Hm, thanks for your insights. It's hard to understand from a sheer consumer perspective what part of Switch's proposition is hard to sell. It's a home console which you can also use as a mobile device, to play your games not only on your TV, but almost everywhere else. I guess that's the easy part. The harder part is to explain its gimmicks (milk a cow...), and why one would pay 80 bucks for an additional set of those tiny J-cons. But if you put that aside for a moment, it's quite easy to explain what the Switch is.
Now, while explaining seems to be simple, I still don't know if this message is actually hard to sell to the non-enthusiast crowd which possible isn't even that much interested in the Zelda series.
Of course, the core idea might seem simple enough in overall premise, but what that means for actual buyers who aren't already planning their active usage and expectations, that creates a very different layout. We're supposed to ask customers questions about intended use, and users, to make sure to make recommendations, and with this device moving even closer to a tablet than the Wii U was, you know it's going to face direct comparisons.
We sell a lot of Amazon Fire type tablets, or the Galaxy Tabs, and other inexpensive tablets, as devices to be given expressly to kids, because they offer so much content readily available, and often so much for free in their marketplaces. They also don't usually require much else beyond the initial device.
As a gaming system, with detachable controllers, that means that any parent considering this for their children would mean that if they're allowing them to transport it, they have to now regulate that it has these controllers attached. If they get lost or left behind, many games are now unusable without owning a Pro controller, and the handheld mode is certainly going to face difficulties. The accessories aren't cheap, either, as mentioned, and those costs are certainly going to raise eyebrows (Already have, in discussions with a few customers).
That's good that you are trying to get your team up to speed. And with a short window of time to do it, I'm sure it's going to be a push.
At the core, the Switch concept seems fairly simple -- it's a combination of a handheld and a home console. You can plug and play on your TV, or you can take it on the go. That's a fairly simple message, I think.
Beyond that, it gets a little complicated... But I wonder how many customers will have super-detailed questions about the Switch. I'm guessing (I don't know; I don't work in retail) that most of the questions will be fairly simple and straightforward. GAF digs into all the minutae of everything, but most people don't care about things at that level of detail.
You would probably be surprised by the array of questions we do field. But usually they aren't the same kind as what GAF asks. GAF gets answers to its own questions, uses all the resources of various articles and such to collaborate and build better awareness. Our customers ask questions specific to their situations, their lifestyles, and to make products personally relevant. For general consumers, who aren't the enthusiast Nintendo audience or even the hardcore gaming crowd, that means that a lot of smaller subtext of the system's details might be obtuse at times. So we try to make sure we can be prepared for interacting with customers on those more practical matters.
And with a product that is trying to step into both worlds as a hand held and a home console, that means that it will then acquire the new difficulties shackled to each type, and that means accounting for new circumstances most other products haven't had to. It certainly faces qualms a PS4 or XB1 never will, because they don't usually move from one spot.
But we can only do so much if Nintendo isn't on point with how they display the product, and give people compelling reasons to look into it. That's a matter beyond those who are already sold on it.
