Steve Youngblood
Member
The 2 largest factors in the disappointing launch was price and a lack of a killer 1st party title, as well as a post launch drought.
I think you're oversimplifying the variables here. The price complaint I think has less to do with some notion that $300-$350 is too high a price for video game hardware in as much as it is that $300-$350 is too high given the perceived value of the Wii U. The perceived value of something can be increased by features. Yes, having a better looking Call of Duty may not hide the fact that people want a 3D Mario or Zelda or Smash type first party game at launch, but I do think they could have generated some buzz if a side-by-side comparison did clearly indicate that the Wii U had the best versions of Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, and so on. Better graphical tech has traditionally been a pretty strong selling point for convincing consumers to buy new hardware.
When you lack that hook, you need something else to fall back on. With the Wii, obviously, the Wiimote gambit payed off. With the Wii U, they seem to have opted for features with dubious appeal -- those being the GamePad and a console that has low power consumption. That, in my opinion, is the big problem. I don't think they focused on the right features in terms of attracting mass market appeal.
Sure, it would have done better with a 3D Mario at launch and a $250 pricepoint, but I disagree that this gets to the crux of what went wrong with the Wii U launch, which is that I don't think they made the right tradeoffs in its design.