For months now, everyone keeps noting that the WiiU is a disaster (1)(2)(3)(4) – and nobody can suggest how to fix it. Not that people have too many different ways to fix it, mind you. Nobody can suggest a single reasonable way for Nintendo to turn it around. As if it was an insurmountable problem. Instead of fixes, they offer up bizarre suicidal ideas like : suddenly launch a new console; stop bundling the costly gamepad (even though it’s the main innovation); sell those precious Nintendo franchise games on other people’s systems (and follow in sega’s footsteps to embarassing obscurity).
Well, I have a solution.
All Nintendo needs to offer is : the magic.
Nintendo’s Wii offered the magic of playing a video game without buttons, and rode strong! Until Kinect came along and delivered even better button-less magic. I think kinect is the main reason Wii sales fell of a cliff. Not that people got tired of “a fad,” but because the fad chases moved on to the bigger meatier fad. Kinect didn’t have a bunch of great tiles. It’s isn’t rolling in the hits now, or promising cool shit next year. It’s just at the top of “the magic” gizmo lust food chain. And it’s bizarre Nintendo isn’t trying to fight that with WiiU.
The WiiU is essentially just the gamepad, in the minds of John Q. Public. Journalists keep pointing out that idiotic consumers are confused and think the WiiU gamepad is something for the old Wii… Well, that’s not the right story! The story should be that ALL THESE IDIOTS AREN’T BUYING IT for their old Wii! Because the gamepad isn’t being touted as more magical than a kinect. if the gamepad turned water into wine, the public would happily shell out $350 for it.
Whatever Nintendo’s marketing people are doing, they aren’t focused on explaining why the gamepad offers magic gameplay you can’t get anywhere else.
(before you say “Microsoft has SmartGlass” note that there isn’t a single smartglass integrated game, or announcement of any integrated game, that comes close to the response and integration that the WiiU gamepad already delivers in multiple/all titles).
I’d say WiiU doesn’t even need the magic be true. They just need to market the mutherfucker as if it was true. “Touch our new game pad : instantly shit your pants!” Why isn’t this in any of the advertisements?
It adds insult to injury that the gamepad is in fact delivering cool new game play – but Nintendo can’t figure out how to explain why that is the best magic imaginable to the game buying public. thbbbt.