Reggie: 'We Missed the Opportunity to be Clear on the Wii U, to Show Off its Capabilities' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2016 / 12,804 Views
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime spoke with Spanish website La Tercera (and translated by Nintendo Everything) about what Nintendo could have done better to get the message across about what the Wii U was.
"When we launched Wii U, we missed the opportunity to be clear on the concept, to show off its capabilities and what the users could do," said Reggie. "And that hurt us. Sales were also hurt, during the beginning of its lifespan, by the lack of games. And although we’ve sold 13 million consoles, against 20 and 40 million from the competition (Microsoft and Sony, respectively), what pleases us the most is that Wii U has the games with the best reviews and ratings from fans."
Reggie was asked about the criticism facing Star Fox Zero and he said the development team has the right to make the decisions it wants about the control scheme of a game.
"We believe that our development team creates content of great quality, and the developers have the right to make the decisions they deem correct, like how to control characters and game mechanics," he said. "There are people who love the decisions we take and people that don’t. We believe that if we take the decisions we do, it’s because we offer the best content."
Looking ahead, Reggie says Nintendo has not lost the trust of the fans and the company plans on creating "great content" for the NX.
"I don’t think we’ve lost the trust of our fans," he added. "Our opportunity is to create platforms with great content, that goes well beyond the fans and brings in new players to competitive systems; games like Zelda, Mario or Smash Bros, will always be played by fans, but there’s a consumer willing to make the jump, and it was there that Wii was successful, just like 3DS, because it went for more than just the typical Nintendo fan."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Lately, Nintendo's responses to everything seems to be "Oh well, we do everything right; it's just that our customers don't realize it."
at least they admit that the software releases / library were weak for the system. That was one of the biggest issues IMO
There are people that still thinks Wii U is an Wii Add on.
Just say it, it wasn't a well thought out idea and pinned hopes on the success of a fluke, although it had great games [Wii], it didn't become as popular as it did because it was a great game machine, it was revolutionary.
Enough with the bullshit N. I own an Xbox One and WiiU this gen - my WiiU is hardly ever turned on and even the first party games are mediocre. It's GameCube all over again - only worse.
If the rumours are even remotely true about the NX - I'm done with you.
Game Cube has tons of masterpieces, what are you talking about? And you are saying to me that 3Dworld, XCX, Splatoon, Smash 4, Mk8, Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3, Tropical Freeze or the new Zelda are mediocre? lol
Nintendo is getting more and more out of touch with gamers with every passing day. I am sure they will always do well in Japan but the market anywhere else is getting very thin
I feel Nintendo's best approach with Wii U would have been to present the Gamepad in commercials but not try to explain it. The marketing should have been about the games themselves and the Gamepad should simply made people curious. Also, Mario Maker should have been a launch title. That would have made the Wii U both unique and popular.
I'm pretty sure they lost at least some trust with the Wii U. The entire idea of it was pretty flawed straight from the marketing. With little to none third party support, exotic hardware, that even Nintendo didn't utilise and still an ancient online service the console really failed to deliver.
I'm not really sure that Wii U owners are super happy right now, especially given the fact that there are no major releases for the system this holiday season and possibly until the launch of NX.
Marketing was terrible, never keep a name like "Wii" if your next system is nothing like the previous one. Poor game library upon release, absurd tablet controller to expect casual gamers to embrace, etc. Fortunately Nintendo seems to be attempting to fix some of these issues with the NX
