In November of 2012,
Nintendo launched the Wii U, its first high definition home video game
console. The primary message of Nintendo's
marketing campaigns and expo presentations focused on the asymmetric gameplay capabilities permitted by the
new tablet controller, the Wii U GamePad.
Despite the excitement surrounding Nintendo's famous franchises making
the leap into HD, the console launch has been somewhat marred by customer
confusion, cumbersome system software, and a lack of exciting games. Originally Nintendo stated that the console
"launch window" would run from November of 2012 through March of
2013, and now that March 2013 has come and gone, this series of articles is being written as one
Nintendo fan's thoughts on what went right with the launch and what went wrong.
Nintendo originally
announced the Wii U in 2011. The console
had to be re-introduced at E3 2012 due to widespread confusion over what the
system actually was. The naming
convention ("Wii U" versus "Wii 2" or a different name altogether) as
well as Nintendo's focus on the GamePad peripheral made consumers and media
alike claim the new system was not a new system at all but instead an add-on
for the original Wii. Most recently at
the 2013 PAX East expo, Nintendo handed out what have been deemed as
"absurd" and "embarrassing" flyers promoting its latest
console over its previous one (source Kotaku: http://goo.gl/xiDW7). This just further proves the identity
crisis Nintendo has caused for itself.
Focusing more on the hardware and not just the controller or branding
the system a little differently could have helped this substantially before it
happened, but it is what it is.
Getting past the
identity issues leads many people to a frequent complaint against Nintendo from
non-fans of their products. Nintendo is often accused of focusing on gimmick controllers and not bleeding edge
hardware. I have never had an issue with
this (though I heartily dislike motion controlled Zelda), but people are
frequently confused by new input devices.
Nintendo's GamePad (pictured) is actually very close to what Nintendo
has done with the DS/3DS hardware in terms of gameplay concepts. They
provide asymmetric ways to interact with game worlds. Many developers have yet to fully capitalize
on what is available, but flashes of brilliance can be found in games like
ZombiU and Lego City Undercover (to be further addressed in future installments
of this series). Nintendo's famous game
designer Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken at length about two screen capabilities,
and the company has pushed for this ever since they provided capabilities to
connect Game Boy systems to the Nintendo GameCube years ago (Miyamoto
interviews with Wired and CNN respectively: http://goo.gl/9ZMCS, http://goo.gl/CW423). I tend to agree with the legend, let's give
developers time to make the tablet sing.
From a sales
perspective, the numbers match the criticism detailed above. The system is constantly selling lower than
the 3DS, Sony Playstation Vita, and Playstation 3 in Japan, while in Europe and
the United States Microsoft's XBOX 360 is dominating it. European retailers tried a price cut to
stimulate sales to no avail (source My Nintendo News: http://goo.gl/WsN9U). Quite frankly the price is not terrible, but
the software needs to be better. Several
games have missed the launch window, and a large portion of the games that made
launch are lackluster ports missing DLC or games that have been available on
other consoles for months. The software
will be there eventually, but it is not there yet.
Over the next
several installments of this series I will be digging into the hardware itself,
the system software, and the current game library (both digital and retail). Feel free to let me know if you agree or disagree with the analysis in the comments.
- Scott
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