• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Nintendo: We Should Have Explained Wii U Better (Gamasutra)

Wolves Evolve said:
Wow so people are now calling the audience dumb.

Do you people even know how the media works?

Its their JOB to communicate to a broad audience. Thats WHY YOU GET ON STAGE AND BROADCAST AROUND THE WORLD.

Yeah and yet people are still wondering about an potential EA online partnership even if their CEO was on stage to state this.

But yes, they should apparently repeat the same things 3 times and focus on details that should be obvious.
I mean Sony and Microsoft do it during their conferences most of the time and it works, true. It's just that I am under the impression that I'm a 8 years old.
 
freddy said:
Looking at it as an investor I would be bailing right now as well. What Nintendo has actually shown is they will be treading water for the next year until WiiU is launched. The biggest disappointment for me as an investor would be the lack of third party games shown for 3DS. Sell, keep a close eye on.
Yeah because Nintendo investors previously put all their stock on third parties, not Nintendo's own IP, lol. If anything, E3 was extremely promising for the 3DS with quality titles within extremely popular brands and series. Three Mario branded games that don't look like B tier spin offs isn't anything to scoff at. Not to mention 3DS' biggest issue so far is the lack of Nintendo games like that, supposedly done to help third parties who clearly aren't up to the task outside Capcom and a couple others and will have noone to blame but themselves when said Mario or whatever other Nintendo titles are ready to launch and obliterate nearly all competition on the platform as usual.
 
Even funnier that Nintendo fans insist still its some beast that will smoke the 360

ITS ABOUT THE CONTROLLER for christ sake.
 
SolidSnakex said:
Shouldn't they know if the system will be unified by now? Just saying that will ease most of the fears that people have. That's the main concern right now.

The way the hivemind works I doubt it would ease any fears. People would just assume Nintendo is lying or some other random conspiracy. After all looking directly at PS360 footage the same people are saying eww that looks Wii quality.
 
Yes, they should have explained it better.

And perhaps they should have made more of an effort to differentiate it visually from the Wii.
And perhaps they should have chosen a different font for the logo, if not a different name altogether that still included Wii but gave it less focus.
And perhaps they should have introduced it with tech demos that didn't just use unmodified Wii assets.
And perhaps, even without including specs if they aren't completely locked down yet, they should have been explicit with "unlike the Wii, this system can push next generation level visuals in full HD".
 
I do feel like they did a good job of showing how this new controller can work, what its uses are, ect. If you just tell someone the controller is kinda like a tablet that works with your TV, you don't get the real impressions of what uses it'll have.

But outside of showing how gameplay can work with this new controller, I'm as shocked as everyone else that they didn't really make a point of expalining that it's a new console. The way they showed the controller in use was to show it paying Wii Sports games and Wii Fit. How does that tell anyone they are looking at a new console?
 
IrishNinja said:
i was only confused at the part where Reggie yelled at Geoff about the 2nd roundtable and how online information was gonna come, and then boom an hour of ghost recon and shit.
I'm shocked at how Nintendo managed to dodge all questions about the features and functionality of the device.

First roundtable: No Wii U questions today folks, 3DS stuff only. Come back tomorrow.
Second roundtable: Nintendo not present, not answering questions.

Pretty devious.

Also, would it really have hurt them to reveal who made the Wii nature demo? If Reggie wasn't ready to answer a question as simple as that, why even agree to an interview?

The unveil was too damn early. Nintendo should have given more third parties dev kits, sorted out their online plan, and come out guns blazing. Instead, they left the thing as a huge question mark.
 
hamchan said:
How cocky of you to think the fault lies with the audience and not Nintendo just giving a shitty presentation.

Cocky? I'm not sure that's the word you're looking for. Obviously Nintendo should have gone about the press conference differently in hindsight. At the same time I can understand why they didn't expect the confusion. They expected more from the audience.

freddy said:
Looking at it as an investor I would be bailing right now as well. What Nintendo has actually shown is they will be treading water for the next year until WiiU is launched. The biggest disappointment for me as an investor would be the lack of third party games shown for 3DS. Sell, keep a close eye on.

That's something I can agree with. 3DS's showing was seriously poor apart from the 5 games shown from Nintendo. I really expected more.
 
I'm not going to lie, I wasn't following E3 with the same conviction as some of you, and I wasn't exactly sure what the Wii U was. An upgraded Wii? A new controller for the Wii? A whole new system and controller? Even now, I think it's the latter, but I'm not entirely sure lol.
 
Using 'Wii' in the name, and having it look almost the same as the current Wii was ultimate fail. Back to the drawing board, nintendo.
 
mclem said:
Actually, weren't his exact words that you'd hear about online 'by the end of the week'? Geoff assumed the roundtable, but I don't think Reggie explicitly stated that. There's still time!
I see we're bringing in the same logic used when Sony kept missing their PSN restoration deadlines now. Wonderful.
 
antonz said:
The way the hivemind works I doubt it would ease any fears. People would just assume Nintendo is lying or some other random conspiracy. After all looking directly at PS360 footage the same people are saying eww that looks Wii quality.

I think those that don't have an agenda would accept what they're saying as the truth. I personally think that it will be unified, but a lot of people remain unconvinced because Nintendo won't tell us anything. That's the major hangup here. They're letting pretty negative rumors spread even though they could easily stomp them out.
 
Alextended said:
Yeah because Nintendo investors previously put all their stock on third parties, not on Mario. If anything E3 was extremely promising for 3DS with quality titles within popular brands. 3 Mario games that don't look like shoddy spin offs isn't anything to scoff at.
And when are those games going to be releasing? At earliest you might see an uptick in sales from those titles starting around September and continuing through Christmas. If it starts showing a huge uptick then it'd be time to jump back on because then you're likely to see some sustainable growth as the userbase builds.
 
Nintendos big problem seems to be the accelerated schedule they are on and seeming inability to adjust. This would traditionally have been a tease year in the development of a new console.

They more or less approached it as a tease year even though its coming alot sooner than later. Hell we learned Devkits have only recently started going out to major companies
 
All of this reminds me of...

"New Super Mario Bros. Wii, what is that, a port of the DS games? Lol casuals won't understand that it is a new game and it will bomb. Yeah I can't see it sell at all, they just ported the DS game and added multiplayer lol"

well yeah.
 
Wii U was the worst console reveal that I can think of. Nintendo avoided showing the actual console, didn't mention tech specs, didn't show any games.

The reveal trailer definitely made it seem like just a new Wii controller/peripheral. Go back and watch it, all they mention over and over again was "New Controller" and they demoed it being used in Wii Sports, Wii Fit, with Wiimotes, with Miis, along with the same Wii logo, etc.

It is completely Nintendo's fault for sending mixed messages.
 
Dynamite Shikoku said:
Using 'Wii' in the name, and having it look almost the same as the current Wii was ultimate fail. Back to the drawing board, nintendo.
Your post history throughout this whole E3 has been interesting, to say the least.

antonz said:
Nintendos big problem seems to be the accelerated schedule they are on and seeming inability to adjust. This would traditionally have been a tease year in the development of a new console.

They more or less approached it as a tease year even though its coming alot sooner than later. Hell we learned Devkits have only recently started going out to major companies
I think their initial plan was to introduce the console without showing games at all, but perhaps they realized the controller would have been a hard sell without showing how it works. Proper WiiU software wasn't ready, and we know how it went.
 
Dynamite Shikoku said:
Using 'Wii' in the name, and having it look almost the same as the current Wii was ultimate fail. Back to the drawing board, nintendo.

This is another thing I wanted to point out. The actual console itself have too strong a resemblance to the Wii. It'd just reinforce the notion to the consumer that the Wii U is just a revision of the Wii. I'd advise Nintendo to redesign the console itself.
 
Luckyman said:
Even funnier that Nintendo fans insist still its some beast that will smoke the 360

ITS ABOUT THE CONTROLLER for christ sake.
t3urH.jpg
 
Caramello said:
One thing's for sure, I can't wait for E3 2012!!

That's an interesting point. There's a second unveiling due. An unveiling where Nintendo can very specifically highlight the things which they felt weren't conveyed properly yet - and they can do so with much more in the way of software with which to demonstrate.

However, it's also an unveiling where there's a good chance they'll be competing with *another* unveiling. If they have to compete with the PS4 or followup to the Xbox in the media, that's going to be an extra challenge.


Ultimately, other than reassuring people that something actually *exists* - and is in some way different and new - I'm not certain this E3 was all that important.

And, well, E3 2008 was followed by E3 2009.
 
They flubbed this in a million different ways, but they can still rectify it to some extent if they do a big show of their own later this year, hopefully providing more solid information and game demonstrations.
 
UberTag said:
I see we're bringing in the same logic used when Sony kept missing their PSN restoration deadlines now. Wonderful.

That was said with my tongue *very* firmly in my cheek.
 
Krowley said:
They flubbed this in a million different ways, but they can still rectify it to some extent if they do a big show of their own later this year, hopefully providing more solid information and game demonstrations.
My thoughts as well. They need a big show to unveil games actually running on the hardware BEFORE the next E3 (perhaps around TGS, or with their usual October conference), especially if the thing is supposed to launch in mid 2012 (which would mean right after the next E3).
 
Krowley said:
They flubbed this in a million different ways, but they can still rectify it to some extent if they do a big show of their own later this year, hopefully providing more solid information and game demonstrations.


Anything they do before the holidays should be focused on the 3ds. Having a big event so near the holidays to show a system not available this season is useless.


Is the timeline for a release really til after E3 next year? As in a full year? That would be really disappointing news.
 
Ronok said:
Cocky? I'm not sure that's the word you're looking for. Obviously Nintendo should have gone about the press conference differently in hindsight. At the same time I can understand why they didn't expect the confusion. They expected more from the audience.

The audience isn't the problem. The audience is never never never never the problem, ever. Ever. Nintendo are selling a product to an audience. If they can't communicate to the audience about the new product, it is by DEFINITION Nintendo's problem. An audience can't be dumb. Audiences can be assumed to be dumb by dumb companies. We have dumb media that makes people dumb, and lowest common denominators, and stupid people who are individuals.

There's no such thing as a dumb audience. Just bad presentations.
 
Jocchan said:
My thoughts as well. They need a big show to unveil games actually running on the hardware BEFORE the next E3 (perhaps around TGS, or with their usual October conference), especially if the thing is supposed to launch in mid 2012 (which would mean right after the next E3).
Yep it's pretty obvious it's coming soon otherwise they would've at least announced another game or two for Wii to launch in 2012.
 
Anyway as cool as the gadget is, I don't play controllers, I play games and I wanted to see some cool ones being played on it. I got some tech demos.
 
Wolves Evolve said:
The audience isn't the problem. The audience is never never never never the problem, ever. Ever. Nintendo are selling a product to an audience. If they can't communicate to the audience about the new product, it is by DEFINITION Nintendo's problem. An audience can't be dumb. Audiences can be assumed to be dumb by dumb companies. We have dumb media that makes people dumb, and lowest common denominators, and stupid people who are individuals.

There's no such thing as a dumb audience. Just bad presentations.
Actually, audiences are dumb. They are made dumb by the lowest common denominator elements you mentioned. This is why companies need to communicate clearly and correctly their product, especially to dumb people.
With this I'm not saying audiences are the problem, I'm just saying it's a company's job to know how to handle them. If they fail, it's only the company's fault.
 
Sean said:
Wii U was the worst console reveal that I can think of. Nintendo avoided showing the actual console, didn't mention tech specs, didn't show any games.

The reveal trailer definitely made it seem like just a new Wii controller/peripheral. Go back and watch it, all they mention over and over again was "New Controller" and they demoed it being used in Wii Sports, Wii Fit, with Wiimotes, with Miis, along with the same Wii logo, etc.

It is completely Nintendo's fault for sending mixed messages.
Absolutely. The reveal was terrible, and focussing almost exclusively on the controller was a terrible idea. Nobody was allowed to talk about anything but the controller, and games that were not exclusive and not focused on the controller were not shown.

On the other hand, another huge problem is that Nintendo has a bad reputation with the core audience. If someone asked Microsoft about their next online system or Sony about specs, people would be completely satisfied with "that box is checked", even if there were no details whatsoever. Nintendo doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. They have to actually show something, or at least be a lot more specific. And they didn't do either.
 
Alextended said:
Yeah because Nintendo investors previously put all their stock on third parties, not on Mario. If anything E3 was extremely promising for 3DS with quality titles within popular brands. 3 Mario games that don't look like shoddy spin offs isn't anything to scoff at.

They've put their money in "Nintendo" not in "Mario" so I don't know what you're trying to say here. What Nintendo showed at their conference for the 3DS was Super Mario, Mario Kart, Kid Icarus, Luigi's Mansion 2 and Starfox 64 3D. It's a solid lineup but not unexpected. Stock prices are usually priced in relation to what investors are expecting but if they were expecting a bit more than this to be shown, they would have been disappointed, and they were.

The point is that shareholders buy shares in a company that they think can grow and give them a relatively higher return on their investment with less risk. What Nintendo have shown this E3 can't give investors all that much optimism for the next financial year in terms of the potential return they'll see on their investment.

- The launch of the 3DS hasn't hit Nintendo's targets
- Nintendo didn't show very many new 3DS titles that weren't known about
- Vita is going to be at a similar price point
- Skyward Sword was the only Wii game at the conference
- Wii U, with it's lack of software shown and a muddy message of what it actually is

These things all add up and the stock took a dive because of it.
 
Vagabundo said:
Anyway as cool as the gadget is, I don't play controllers, I play games and I wanted to see some cool ones being played on it. I got some tech demos.

You'll just have to wait then. No company has done stage demos of games for their new system this far ahead of release. This was like TGS 05 and the Wii controller. A taster.
 
Ronok said:
Cocky? I'm not sure that's the word you're looking for. Obviously Nintendo should have gone about the press conference differently in hindsight. At the same time I can understand why they didn't expect the confusion. They expected more from the audience.

This last sentence is just a bad excuse for a bad presentation. They aren't presenting some newly discovered theory in physics to a bunch of rocket scientists. They're presenting a new video game console to the mass market and they failed quite badly at delivering the message.
 
Caramello said:
I don't know what you're trying to say here.
Sucks, I was pretty clear I thought. You missed a few titles like Super Paper Mario, RE: Revelations, and the edit of my post from like 20 minutes before you posted.

hamchan said:
This last sentence is just a bad excuse for a bad presentation. They aren't presenting some newly discovered theory in physics to a bunch of rocket scientists. They're presenting a new video game console to the mass market and they failed quite badly at delivering the message.
They actually presented it to journalists for the most part, journalists who failed to show any kind of brain activity if questions like "is this an accessory or a new system" really were raised with the plain english of the presentation, the clarity of the video demonstrations, and the promise of a system unveil from a month (or however long) ago.

This wasn't a commercial. This was E3. The media, gaming or more mainstream, go and report what they see to the consumers. Yes, Nintendo was apparently wrong to expect more from them, but let's not be happy that the writers some often trust for various things appear to lack any kind of common sense and logical thought processes.
 
Ushojax said:
You'll just have to wait then. No company has done stage demos of games for their new system this far ahead of release. This was like TGS 05 and the Wii controller. A taster.

Not true by months-to-release. We knew more about the Wii by this point if we're talking about April for Wii U.
 
Dynamite Shikoku said:
Using 'Wii' in the name, and having it look almost the same as the current Wii was ultimate fail. Back to the drawing board, nintendo.
No. Keeping the Wii title was the smartest thing they could have done. They should have just called it the "Wii 2" at this conference and announced the final title later.


Nintendos big problem seems to be the accelerated schedule they are on and seeming inability to adjust. This would traditionally have been a tease year in the development of a new console.

They more or less approached it as a tease year even though its coming alot sooner than later. Hell we learned Devkits have only recently started going out to major companies
In those regards, Nintendo is actually ahead of the game. MS had a hell of scramble to make after Wallguy. Nintendo has more time to repairing any damage, maybe even another E3.
 
mclem said:
That's an interesting point. There's a second unveiling due. An unveiling where Nintendo can very specifically highlight the things which they felt weren't conveyed properly yet - and they can do so with much more in the way of software with which to demonstrate.

However, it's also an unveiling where there's a good chance they'll be competing with *another* unveiling. If they have to compete with the PS4 or followup to the Xbox in the media, that's going to be an extra challenge.


Ultimately, other than reassuring people that something actually *exists* - and is in some way different and new - I'm not certain this E3 was all that important.

And, well, E3 2008 was followed by E3 2009.

Honestly if Sony and/or Microsoft have an early unveiling of their next generation systems next year at E3 (which I think they most definitely will) I can see Nintendo playing the "Wii U available in stores in a few short weeks" which I think would overshadow systems that would be at least a year away. Nintendo will also have full games playable, Sony and Microsoft would be in a similar situation as Nintendo this year (or E3 2005 with CG tech demo's).
 
[Nintex] said:
Yep it's pretty obvious it's coming soon otherwise they would've at least announced another game or two for Wii to launch in 2012.
I think that, unlike with the DS, they underestimated the Wii's decline until it became so apparent (and fast) that they had to rush with a successor.
The Wii U screams undercooked and rushed to me, they took a honestly great concept from their R&D department even though it still has some glaring weak points (like the inability of using more than one controller, and the cost each controller would have if this was possible), and built the system around its limitations instead of letting the idea cook until it's ready for the market (like they usually do).
The lack of software at this E3 and the rumors about third parties only receiving their devkits very recently would also support this.

JJConrad said:
No. Keeping the Wii title was the smartest thing they could have done. They should have just called it the "Wii 2" at this conference and announced the final title later.
Yes. A tentative name that made it more clear they were announcing a completely new console would have been a smart idea, even if Wii U was already chosen as the final name.
 
They need to show some custom software taking advantage of the hardware in ways that the HD twins would struggle to do. Just to appease me.
 
JJConrad said:
No. Keeping the Wii title was the smartest thing they could have done. They should have just called it the "Wii 2" at this conference and announced the final title later.

Is it, though? Wii sales are starting to slow down and the Wii is losing its "must have gadget status" to stuff like the Kinect and iPad. Confusing consumers into thinking it's just a Wii controller isn't very smart.

Jocchan said:
I think that, unlike with the DS, they underestimated the Wii's decline until it became so apparent (and fast) that they had to rush with a successor.
The Wii U screams undercooked and rushed to me, they took a honestly great concept from their R&D department even though it still has some glaring weak points (like the inability of using more than one controller, and the cost each controller would have if this was possible), and built the system around its limitations instead of letting the idea cook until it's ready for the market (like they usually do).
The lack of software at this E3 and the rumors about third parties only receiving their devkits very recently would also support this.

Right. Nintendo should have probably sat on its massive war chest and rode the Wii a bit longer. Though maybe in the end launching early will help them.
 
Ushojax said:
You'll just have to wait then. No company has done stage demos of games for their new system this far ahead of release. This was like TGS 05 and the Wii controller. A taster.
Sure, they don't have to show much at this point, but they could have shared some of their plans. User accounts instead of friend codes, games tied to an account, not a console, for example. These are just two things they could have mentioned, even this early in development, that would have made people happy. :)
 
Alextended said:
Sucks, I was pretty clear I thought. You missed a few titles like Super Paper Mario, RE: Revelations, and the edit of my post from like 20 minutes before you posted.

They actually presented it to journalists for the most part, journalists who failed to show any kind of brain activity if questions like "is this an accessory or a new system" really were raised with the plain english of the presentation, the clarity of the video demonstrations, and the promose of a system unveil from a month (or however long) ago.

They didn't actually outline those titles that I bolded
 
Wolves Evolve said:
Not true by months-to-release. We knew more about the Wii by this point if we're talking about April for Wii U.

Did we? 10 months before the release of the Wii was February 06. We had seen a teaser video for the controller, the outer casing of the console, some mutterings about a Metroid Prime 2 demo, some vague mention of the Virtual Console and Iwata pretending they were making a new Smash Bros. We had no idea what the launch titles were, we hadn't seen any of their franchise games, we had no idea how powerful it was or what the price was.

Honestly some people have terrible memories.
 
There does seem to be confusion between the DS and 3ds, and it seems like they will be inviting the same here >.<

They should at least brand it more differently. No white boxes for games for an example >.>
 
markot said:
There does seem to be confusion between the DS and 3ds, and it seems like they will be inviting the same here >.<

They should at least brand it more differently. No white boxes for games for an example >.>

They'll reverse it like the 3DS. Wii-U bar will be at the bottom!
 
Gravijah said:
Right. Nintendo should have probably sat on its massive war chest and rode the Wii a bit longer. Though maybe in the end launching early will help them.
No, I think they should have reacted more quickly to the Wii's decline.
They have been working on concepts for a new console for years, but the Wii U's unveiling seems to suggest they still weren't ready in a timely enough fashion.

Gravijah said:
They'll reverse it like the 3DS. Wii-U bar will be at the bottom!
Bottom-left corner is my guess.
Seriously, they need a completely different branding for the games.
 
Top Bottom