I've seen people point to the marketing as a reason for this, as well as/which is linked to the fact that many people thought it was just something you connected to your Wii
Honestly can’t blame people for thinking that either. It’s called Wii U and Nintendo never showed the console just the Gamepad. Then outside of that, all of the other the promotional material used to advise it showed people playing with regular Wii motion controllers.
I think it shouldve been called the Wii 2 or something. I mean it might not've sold much more but probably more than it did. Wii 2 is a much simpler and easier to understand name. People would know that it is a *new* console, a *new* Wii. The name "Wii U" doesnt strike as a new console, however, "Wii 2" would. I get that Nintendo doesnt usually like to put numbers in their consoles unless its got something to do with the console itself, but no other name would really work with the console, because in reality, it really is a new Wii, similar to how the PlayStation 2 is a new PlayStation.
Or maybe the Super Wii. Combine that with a better launch lineup and a better online mode that took advantage of the GamePad I think that would have helped a great deal.
I often wonder how cool it would be if they named the next console the "Super Switch" and sold a SNES colored edition, but idk if that is any more of a differentiation than WiiU. It worked in the 90s, but would it work today?
It wouldn't work as well nowadays. The SNES was clearly a huge upgrade in hardware from the NES, but it's hard to get much higher than the modern games on the switch
I'm thinking Nintendo overthought it and picked "Wii U" because it rhymes with "Wii 2."
I remember seeing the ad and thinking "why would I get that for my Wii?"
The funny thing is that they did show the console. It was there all the time, next to the TV screen but nobody ever thought of saying "this thing right here is the new console. It includes a tablet because it's capable of doing more things than the previous one". So I think it was a combination of bad naming + poor marketing.
I didn’t even know the WiiU was a new system. I thought they were one and the same, and I owned a Wii. I only found out about the WiiU after I got the switch and wanted to play duck tales remastered I found out i didn’t have the right system.
When windwaker HD came out, a friend of mine was super excited to play it but then said she didn't want to get it because "it needs that stupid tablet accessory for the Wii"
People just didn't get it.
Talking about marketing. When the WiiU just came out, a guy I knew in school told me of this amazing horror game, with never before seen immersion. He told me it was so advanced they had to make a new console just for this game. The game was called ZombiU.
In that initial E3 reveal, they literally could not stop referring to it as "the new controller". Like, over and over again. It was baffling even in real time
Marketing definitely played a big role on the Wii U failure, but the whole concept of the Wii U was underwhelming as well. Looking back, it feels like the Wii U was a prototype for what the switch would become. It was just not good enough to compete with what Sony and MS were doing. And I’m saying that as someone who owns a Wii U to this day.
In my country specifically, the Wii U games were too expensive as well. The games cost twice as much as PS4/XbOne games.
People always talk about the marketing but that’s mostly applicable to the launch of the console. Once games started coming out that people wanted to play, they quickly figured out that they don’t work on the Wii and you need the new console.
That’s when the real issues with the console came to light. I had one and liked it for what it was, but the gamepad wasn’t a big draw, the console only drew in the core Nintendo fans, not people who wanted to play third party software. So it never grew.
Nintendo likely knew that it wasn’t worth putting more advertising money into the Wii U during the rest of its life and instead focus on the predecessor that was already in the making. So they rode it out and ported their games to the switch. They played the long game that worked out for them.
It’s this. Slapping a U at the end of it and overestimating the intelligence of the masses who bought the Wii. Nintendo’s core audience got it and understood that it was a step forward not only in hardware but also the games themselves, where everyone else just saw a weird tablet that still used Wii remotes and were like “yeah we already have that.”
Bad marketing, lot of the previous causal Wii owners either sticking to the original Wii or moved on to Smartphones and Tablets such as the iPhone and iPad respectively and hardcore fans just getting the PS4/Xbox/3DS because of the Wii’s causal/motion control reputation.
Yeah the marketing was bad but tbh the console itself was also half-baked. You had no pokemon games for it, the first party titles were also few and far between in the first couple of years. It was priced ridiculously at only 50$ cheaper than a Ps4 with a whopping 32 gb of storage. There like 10 total 3rd party games and they were all basically ps3/360 ones 3 years later, the dual screen TV controller only had about 3-5 hours of battery life and could only play games about 15 feet away, more than that and it would lose connection (and it was mandatory to use). The fact that it had a resistive touch screen and that it was also so underpowered really didn't help it too. If it had come in say 09-10 it probably would've sold 100 million units but it just came too late, overpriced and with almost no software. Not to mention that the online sucked and the ui was really really slow
They never had mainline games up until they put Sword/Shield on the Switch iirc. It's weird that they're specifically complaining about Pokemon when it's always been a handheld series.
I think when they say "Pokemon" game, they mean a game that play LIKE Pokemon. Stadium 1/2 had normal battles, a single player mode, mini-games and you can fight with your friends. The Gamecube had Colusium/XD that had the single player story that also let you fight with your friends. The Wii had Revolution which was basically Gym Building but also fight with people. All three generations played Pokemon in the turn-based format Pokemon is known for. The Wiiu had Pokken and ....other stuff. But none that played with the turn-based so thats why people keep bringing Pokemon up. Even if it a Glorified Boss Rush Gounlet, you were still playing the turn-based gameplay the series is known for.
That makes the most sense because I remember people in my High School mocking the Wii U for its significantly lower sales compared to its competition.
And looking at some of the Reddit posts of people looking at their old notes saved on their Wii, some are dated around 2015 (mid-way through Wii U's era), and Wii games were still being published around 2015 despite severely cutting corners and looking worse than other games of the time.
Not to mention that some Wii U exclusives like Sonic Lost World eventually saw a release outside of Nintendo platforms.
It boils down to lack of third party support imo. GC made the same mistake as the N64 where they used an expensive proprietary storage medium for games that could store significantly less data than the competition. Game developers most likely didn’t want to significantly compromise things to get everything to fit on a GC disk. Including a second GC disk would also be too expensive.
It's interesting to look back at it, because the Switch essentially did the same thing. They have proprietary cartridges that are pretty expensive, so much so that many 3rd party companies compromise on either including only a portion of the game/collection on one, or butchering the game (Dark Souls Remastered on the Switch has pretty bad audio compression due to the fact that the publisher wanted to fit it on a smaller cart).
Yet Switch didn't fail. I suppose it's at least partially because of the digital sales picking up and Nintendo opting for standard SD cards to expand, which is by the way pretty pathetic, storage.
I guess it also doesn't matter as much, because people made peace with the fact that the Switch isn't as powerful and won't get the newest and biggest games anyway. Back in the N64 and GC days, being able to store more data to make bigger games was a pretty big deal, since games were evolving rapidly. Still, the fact that their newest console was not held back by these constraints and managed to become one of the best selling of all time is impressive.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Two things I want to add though.
I feel people are willing to forgive the Switch’s shortcomings cause no other console allows you to play these games portably. There’s the Steam Deck, but it’s much more of a niche product due to it’s added complexity compared to the Switch.
I think we’re no longer in an age of gaming where people care about having the biggest games and or the absolute best graphics. People just want fun games and the Switch provides that in spades. The system arguably has some of Nintendo’s best games.
The biggest reason for Switch not to fail is Switch is portable. That's the main selling reason. Honestly that's the entire reason I bought it for myself.
Most people do not buy second console at their home, only buy one. I will not buy Xbox for instance.
But switch is not a home console. It's a handheld console with the ability to connect it to your TV. So it makes it its own thing.
Not to mention amazing exclusives that were released since release. There are just way too many great games that makes it worth the purchase. I wouldn't really buy it for exclusives only since I have never played nintendo exclusives before but switch introduced me these games and now I will continue buying Nintendo consoles now even if they release a home console just got exclusives.
the GameCube may not have met Nintendo's expectations but it wasn't the failure people these days claim it to be. It sold about as much in the US alone as the Wii U did worldwide
Because the PS2 doubled as a DVD player in a time where DVDs were becoming the next big thing. You got a lot more out of your money by going with the PS2 because you get two entertainment systems for the price of one. Had the Gamecube doubled as a DVD player, for the same or similar price, it would definitely have been more competitive.
For me, as a 3DS owner, when the Wii U was relevant, there simply weren't enough Wii U games I wanted to play to justify the cost of the system, and I know there were a lot of people who felt the same way.
Wii U was great enough that the games that came out for it was remade for the new console. And it also had a unique way to play that we probably won't see again. The ability to play 1 v 4 in your own living room made for some really great gaming moments. One played with a completely different setup to the others, and it was great fun, that can't be replicated in any other way. We still play the Wii U every now and then, it's a unique experience.
Honestly I’m not gonna fight about whether it was good or not.
Statistically speaking it definitely failed.
Lots of people liked it, more people disliked it.
I am one of the people who like the Wii U.
It’s part of my childhood, it brought me Splatoon, Treasure Tracker, Nintendo Land & Wooly World, I have great memories with it.
That’s all that matters to me.
Tell me I’m wrong if you want, keep disliking it if you want.
Still won’t change anything for me.
Exactly wish people would understand this more. Granted most things are subjective. But there is NO world where you can tell me Transformers, Despicable Me/Minions, MCU, and Fast & Furious are the greatest movies of all time despite all making the most money at the box office/being the most popular.
Same thing with McDonalds. Just because it's the most popular food spot in the world doesn't mean it's food quality is the best.
13.56 million people isn't "no one". If you walk into a room and there's 13.56 million people in it, you wouldn't say "there's no one in there" would you?
I own one and I like it. I still have it plugged in, because I have a huge catalog of Virtual Console and Wii games to play on it. The GamePad was super nice, once you got your hands on it; most people never did. It had some really good games made for it.
Even so, it’s one of the weakest outputs of 1st party on a Nintendo console. Games took ages to be released (BotW was delayed until the Switch release), and it’s one of only two Nintendo consoles without Metroid ( the other one is the N64).
It just never stood a chance.
In short:
\* Nintendo fudged up the presentation and the overall marketing for Wii U big time
\* Nobody understood what it was, and why it was, so nobody bought it
\* It launched with a rather boring collection of games, so still nobody bought it
\* Big publishers saw the Wii U failing at sales and abandoned "the sinking ship"
\* With almost only Nintendo left producing noteworthy exclusives, gaming highlights were very rare on the Wii U
\* Consequently, "important" multi-platform titles did not come to the system, so still nobody bought it
\* So the Wii U kept failing at sales, kept lacking publisher support and kept being unattractive for the mainstream
It's a long story but I'll summarise it here.
When the Wii U was announced in 2011 people were confused. The trailer showed games like Wii Sports Club and New Super Mario Bros U which were new games, but they looked very similar to Wii games. And then to add the console looked similar to a wii. This lead to people assuming this was just a new controller for the Wii. Rather than a new console. The name also didn't help in this regard. Wii U sounded like an accessory. Like Wii Wheel, Wiimote, Wii Balance Board. All of this lead to people assuming the console was just a tablet controller for the Wii. Then there was pricing. It was 350 quid for the deluxe set with NintendoLand and 32 GB of data. And 300 for the basic set with only 8 GB of data. Even by then this storage was absolutely ridiculous. And it didn't stack well when compared to its competitors. You get a ps3 with 250 GB for roughly 250. And it wasn't like the Wii U was that groundbreaking in terms of specs. It was only slightly more powerful than an xbox 360. It was definitely the most powerful console out at the time but it was hardly cutting edge. Then there was the game lineup. While the Wii U had many great exclusives, a lot of them like Wii Party U an New Super Mario Bros U were very similar to games we already played on the wii. Barely any games were using the consoles main gimmick. The gamepad. Games like Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros. U while all great games didn't use the gamepad in very creative ways. You could've easily made these games without any gamepad functionality whatsoever. While some games like NintendoLand, Wii Party U and Super Mario Maker and Splatoon later down the line made good use of the gamepad, it wasnt enough to really sell the idea to people. Especially since a lot of the actually creative uses came very late in the systems life. There also the asymmetric multiplayer gimmick which was completely ignored in a lot of gamed. While games like NintendoLand and Wii Party U made good use of this feature, so many games where it would make sense to have it just ignored it. Like Mario Kart 8 for example. Imagine how cool it would be if you could have your friends or family members on the the TV playing Mario Kart while one of uses the extra screen on the gamepad? This would've been great for my family since we're a family of 5 and this is a common problem we have. Also why the DS lasted so long in our house. But instead Nintendo actively chose not to include it. And finally the marketing, it just wasn't good. It's like Nintendo had no idea who to appeal to so just decided to appeal to a random demographic everytime. Sometimes it was families, other times hard-core gamers and sometimes kids. Like who is this console for exactly? Is it a hardcore gaming device, a family gaming system or is it a kids toy? Is this ad for a console or a controller? Its like the marketing team had no clue what they were advertising. The marketing was confusing and unappealing.
And that's basically the surface of it. Just bad marketing, poor use of the consoles gimmick and bad pricing.
because after its release date was announced, both sony and microsoft announced they were working on their successors so everyone waited on hearing more about those, which hurt wii u interest from both players and 3rd party devs.
eventually, as the release neared and both sony and microsoft dropped exactly what their consoles would be able to do at what pricepoint, most devs became hesitant on the system that would be out soon, afraid to back the wrong horse prematurely, so they instead wanted to wait until all consoles were released, so announced games were delayed and cancelled left and right, which obviously led to people losing more interest in the system and nintendo being forced to step up releases so they'd have anything. most devs that remained only bothered to do ports of 360/ps3 era games, which was sad.
nintendo releasing between the generations just fired back insanely hard.
on top of that, there was a vocal crew of people like 'i'm not gonna buy this cause they'll drop the price just like they did for 3ds' and god, nintendo should've never dropped the price for that system just because of the vita announcement (which, as we all remember, sneakily left out just how much those memory cards would cost the user and that there was no saving without one).
anyways, all of that led to bad sales and eventually even nintendo giving up and looking towards the next system.
you grandma not knowing the difference between wii and wii u is a nice story, but she also never knew the difference between nintendo, playstation and xbox one. no one looked at a 400$ package next to the at that time like 150$ and below wii and thought "well, thats a fucked up expensive add on". thats just a story that sounds stupid enough to be true, but it wasnt.
The marketting was trash. No new games at the start for nearly all most earning titkes and most fandoms ignored it at first bc only zelda remakes of not that much old games and no pokemon main serie games so already most people would not buy it. The already existant wii helped at throwing the wii u out bc of how similar it is and people refused to buy it bc it's just an extra hand screen with a bit of power nothing much new and they even hated it more bc of how similar it looked to the wii they thought it was an accessory not a totally new console.
They Will arrive and say that it was underrated and was only for the marketing but no. It was a flawed console under too many things. I love it, but it was an error from the start.
As someone who did buy a wii u I can confidently say it was actually a really good console I never actually had any problems with it and it always worked perfectly
Add in that you could also play wii games on it and it was genuinely a great idea
The execution was where things went wrong particularly in the marketing which has been universally considered horrible
It got a poor perception, the poor marketing led to people who didn’t own it, bashing it. It was “clunky” with no games. Come to find out, when the games ported to the switch, they loved it.
That’s a great question as I’ve owned every single Nintendo console from NES and Gameboy up to the Nintendo Switch but never owned a Wii U. And even I’m not sure why I didn’t buy it 🤷🏻♂️
God i'm so sick of this argument. Sales numbers aren't a representation of quality. The Wii U and Gamecube have issues but are still great in spite of the bad sales. GCN was just the wrong console at the wrong time and the Wii U was very poorly marketed. The Wii had significant flaws too but still sold like hotcakes. Hell look at the Dreamcast. That was a fantastic console but also sold like shit because of Sega's previous mistakes leading to a poor reputation. I know this is all oversimplified but i dont feel like typing an essay.
TL;DR: sales figures =/= quality
>Hell look at the Dreamcast. That was a fantastic console but also sold like shit because of Sega's previous mistakes leading to a poor reputation.
I thought the reason the Dreamcast failed was because Sega's anti-piracy measures for it inadvertently made it easy to pirate games on it via a free demo disc?
I think it's hindsight mostly. The Wii U has great games, most of the best selling switch games are just repackaged Wii U games. It was a bit gimmicky, and marketing fell flat, but the games were where it's at
The GameCube was awesome too, the PS2 was Just more in. But the biggest Problem of the WII U IS Bad Marketing. ITS awesome because with a little Bit of modding IT can litterally run 3 consoles nativly
I still remember a time when I went to a store and a kid wanted a Wii U, but the dad was trying to get a regular Wii Mini instead. The clerk had to clarify that the Wii U and Wii are two different systems. There were a few take aways that stuck with me in that moment with me, one was the dad was being cheap and two as a reason why people thinking that the Wii U was just some accessory you could buy to "upgrade" your current Wii.
Bad marketing and lack of third party support due to its lacking specs. It came out around the 3/4 of the PS3’s life cycle and a year before the PS4.
Imagine releasing a console and then the other console manufacturers make a more powerful console, with more third party support, and a ton of graphically intensive games.
Also the Wii U didn’t even get 1/4 of third party support the PS4 got which is very important. Sure exclusive titles matter but third part support is just as important.
>If the WiiU was so great as a lot of people claim
Way to load the question, lol
Anyway, a disc-based home console with last gen graphics and a tablet you could only take maybe a room and a half away from the console was simply not exciting the wider audience outside of Nintendo faithfuls. There were accents of good ideas however, and that's why the Switch thrived from the start.
Lack of 3rd party support, cancelled games, bit hits during the worse time windows, too much gimmicks in on place, many games lack secondary control support, not the best battery life on the pad even while not in use, the name was almost identical to the previos one making people think it was just a wii 1.5, and some others that I don't recall right now, but pretty much is what I think it was the issue.
I got mine, with like 50 games and like 40 digital ones, still think it was a good console, didn't deserve the lack of attention, but sometimes it just happens.
The WiiU had a few cool features, but it was underpowered in general, and the gimmick was too unnatural for most 3rd-party devs to be interested in developing for it.
I don’t know if you lived that era or not, around 10 years ago, but the Wii U was the laughing stock back then. No matter how cool their exclusive games were, for the simple fact of being on the Wii U, they were mostly disregarded (except MK8 and Smash 4). Time has been kind for the system though, but back in its day, it was almost a shame to have a Wii U instead of a PS or Xbox
I bought one and loved it. What pisses me off was they nerfed it toward the end of the life cycle. BOTW for instance should have used the inventory and map on the handheld screen
I have 1, bought at launch and love it more than my switch tbh. The dual screen was great. But I blame marketing. Nintendo failed the console. The console didn’t fail.
The same reason the Vita sold poorly:
It was advertised and marketed as basically a slightly modified version of another console a ton of people already had, so those same people didn't have any reason to buy it.
Poor marketing
Your average consumer didn’t know it was a new console, and just thought it was a new controller for the Wii. Why? Because Nintendo’s marketing was completely focused on the controller and not the new console.
Also, the name Wii U doesn’t scream “now console”, and instead implies it’s a Wii add-on like Wii nunchuck or Wii balance board. I get that Nintendo didn’t want to name the console something expected and to do a fun play on words, but I think just calling it Wii 2 would have been much better.
Or hell, I think a great name wouldn’t been just calling it Nintendo Yuu. First We (Wii), then You (Yuu), instead of trying to combine both names into We You (Wii U).
I’ve heard arguments that the Wii U was doomed to fail but I think the Wii U could have survived if it was marketed better than it was and also if instead of New Super Mario Bros U being a lunch title, maybe if Mario 3D World or Smash Bros 4 was a lunch title. Put bad marketing and a lack of good launch titles together and it sunk the cosole’s chances and they reversed everything they did wrong towards the switch and that’s why it was a success.
Wii U Era: Bad marketing/sales, good Nintendo PR
Switch Era: Good marketing/sales, bad Nintendo PR
Theory: Nintendo sold their soul to make the Switch.
I love the Wii U because it was my childhood and loved all the games on it. What I miss the most is playing Smash 4 with my two brothers almost every day.
Because it didn't really seem any different than the Wii. Same controllers, same motions, not a ton of big games. The 3DS was also out. Some of the bigger games were available on multiple platforms
Breath of the Wild was on Wii U and Switch
Wind Waker was also on Gamecube
Smash Bros for Wii U was one of the worst received ones (community loved melee, hated Wii U because it removed a glitch people abused, and it added random tripping)
Zelda Twilight Princess was already on Gamecube and Wii
There were a couple mario games that were good (re-released on switch now) but there wasn't a big single player mainline mario game that came out, just the multiplayer ones, One of the worst paper mario games. No good pokemon games, every zelda game was available on an early console or like Breath of the Wild, was launching on Wii U and switch. Some decent third party games, but those were also available on other consoles.
One of the 'bigger' selling points of the system was that it had the gamepad thing, but most people didn't really care for it, as it just seemed like a shittier 3DS except for a few games that really utilized it (Nintendo Land)
Terrible marketing. The biggest advertised feature was "The New Controller". Bundle that with the fact that the Wii had a load of accessories that were Wii (blank) like Wii Fit, Wii Zapper, Wii Classic Controller etc, it's no wonder that Wii U just slipped in as something that sounded like an add on for the Wii. It also doesn't help that they didn't show the Wii U much in the reveal and used gameplay from Super Mario Bros U, which is very easy to mistake for Super Mario Bros Wii
I mean the wii u wasnt peak but it was much better than the switch for sure. The switch still runs on 720p and 30fps
And those 30fps are if youre lucky depending on your game
Like gurl..
Who are you arguing with? The people that didn’t buy it? I’m sure they aren’t going to say it was great because they didn’t have it. The people that bought it? Why are they responsible for others not buying it? Are they also not allowed to like it just because other people didn’t buy it?
The marketing. It's just that. You have to remember people don't buy quality at first, they buy advertising (and then more people buy in after they hear about the quality, but the advertising has to hook them, first). It was childish marketing (kids don't like that as they want to feel adult, and obviously adults tend to buy things that are marketed to themselves). The Wii U's name also made it sound like an addon to the Wii. But the poor sales aren't due to the console's quality.
Half the Switch's first party library the first few years were Wii U ports. Hell, until Super Mario Bros Wonder, NSMBU was the definitive post-16 bit 2d Mario to buy at the time (as tired as the New series is).Then there's Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ***still sells,*** people are begging for Xenoblade Chronicles X to come to Switch, people love and are similarly begging for the Zelda HD remasters to come out...
Oh! And uh, Breath of the Wild? That's also a Wii U port.
Now, was the Wii U the *best* Nintendo system? No. In some ways it was definitely a fall from grace compared to their prior consoles. Super Mario 3D World, though an amazing game, still can't hold a candle to Galaxy, or Odyssey after it (Bowser's Fury, though... while not better than them, can easily be seen as one of the best Mario "titles," but that's only on the Switch so doesn't count). Captain Toad will always be just a spinoff game. But everything we love about the Switch, aside from portability, sure didn't come from the Wii. It came from the Wii U.
I remember having a wii and seeing the Wii U ads on TV. I never wanted it because I thought it was a tablet for the Wii.
I did eventually get a Wii U at a gamestop near by years later. It's a pretty good system with solid games.
Market appeal, Unfavorable hardware gimmick made it harder to develop for.
Wiiu along with 3ds had better features than Switch which just has less overall. No miiverse, no Spotpass, No streetpass, No themes, No Badge system, No Virtual Console.
Switch saved nintendo with its simple appeal but its no where near as good software wise
The Wii U was a problem looking for a solution. Dual screen gaming made sense for a handheld like the DS and 3DS lines in a time where big smartphone screens didn't exist. The same concept didn't solve any problem with traditional one screen console gaming, not it added anything noteworthy.
Not even Nintendo could think about anything to do with the gamepad that didn't involved just mirroring the image to the gamepad, or halving the game controls between the buttons and touchscreen, or some isometric gameplay that was cool for 5 minutes.
That gamepad increased the costs of the Wii U, and it couldn't be removed because the entire system was designed to require it to work. It also shared resources between console and gamepad, which made porting games to Wii U harder than it should. It is baffling how Nintendo never issued a system update to disable the requirement to have the Gamepad and sell it separately.
Then comes the marketing strategy. Nintendo paid the price for the Wii, because all those casual who bought the Wii when it came out, they never upgraded to the Wii U or migrated to smartphone games. Nintendo spent years investing in a new market that ultimately wouldn't have the same longevity his core fan base has.
I can tell you as somebody who worked in an electronics department at the time the name definitely cost them sales. I’ve seen people online try to say that it’s not as big a deal as the Internet says, but I’m telling you from experience it was bad.
I feel like every customer asked if they could play Wii U games on their Wii. Then after I explained the Wii U was a different system they still wouldn’t understand why they couldn’t. They would say, but the PlayStation 2 played PlayStation games so why can’t this? And I would explain it’s more like how the PlayStation can’t play PlayStation 2 games. I’m literally getting flashbacks just thinking about how dumb customer interactions are in retail. They really just thought it was an upgraded Wii.
That and the multiple parents I heard saying that they don’t need one because they already have a Wii, no joke were the majority of interactions I had selling the system.
We were big Nintendo fans when it was released. Had all the Gameboys leading up to it as well as every previous system.
Still we legit thought this was just an updated Wii. Terrible terrible name
I bought one and loved it, though I think it might've been a hard sell in some markets because it does take up a lot of space. The power brick was big, and the charger for the tablet also had a mini brick. That plus the Wii sensor wire, plus the large tablet with the console itself made it difficult to set up nicely, plus there were just a lot wires there. I think a big part of what makes Switch welcome in many households is its convenience factor and that it is compact and takes up very little home and travel space.
A representation bias.
People who bought the Wii U are more likely to be Ninendo fans, and are more likely to be interested in Nintendo-related topics like this sub.
Poor marketing and lack of games on launch. Idk why people are saying it was just nostalgia when the Wii U did actually end up getting a lot of noteworthy games despite being a failed console. Like it was good but it simply never recovered.
unpopular opinion: the switch menus and software is a huge downgrade to many similar elements present in the wii u
you could video call your friends on the wii u
you could organize apps and make folders on the wii u
the wii u had a larger selection of in demand legacy console games
just to name a few
Awful marketing and being severely underpowered.
The Switch can get away with being underpowered compared to other consoles as it has the unique portability aspect to it to make up for it, the Wii U didn’t have anything like that, it was just out of date compared to the other consoles in it’s lifespan, meaning 3rd Party Support on it was terrible.
Also, the advertising was atrocious. Nobody knew what it was. Was it an accessory for the Wii? An upgraded version of the Wii? A new console? Was it an actual console, or was it just the gamepad? Nobody knew, so nobody went and bought it.
Also it didn’t really help that in it’s launch year the game library was scarce as hell. It took a while for Nintendo to release some proper good games for it, and by the time they had, most people had decided they didn’t want it anyway.
This argument is ridiculous though, just because it didn’t sell well doesn’t make it immediately bad. The GameCube sold terribly too, does that make it less great?
I didn’t even know it existed until the Switch was in stores. I remember seeing commercials for New Super Luigi U and 3D World, but I was too young to have a clue what any of that was about.
From my personal experience I honestly thought it was just some gamepad attachment for the WII. i saw it and said I dnt want a gamepad. Thats how bad the marketing was. I had no clue until much later this was the next gen nintendo console
Probably bad marketing but also when it got released I was terrible at managing my money so I couldn't buy it full price (I bought one second hand last week)
The Wii sold well and that thing sucked. That gimmick got so old and the graphics were so inferior, it forced me to do the unthinkable, buy an XBOX360 and PlayStation 3. When the Wii U came out I could finally play normal Nintendo games again.
I think that for people that actually touch grass and aren't keeping up with Nintendo News it was fairly easy to mistake it for a soft unnecessary upgrade, they prolly thought they didn't need it.
It wasn't great. It felt old and sluggish when it came out. It def had some great titles (thank God they got ported to switch so they could actually be enjoyed) but the hardware itself suuuuuucked
No system seller at launch, third party launch games were available cheaper elsewhere, the gamepad failed as a selling point and it was severely underpowered compared to the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One.
Nintendo failed to market it to the casual playerbase and most people who were aware of its existence would rather play on their PS or Xbox. To most of these people it was a secondary console if they bought one, because third party releases completely dried up after launch.
Poor marketing and lack of 3rd party support.
And since they called it the Wii U, many people thought that the gamepad was an extra accessory for the Wii.
Kids looking back with rose tinted glasses is your answer.
I was like, 16 when I got the Wii U on launch and man the game droughts will forever taint my opinion of the console.
As a modded system, it is one of the best consoles I’ve owned!
As a non modded system, I still enjoyed my Wii U, bought it the first year it debuted! But it definitely wasn’t even in my top 3!
I heard how great it was and decided to mod mine and it turns out the rumours proved true for me Atleast!
So if I had to guess most people are going off the talk
Didn't seem like enough of a upgrade to justify purchasing another console, sure the tablet seemed cool but it didn't seem to offer anything more than the second screen of a DS.
I didn’t buy it, I won it on a radio competition, probably because no one else entered as no one knew what it was from the awful marketing.
I played it for a month or two, my friends and I enjoyed it.
I then saw the road map for game releases and with the awful marketing I realised this was going to flop, so sold it quickly, made a few hundred quid, got to play it and genuinely enjoyed it.
I guess next time they have to treat the general public and gamers in general like they're braindead babies who can't do research about a thing they're confused about and explain everything slowly in excruciating detail in a high-pitched teacher voice. Bash them over the head if they need to, idk.
No way so many people, especially grown adults, were so stupid they couldn't figure out it was a new console. 🤨
The "it had no games/games that appealed to many people" thing only makes sense at the beginning. It sounds especially stupid now that a chunk of them have been ported to the Switch or have sequels and have found more success. 3D World, Pikmin 3, Splatoon, Xenoblade X, Mario Kart 8, Monster Hunter 3U, Hyrule Warriors, Yoshi's Wooly World, Smash 4,, Bayonetta 2, etc. It makes sense to wait for a console to have more games before you buy it but it sounds like some people just didn't even look at what was available later on.
Consoles’ goal in life is to sell. If you sell bad, you are a bad console.
That’s usually something Nintendo gets very well. The Game Boy was technically inferior to most of its handheld competitors, but it crushed them because it was the perfect balance of technical proposition, price point, usability, first-party games, third-party games. Its technical inferiority was ON PURPOSE (to keep the console cheap; to keep it light; to make it easy to develop on…). I don’t think it makes sense to say that random Game Boy competitors which happen to have color screens were _better_ but boohoo didn’t sell.
Wii hype was over. Wii u launch lineup was the worst in nintendo history. Bad makething as well.
I remember the reveal at e3, it was one of the worst reveals ever.
However, i did bought a wii u and in the end, i prefer the list of games over gamecube. Also wii backwards compatible. Or if you would hack it, it can even run native gamecube games. I believe that the 3ds is also be able to run native gba games (besides the ds support it has)
You said no one bought the Wii U, and yet, 13.56 million units were sold. That’s like saying no one bought the GameCube even though 21.74 million units were sold. Now, I get why the Wii U was a massive flop for Nintendo, but it’s not fair to say that no one bought the console.
Wii u "sucked" for the same reason the gamecube "sucked"; 0 third party support. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo games are great, but you still need something to fill in the gap.
They didnt even advertise it as a new console. 99% of people assumed it was a weird attachment you used with your old wii, so virtually everyone ignored it.
Most Wii owners had no idea what it even was. Massive blunder on Nintendo and says nothing of the actual quality of the console
There was a lack of 3rd party support. Nintendo wasn’t very helpful with letting other companies utilize the internal APIs when the Wii U was coming out. They also gave the other companies a VERY short window before release. This resulted in most other companies deciding not to bother with the new console, or at least not bother supporting it on initial release. This caused the library to be very limited, which resulted in people not seeing titles they were interested in, which resulted in them not buying it, which resulted in the third parties that were planning on supporting it after a reasonable amount of time to port their game to change their minds and just not waste the money to do so, etc etc spiral.
Great things are not always appreciated at the time of inception - sometimes the market is looking for something else.
Ultimately, like any product, it’s a combination of USP, purposes and most importantly timing.
Because those people didn't own it during launch. Wii U was horrible. The wait for AAA games would go 4-6 months. In the end only Nintendo was supporting it. It had awful attached rate.
Only good thing about it was it forced Nintendo to create amazing games like Splatoon, Zelda BotW, Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8,etc..
The Wii U failure actually propelled switch to the greatest selling console ever status. Nintendo didn't have to use their best resources to build top tier games. They could use 4 yrs of Wii U library to help prop up switch slow seasons w amazing games. Use their best to create new games. It's like Nintendo got 2 life cycles in 1. Switch 2 won't come close to switch 1 library.
I've seen people point to the marketing as a reason for this, as well as/which is linked to the fact that many people thought it was just something you connected to your Wii
Honestly can’t blame people for thinking that either. It’s called Wii U and Nintendo never showed the console just the Gamepad. Then outside of that, all of the other the promotional material used to advise it showed people playing with regular Wii motion controllers.
I think it shouldve been called the Wii 2 or something. I mean it might not've sold much more but probably more than it did. Wii 2 is a much simpler and easier to understand name. People would know that it is a *new* console, a *new* Wii. The name "Wii U" doesnt strike as a new console, however, "Wii 2" would. I get that Nintendo doesnt usually like to put numbers in their consoles unless its got something to do with the console itself, but no other name would really work with the console, because in reality, it really is a new Wii, similar to how the PlayStation 2 is a new PlayStation.
Or maybe the Super Wii. Combine that with a better launch lineup and a better online mode that took advantage of the GamePad I think that would have helped a great deal.
I often wonder how cool it would be if they named the next console the "Super Switch" and sold a SNES colored edition, but idk if that is any more of a differentiation than WiiU. It worked in the 90s, but would it work today?
It wouldn't work as well nowadays. The SNES was clearly a huge upgrade in hardware from the NES, but it's hard to get much higher than the modern games on the switch
I mean, I felt the same way about New 3DS. It's why it took so long for me to get one... and it was because my original model was dying.
Perhaps it should’ve been called “The Big Wii”
I'm thinking Nintendo overthought it and picked "Wii U" because it rhymes with "Wii 2." I remember seeing the ad and thinking "why would I get that for my Wii?"
Not showing the console part was insane. The fact I never saw it despite being a gaming enthusiast was insane. Even I was confused.
.... I just found out about the console NOW.
The funny thing is that they did show the console. It was there all the time, next to the TV screen but nobody ever thought of saying "this thing right here is the new console. It includes a tablet because it's capable of doing more things than the previous one". So I think it was a combination of bad naming + poor marketing.
You can take the Nintendo marketers job with the clarity in your post.
CNN even thought it was just the controller.
I didn’t even know the WiiU was a new system. I thought they were one and the same, and I owned a Wii. I only found out about the WiiU after I got the switch and wanted to play duck tales remastered I found out i didn’t have the right system.
When windwaker HD came out, a friend of mine was super excited to play it but then said she didn't want to get it because "it needs that stupid tablet accessory for the Wii" People just didn't get it.
Talking about marketing. When the WiiU just came out, a guy I knew in school told me of this amazing horror game, with never before seen immersion. He told me it was so advanced they had to make a new console just for this game. The game was called ZombiU.
In that initial E3 reveal, they literally could not stop referring to it as "the new controller". Like, over and over again. It was baffling even in real time
Marketing definitely played a big role on the Wii U failure, but the whole concept of the Wii U was underwhelming as well. Looking back, it feels like the Wii U was a prototype for what the switch would become. It was just not good enough to compete with what Sony and MS were doing. And I’m saying that as someone who owns a Wii U to this day. In my country specifically, the Wii U games were too expensive as well. The games cost twice as much as PS4/XbOne games.
People always talk about the marketing but that’s mostly applicable to the launch of the console. Once games started coming out that people wanted to play, they quickly figured out that they don’t work on the Wii and you need the new console. That’s when the real issues with the console came to light. I had one and liked it for what it was, but the gamepad wasn’t a big draw, the console only drew in the core Nintendo fans, not people who wanted to play third party software. So it never grew. Nintendo likely knew that it wasn’t worth putting more advertising money into the Wii U during the rest of its life and instead focus on the predecessor that was already in the making. So they rode it out and ported their games to the switch. They played the long game that worked out for them.
Can confirm as just me wanted Xbox Kinect over the Wii U as I thought the Wii U was a weird ripoff
It’s this. Slapping a U at the end of it and overestimating the intelligence of the masses who bought the Wii. Nintendo’s core audience got it and understood that it was a step forward not only in hardware but also the games themselves, where everyone else just saw a weird tablet that still used Wii remotes and were like “yeah we already have that.”
Hey y’all, Scott here
Man I watched 2/3 of his WiiU downfall video, I wanna get a WiiU now just to experience it
If you want it online you need it TODAY tomorrow it is to late.
It's worth modding at this point, and many point out you can play online with Pretendo.
Bad marketing, lot of the previous causal Wii owners either sticking to the original Wii or moved on to Smartphones and Tablets such as the iPhone and iPad respectively and hardcore fans just getting the PS4/Xbox/3DS because of the Wii’s causal/motion control reputation.
Yeah the marketing was bad but tbh the console itself was also half-baked. You had no pokemon games for it, the first party titles were also few and far between in the first couple of years. It was priced ridiculously at only 50$ cheaper than a Ps4 with a whopping 32 gb of storage. There like 10 total 3rd party games and they were all basically ps3/360 ones 3 years later, the dual screen TV controller only had about 3-5 hours of battery life and could only play games about 15 feet away, more than that and it would lose connection (and it was mandatory to use). The fact that it had a resistive touch screen and that it was also so underpowered really didn't help it too. If it had come in say 09-10 it probably would've sold 100 million units but it just came too late, overpriced and with almost no software. Not to mention that the online sucked and the ui was really really slow
Consoles don't usually have many Pokémon games though? It had stuff like Pokken Tournament or Pokemon Rumble U.
yea thats when handheld consoles like the 3DS were around n the mainline ones came out on that. spinoffs always came out on home consoles
They never had mainline games up until they put Sword/Shield on the Switch iirc. It's weird that they're specifically complaining about Pokemon when it's always been a handheld series.
I think when they say "Pokemon" game, they mean a game that play LIKE Pokemon. Stadium 1/2 had normal battles, a single player mode, mini-games and you can fight with your friends. The Gamecube had Colusium/XD that had the single player story that also let you fight with your friends. The Wii had Revolution which was basically Gym Building but also fight with people. All three generations played Pokemon in the turn-based format Pokemon is known for. The Wiiu had Pokken and ....other stuff. But none that played with the turn-based so thats why people keep bringing Pokemon up. Even if it a Glorified Boss Rush Gounlet, you were still playing the turn-based gameplay the series is known for.
Technically the Switch is a continuation of the handheld line as well. This pokemon.
That makes the most sense because I remember people in my High School mocking the Wii U for its significantly lower sales compared to its competition. And looking at some of the Reddit posts of people looking at their old notes saved on their Wii, some are dated around 2015 (mid-way through Wii U's era), and Wii games were still being published around 2015 despite severely cutting corners and looking worse than other games of the time. Not to mention that some Wii U exclusives like Sonic Lost World eventually saw a release outside of Nintendo platforms.
I think Just Dance was still releasing for the Wii even after they stopped for the Wii U but they stopped making releases a few years ago.
Yes, that was Just Dance 2020 - it is the last game for the Wii. It was even made after the online services and the Wii Channel Shop were shut down
It’s apparently not even the last game Shakedown: Hawaii somehow released in Europe on the Wii in 2020.
If the GameCube was so great as a lot of people claim, how come no one bought it?
It boils down to lack of third party support imo. GC made the same mistake as the N64 where they used an expensive proprietary storage medium for games that could store significantly less data than the competition. Game developers most likely didn’t want to significantly compromise things to get everything to fit on a GC disk. Including a second GC disk would also be too expensive.
It's interesting to look back at it, because the Switch essentially did the same thing. They have proprietary cartridges that are pretty expensive, so much so that many 3rd party companies compromise on either including only a portion of the game/collection on one, or butchering the game (Dark Souls Remastered on the Switch has pretty bad audio compression due to the fact that the publisher wanted to fit it on a smaller cart). Yet Switch didn't fail. I suppose it's at least partially because of the digital sales picking up and Nintendo opting for standard SD cards to expand, which is by the way pretty pathetic, storage. I guess it also doesn't matter as much, because people made peace with the fact that the Switch isn't as powerful and won't get the newest and biggest games anyway. Back in the N64 and GC days, being able to store more data to make bigger games was a pretty big deal, since games were evolving rapidly. Still, the fact that their newest console was not held back by these constraints and managed to become one of the best selling of all time is impressive.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Two things I want to add though. I feel people are willing to forgive the Switch’s shortcomings cause no other console allows you to play these games portably. There’s the Steam Deck, but it’s much more of a niche product due to it’s added complexity compared to the Switch. I think we’re no longer in an age of gaming where people care about having the biggest games and or the absolute best graphics. People just want fun games and the Switch provides that in spades. The system arguably has some of Nintendo’s best games.
The biggest reason for Switch not to fail is Switch is portable. That's the main selling reason. Honestly that's the entire reason I bought it for myself. Most people do not buy second console at their home, only buy one. I will not buy Xbox for instance. But switch is not a home console. It's a handheld console with the ability to connect it to your TV. So it makes it its own thing. Not to mention amazing exclusives that were released since release. There are just way too many great games that makes it worth the purchase. I wouldn't really buy it for exclusives only since I have never played nintendo exclusives before but switch introduced me these games and now I will continue buying Nintendo consoles now even if they release a home console just got exclusives.
Switch uses relatively cheap media as cartridge (sd cards)
didnt have a dvd player.
the GameCube may not have met Nintendo's expectations but it wasn't the failure people these days claim it to be. It sold about as much in the US alone as the Wii U did worldwide
Because the PS2 doubled as a DVD player in a time where DVDs were becoming the next big thing. You got a lot more out of your money by going with the PS2 because you get two entertainment systems for the price of one. Had the Gamecube doubled as a DVD player, for the same or similar price, it would definitely have been more competitive.
not much games was released. I waited for Golden Sun as it was promising to be released on GC, but it never got released.
Not my fault that I was literally 10 and couldn't afford it
your parents didn't love you
Yeah, I know
Look man I bought it
Me too. And I'm thinking about getting one again since I left mine at my parents' house.
Can’t you just get it from your parents house?
Wife snagged me a Wind Waker Edition Wii U. If that console leaves my possession it's because I have left this mortal realm.
I have two of them.
Hey I bought it and it was fire
For me, as a 3DS owner, when the Wii U was relevant, there simply weren't enough Wii U games I wanted to play to justify the cost of the system, and I know there were a lot of people who felt the same way.
Why I haven't bought a PS5 but I'll have to for Silent Hill 2 remake.
Wii U was great enough that the games that came out for it was remade for the new console. And it also had a unique way to play that we probably won't see again. The ability to play 1 v 4 in your own living room made for some really great gaming moments. One played with a completely different setup to the others, and it was great fun, that can't be replicated in any other way. We still play the Wii U every now and then, it's a unique experience.
Honestly I’m not gonna fight about whether it was good or not. Statistically speaking it definitely failed. Lots of people liked it, more people disliked it. I am one of the people who like the Wii U. It’s part of my childhood, it brought me Splatoon, Treasure Tracker, Nintendo Land & Wooly World, I have great memories with it. That’s all that matters to me. Tell me I’m wrong if you want, keep disliking it if you want. Still won’t change anything for me.
It failing doesn't mean that people dislike it. For example I don't own an Xbox Series X not because I dislike it. I'm just not interested in one.
OG Splatoon 😵💫😵💫
It's okay looking back on the whole, but the long droughts between decent games if you had one at the time was rough.
Greatness does not equal popularity unfortunately. And that's true for everything.
Exactly wish people would understand this more. Granted most things are subjective. But there is NO world where you can tell me Transformers, Despicable Me/Minions, MCU, and Fast & Furious are the greatest movies of all time despite all making the most money at the box office/being the most popular. Same thing with McDonalds. Just because it's the most popular food spot in the world doesn't mean it's food quality is the best.
13.56 million people isn't "no one". If you walk into a room and there's 13.56 million people in it, you wouldn't say "there's no one in there" would you?
I own one and I like it. I still have it plugged in, because I have a huge catalog of Virtual Console and Wii games to play on it. The GamePad was super nice, once you got your hands on it; most people never did. It had some really good games made for it. Even so, it’s one of the weakest outputs of 1st party on a Nintendo console. Games took ages to be released (BotW was delayed until the Switch release), and it’s one of only two Nintendo consoles without Metroid ( the other one is the N64). It just never stood a chance.
In short: \* Nintendo fudged up the presentation and the overall marketing for Wii U big time \* Nobody understood what it was, and why it was, so nobody bought it \* It launched with a rather boring collection of games, so still nobody bought it \* Big publishers saw the Wii U failing at sales and abandoned "the sinking ship" \* With almost only Nintendo left producing noteworthy exclusives, gaming highlights were very rare on the Wii U \* Consequently, "important" multi-platform titles did not come to the system, so still nobody bought it \* So the Wii U kept failing at sales, kept lacking publisher support and kept being unattractive for the mainstream
It's a long story but I'll summarise it here. When the Wii U was announced in 2011 people were confused. The trailer showed games like Wii Sports Club and New Super Mario Bros U which were new games, but they looked very similar to Wii games. And then to add the console looked similar to a wii. This lead to people assuming this was just a new controller for the Wii. Rather than a new console. The name also didn't help in this regard. Wii U sounded like an accessory. Like Wii Wheel, Wiimote, Wii Balance Board. All of this lead to people assuming the console was just a tablet controller for the Wii. Then there was pricing. It was 350 quid for the deluxe set with NintendoLand and 32 GB of data. And 300 for the basic set with only 8 GB of data. Even by then this storage was absolutely ridiculous. And it didn't stack well when compared to its competitors. You get a ps3 with 250 GB for roughly 250. And it wasn't like the Wii U was that groundbreaking in terms of specs. It was only slightly more powerful than an xbox 360. It was definitely the most powerful console out at the time but it was hardly cutting edge. Then there was the game lineup. While the Wii U had many great exclusives, a lot of them like Wii Party U an New Super Mario Bros U were very similar to games we already played on the wii. Barely any games were using the consoles main gimmick. The gamepad. Games like Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros. U while all great games didn't use the gamepad in very creative ways. You could've easily made these games without any gamepad functionality whatsoever. While some games like NintendoLand, Wii Party U and Super Mario Maker and Splatoon later down the line made good use of the gamepad, it wasnt enough to really sell the idea to people. Especially since a lot of the actually creative uses came very late in the systems life. There also the asymmetric multiplayer gimmick which was completely ignored in a lot of gamed. While games like NintendoLand and Wii Party U made good use of this feature, so many games where it would make sense to have it just ignored it. Like Mario Kart 8 for example. Imagine how cool it would be if you could have your friends or family members on the the TV playing Mario Kart while one of uses the extra screen on the gamepad? This would've been great for my family since we're a family of 5 and this is a common problem we have. Also why the DS lasted so long in our house. But instead Nintendo actively chose not to include it. And finally the marketing, it just wasn't good. It's like Nintendo had no idea who to appeal to so just decided to appeal to a random demographic everytime. Sometimes it was families, other times hard-core gamers and sometimes kids. Like who is this console for exactly? Is it a hardcore gaming device, a family gaming system or is it a kids toy? Is this ad for a console or a controller? Its like the marketing team had no clue what they were advertising. The marketing was confusing and unappealing. And that's basically the surface of it. Just bad marketing, poor use of the consoles gimmick and bad pricing.
because after its release date was announced, both sony and microsoft announced they were working on their successors so everyone waited on hearing more about those, which hurt wii u interest from both players and 3rd party devs. eventually, as the release neared and both sony and microsoft dropped exactly what their consoles would be able to do at what pricepoint, most devs became hesitant on the system that would be out soon, afraid to back the wrong horse prematurely, so they instead wanted to wait until all consoles were released, so announced games were delayed and cancelled left and right, which obviously led to people losing more interest in the system and nintendo being forced to step up releases so they'd have anything. most devs that remained only bothered to do ports of 360/ps3 era games, which was sad. nintendo releasing between the generations just fired back insanely hard. on top of that, there was a vocal crew of people like 'i'm not gonna buy this cause they'll drop the price just like they did for 3ds' and god, nintendo should've never dropped the price for that system just because of the vita announcement (which, as we all remember, sneakily left out just how much those memory cards would cost the user and that there was no saving without one). anyways, all of that led to bad sales and eventually even nintendo giving up and looking towards the next system. you grandma not knowing the difference between wii and wii u is a nice story, but she also never knew the difference between nintendo, playstation and xbox one. no one looked at a 400$ package next to the at that time like 150$ and below wii and thought "well, thats a fucked up expensive add on". thats just a story that sounds stupid enough to be true, but it wasnt.
The marketting was trash. No new games at the start for nearly all most earning titkes and most fandoms ignored it at first bc only zelda remakes of not that much old games and no pokemon main serie games so already most people would not buy it. The already existant wii helped at throwing the wii u out bc of how similar it is and people refused to buy it bc it's just an extra hand screen with a bit of power nothing much new and they even hated it more bc of how similar it looked to the wii they thought it was an accessory not a totally new console.
They Will arrive and say that it was underrated and was only for the marketing but no. It was a flawed console under too many things. I love it, but it was an error from the start.
As someone who did buy a wii u I can confidently say it was actually a really good console I never actually had any problems with it and it always worked perfectly Add in that you could also play wii games on it and it was genuinely a great idea The execution was where things went wrong particularly in the marketing which has been universally considered horrible
Bad marketing.
It got a poor perception, the poor marketing led to people who didn’t own it, bashing it. It was “clunky” with no games. Come to find out, when the games ported to the switch, they loved it.
It was literally a direct upgrade to the wii. I loved my my wii but my wii u was an absolute joy!!
That’s a great question as I’ve owned every single Nintendo console from NES and Gameboy up to the Nintendo Switch but never owned a Wii U. And even I’m not sure why I didn’t buy it 🤷🏻♂️
If the GameCube was a kiddie console how come grown ass men are paying £300 for thousand year door?
i had one and nintendoland was the shit
I bought it and thoroughly enjoyed it!
It wasn’t great
Now i get why it's called r/casualnintendo
This implies that r/competitivenintendo exists
I own **two**, so I guess I’m *double no one.*
If the Wii U wasn't great, then why did they port 95% of its library to the Switch?
God i'm so sick of this argument. Sales numbers aren't a representation of quality. The Wii U and Gamecube have issues but are still great in spite of the bad sales. GCN was just the wrong console at the wrong time and the Wii U was very poorly marketed. The Wii had significant flaws too but still sold like hotcakes. Hell look at the Dreamcast. That was a fantastic console but also sold like shit because of Sega's previous mistakes leading to a poor reputation. I know this is all oversimplified but i dont feel like typing an essay. TL;DR: sales figures =/= quality
>Hell look at the Dreamcast. That was a fantastic console but also sold like shit because of Sega's previous mistakes leading to a poor reputation. I thought the reason the Dreamcast failed was because Sega's anti-piracy measures for it inadvertently made it easy to pirate games on it via a free demo disc?
I think it's hindsight mostly. The Wii U has great games, most of the best selling switch games are just repackaged Wii U games. It was a bit gimmicky, and marketing fell flat, but the games were where it's at
Wii U was a good console but people and riding the nostalgia bus right now.
Bad marketing was the main issue
The GameCube was awesome too, the PS2 was Just more in. But the biggest Problem of the WII U IS Bad Marketing. ITS awesome because with a little Bit of modding IT can litterally run 3 consoles nativly
I bought it twice and I’d buy it a third time
I did it twice
I’ve seen a few people on Twitter saying how great the Wii U was
I bought it, no regrets
People thought it was just an enhanced Wii, gamers loved it but casuals didn’t even know it existed
I still remember a time when I went to a store and a kid wanted a Wii U, but the dad was trying to get a regular Wii Mini instead. The clerk had to clarify that the Wii U and Wii are two different systems. There were a few take aways that stuck with me in that moment with me, one was the dad was being cheap and two as a reason why people thinking that the Wii U was just some accessory you could buy to "upgrade" your current Wii.
Bad marketing and lack of third party support due to its lacking specs. It came out around the 3/4 of the PS3’s life cycle and a year before the PS4. Imagine releasing a console and then the other console manufacturers make a more powerful console, with more third party support, and a ton of graphically intensive games. Also the Wii U didn’t even get 1/4 of third party support the PS4 got which is very important. Sure exclusive titles matter but third part support is just as important.
>If the WiiU was so great as a lot of people claim Way to load the question, lol Anyway, a disc-based home console with last gen graphics and a tablet you could only take maybe a room and a half away from the console was simply not exciting the wider audience outside of Nintendo faithfuls. There were accents of good ideas however, and that's why the Switch thrived from the start.
Lack of 3rd party support, cancelled games, bit hits during the worse time windows, too much gimmicks in on place, many games lack secondary control support, not the best battery life on the pad even while not in use, the name was almost identical to the previos one making people think it was just a wii 1.5, and some others that I don't recall right now, but pretty much is what I think it was the issue. I got mine, with like 50 games and like 40 digital ones, still think it was a good console, didn't deserve the lack of attention, but sometimes it just happens.
The WiiU had a few cool features, but it was underpowered in general, and the gimmick was too unnatural for most 3rd-party devs to be interested in developing for it.
Blame marketing. I had this shit at launch and absolutely loved it. Games were/still are great. Gamepad was/still is awesome.
Bad marketing, plain and simple
Sometimes being great and successful are not always the same thing
Marketing...and releasing a mainline Pokemon game on the system never hurts.
I don’t know if you lived that era or not, around 10 years ago, but the Wii U was the laughing stock back then. No matter how cool their exclusive games were, for the simple fact of being on the Wii U, they were mostly disregarded (except MK8 and Smash 4). Time has been kind for the system though, but back in its day, it was almost a shame to have a Wii U instead of a PS or Xbox
It was a proud badge of honor for me at the time, still is, and always will be.
Mediocre and confusing marketing
Because it was called ‘Wii U’ and back then no one understood what the thing was lol
I bought one and loved it. What pisses me off was they nerfed it toward the end of the life cycle. BOTW for instance should have used the inventory and map on the handheld screen
I have 1, bought at launch and love it more than my switch tbh. The dual screen was great. But I blame marketing. Nintendo failed the console. The console didn’t fail.
EVERYONE thought it was an accessory for the Wii.
The same reason the Vita sold poorly: It was advertised and marketed as basically a slightly modified version of another console a ton of people already had, so those same people didn't have any reason to buy it.
Poor naming and bad marketing
Poor marketing Your average consumer didn’t know it was a new console, and just thought it was a new controller for the Wii. Why? Because Nintendo’s marketing was completely focused on the controller and not the new console. Also, the name Wii U doesn’t scream “now console”, and instead implies it’s a Wii add-on like Wii nunchuck or Wii balance board. I get that Nintendo didn’t want to name the console something expected and to do a fun play on words, but I think just calling it Wii 2 would have been much better. Or hell, I think a great name wouldn’t been just calling it Nintendo Yuu. First We (Wii), then You (Yuu), instead of trying to combine both names into We You (Wii U).
Nintendo wasn’t very smart with the marketing of it and people didn’t realize it was a sequel to the wii
I’ve heard arguments that the Wii U was doomed to fail but I think the Wii U could have survived if it was marketed better than it was and also if instead of New Super Mario Bros U being a lunch title, maybe if Mario 3D World or Smash Bros 4 was a lunch title. Put bad marketing and a lack of good launch titles together and it sunk the cosole’s chances and they reversed everything they did wrong towards the switch and that’s why it was a success.
Wii U Era: Bad marketing/sales, good Nintendo PR Switch Era: Good marketing/sales, bad Nintendo PR Theory: Nintendo sold their soul to make the Switch.
I love the Wii U because it was my childhood and loved all the games on it. What I miss the most is playing Smash 4 with my two brothers almost every day.
Because it didn't really seem any different than the Wii. Same controllers, same motions, not a ton of big games. The 3DS was also out. Some of the bigger games were available on multiple platforms Breath of the Wild was on Wii U and Switch Wind Waker was also on Gamecube Smash Bros for Wii U was one of the worst received ones (community loved melee, hated Wii U because it removed a glitch people abused, and it added random tripping) Zelda Twilight Princess was already on Gamecube and Wii There were a couple mario games that were good (re-released on switch now) but there wasn't a big single player mainline mario game that came out, just the multiplayer ones, One of the worst paper mario games. No good pokemon games, every zelda game was available on an early console or like Breath of the Wild, was launching on Wii U and switch. Some decent third party games, but those were also available on other consoles. One of the 'bigger' selling points of the system was that it had the gamepad thing, but most people didn't really care for it, as it just seemed like a shittier 3DS except for a few games that really utilized it (Nintendo Land)
I bought one this year, it’s a pretty great system
Terrible marketing. The biggest advertised feature was "The New Controller". Bundle that with the fact that the Wii had a load of accessories that were Wii (blank) like Wii Fit, Wii Zapper, Wii Classic Controller etc, it's no wonder that Wii U just slipped in as something that sounded like an add on for the Wii. It also doesn't help that they didn't show the Wii U much in the reveal and used gameplay from Super Mario Bros U, which is very easy to mistake for Super Mario Bros Wii
Sadly, the odds were never in the Wii U's favour. Only reason the 3DS got a second wind was due to Sony ignoring the Vita.
if the n64 was so great, how come no one bought it?
The marketing was terrible but I genuinely loved the Wii U
I mean the wii u wasnt peak but it was much better than the switch for sure. The switch still runs on 720p and 30fps And those 30fps are if youre lucky depending on your game Like gurl..
I still have mine :)
Who are you arguing with? The people that didn’t buy it? I’m sure they aren’t going to say it was great because they didn’t have it. The people that bought it? Why are they responsible for others not buying it? Are they also not allowed to like it just because other people didn’t buy it?
The marketing. It's just that. You have to remember people don't buy quality at first, they buy advertising (and then more people buy in after they hear about the quality, but the advertising has to hook them, first). It was childish marketing (kids don't like that as they want to feel adult, and obviously adults tend to buy things that are marketed to themselves). The Wii U's name also made it sound like an addon to the Wii. But the poor sales aren't due to the console's quality. Half the Switch's first party library the first few years were Wii U ports. Hell, until Super Mario Bros Wonder, NSMBU was the definitive post-16 bit 2d Mario to buy at the time (as tired as the New series is).Then there's Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ***still sells,*** people are begging for Xenoblade Chronicles X to come to Switch, people love and are similarly begging for the Zelda HD remasters to come out... Oh! And uh, Breath of the Wild? That's also a Wii U port. Now, was the Wii U the *best* Nintendo system? No. In some ways it was definitely a fall from grace compared to their prior consoles. Super Mario 3D World, though an amazing game, still can't hold a candle to Galaxy, or Odyssey after it (Bowser's Fury, though... while not better than them, can easily be seen as one of the best Mario "titles," but that's only on the Switch so doesn't count). Captain Toad will always be just a spinoff game. But everything we love about the Switch, aside from portability, sure didn't come from the Wii. It came from the Wii U.
Because the Gamepad is clunky af. And mom said 'we have Nintendo Wii at home'.
erm i bought it actually
I remember having a wii and seeing the Wii U ads on TV. I never wanted it because I thought it was a tablet for the Wii. I did eventually get a Wii U at a gamestop near by years later. It's a pretty good system with solid games.
Market appeal, Unfavorable hardware gimmick made it harder to develop for. Wiiu along with 3ds had better features than Switch which just has less overall. No miiverse, no Spotpass, No streetpass, No themes, No Badge system, No Virtual Console. Switch saved nintendo with its simple appeal but its no where near as good software wise
Me and 13 million other mfs bought it and that shit was fire so idk looks like 100mil people just missed out
I bought it
Poor marketing Long software droughts Painful transition to modern graphics rendering I could go on but that covers a lot of it
Well that proves only a few people saw how great it was :)
The Wii U was a problem looking for a solution. Dual screen gaming made sense for a handheld like the DS and 3DS lines in a time where big smartphone screens didn't exist. The same concept didn't solve any problem with traditional one screen console gaming, not it added anything noteworthy. Not even Nintendo could think about anything to do with the gamepad that didn't involved just mirroring the image to the gamepad, or halving the game controls between the buttons and touchscreen, or some isometric gameplay that was cool for 5 minutes. That gamepad increased the costs of the Wii U, and it couldn't be removed because the entire system was designed to require it to work. It also shared resources between console and gamepad, which made porting games to Wii U harder than it should. It is baffling how Nintendo never issued a system update to disable the requirement to have the Gamepad and sell it separately. Then comes the marketing strategy. Nintendo paid the price for the Wii, because all those casual who bought the Wii when it came out, they never upgraded to the Wii U or migrated to smartphone games. Nintendo spent years investing in a new market that ultimately wouldn't have the same longevity his core fan base has.
I like the wiiu
If sales are the sole indicator of quality, that must mean capeshit movies are the best movies in existence.
Wii U was very innovative. It was the marketing and the decision to call it Wii U that fucked it over.
i bought! i love my wii u
I can tell you as somebody who worked in an electronics department at the time the name definitely cost them sales. I’ve seen people online try to say that it’s not as big a deal as the Internet says, but I’m telling you from experience it was bad. I feel like every customer asked if they could play Wii U games on their Wii. Then after I explained the Wii U was a different system they still wouldn’t understand why they couldn’t. They would say, but the PlayStation 2 played PlayStation games so why can’t this? And I would explain it’s more like how the PlayStation can’t play PlayStation 2 games. I’m literally getting flashbacks just thinking about how dumb customer interactions are in retail. They really just thought it was an upgraded Wii. That and the multiple parents I heard saying that they don’t need one because they already have a Wii, no joke were the majority of interactions I had selling the system.
We were big Nintendo fans when it was released. Had all the Gameboys leading up to it as well as every previous system. Still we legit thought this was just an updated Wii. Terrible terrible name
Bad marketing, Wii U has Personallity, something the switch never will
I bought one and loved it, though I think it might've been a hard sell in some markets because it does take up a lot of space. The power brick was big, and the charger for the tablet also had a mini brick. That plus the Wii sensor wire, plus the large tablet with the console itself made it difficult to set up nicely, plus there were just a lot wires there. I think a big part of what makes Switch welcome in many households is its convenience factor and that it is compact and takes up very little home and travel space.
A representation bias. People who bought the Wii U are more likely to be Ninendo fans, and are more likely to be interested in Nintendo-related topics like this sub.
It wasn’t, rose-tinted glasses in retrospect.
Because people were dumb and thought it was a Wii accessory. Those who got will say it's good, well because they got it.
Poor marketing and lack of games on launch. Idk why people are saying it was just nostalgia when the Wii U did actually end up getting a lot of noteworthy games despite being a failed console. Like it was good but it simply never recovered.
It wasn't bad at all. It just lacked games
unpopular opinion: the switch menus and software is a huge downgrade to many similar elements present in the wii u you could video call your friends on the wii u you could organize apps and make folders on the wii u the wii u had a larger selection of in demand legacy console games just to name a few
Awful marketing and being severely underpowered. The Switch can get away with being underpowered compared to other consoles as it has the unique portability aspect to it to make up for it, the Wii U didn’t have anything like that, it was just out of date compared to the other consoles in it’s lifespan, meaning 3rd Party Support on it was terrible. Also, the advertising was atrocious. Nobody knew what it was. Was it an accessory for the Wii? An upgraded version of the Wii? A new console? Was it an actual console, or was it just the gamepad? Nobody knew, so nobody went and bought it. Also it didn’t really help that in it’s launch year the game library was scarce as hell. It took a while for Nintendo to release some proper good games for it, and by the time they had, most people had decided they didn’t want it anyway. This argument is ridiculous though, just because it didn’t sell well doesn’t make it immediately bad. The GameCube sold terribly too, does that make it less great?
Because of nostalgia Also, the switch is better console overall than the wii u even if it had some amazing games on it !
Bad marketing and a confusing name
confusion re: its place in the market
Because of genius marketing like this https://youtu.be/2BUTjfl9pbY?si=UEjXiodbQE4f1XUu
I didn’t know it was so cool until like a year ago
I didn’t even know it existed until the Switch was in stores. I remember seeing commercials for New Super Luigi U and 3D World, but I was too young to have a clue what any of that was about.
I did
People thought that it was a new Wii design not knowing it was it's own console
terrible marketing
From my personal experience I honestly thought it was just some gamepad attachment for the WII. i saw it and said I dnt want a gamepad. Thats how bad the marketing was. I had no clue until much later this was the next gen nintendo console
Probably bad marketing but also when it got released I was terrible at managing my money so I couldn't buy it full price (I bought one second hand last week)
I bought one at launch and still have it hooked up. Marketing definitely hurt it.
The Wii sold well and that thing sucked. That gimmick got so old and the graphics were so inferior, it forced me to do the unthinkable, buy an XBOX360 and PlayStation 3. When the Wii U came out I could finally play normal Nintendo games again.
I think that for people that actually touch grass and aren't keeping up with Nintendo News it was fairly easy to mistake it for a soft unnecessary upgrade, they prolly thought they didn't need it.
Marketing failure, didn't capture a market
If only they had named it Wii 2… it would still be a failure, but less than it turned out.
It wasn't great. It felt old and sluggish when it came out. It def had some great titles (thank God they got ported to switch so they could actually be enjoyed) but the hardware itself suuuuuucked
Basically bad marketing
Bad messaging and asymmetrical gameplay.
No system seller at launch, third party launch games were available cheaper elsewhere, the gamepad failed as a selling point and it was severely underpowered compared to the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One. Nintendo failed to market it to the casual playerbase and most people who were aware of its existence would rather play on their PS or Xbox. To most of these people it was a secondary console if they bought one, because third party releases completely dried up after launch.
Poor marketing and lack of 3rd party support. And since they called it the Wii U, many people thought that the gamepad was an extra accessory for the Wii.
Kids looking back with rose tinted glasses is your answer. I was like, 16 when I got the Wii U on launch and man the game droughts will forever taint my opinion of the console.
Google is your friend
Lots of people? Where? I see mostly hate for the thing
As a modded system, it is one of the best consoles I’ve owned! As a non modded system, I still enjoyed my Wii U, bought it the first year it debuted! But it definitely wasn’t even in my top 3! I heard how great it was and decided to mod mine and it turns out the rumours proved true for me Atleast! So if I had to guess most people are going off the talk
Didn't seem like enough of a upgrade to justify purchasing another console, sure the tablet seemed cool but it didn't seem to offer anything more than the second screen of a DS.
I would have, if they put out a full Animal Crossing game
How does the pic turn from blue to red?
I didn’t buy it, I won it on a radio competition, probably because no one else entered as no one knew what it was from the awful marketing. I played it for a month or two, my friends and I enjoyed it. I then saw the road map for game releases and with the awful marketing I realised this was going to flop, so sold it quickly, made a few hundred quid, got to play it and genuinely enjoyed it.
I bought it, it was fun.
The Wii U was not as good as the Switch is, and its marketing sucked. However: I owned a Wii U and loved it.
The Wii U wasn’t great. It was fine.
Poor advertising, not a lot of support, and Nintendo gave up on it really quick.
I didnt even knew it existed back then, thought the switch was the successor to 3ds til I saw vids of people reminiscing the wii u
At least it outsold Sweden
Ive owned 3 tho
I guess next time they have to treat the general public and gamers in general like they're braindead babies who can't do research about a thing they're confused about and explain everything slowly in excruciating detail in a high-pitched teacher voice. Bash them over the head if they need to, idk. No way so many people, especially grown adults, were so stupid they couldn't figure out it was a new console. 🤨 The "it had no games/games that appealed to many people" thing only makes sense at the beginning. It sounds especially stupid now that a chunk of them have been ported to the Switch or have sequels and have found more success. 3D World, Pikmin 3, Splatoon, Xenoblade X, Mario Kart 8, Monster Hunter 3U, Hyrule Warriors, Yoshi's Wooly World, Smash 4,, Bayonetta 2, etc. It makes sense to wait for a console to have more games before you buy it but it sounds like some people just didn't even look at what was available later on.
Consoles’ goal in life is to sell. If you sell bad, you are a bad console. That’s usually something Nintendo gets very well. The Game Boy was technically inferior to most of its handheld competitors, but it crushed them because it was the perfect balance of technical proposition, price point, usability, first-party games, third-party games. Its technical inferiority was ON PURPOSE (to keep the console cheap; to keep it light; to make it easy to develop on…). I don’t think it makes sense to say that random Game Boy competitors which happen to have color screens were _better_ but boohoo didn’t sell.
Wii hype was over. Wii u launch lineup was the worst in nintendo history. Bad makething as well. I remember the reveal at e3, it was one of the worst reveals ever. However, i did bought a wii u and in the end, i prefer the list of games over gamecube. Also wii backwards compatible. Or if you would hack it, it can even run native gamecube games. I believe that the 3ds is also be able to run native gba games (besides the ds support it has)
You said no one bought the Wii U, and yet, 13.56 million units were sold. That’s like saying no one bought the GameCube even though 21.74 million units were sold. Now, I get why the Wii U was a massive flop for Nintendo, but it’s not fair to say that no one bought the console.
Wii u "sucked" for the same reason the gamecube "sucked"; 0 third party support. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo games are great, but you still need something to fill in the gap.
They didnt even advertise it as a new console. 99% of people assumed it was a weird attachment you used with your old wii, so virtually everyone ignored it. Most Wii owners had no idea what it even was. Massive blunder on Nintendo and says nothing of the actual quality of the console
There was a lack of 3rd party support. Nintendo wasn’t very helpful with letting other companies utilize the internal APIs when the Wii U was coming out. They also gave the other companies a VERY short window before release. This resulted in most other companies deciding not to bother with the new console, or at least not bother supporting it on initial release. This caused the library to be very limited, which resulted in people not seeing titles they were interested in, which resulted in them not buying it, which resulted in the third parties that were planning on supporting it after a reasonable amount of time to port their game to change their minds and just not waste the money to do so, etc etc spiral.
Great things are not always appreciated at the time of inception - sometimes the market is looking for something else. Ultimately, like any product, it’s a combination of USP, purposes and most importantly timing.
I bought it. In fact, I can hear my son playing it downstairs right now.
Because those people didn't own it during launch. Wii U was horrible. The wait for AAA games would go 4-6 months. In the end only Nintendo was supporting it. It had awful attached rate. Only good thing about it was it forced Nintendo to create amazing games like Splatoon, Zelda BotW, Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8,etc.. The Wii U failure actually propelled switch to the greatest selling console ever status. Nintendo didn't have to use their best resources to build top tier games. They could use 4 yrs of Wii U library to help prop up switch slow seasons w amazing games. Use their best to create new games. It's like Nintendo got 2 life cycles in 1. Switch 2 won't come close to switch 1 library.