How Not to Market Your Next-Gen Console
6.1 million. It’s been two years now, you’re in the 4th quarter of your second fiscal year with the Wii U out, and you’re panicking. Its predecessor, the Wii, had already sold four times as many consoles at this point, and twice as many consoles as the Wii U would ever sell. Nintendo was looking at hundreds of millions in losses, and its president, Satoru Iwata, had taken a 50% pay cut to ensure no one lost their job over its poor performance. What had happened?
Hindsight is 20/20. Here’s what we can learn from the failure of the Wii U.
Tip #1: Be careful what you name your product
By naming itself directly after the Wii, the Wii U is thought to have suffered incredibly sale-wise because no one knew what they were buying. The addition of the letter “U” also did little to let the consumer know that this was the next generation of gaming from Nintendo. In fact, many took the “U” to mean that it was an accessory or peripheral for their already existent Wii system. Nothing about the name screamed that it was a necessary or “must-have” item, and Nintendo paid dearly for it.
Tip #2: Know your market
Nintendo has kind of always been the innovator when it comes to how to make controllers, with the Playstation and Xbox following suit if they see it working. In 2012, however, with the advent of the Wii U, Nintendo overstepped its boundaries, into, of all things, the tablet market.
This was a terrible decision for one primary reason: at this point in time, the tablet market is a constantly changing landscape. Consoles, however, are not; the Wii had been Nintendo’s primary home console for 6 years before the Wii U was released. Making the gimmick for their new console be a tablet screen meant that its technology would quickly find itself incapable of competing against brains like Apple and Samsung who were capable of making improvements each and every year. The Wii U’s novelty of a touchpad gaming screen soon wore off, and as such, Nintendo suffered for it.
Tip #3: Don’t cut yourself off from marketable features and benefits
Nintendo is an emblem of excellence, and has been ever since they created the Nintendo Seal of Quality back in 1985. They’ve worked incredibly hard to build this reputation for themselves--they’re the reason we got out of the video game crash of 1983, and we respect that. They make a big point of largely disallowing third party developers create games for their software so that they can maintain their rigorous and high standards. But dude, Nintendo, it’s been three decades at this point. This stance made sense for you when the video game industry was shaky, but the industry was worth $63 billion dollars at this point. Consumers had shown repeatedly for other brands that they are capable of separating the quality of a game from the platform the game runs on. By withholding the ability for developers to make content for you, you actively remove avenues to market your product off of.
This was especially problematic during the launch of the Wii U, as the platform had only 23 games available for the system the day they opened. If a consumer wasn’t interested in playing New Super Mario Bros. U badly enough to warrant a $300 spend (which, let’s be honest, no one would), then they weren’t buying that console. This caused a snowball effect where poor sales in the very first quarter of being around spiralled into following quarters, and it never fully recovered.
The Nintendo Switch was a make or break console for the company, and luckily, it made. It’s en route to being the highest selling console Nintendo has ever had, and has already sold 92.3 million units. They didn’t make any of the same mistake twice, of course: the product’s name was clearly unique, its target demographic was labeled and reached, and for the first time, Nintendo has offered support for its third-party software developers. The company still has room for improvement (stop punishing your biggest fans for making passion projects, you jerks), but at least for now, things are smooth sailing.
Thanks for getting out of your rut, Nintendo. Family gaming wouldn’t be the same without you.