The lesson is not to underestimate the power of Nintendo Switch Karen and her love of rooftop Mario Odyssey co-op.It was truly nuts. It’s also wild they revealed this thing 18 months before it launched. That would never happen these days. Imagine if Nintendo suddenly released a Switch 2 trailer today and said “it’s coming February 2025.”
This such an interesting contrast to compare this to the Switch trailer. This one was so lifeless and sterile while the Switch trailer was brimming with energy and excitement.
I did find it funny that in the Iwata Asks interview he’s reading, it’s about Steel Diver. Two whiffs for the price of one.
I presume their internal Marketing Department or PR/Marketing Firm presented a convincing argument that:Scott the Woz's Wii U video summarizes a lot of the issues brought up in this thread.
If they had executives/consultants who signed off on the reveal strategy, I really want to kno whow they justified it after it was clear it was a disaster
Honestly something as simple as branding it Wii 2 or Wii Advanced would have helped a tonVery clear that they had no clue how to follow-up on the Wii/DS generation, were unprepared to do so, and were probably panicking because the Wii cratered in 2010 and beyond. But yeah that first E3 for the WiiU was wild. What's fascinating is that they were in the midst of a very bad start for the 3DS, and apparently didn't see how not making a clear distinction on the branding, and that it was a new console, would be a problem.
Ehh, if they thought that, they sure didn't act on it by continuing to make many more of them. After 2009 there was nothing but versions of Sports and Fit for Wii U.I assume arrogance got to their had and they thought people would keep eating shit like Wii Sports and Wii Music, they wanted easy money.
Honestly, I doubt even Nintendo knew what they were cooking...
I dont agree. They took the one thing that worked (off tv play) and discarded everything else.The first 30 seconds of that Wii U E3 trailer is evidence enough that the system was a rough concept/prototype for Switch, whether Nintendo knew it at the time or not. The Wii U walked so the Switch could run.
Hence why I pointed to the first 30 seconds of the video(off tv play) and nothing else.I dont agree. They took the one thing that worked (off tv play) and discarded everything else.
I don't know. All my friends I showed Nintendo Land to loved it. And there were some other ingenious usages of the gamepad too, like Splatoon. Maybe people would've liked the idea if they tried it, but it was really difficult to convey the appeal or something? I'm not really surei feel like a lot of the "nobody knew it was a new console" rhetoric ignores a lot of the real issue with the product
like yeah they revealed it poorly and it wasn't immediately obvious that it was a whole new system, but also that shouldn't have mattered if they were making something people actually wanted. had the idea been popular the thing would have caught on, the zeitgeist would have known what gamepad actually was and retailers would have known how to sell the console.
the real issue was that nobody liked the core conceit of the product in the first place. smart devices were well entrenched by this point and everyone was familiar with the function of a tablet. even sony and microsoft were experimenting with second screen stuff that they almost immediately dropped because nobody actually cared about it. had people actually liked the idea, they would have figured out what it was.
It's definitely harder to convey why it works by looking at it compared to the Wii. Additionally, the game shines brightest with 4-5 players. It's hard to actually get the right scenario where people get why it works. (Though man, I swear Animal Crossing Sweet Day is peak gaming with the right people.)I don't know. All my friends I showed Nintendo Land to loved it. And there were some other ingenious usages of the gamepad too, like Splatoon. Maybe people would've liked the idea if they tried it, but it was really difficult to convey the appeal or something? I'm not really sure
And basically people didn't want more of Wii. Which is not a case with Switch so I hope they didn't get the wrong message there. We do want the next console to be related to Switch brand.Another huge mistake imo is that they thought the wii brand was still strong.
At that time wii, within general audience, was synonymous with "underpowered", "waggle" and "shovelware".
They were totally out of touch, thinking their brand was still the cool and hot thing.