Well it would have made the console sell more, but the nintendofans can keep pretending otherwise I guess.
Yeah, people were really chomping at the bit to buy a Nintendo version of hardware that was as capable as consoles 6 years its senior.
I'm a Nintendo fan and as soon as the casual market was gone, which was long before the Wii U launched, it was pretty clear this wasn't going to fly. There's no getting around it. Nintendo's been twiddling their thumbs this generation because they knew they were fucked before it even came out and tried to make the best of it.
Nintendo shouldn't be aiming at gamers with the Wii U though. That ship has long sailed with the Wii brand and lack of 3rd parties. Their only hope was the casual market, and the only way they could have competed to get that segment of the market back was with price. And clever advertising.
Price wasn't going to do it. People already had a device that scratched their itch and, if sinking iPod sales tell you anything, people aren't interested in spending money on devices that fill needs that are already met by what they already have.
Yeah, gamers ARE the market they need to target, because when you ignore them, you end up with a 10 million user base.
Inventory and maps not being displayed on the TV are pretty poor reasons for keeping the gamepad. Maps are better on screen so you don't have to look away to see it. As for inventory that's hardly a game breaker either.
There has been no unmissable uses of the gamepad on the console. Should have dropped it like Kinect
I want to play every Nintendo game in their back catalog without owning a fucking handheld. The GamePad is the only way to achieve that.
Off-TV Play is pretty great. It's currently the only way I can play my Wii U now that my plasma TV is dead.
Luigi's Ghost Mansion in NintendoLand still comes out when I have guests, because I can't get anything like that in an actual group setting.
These are not "missable" things for me.
Eh what now?
*looks at PS4*
Sony recovered from the PS3 pretty well.
You'd need to define "recovery". Considering they built their follow-up to be a profit margin sponge, the matter is quite debatable and would have likely not been as good a recovery with PS4 had Microsoft not fumbled the ball so spectacularly prior to launch.
Yes and 2 games don't validate the gamepad.
It's not like people say Nintendo should have stopped selling the gamepad altogether, they could just bundle the gamepad with Mario Maker for instance. Even better they'd have to include a pro control scheme if they did that for all their games and that's great for everyone.
They certainly didn't make software that sold the gamepad, they made software that sold the Wii U despite all it's shortcomings.
DS Virtual Console. I want it, and without the GamePad, I'd never have it. There's a great chunk more than 2 games validating its existence.
So no, they shouldn't have removed it, as it only adds gameplay options and doesn't take anything away.
BINGO.
It doesn't take anything away but it adds a lot to the price it retails for and no not everyone who likes Nintendo games would have gotten it despite the gamepad.
Added a lot to the price. Past tense.
Having a Miracast Wi-Fi chip before Miracast was even a fucking THING, coupled with the screen's size, is what made it expensive. Both of those things are either already a non-issue or easily made into a non-issue.
Hopefully the gamepad can looked back on as a ginnea pig. Having a screen on the controller can be great for some games like Splatoon and Mario Maker. However there isn't a need for it to be a large screen big enough to play the full game on. Make the screen smaller, keep the touchpad and you could get a much cheaper option.
Then again it may not be that much cheaper.
It would be, because smaller screen means smaller battery, so it has a cascade effect on the cost of components within it.