Pretend it's 2006. You walk into a Best Buy and there's a huge crowd around a display TV. People are laughing and clapping and having fun, and they're all waiting to take turns. It's a Wii Sports demo.
The Wii remote/Wii Sports combo was a hugely successful gimmick for a reason.
It was immediately accessible and easy to understand. "Swing it like a tennis racket". That's it. You didn't need it be explained beyond the obvious. Swing it like a tennis racket.
The complications and cruft of 20+ years of gameplay and controller design were swept away and replaced with simple arcade like fun.
Fast forward to the Wii U. There are no crowds at Best Buy. The gamepad is the opposite of the Wii remote. It's not exciting. It's hard to understand the benefits without it being explained in detail. The software does a poor job of selling it. It's not accessible. Add to that the confusion over whether it's a console or a peripheral.
The Wii U console was flawed from concept. It's just not a good idea as a follow up to the Wii.
The Wii remote/Wii Sports combo was a hugely successful gimmick for a reason.
It was immediately accessible and easy to understand. "Swing it like a tennis racket". That's it. You didn't need it be explained beyond the obvious. Swing it like a tennis racket.
The complications and cruft of 20+ years of gameplay and controller design were swept away and replaced with simple arcade like fun.
Fast forward to the Wii U. There are no crowds at Best Buy. The gamepad is the opposite of the Wii remote. It's not exciting. It's hard to understand the benefits without it being explained in detail. The software does a poor job of selling it. It's not accessible. Add to that the confusion over whether it's a console or a peripheral.
The Wii U console was flawed from concept. It's just not a good idea as a follow up to the Wii.