'll retreat to that section of the gaming
market. But given how the tablet and smartphone market is rapidly expanding to
engulf the same space as that device, the 3DS can only offer short- term
respite.
One distinct option is that Nintendo will
end up getting out of the hardware market entirely and then, like Sega, it will
end up hawking its intellectual properties on whatever hardware seems
appropriate at the time.
That's the direction many in the industry
are suggesting Nintendo take, because the alternative at this point is to just
fade away entirely.
