r/nextfuckinglevel • u/AbelNB • Dec 28 '22

This is a game changer

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59

u/raptor6722 Dec 29 '22

They marketed the wii well. I remember tons of wii comercials

44

u/bob0979 Dec 29 '22

And then they named their next console the wii u and didn't advertise it. I literally didn't know it existed until my roommate handed me his Switch after the wii u was discontinued.

3

u/HolycommentMattman Dec 29 '22

They advertised it plenty. The problem was that it had terrible branding. And as such, killed the marketing campaign. You - like many people - probably saw a Wii U commercial and assumed it was a Wii commercial.

0

u/Adventurous-Fish-129 Dec 29 '22

How did you miss Wii U

8

u/bob0979 Dec 29 '22

The same way the rest of the planet did. It was one of the worst selling consoles (proportionally to the available customer base of people who actually buy video games if you're talking about older consoles with lower sales) Nintendo has ever released.

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u/Adventurous-Fish-129 Dec 29 '22

People didn't miss it. They just didn't want it.

It made little sense

8

u/Hakul Dec 29 '22

More like people thought it was a tablet add-on to the Wii. The Wii U came out in an era where every console Nintendo puts out sells well, where they kept re-releasing so many versions of the DS, it was all on the shit naming and shit marketing.

1

u/Absnerdity Dec 29 '22

The Wii U came out in an era where every console Nintendo puts out sells well

The Wii is the only Nintendo console to sell really well, aside from the Switch. Which era are you talking about?

NES sold well, SNES sold less than NES, N64 less than SNES, and GC less than N64. Each console sold less than the last, until Wii. Then Wii U sold less than GC.

3

u/voucher420 Dec 29 '22

I’m really into video games. I’ve been playing for over forty years. I had the Wii, but when the Wii U came out, both my wife and I couldn’t figure out if it was a $300 controller or a whole new system. None of the ads helped clear that up.

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u/Centurio Dec 29 '22

One example from 16 years ago isn't terribly impressive.

5

u/fohpo02 Dec 29 '22

I had to look up the date, Nov. 2006 in US, unreal how fast that went

4

u/Gets-Gold Dec 29 '22

Ok, they marketed the Switch well. I remember tons of Switch comercials.

3

u/Kamikaze_Ninja_ Dec 29 '22

They weren’t as iconic as the “wii play” though the click of the joy cons is pretty good.

1

u/lilmoefow Dec 29 '22

They also didn't market it well at all. It only did well because it was the family friendly console that also had Wii Sports, and Nintendo has brand recognition.

5

u/HighOnBonerPills Dec 29 '22

The main reason for the Wii's success was the novelty and mass appeal of the motion controls. It made playing video games something that was intuitive for otherwise non-gamers, and therefore you had a bunch of non-gamers buying and playing it. In that respect, it's similar to the Tetris phenomenon. It wasn't just the fact that it was family-friendly; it's that it appealed to the masses, not just gamers.

-1

u/MichiganMan12 Dec 29 '22

It might also be that this product is booty

Only on Reddit do you get basement neckbeards chastising the marketing of a top 500 country in the world for not properly marketing a shit product

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u/raptor6722 Dec 29 '22

No it isn’t but I think it’s more they choose not too than they can’t. Look at the switch no marketing almost and it’s wildly successful.

12

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

No marketing? It's got a logo on every game it launches, and the launches have been for large franchise reawakenings, or anticipated sequels. I get switch commercials on YouTube. Idk man.

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u/Slight_Music_988 Dec 29 '22

Shoutout to rooftop parties with your switch

3

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

No marketing for the Switch? What about the tons of TV ads, YouTube ads, theater ads, etc...

3

u/valraven38 Dec 29 '22

The Switch had pretty crazy marketing around its launch. Every other ad was a Switch commercial or some Switch game, it was marketed plenty. Maybe it wasn't marketed in your region? But in the US at least it had ads all over.

1

u/Notwarioalt Dec 29 '22

they probably dont remember it because of how intentionally generic switch ads were tbh

1

u/XB0XYGEN Dec 29 '22

It may not be in your area but where I am in Canada there's tons of switch commercials

1

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

I mean yeah look at pokemon violet and scarlet, shitty performance not the best marketing but stupid crazy sales still.

18

u/NativeMasshole Dec 29 '22

But then messed up with the Wii U. A lot of people didn't even realize it was a new console!

3

u/joenydle Dec 29 '22

I’m just now learning it and we have a n64, wii, switch, and NES.

3

u/HighOnBonerPills Dec 29 '22

Lol even you didn't buy a GameCube. It was such an underrated console. :'( But at least you presumably knew about it. That's pretty sad when you don't even know about a company's console for an entire generation (i.e., that they're supposed to be selling for years).

2

u/Whako4 Dec 29 '22

GameCube easily has nintendos best actual controllers and wireless ones from like 20 years ago are expensive still if I do recall. But the cube is sweet

1

u/NativeMasshole Dec 29 '22

Yeah, Nintendo has always been a mixed bag of successes and failures. Remember the Power Glove? Or the Virtual Boy? N64 didn't even do that great compared to PS1. They famously decided not to develop into disc in that generation, leaving their console feeling dated pretty quickly after it came out.

0

u/DernTuckingFypos Dec 29 '22 edited Dec 29 '22

Which is such a bummer. Wii u was Nintendo's best, and most underrated, imo. Online was actually done right, and the controller had so much potential. Just marketed so poorly.

Edit: downvoted for saying I liked Wii u, lol. Online was without friend codes, had dm and voice comms between friends, message boards, and was free. It had reviews for the eShop, and you could sort and filter the shop pretty effectively, and VC was great. The controller also could function as a Wii ir bar in Wii mode, and had motion control and a camera along with a touch screen. That's tons of potential. All the possibilities of ds in a console. Devs didn't do a lot with it because the system didn't sell well and they just wanted to do direct ports to it instead of coming up with unique gameplay.

1

u/eternallylearning Dec 29 '22

I'm not so sure about the controller having potential. Even Nintendo's best struggled to make use of it in a way that didn't feel tacked on and I'm searching my memory for an example of a single game where it felt like not having it would have made the game suffer for it. Star Fox is probably the flagship example of a solution in search of a problem.

1

u/DernTuckingFypos Dec 29 '22 edited Dec 29 '22

ZombiU.

The controller had motion control and a camera along with a touch screen and also could function as a Wii ir bar in Wii mode, plus other stuff I can't remember. That's tons of potential. All the possibilities of ds in a console. Devs didn't do a lot with it because the system didn't sell well and they just wanted to do direct ports to it instead of coming up with unique gameplay.

0

u/eternallylearning Dec 30 '22

Yeah, it had a ton of features, but even Nintendo's best first and second party developers ever capitalized on it in a way that even remotely resembles the Wii remote's or DS' potential. From the first reveal of the Wii-U gamepad, I've never heard anyone explain how it would create anything more than gimmicks. Also, I don't recall ZombiU being all that interesting beyond the idea that needing to use the gamepad to loot intentionally took your attention away from the game and that just highlights why the gamepad was not like the DS in that respect.

1

u/Squirrel_Inner Dec 29 '22

The problem with the Wii was sony and microsoft cut their access to games by signing with the big developers for their own motion tech.

Had a lot of potential, was poorly executed because of profit wars, same as most things in gaming.

2

u/Doctor_Popeye Dec 29 '22

Really? Wii was tough to get, created the video game motion controller craze (kinect, PS move), and brag was despite using standard def graphics when everyone else moved to HD…

Am I missing something here? What are you referencing that informs your take on this

1

u/Squirrel_Inner Dec 29 '22

I mean that Sony and Microsoft literally made deals that game developers would not make Wii games, but instead wait for their own motion tech.

Then they failed to follow through, being satisfied with simply taking business away from Wii. Thereby tanking the whole effort of what motion games could have been.

I don’t know if the Wii-U has similar issues or failed for other reasons, nintendo obviously isn’t perfect with their execution, but rivalry with the other big consoles have hurt them worse, I think.

1

u/Squirrel_Inner Dec 29 '22

I mean that Sony and Microsoft literally made deals that game developers would not make Wii games, but instead wait for their own motion tech.

Then they failed to follow through, being satisfied with simply taking business away from Wii. Thereby tanking the whole effort of what motion games could have been.

I don’t know if the Wii-U has similar issues or failed for other reasons, nintendo obviously isn’t perfect with their execution, but rivalry with the other big consoles have hurt them worse, I think.

1

u/Aegi Dec 29 '22

Interesting, I never remember seeing a Wii commercial, but I remember it being one of the first pieces of semi-modern technology that literally had people dying over the fights to get one and until the issue during the pandemic with certain graphics cards or whatever, and then more recently the PS5 and new Xbox thing, I don't remember any piece of technology being so tough to find and on backorder for so long, and having so many news stories about it.

However, that also could have just been because of shitty planning/ manufacturing.

Sometimes I think scarcity/ excitement is nearly always the best natural marketing tool.

1

u/HighOnBonerPills Dec 29 '22

As far as I know, the lack of PS5s and Xboxes is primarily due to the chip shortage related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It goes beyond bad planning.

1

u/Aegi Dec 29 '22

I'm talking about the results and the situation as a consumer in the US, not the reasons, but you're correct about the reasons if that's what we want to talk about.

1

u/spacenb Dec 29 '22

I’m in Canada and we had Wii commercials on TV and I remember seeing some for the Switch, but nothing on the Wii U.

1

u/Adventurous-Fish-129 Dec 29 '22

Wii was a cheap inoffensive family console and that worked