By adding a letter or number to the old brand, a marketing problem will erupt similar to the 3DS. People assume the 3DS to be a ‘DS Plus’. People will assume ‘Wii U’ is a ‘Wii plus’ instead of a new console. The fact that it has to be stated ‘this is a new console’ gives evidence of this fact.
The controller is ridiculously bad. The same crappy handheld buttons are used on it. And with a screen and battery, that is going to be one heavy controller. It will not be comfortable to hold for long. And people will not like looking from the screen to the TV (as has been my experience with Gamecube connectivity). And in some games, you are supposed to wave it around? That is a disaster waiting to happen. Wii controllers were thrown into TVs to such an extent that Nintendo ate the costs of sending out additional Wii straps (after cheaping out on their quality). Waving a controller with a screen around is not a good idea. Not only would that Wii U controller hurt if it landed on someone, that screen has the potential to shatter or scratch. The Wii remote, however, is difficult to break. And even though the Wii-mote was expensive, it is far cheaper than the Wii U controller.
The reality of how the Wii U will be used is not how Nintendo plans. In the montage, it shows someone turning the TV to a baseball game and the Mario game going to the controller. But if you’ve been in a house with a family, people will be turning on another game console. Nintendo is making a game console around the concept that it will be turned off in favor of another game console. This is extremely bad.
The Sony or Microsoft fan can say, “Yo, Nintendo dork! Let me have the TV because I want to play Modern Warfare 7.” “But I’m playing!” “Look, you can play on your controller. Go do that.”
The Wii did right by trying to be something people would want to place in their living rooms as a system of prestige. The Wii U is going backwards as people will routinely consider it ‘second class’ to everything else connected to the TV. The reputation of the Wii U console will be extremely low, so low that every other form of entertainment, including competing game consoles, will have priority over the TV.
The right way is to make games so awesome, people want to play them instead of anything else on the TV (movies, cable, other game consoles). Instead, Nintendo is surrendering on the war against distinterest.
Making a game controller have a screen is going to lead to gross situations. If you have been around young kids, it is tough to get them to wash their hands before they use the controller. And since the controller can only be used with the TV, the controllers remain with the TV.
But now if the kid goes to poop, he will insist on bringing the Wii U controller in the bathroom with him. And as you know the cleanliness of kids, you’ll get poop and God-knows-what-else onto the controller. Since the Wii U controller will be expensive, it will be a community controller (a household one). This wasn’t an issue with the handheld because handhelds are not community/household devices. They are extremely personal. If a kid screws up his handheld, that is his problem. But with the home console controller that everyone uses, it becomes a big problem.
A big question is why would the Wii Sports crowd buy this console? The one handhed motion controller is kaput, gone. The Wii U controller is scarier than the ‘classic controller’ with its gigantic screen in the middle of it.
Nintendo is in a soup of cliches saying the Wii Sports crowd will just like ‘tapping’ on the controller’s screen. Or better yet, the Wii Sports crowd (as well as the 2d Mario/ Old School crowd) doesn’t factor into the longterm goal of Nintendo (explained in the previous post). They know this won’t keep the Wii Sports crowd, or they are lying to themselves as they get drunk on these cliches.
Why the hell should anyone buy a Wii U?
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